🧠 Introduction
I’m not going to romanticize what happened.
I had a moment underwater that pulled me close enough to the edge of consciousness to feel how thin the line can be between thinking and fading. I don’t want to keep replaying the details. I don’t want this to become a story I dine out on.
I want it to become a rule.
And I want it to become a lens — for how I spend time, how I choose people, how I build, and how I think about the strange machinery of awareness that makes any of this meaningful.
1) Consciousness Is a System — Until It Isn’t
Most of life assumes a stable platform: you wake up, you plan, you execute, you iterate.
But consciousness isn’t a constant. It’s a dynamic system with inputs (oxygen, CO₂, stress, temperature), controls (breathing patterns, attention, executive function), and outputs (judgment, decision-making, memory, identity).
Under certain conditions, the system degrades quickly. What shocked me wasn’t fear — it was the architecture:
- attention narrows
- time stretches
- the mind becomes a tunnel
- your “self” feels less like a narrator and more like a passenger
It made me intensely curious:
What is consciousness really doing when it compresses life into a few images? Is it meaning-making? Pattern completion? A last attempt at coherence?
I don’t have a definitive answer. I just know the experience felt like the brain running a final integrity check:
“If this is the end, what matters?”
The list was shorter than the life I had been living.
2) The Philosophy That Arrived Without Poetry
It wasn’t about money.
Money matters as fuel. Status can open doors. But neither is the point. They are external metrics — sometimes useful, sometimes distracting. What remained in that tunnel was not “how impressive I look,” but “what I’ve actually created.”
The world doesn’t pause.
People move on faster than we like to admit.
Attention is a rotating spotlight.
What survives is:
- what you built
- what you shipped
- what you improved
- the impact that continues without you asking for it
That realization didn’t make me soft. It made me surgical.
Time is not sentimental. Time is an asset.
3) A Quiet Shift: Kind, But Not Available
One unpleasant clarity also surfaced: many people are not malicious — they’re simply self-centered, distracted, or emotionally lazy. In a stressful moment, some will minimize your experience, deflect responsibility, or keep moving toward their own agenda.
I don’t want to become cynical. I want to become accurate.
So here’s the posture I’m adopting:
- be kind, but keep boundaries
- be generous, but not endlessly accessible
- be calm, but not permissive
- be ambitious, but not noisy
I’m not interested in arguing with mediocrity. I’m interested in building.
4) The CO₂ Trap: A Clinical Explanation for a Spiritual Feeling
Now the part I wish every diver understood — because it’s one of the most “quietly dangerous” failure modes in diving:
Hypercapnia (CO₂ buildup / CO₂ retention)
In diving, CO₂ problems often feel psychological (“panic”), but the driver can be physiological:
- You work hard (kicking, fighting current, holding position in a congested descent) → you produce more CO₂.
- At depth, breathing gas is denser and breathing resistance is higher → ventilation becomes less efficient.
- Under stress, many divers breathe faster and shallower, or inhale forcefully without fully exhaling → CO₂ isn’t cleared effectively.
CO₂ rises.
And when CO₂ rises, it can produce a terrifying illusion:
- “I can’t get enough air” (air hunger)
- headache / pressure
- dizziness, confusion, slowed thinking
- narrowing vision, altered perception
- urgent need to bolt upward
Here’s the critical point:
CO₂ doesn’t just make you uncomfortable. It degrades your ability to self-rescue.
Why CO₂ can be lethal in diving (the mechanism, not the drama)
CO₂ itself isn’t the typical “direct killer.” The danger is the cascade:
- CO₂ rises → air hunger + cognitive impairment
- Cognitive impairment → poor decisions (thrashing, bolting, forgetting procedures)
- Loss of control → two deadly outcomes
- blackout / unconsciousness → drowning
- rapid, uncontrolled ascent → lung overexpansion injuries / arterial gas embolism risk
So the “fatality” pathway is often not CO₂ alone — it’s CO₂ triggering a breakdown in control at depth.
That’s why “looking calm” means nothing. A diver can be quiet and still be in physiological failure.
The simplest prevention principle
The body clears CO₂ through effective exhalation, not panic inhalation.
In practical terms, CO₂ risk goes up when a diver is:
- overexerting
- breathing shallowly / not fully exhaling
- trapped in a situation that forces continuous effort
- at depth with dense gas and high work of breathing
The safest mindset shift is:
When breathing feels hard, you don’t “push through.” You reduce workload and regain ventilation efficiency.
(And you do it early — before cognition is compromised.)
5) What I’m Keeping From It (And What I’m Letting Go)
I’m letting go of the details. I don’t want to rehearse them.
I’m keeping the rule.
My rule now:
My best hours belong to creation.
Not to explainers.
Not to social friction.
Not to unnecessary emotional labor.
Not to people who confuse closeness with entitlement.
I will build quietly and consistently — because output compounds, and noise doesn’t.
6) A Focus Filter for the Rest of My Life
When I feel myself drifting into low-value living, I’ll run the same four questions:
- Does this compound?
- Does this protect my attention?
- Does this move the product forward?
- Will I respect this choice a year from now?
If not, I release it — without a speech.
7) Closing: The Only Legacy I Want
I don’t want to be remembered for being busy.
I don’t want to be remembered for being impressive.
I want to be remembered for building things that made people better:
- clearer
- stronger
- more capable
- more free
Consciousness is fragile. Time is finite. Attention is precious.
So this is the bookmark I’m leaving for myself:
Create. Ship. Improve. Repeat.
And don’t waste the next clean hour.
Published by Hannah Zhao