Deep Survival: See What’s There

Laurence Gonzales wrote a book, Deep Survival. Gonzales is a man with both a long history of extreme sports and a fascination with what it is that causes some people to survive under terrible duress while others succumb. I share that curiosity, so I’m currently enjoying his book. One point shines through so clearly in and in so many guises that I wanted to share it: See What’s There.

See what’s there

Pretty obvious, you say? No, not at all. Humans pay surprisingly little attention to all that’s going on around them. (Click here if you don’t believe) Anyone who looks much into human psychology sees this time and again. We’ve written on situational awareness before, as have many other preppers. What motivated me to write was some new insights that Gonzales brought to the idea.

First, let’s be clear. To “see what’s there” means to see the current situation as it actually is.

Fly the plane, not the model

The model is how you imagine things are. Looking out from the actual plane may show a different view. Image thanks to Antony Stanley from Gloucester, UK, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Our expectations block our ability to see what’s there. We build a mental model of what’s going on, including what’s most important to pay attention to. We notice well things we knew would be important. Things we did not expect at all? Not so much. 

That’s why the original Invisible Gorilla test, the first of the selective attention tests drew everyone’s attention (see what I did there?). If you have a woman in a white shirt walk through the scene, only about 35% of people fail to notice her — they’re supposed to be watching people in white shirts pass a basketball. When instead a woman in a gorilla suit walks in, pounds her chest, and walks out … sixty percent of the people who didn’t know what the test was about fail to see her. Gorillas are irrelevant to the task at hand.

Gonzales expresses it as “Fly the plane, not the model”. He learned that as a young pilot. He was so focused on flying his mental model of how the flight should go, and paying attention to all the relevant gauges, he nearly ran right into another plane on ‘his’ runway. That other airplane hadn’t been part of his mental model. He hadn’t seen it, despite — well, it being a big ole airplane sitting right in the middle of an otherwise open runway.

Which brings up another point about “seeing what’s there”. We’re worse at it when we’re stressed. The stress response helps us focus attention where we think we need it. It costs us by robbing our attention for the unexpected.

Experience can prevent you from seeing what’s there.

This one surprised me. I assumed that more experience in a field would always improve one’s ability to assess the situation at hand. I was wrong.

If the current situation aligns with the person’s experience, they do notice and assess the facts better than the untrained. Whatever’s happening at the moment fits within their mental model.

However … if the current situation has very important features that the experienced person hasn’t encountered, they overlook those features more than do naive persons. Why? The new feature isn’t in their mental model. The naive person doesn’t have much of a model, so sees what’s there without the filter of expectations.

Gonzales’ provides examples about climbers. In each case, experienced people attempted climbs that should have been within their abilities. However, there new twists popped up. Conditions changed —  a rapidly developing storm.  An event that’s rare but absolutely will happen occasionally occurred — an experienced climber slipping. The experienced people fell into the “We’ve done this lots of times before, and this bad thing had never happened” mentality. As a result, they took too long to integrate the new information into their models, and bad things happened.

Plan the flight and fly the plan … but not too far

We plan, because that’s what prepping’s about. Planning gives us a better chance at success; it’s strongly positive overall. 

But we mustn’t fall in love with the plan. Having a plan gives us comfort; that makes us want to cling to the plan even as the situation it has changed. Being fixated on the original goal to the point of failing to see what’s there and adapt have killed a lot of people. 

So how do you find the sweet spot? Develop check points and alternatives built into the plan, for one thing. “If we need to bug out, we’ll take the McMaster’s bridge then I-81 out of town … but if McMaster’s is clogged, we kick over to this little bridge that usually has less traffic.” “We’ll head up to Grandma’s…but if the roads are too bad, we turn back and rely on our stores here.”

Build in points where you intentionally look around and see what’s there. Give yourself permission to change your plan to suit conditions. Having flexibility built into the plan can keep you from getting fixated and flying your model instead of the plane.

Don’t bend the map

I’ve fallen into this last expression of “See what’s there”. It’s about being lost. Specifically, how we get ourselves deeper into trouble because we resist admitting when we’re lost.

We hold a map. It may take the form of a physical map or strictly mental, doesn’t matter. Despite the map, we wander off course somehow. We’re misplaced. 

Here lies the critical point. If we recognize the problem now and take appropriate action, the situation is very likely recoverable. Sure, we might not get the whole route we planned in today because we spent time backtracking. But early in the “lost” sequence, we often can backtrack ourselves out of trouble. Oddly, very few people who get seriously and dangerously lost (according to Gonzales’ research) even tried to backtrack. They pressed on.

Mostly, the seriously lost pressed on because they would not admit to themselves that they were lost. They looked at the features around them and mentally shoved and nudged to make it fit somewhere on their map. As one SAR person put it: If you’re telling yourself that maybe that pond dried up or the (landmark) boulder fell, you’re in trouble.

That last bit’s a key point. In order to not feel lost, people who are bending the map ignore signals. They fail to see what’s there. If something doesn’t match your map, pay attention and remember that backtracking may be the best option.

How can you make sure you see what’s there?

• Be aware of our (as in, all humans including you) tendency to ignore information that doesn’t match our models. Make an active effort to overcome that tendency.
• Learn to manage your stress. Stress narrows focus and makes us miss things.
• If you are experienced, ask yourself how the current situation might not match your previous experience. Don’t rely on “it worked before”.
• Have a plan, but don’t fall in love with it. Build some flexibility into it so you don’t feel trapped.
• Don’t bend the map. If you suspect you might be lost, don’t ignore the warning signs.