The Ocean

No one is entirely sure where it came from. No one is entirely sure why it’s here. All we know is that for as long as humanity can remember, it has been a royal pain and a right obstacle blocking the path of humanities’ progress for eons.

Some say that the ocean is composed almost entirely of ‘water’, and that when you jump in – you get wet. Since the dawn of time Man has struggle over water. The first recorded contact with water was when Ug the caveman went out for a walk one day and fell in the ocean. “Uooog… Noog Boog ah grunt noog boog!” were his words, as recorded on his iPhone.

History has long since forgotten how to translate this primitive language, but we believe this may have been what he said: “I was ambulating in my neighbourhood one delightful morn when I happened, perchance, upon this rather voluminous body of what seemed to be molten ice. After much deliberation I decided that this mass was easily viscous enough for me to walk over without being devoured by the mass, and, foolishly,I decided to challenge this liquid adversary by placing my right hoof on the surface of the mass. Oh, what a worthy adversary it was.”

It is believed that Ug suffered terribly for his adventure ; his foot got wet. When he withdrew from the liquid mass, his foot then got a little bit cold, and on the walk home dirt, sand and small twigs got stuck to his foot. Needless to say, it was terribly uncomfortable and embarrassing for Ug as he walked through his hometown.

Ever since this fateful day, men around the world have been trying to conquer the ocean, or to at least tame it and show it who runs what planet. Unfortunately for humanity, when the ocean was delegated the planet of Neptune, it didn’t take it too well, especially since they also placed it in charge of storms and earthquakes, both of which were the job of the oceans’ beleaguered parent, Mother Nature. The relationship between the Ocean and humans became further complicated when the Greeks personified it and started building statues of an old man with tremendous breasts, scraggly hair, holding a pitchfork and started labelling it “Poseidon”, as documented in the classic man versus ocean novel, The Poseidon Adventure

The Old Man and The Sea - one of many classic pieces of popular culture depicting mans epic struggle with the sea.

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Despite humanities’ pathetic disposition of trying to destroy everything it can see man still tries to find beauty in the things it hates, perhaps foolishly. People pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for a view of the ocean, and why they would want to see a seething, spitting, polluted, wet mass of water huffing and puffing at their door, throwing sharks at them is beyond me. In the warmer months (and the colder ones for certain parts of society which are a little less able in the cognition department), people even jump in the ocean claiming that they enjoy it and that it soothes the heat even though the ocean stings their eyes and attempts to drown them. People even spend months sailing the oceans, claiming that they get a sense of adventure and connection with the ocean, apparently unaware that they can embark on a plane and get there much more quickly, complete with a warm meal wrapped in foil and a nice little 3 ½ inch jack for their headphones so that they can listen to the safety briefing in Nyangumarta. All without getting wet.

The foolish humans have also given sanctuary to the sea, which they believe needs help because it really can’t help itself. Although tsunamis, hurricanes and shark attacks are well documented, the mindless proles from Australia decided it was a good idea to fence off 344,400 square kilometres and call it one of the seven natural wonders of the world. That’s all very nice, if you consider being immensely wet, poisonous jellyfish and grounded coal carriers wonders. Not to mention millions of stupid humans called “tourists” who flock to the site just so they can have their photo taken with a jellyfish stinging them.

Our circuitous relationship with the sea goes even further back than Ug, with science suggesting that we actually lived in the ocean at one stage, only emerging out of it thanks to breakthroughs in telecommunications and diplomatic relations with the earthbound trees, who gave us the secret to life above ground and hence indirectly initiated civilization as we know it. Other species have since tried to escape the ocean’s terrible grip, such as the well documented case of the Dolphins (as satirised in the popular TV series The Simpsons) and the crocodiles, bothattempts which simply led to humans eating these creatures in unprecedented numbers. It is quite obvious that these occurrences prove irrefutably that the human has a fundamental and instinctual desire to be out of the ocean, and to keep things that aren’t humans in the ocean, with the notable exception of anyone trying to immigrate to northern parts of Australia.

Australian authorities take aim at the infidels, under the motto "We grew here, you... got a boat here".

As happens in any particularly tense diplomatic relationship, hostilities have often broken out between humans and the ocean (or as it likes to be called by its friends, Natures Toilet), leading to widespread destruction and huge casualties on both sides. Both the humans and the ocean have been known to employ guerrilla warfare in their never ending struggles, with the humans attempting to fill the ocean with garbage and the ocean retaliating with slowly raising its level in an effort to drown the human race, both of which are extremely long-term strategies but it has been acknowledged by both sides that eventually, someone will have to give in. SportsBet has placed better odds on the ocean, citing that “it’s a lot of water” and that the humans simply can’t produce an equivalent amount of shopping trolleys for rambunctious teens to dump in the ocean in time to save themselves.

In the endless struggle between land and sea, there have been countless devastating attacks against both sides, and every day the battle claims more and more lives. Just recently, the humans launched a massive offensive resulting in the “BP oil disaster”, but militarily this was known as “Operation Ocean Dispatch”, killing thousands of the ocean’s troops with biological consequences which may last for decades. In retaliation, the ocean drove a colossal movement, co-ordinating with its close ally the Rain, resulting in the catastrophic flooding of Pakistan, leaving an estimated one fifth of its land underwater, affecting approximately twenty million people. These attacks from both parties follow a long history of aggression which would easily have killed hundreds of millions over time and show no signs of easing any time soon.

The Brown Pelican was first discovered during an Earthling attack against the evil Ocean.

Regardless, the humans still try to ameliorate their problems with the sea at least on a personal level. Day in day out, your ordinary person puts aside the larger issues which the broader society has with the sea and boards a ferry which takes them to work, or sits on a wharf (maritime-based demilitarised zones) and wonders at the vast expanse before him or her. The humans and the sea actually have certain sanctions and agreements in place; the ocean allows humans to eat her fish and use her surface for transport and leisure while the humans put an effort into preserving certain parts of the ocean and teaching their children about the ocean.

These agreements are only valid thanks to silently acknowledged mutually assured destruction, leading to the worlds end if hostilities ever got to that point.
Until such a time as humans and the ocean can just “get along”, the tense relationship will continue, the death toll will mount and there will be no clear winner or loser. Not unless humans abandon their ambivalent attitude as to whether the ocean can or cannot be trusted and unite together to defeat the treacherous ocean will there ever be a definite outcome. We must hate the ocean to destroy it. It’s too hard to destroy something you even slightly like.