Survival Instinct: The act of acting without thinking

Today was our college reunion day (not the official one but just few of my college buddies only) and I had come all the way from Hyderabad to Bangalore for this and was so looking forward to meeting them all. The itinerary for the day was for all of us to meet at the Gopalan Arcade mall (which recently got opened near our alma mater) and then go to the nearby less known dam after lunch to catch a good natation.

You are wondering why I am telling you all this, well the important part of this story and the main theme of this post is what happened while we were there swimming.

The water was looking very inviting from the beginning and when we entered the water it was pretty warm and not as cold as we had expected it to be. We immediately started having fun and I started swimming in my usual coarse, uncouth style, splashing water everywhere as I swam. Inspite of that I was the still the second best swimmer in our group (Harsha being better than me because he could swim with backstroke and others not being able to swim at all :) ). Anyways, as I started swimming, with each yard I covered, I became more bold (not confident but bold because I was already confident that I could swim a little :) ). Now, after swimming for 1 or 2 laps and having assessed that the water level around the area where we were swimming wasn't too deep, I decided to swim for a longer distance. Please keep in mind that I was not aiming at swimming towards the center of the river but only in the horizontal direction i.e. along the shoreline. So, here I am swimming and swimming, continuously, full of confidence, with all eyes on me (inherently myself assuming that the depth is same as it was when I started) and then suddenly the unexpected happens.

I try to stop and I am not able to get a foot hold. My head goes inside the water as soon as I stop and I realise I am in a much deeper water than I had thought I was in.

It is difficult to explain everything that I felt at that moment but trying to just rethink that moment sends a chill up my spine. I think, at that moment my brain switched from the usual voluntary mode to the involuntary mode and there was no more logical thinking, no more planning or scolding... there was only one thing on my brain and that was to decide what needed to be done next to avoid the otherwise inevitable...

It was in the SURVIVAL INSTINCT mode.

All of a sudden, I have this the immense force from within which makes me swim (not tell me or ask me... because I have long stopped thinking, I am just acting now) with all my strength towards the shore.

"You are not thinking, you are just pushing and pushing with both your legs and arms, as fast as you can with as much force you can muster because you don't know... you don't know if you have crossed the danger zone or not. It is sheer panic that grips you."

I finally raise my head and realize that I am now close to the shore and decide to stop. When I do stop and get my feet on the ground, I... I just sit down, with my heart still thundering, my whole body vibrating, not having realised yet that what I had just faced was the fear of death.. and its consequent reaction from myside, the SURVIVAL INSTINCT.

PS: I was fine after 2 mins, calmed down and was back to swimming on the safer side of the river :).