Have you ever been suspended in space and time, your body dissolved into the ether of the universe and your mind unlocked in the vastness of existence? No, not magic mushrooms. I’m talking about a saltwater float tank.
The act of floating used to be billed as sensory deprivation. You’d step into a dark tank of water that has so much salt dissolved in it that your body floated, Dead Sea style. As your body floated, your headspace was said to do the same. Clear and clarify. Empty and expand. A detox from the overstimulation of being a human person.
By the time I got around to stepping into the tank, it’d been rebranded as floating, the title of “sensory deprivation” likely freaking people out. It does sound a little bit like torture, but I wanted to try it. It was one of my “40 New Things for Turning 40.”
I went to a place down in Chelsea where the receptionist looked like she’d be named Earth Spirit. (She wasn’t.) After taking the requisite photo of myself to prove I was there doing the new thing, I abandoned my phone outside of the tank and closed the door. Slowly, I turned down the lights. From a blue Avatar glow, it faded to the twinkling pin pricks in the ceiling meant to emulate stars and dreams and wishes, and then, it dissolved into total blackness.
I’m slightly claustrophobic, which is why you’ll never catch me cave diving or cave jumping or really anything to do with caves, but the tank was big enough for me to stand in. The water was warm and silky, like a bath with lots of bath bombs, but it took me a few minutes to regulate myself within the odd sensation of floating. We, as human people, are used to walking or sitting or lying down. Being grounded. Even on rollercoasters that’re meant to defy all of these feelings, we’re strapped in. The feeling of floating is unnatural, so the sensation was, at first, disorienting. Until it wasn’t. One moment I was a big dude floating in a tank of blackness and silence, and the next, I couldn’t tell where the water ended and where my body began. Wild.
I wound up in that tank because six months before I turned 40, I performed an assessment of myself. I thought about the stuff I liked, the stuff I didn’t, the insecurities that tap-tap-tapped on my forehead, the “I should do thats” and the “one day, I’ll go theres.” I thought about what I wanted. What I hoped for. It was me, me, me, but in the cutest way possible; as unselfish a self-assessment can be while thinking entirely about one’s self.
My (extremely) selfless self-assessment produced a few notable results and as a result of those results, I booked trips, made plans, got a therapist.
Then 40 happened. And it really happened. There’s a version of this paragraph that reads like a highlights reel. I’ve been very chatty about my decision to be intentional about doing forty new things over the span of the year and frankly, I could list them out to illicit oohs and ahhs over what I’ve done, the places I’ve been, and the things I’ve seen. I won’t do that. For one, all of those moments are well documented on my socials. For two, there’s something innately braggy about some of those things, as is par for the course with social platforms. The “look at me, look at me” of it all. When I was a kid, we used to dread looking through people’s vacation photos. Times change.
So have I.
When I started doing my “new things to do that day,” I had a vision for where I wanted to go and what I could try, but what I couldn’t see coming was the vastness of the impact the concept would have on me. The concept of intentional newness.
It’s not atypical for me to cull meaning out of simple moments. I was raised on a steady diet of Oprah afternoons, moral-of-the-story episodes of “Saved by the Bell,” a whole lotta the Bible, and the words of Anne Lamott. My mind is wired to think broadly and feel deeply about most everything. A song, a cab ride, a latte in the fall. But it didn’t take any reaching or creative dip-diving to get to this truth. What I learned, clear as the sun in the summer sky, was: Do the new thing now.
It was a simple concept at the beginning. I would use my “big” birthday as an excuse to do new things. If you’re anything like me, you’ve dug well-worn ruts into the routines of your life. Your mornings happen one way, you go to work one way, your commute is one way, your evenings look one way. You’ve disappeared into your schedule, your partner, your kid, yourself. You’ve romanticized the concept of “alone time” or “self care” into a life of seclusion. You didn’t visit that friend or take that trip because of this or that. You’ve stopped trying because trying was too much. Or worse, you’re trying too hard because you’ve become trapped in the “suppose tos.”
I learned this year that the “supposed tos” are killing us. One day at a time, the things we were told we were supposed to want or be or have or accomplish are snuffing out the lights in our eyes. And many of us who were raised in cute little Super-Christian cul de sacs were taught it was downright sinful to think of ourselves for even a moment. Regardless of the detriment of our own health or healing or wellbeing, we’re on this earth to be of service to others. The general sentiment of this is true, but not when you’ve depleted yourself until you’re a husk of a human. An empty glass cannot provide water to anyone.
Here’s the rub: I like my routine; the bumpers on the bowling lane of my life. I like reading for twenty minutes on the train in the morning, getting my everything bagel from my spot where they know my order, sipping on my iced coffee while I work, going to swim at the gym, twenty more minutes of reading on the way home, walking the dog, and evenings writing the stories I feel like I’m meant to write.
But I was intentional about acting outside of that routine. As such, I did a lot of filling up my own glass this year. I cared less about most things, more about some. More about me. My body. My mind. My feelings. My person. My closest people. Less about anyone’s perceptions or input or thoughts on those things. My nos were more frequent. My yesses, more potent.
I will also admit that I’ve spent a few weeks wondering why the hell it took my so long to do the new things. Was I even living before? A quick perusal of my Instagram feed will tell you that yes, I was in fact living and doing and being. I’ve never known an autumnal leaf I haven’t chased and photographed and quoted “Gilmore Girls” under. But this newfound intention of newness, what has taken me so long?
(It’s not helpful to live and dwell and become mired in the regrets of the “why didn’t I’s.” It only helps that we change that thing, whatever it may be, going forward.)
I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. That’s the tricky thing about tomorrows: not knowing is built into the concept. But what I do know is that prolonged intentional newness has become the course of my life. It’s made me smile, it’s dropped me into experiences I would’ve said no to, it’s filled me. Jane Fonda said, “We’re not meant to be perfect, we’re meant to be whole,” and as I’ve tried new foods, been new places, or taken a chance on a woo-woo holistic practice like floating in the dark, I’ve felt a little more whole. A little more complete. A little more filled up. A little more curious.
So, as a wisdomous forty(one) year old man, I encourage you to do the new thing, the thing that doesn’t fall under the list of “supposed tos,” or aligns with what everyone else is doing, or is what you think you should be doing, or is age appropriate. What’s age appropriate anyway? Speaking for my generation, the exact clothes we wore in high school are back in style now. So, wear whatever the hell you want, whenever you want to wear it. Change your body. Change your hair. Change your mind. Move across the world. Work remotely from a beach or a mountainside or a friend’s apartment. Get the latte. Like what you like. Be fully yourself. Do the new thing now, not later.
Ryan Brinson 