The Law of Holes

What should we do when we’re deep in a hole and our lives are spiraling out of control? The answer might surprise you.

On August 29, 1973, Pisces III, a small Canadian deep-sea submersible, sank to the floor of the Irish Sea at a depth of nearly 1,600 feet. Two men were inside this capsule of death: former British Royal Navy officer Roger Mallinson and engineer Roger Chapman. When a rear hatch was accidentally opened, sea water rushed in, causing the tiny sub to plummet like a rock to the bottom of the sea.

It took more than three days to rescue the pair, and when they were finally reached, the two chaps had only 12 minutes of oxygen left. They’d been trapped in the crushing depths of the sea for 84 hours.

The Kola Superdeep Borehole goes even deeper. It is the most jaw-dropping, radical, human-made hole on the planet, and the deepest artificial point on Earth. The wicked shaft, built by the Soviets during the Cold War, is 40,230 feet deep. It is so deep that locals call it the “well to hell,” and swear they can hear the screams of souls writhing in hell.

It was at the bottom of...