Water. Big Water. Ocean Water.

I was a lot more fearless as a child.  Not just physically but mentally.  Nothing bad could happen to me when I was in the single digits so I didn't give much a second thought.  I'd moon a police car passing by, drink the juice of a jar of hot peppers and I'd just mosey right into the ocean like I belonged there.  I don't belong there.

I've been to both oceans in my lifetime.  Yes, I realize there are four oceans but I said "both" because I live in America and there are really only two oceans we give a shit about - The Atlantic and the other one that is going to swallow California somewhere in the next 10 years or something.  I dunno about that last part; I heard about it in a Tool song.

I like going to the Ocean but not into the ocean. The reason is simple - I don't belong there.  I am not properly equipped as a human being to withstand the climate of the ocean, both biologically and politically.  If something is out of place on land, it is referred to as a "fish out of water" and the flipside equivalent of that would be "human in the Ocean." 

I can't explain to a bunch of marine life what I'm trying to accomplish by wading around their environment.

"You guys have cool creatures and stuff.  I'm just here to look at the neat shit and maybe touch some weird-feeling things before retiring back to my towel for pretzels and seltzer."

They'd then respond by zapping, snapping, clipping and biting me, as they should.  I've said a hundred times, if I see a shark just chilling on the sidewalk, I will walk right up to it and punch it square in the fucking face with all my might.  It has no place on land and it knows this.  You can tell sharks are aware of this because YOU NEVER SEE THEM ON LAND.  They are smarter than humans.  When I see these articles about people being in the ocean and being eaten by sharks it makes 100% sense to me.

I watched a documentary about a guy named Wild Bill Tregle who lived on a houseboat and wrangled alligators in Louisiana.  He seemed to live a pretty simple yet beautiful life.  The things he'd say were so simple that it blew my mind.  This one always stuck with me...

"Course I been bit. Ya mess with alligators, you gon get bit.  That's jus' a fact."

We're just insatiable beings.  We have this vast land and the ability to stand upright and explore any bit of that land we can walk to.  We've become so bored of this that we're strapping air tanks on to dive hundreds of feet down into an ocean we don't belong in to make friends with things that basically just see us as nutrition.  We're tethering ourselves into caves; squeezing through openings we're clearly too shapely for.  We're building helicopters and flying them into volcanoes.

For what?!  We have plenty to work with where we are.  If you can't walk there, probably don't go there.  If you can't breath sustainably in an environment, you probably weren't meant to be there.  If a mountain is basically vomiting fire everywhere, it doesn't need you to hold its hair back.  It means "GET AWAY FROM ME. I'M FIRE MOUNTAIN MOTHERFUCKER. YOU WILL DIE AND I WILL LIVE FOREVER."

I like going to the beach but mostly because I'm lazy.  No one questions me for doing nothing at the beach because that's what you're supposed to do.  I lay down a blanket on sand and then take a nap for 15 minutes per side.  It's enough for me to just stare at the ocean and be amazed by how much I don't know about it.  I won't know more by going in it, except for maybe its feelings about me.  I already have a pretty good idea it hates me though.

I'm not a child anymore.  I have exponentially more fear than I did when I was a child.  That is not a coincidence.  I was taught that fear and have survived this long because of those fears.  That fear tells me that as fun as it may be to go boogie-boarding in Cape Cod, it's not worth being halved by a narwhal or whatever the fuck lives in there.  Even a small chance is a chance.

By the way, what the fuck is "boogie boarding" anyway?  That shit looks stupid, stop.  If you're going to be maimed by a sea monster, at least be surfing.  You want everyone knowing your white geek ass died from a salad-tossing by a pirannha WHILE BOOGIE BOARDING?  Have some self-respect.