This video of Guillaume Nery base jumping in Dean’s Blue Hole has me completely entranced, so much so that it has pervaded my dreams the last few nights.
Nery is a competitive free-diver: someone who specializes in underwater diving without the use of breathing equipment. Free-divers compete on how deep they can dive and/ or how long they can hold their breath for. The video is an artistic representation of the free-fall experience shot entirely on breath-hold. Dean’s Blue Hole is the deepest known blue hole in the world.
What occured to me after waking up from yet another free-dive inspired dream is how this video and sport relates to my experience of creativity, what I’m trying to do and what a lot of other artists, innovators and free-thinkers try to do. I say ‘try’ because just like in free-diving there is always only trying to go further and there is always further to go. That’s part the excitement of it.
The other part is the actual experience of being in the free-fall state, or for artists: the creative state. Once you get down further into your own creativity it can start to feel a lot like free-falling. There’s a lot of uncertainty and fear that you may have gone too far or might get lost but at the same time it’s the going deep that is the most exhilarating.