I’m capable of having a day that feels busy while not really achieving much. It’s one of the talents I’m least proud of. Sharing the experience of my life with others can be kind of exhausting.
I don’t mean this in the way of wow life is hard, it’s more in the realm of an unfortunate thorn in a beautiful rose. I have so many people in my life that I’d like to share experiences with, but I don’t have social media. So I try and do my best to keep in touch.
I’m writing this while on a diving trip in Malta (yes that’s how hard I work to hit my deadlines for you lovely people). It’s been a wonderful reminder that I need to spend more time off my phone. I need to yearn for simpler connection.
Not that anyone really needs that reminder, we’ve all kind of collectively accepted that as a daily thing we should probably do something about.
The real solution to my problem is just doing more activities where my phone is elsewhere. For me, it appears the sea is the solution.
Scuba diving exists in this extremely strange world, literally, because it feels other-worldly. Floating in zero gravity, surrounded by beings that aren’t from where you are, it can feel like space. It can feel really fucking perfect.
I would say the closest I’ve felt to enlightenment has been under the sea. Or on top of it. Maybe enlightenment is too strong of a word, but it is a peace that I have not found elsewhere.
I think of a moment shared with my brother in the Red Sea, floating upside down under an Oceanic Manta Ray. I think about slowly spinning around in a seemingly infinite abyss of blue. Knowing the place where I belonged was elsewhere but not sparing a thought for where I should be.
But there is something else that is unique about diving. Maybe it is part of what makes it so special. You are more or less unable to communicate under the sea. Sure, there are signs for basic safety requirements and to identify fish, but that’s about all there is.
There is something so beautiful about stripping back communication and just floating in the abyss. It levels the playing field. There was a Taiwanese girl on a boat trip I did who spoke absolutely zero English, she was a fish out of water when out of water, but under the surface she was part of the school.
We had dedicated groups throughout the trip but she seemed to just join whichever group she pleased, undeterred by the guide’s instruction. Their instruction was meaningless to her above water.
Under the sea each diver is tasked with spotting things. That’s kind of all you’re there to do, you’re there to float around and find things.
One of the greatest moments in diving comes from being the first to identify something interesting, then basking in the glory while the rest of the group appreciate your wise eyes.
When I got to know more serious divers, it became more obvious to me that there was a big overlap with collecting. Many who live to dive collect the memories of creatures they’ve seen as prize possessions. Stories over lunch are about who saw what and where they saw it.
Photos are exchanged. Photos actually play a much larger role in this scene than I had first imagined. Most of the divers on the boat had very expensive cameras that they clung to for the entire dive. Photos were collated like stamps in a collection.
Something about the whole experience reminded me of bird watching. They were there to capture and immortalise the time they witnessed some exotically named sea-slug. This image would be shown and spoken about on their next boat trip.
Something simple occurred to me recently, that the cocktail of cameras and social media have robbed us of shared experience. Like, just experiencing. Diving with a camera poses a question.
Is the camera there to immortalise an experience or to ensure you never have one?
You can have the most expensive camera in the world but it will not add more value to your experience than me pointing to a strange creature I’ve never seen and waiting for my partner to smile. Pointing to something and being in awe of it side by side with a good friend. Why drink if there’s no one to cheers with?
Diving strips us back to our youth. We become children of the sea, unable to communicate in a world we don’t understand. Things are more simple there. There’s no judgement that comes with being in awe.
We are allowed to just point at something that makes us happy and share it with complete strangers. So rarely in this day and age do we get to just authentically share an experience with strangers, soberly.
So rarely do we exist in an unsolved environment and believe there is magic remaining in the world. There is a recommended path to solve every problem. There is someone telling us to do xyz to be xyz, but there is no guarantee you will see an octopus in the sea.
The uncertainty leads to a collective amazement that society only allows children to access. We play in the sandbox and point at birds, then somewhere along the way we become victims of a solved world. Of a world that expects us to know everything and close the door to mystery.
Well, I say fuck that. I want to believe in the beauty of everything. I want to notice the birds in the trees and point them out to my friends saying wow how fucking beautiful is that bird? Imagine what it might be like to fly. I yearn for awe.
There is complete silence under the sea. It is the most comfortable silence in the world, no one feels the need to fill it. They couldn’t if they tried.
Envy the man who is completely content in silence, for he has won battles he doesn’t know many are fighting.
I am currently fighting that battle, envying that man. I want to spend more time above land with the mindset I have while I’m diving. Leaving silence as silence, loving the uncertainty of each moment, and finding awe in the smallest of wonders.
I want to involuntarily point at the beauty of the world. Maybe the meaning of life is just to point at things and say wow.
