57/100 Synchrony and Belonging

How the ocean helps us find where we belong

It’s amazing how our senses and synchrony of things around us make up for that glorious moment of us feeling a sense of belonging.

The same way that they say a sword shouldn’t be treated merely as a weapon but an extension of your hand or of the self, a place of belonging isn’t a place either. As I’ve once read, to find where you belong is to know when you feel like you belong. That’s why Santiago’s (The Alchemist) treasure is not the one buried under the pyramids but the realization that his journey was really his treasure.

So in the middle of the day, when the ocean is nice and warm, dip yourself in it. Observe how the intensity of the world felt by your senses starts to hold back. You start losing your sense of smell and you start losing the taste of salt. You lose the sounds as you go deeper and your skin starts to get numb, wrinkled.

And when you close your eyes to submerge yourself, when the temperature of the water is the same as that of your body, they all loosen up. You lose the sense of everything else except for one thing: your consciousness. Your body feels like it’s been dissolved — permeated by water — that it’s now a part of the sea; and all you are is a mind in a jar floating in a realm of endless but at the same time definite, possibilities.

After a while, your body would start seeking out oxygen so your consciousness brings you back up to the surface. By the tides and the current, by the sun and the air, you’d know the thing at the end of the chase. You’d have felt a feeling some people mistook for a place.