Save Me

A Habit of Hope - Issue 4

Welcome to A Habit of Hope — a weekly practice of optimism and joy. We begin with music, get inspired, and — at the bottom of the essay — use a set of tools for community and accountability.

This issue makes a month of this newsletter, A Habit of Hope. Thank you! I’m doing it for myself as much as anyone, because it’s so easy to feel powerless in the face of the craziness.

I’ve gotten lovely feedback from quite a few of you who are enjoying this newsletter. That fills me with happiness! Happy you’re here.

We Start With Music

This week is about a spectacular, daring rescue. So we have to start with a song about needing to be rescued! This is a great time to watch or re-watch the Paul Thomas Anderson film Magnolia, because it’s all about grief and forgiveness. Also, as a songwriter it blows me away that the film was entirely based on the music of Aimee Mann, and that at one point there is a pause the action so all the characters can sing her song “Wise Up.”

What I didn’t know was that there was a correlating music video where the action of the story pauses and Aimee Mann appears in the scenes next to the stars and sings her own masterpiece “Save Me.” I mean, it’s fascinating from an artistic standpoint, and also I love picturing it logistically - like “okay, hold where you are, keep that mood - let’s bring in Aimee.”

“A Very Unique Skill Set”

So, you probably heard about the Thai soccer team that was lost in a cave, and the international effort to save them. Maybe you saw the documentary The Rescue. Against all odds, after many days, with oxygen running out and a storm coming in, a group of cave divers took crazy chances to save the lives of a dozen boys and their coach.

The practicalities of the rescue are incredible, and I highly recommend the excellent film by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin. What I want to focus on is the misfit band of heroes who saved the day.

Just as last week’s Person of the Week Chris Lambert found himself using his unique skills as an indie musician to bring justice in a decades-cold murder case, this week’s Persons of the Week — British cave divers Rick Stanton and John Voltanen and their partners — used their skill at what Stanton calls “a ridiculous minority sport” to attempt an impossible rescue.

Cave divers are such an odd bunch — self-proclaimed weirdos and loners who all talk about being isolated and bullied in school. Because of those life experiences, they find it satisfying to climb into the solitude of cold, deep, wet holes in the ground in pursuit of one of the most dangerous sports imaginable.

And because of that, an elite group of them was able to do what neither local cave experts, the Royal Thai Navy Seals, a United States Air Force team, an Australian Federal Police Specialist Response Group, a team of divers from the Beijing Peaceland Foundation, nor even Elon Musk were able to pull off.

(Side note: when the story of the trapped kids hit the international news, Musk directed his engineers to invent a small submarine for rescuing them. Vernon Unsworth, an expert on the Tham Luang cave, saw early that Musk’s submarine concept was flawed and called the design a “PR stunt” with “no chance of working.” But Musk insisted on bringing it to Thailand anyway, causing a scene that took logistical resources from the rescue. An irate Unsworth told Musk to “stick the submarine where it hurts” and in return Musk called him “Pedo guy” on Twitter and was sued for defamation. Nice.)

ANYWAY, it’s not just technical know-how that these divers possess, but minds that are trained over decades to calmly assess and respond to life-threatening situations. Because of this, there were able to come up with a radical, astoundingly risky solution that no one else would have ever thought of, let alone seriously considered. But with time running out, it’s the only thing that could have worked.

The other heroes in this story are the kids themselves and their amazing coach, who called upon their Buddhist training to keep them calm for over a week before Rick Stanton located them. Imagine staying optimistic and sane that many days in the pitch dark, knowing your oxygen is limited and that rescuers might never reach you. But they did exactly that. And when they were found, they didn’t panic but instead remained patient during the long process of evacuation.

Stanton describes the cave divers this way: "We’re just using a very unique skill set, which we normally use for our own interest, and sometimes we’re able to use that to give something back to the community."

And that’s the point. The future is promising us some challenging times. But the part I always forget to count on — when I’m succumbing to worry and fear — is humanity’s resourcefulness and imagination (including my own). We truly can do hard things. And we never know which skills will be useful. We don’t have to be anyone but ourselves to help.

Okay, I Think I Need to Explain What I Mean By “A Habit of Hope”

My idea for this whole thing is that it would have several parts:

• this weekly email

• the “Chat” function here on Substack

• a diary that you can use to track some categories that, in my view, add up to a practice of hope

• remote and in-person gatherings to reinforce and provide accountability for a practice of hope, if that’s something you’d find helpful

I’m so glad folks are reading the newsletter! I hope we can build up the habit portion of this. I’ve opened up the “chat” for conversation about how it’s going this week for us all, hope-wise. Please feel free to weigh in!

I’m also developing a daily planner for your use. But in the meantime, you can start your own practice on notebook paper if you’d like. Here's the rough draft of the concept, and here is a link to the QR codes that will be in the final version. It’s simple - just a place to track things like “community” and “grief” and “creativity.” The premise is that with repetition, we can make ourselves more joyful, resilient and effective in the times to come.

A couple of weeks ago, I hosted our first hourlong zoom. It was lovely! So now I’m thinking about how best to use this format and we’ll reconvene after the new year.

In-Person Gathering

Also after the holidays, I'll schedule something local -- a time and place to get together for community and creativity. I'll keep you posted!

Thank you, so much, for subscribing, and please feel free to pass this on. And if you’re interested in my work as a performer and songwriter, come visit my website!

xo Rain