Getting Out Of The Pool

The pool is a rectangle. It has a concrete bottom, plainly visible through clear water at a depth from three and a half feet at the shallow end to four and a half feet at the deepest point, a depth carefully calibrated to allow nearly all adults to stand on the bottom at any spot and breathe. It has no wind, no fog, no little fish, no top of the food chain fish, or jelly fish, or currents, or waves, or chop. Navigation is a simple matter of following your lane, back and forth, back and forth. The water is heated, and chlorinated, and tested. We are safe here. We can grow fat in such happiness.

We live safe lives of fluoridated water, government inspected food, seat belts, and public utilities. Yes, we know where our children are. They are sitting in front of a screen watching something virtual tickle their fancy. We don’t let them wander in the woods where they might get lost, or eaten. We have welcomed bears back to our neighborhoods now that we don’t allow unsupervised kids outside. Likewise, the sharks can have the oceans now that we have our pools.

I enjoy the weightless feeling of the water, pulling myself through it like a bad dream. I count laps. I check the clock. How long have I been swimming? A thought that never occurs to me when I am in the ocean with a goal in mind, and a challenge before me.

Is there such a thing as being too safe? Can it lead to days with little meaning, and no zest? Is it only the well fed who wonder, “What is the meaning of it all?” Perhaps these questions that can gnaw us from the inside out would disappear if we lived our lives rather than merely preserved them.