Deep Survival
on 09.20.05, 06:46pm in life • share on facebook • comments (3)
[Scott Berkun] The nugget that I can’t get out of my head is this: people that survive abandon their mental models of the world and open their eyes. They don’t try to force the world to be a certain way: instead they respond to the world like a child, taking it to be what it is, and working within the real world to try and survive (or thrive).
I picked up Deep Survival back at the end of 2003 and loved it. To be honest, I’ve been pretty stressed out lately, so reading Scott’s review was a good reminder of some of the 12 Habits of Highly Successful Survivors that I picked up in it. I definitely need to re-read Deep Survival.
GDKZen (September 21, 2005 @ 7:15 am)
Nice Idea:
They don’t try to force the world to be a certain way: instead they respond to the world like a child
In Zen Buddhism it’s called a “beginner’s mind”. You might remember it being referred to by Yoda in Attack Of The Clones - “Truly wonderful the mind of a child is.”
The general idea is that we usually react to situations by trying to apply lessons from past situations which seem similar. This works 99% of the time, or else we’d need to spend time pondering every little decision we make. In contrast, we sometimes wrongfully apply the lessons of the past. The trick is to discover a balance, where one knows when to confront a situation entirely on its own merit, and without the judgement inherent in referring to old situations.
Or something like that….
See, I have been doing something for the last 10 years…
Steve (September 21, 2005 @ 9:25 am)
What the heck are you talking about? The book is about common traits of survivialists, not ‘learning lessons from the past’.
GDKZen (September 21, 2005 @ 2:38 pm)
“people that survive abandon their mental models of the world and open their eyes”
People build “mental models of the world” based upon previous experiences (i.e. the learning process). Your experiences create your perception of the world. As we grow older we see the world less and less like a child does. This is because we become more and more dependent on our accumulated experiences.
I think the idea that the author is conveying is that once a person is confronted with a traumatic situation, their previous perceptions of the world break down and they begin to start viewing things as a child does. Accepting each experience on its own merits.