I want you to pretend for a moment that several times in your young life you have almost drowned either through incompetence or malice or a combination of both. Your uncle throws you in the deep end to "teach" you. A bully unhooks and pulls off your life-jacket. Another child pushes you in by accident.

Now I want you to imagine the logistics of drowning. There's no pain, nothing hurts. Viewed from position of safety, it looks to be perversely peaceful. The reality of course is horrifying. You panic to a degree that all rational thought shuts down. The only thing you can hear is your heartbeat pounding in your ears. You churn your arms and legs trying to force your mouth and nose above the surface to gulp some air, but you keep sinking despite your helpless flailing.

Your brain holds two diametrically opposed goals: you must breathe, and you must not breathe water. Eventually one goal is achieved and the other is failed. Either you pass out and your unconscious brain breathes water for you—or your base instincts, faced with the unmitigated, undistracted terror of imminent death by suffocation, compels you to try taking a breath underwater. In either case, you pass out and die within minutes as your panicked, laboring heart slowly comes to a stop.

This is not hypothetical for me. I have lived through it more than once. I won't let it happen to me again.

Which is exactly why you need to learn to swim!

Fuck off.