"Respect the sea."
I didn't think I'd think this much about it..
“We need to know that we are very, very weak. A creation in the sea, we are weaker even than the clownfish. A small colored fish. we are weaker than this fish because this fish is in its own environment, and we are not. We need to really respect what we do, and respect the sea.” - Tarek Omar, a diving instructor.
I have weird habits. One of them is listening to a certain podcast while taking a shower. This podcast is Atlas Obscura. It’s fascinating in its own right as a traveller and self-proclaimed sociologist. The main reason though is that it is never longer than 15 minutes, which is my prompt for getting out of the shower. It is also light-hearted (mostly), and has interesting stories that don’t require you to be thinking about life under the shower. But this episode did.
Anyhow, apparently there is some place called “Everest of the sea” and it has an interesting story, and the story is told by a diving instructor. I researched this instructor and the results came out with very contradicting stories about him, and some videos here and there. Apparently, I went deep into a ‘blue hole’. Only to discover after a bit of reading that the 2nd biggest blue hole known to man was discovered recently! And by recently, I mean probably last week.
Yet, this is all besides the point.
“Respect the sea..”
I’ve always feared the sea, and this fear comes not from the fact that I learned swimming at 25, but from the fact that I am afraid from its surprises. I’ve almost drowned once being in the water, but that was under a waterfall in Thailand. And for someone who is not an elite swimmer, I’m always finding myself going to beaches and places where the sea is prominent.
My family instilled this fear of the sea in us being people from the bedouin tribes of the desert originally, although I saw my father swim here and there in it. He used to take us (although very rarely), and he would say: “Wash you eyes with the seawater, it cleans your eyes..” which we always thought was a myth and laughed it out. Upon some researching, maybe not so much of a myth. I guess back in his time, no one feared the pollution of the seawaters as much as we do now.
This reverence almost to the level of fear of the sea comes from the old saying that we always heard: “ The sea is treacherous.” and it comes also in the famous traditional songs that were sung during the ‘pearl diving’ seasons where women would sing: “Oh Sea, Don’t you fear you God?!, Please bring them..!” referencing the men who would go for 4-6 months diving for pearls, which was traditionally the main source of income for families, sailors, and everyone else in that unforgiving environment.
We not only feared the sea, but looked at the sea as a provider of comfort, specially psychologically. I didn’t materialize this idea until recent years when I started to look at the sea as a form of therapy. Being next to the open sea, and its vastness, or in it, has always provided us with the comforts that we always sought.
Ironically, a common thing we used to say, and we still say is: “Throw your worries at the sea..” or “ Go to the sea/beach and complain to it..” A beautiful figurative speech for our fallible and fickle selves, in comparison to the sea, our silent companion who takes our worries, and maybe subconsciously allows us to slow down in its presence, and gives us the space to meditate, and navigate our thoughts a bit better than being between our walls.
We also say: “Do good, and throw it in the sea” as a form of doing good for its own sake, not to expect return from people. This comes in the age of “Karmic energy” as a realistic expectation-setting, that life may not return the favors to you.
For a culture that is strongly tied to its tribal bedouin routes, the sea is featured heavily. I’m just noticing this.
That Old Man, And His Sea
I’ve read many things that involved the sea, but I don’t think I remember anything as strongly as I remember how ‘The Old Man and The Sea’1 made me feel. One man’s insignificance towards the sea and its creatures have always resonated for me. I think reading the novel and having a bout of depression after finishing it, although it didn’t take much from my time to get through, but I felt for Santiago, the old man. The ‘enduring spirit’ as he was described, while coming back without his catch, he carried back the evidence behind his heroics. Santiago resonates with some of the feelings that I am feeling on a personal level now, and there’s a similarity of the human experience, and this what makes it the novel that it is. I just don’t want to return with only the skeleton.
Has anyone conquered the sea? One of the greatest sailors of the world, thought The Caribbean was India, and The Scientific Man, with all his tools and explorations has not seen more than 5% of the sea. Is this reverence? or is it fear? or are we just too small?
If you’ve reached this far, here’s my gift to you..
I’m sure there has been many better letters of admiration for the sea, but to me, I think the blue hole has opened a window..
Other Things:
- Yusuf Islam (or that Cat Stevens) wrote a manifesto to King Charles. This classical notion of writing to kings and royalty has piqued my interest. In the time of absolute individualism, and everyone fending for their own interest, writing a moral code is intriguing, if nothing else.
- I also took a photo. Last bits of spring. I live next to a famous cemetery. And the notion of people taking walks in cemeteries is something that is strange to me. Maybe because cemeteries in Islam serve a singular function. But maybe our cemeteries aren’t this lush and beautiful.
- Currently reading: Mohamad Ramadhan Al-Bouti’s “The Illusions of Dialectical Materialism”. One of those books that need multiple cups of coffee, and 10 minutes a page pace. It is also one of these types of books that I believe the English language library lacks. The critique of Materialism is widely ignored by Western philosophical circles due to ingrained nature of Materialism in the West. This is for another day I guess.