Opinion: My Ocean Teacher

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There’s a captivating video on YouTube of a 1950’s housewife participating in an LSD experiment. Under the influence of Lysergic Acid she becomes animated with wonder, and tells the doctor administering the study that, “I feel released, and I’m free. I don’t know how I can tell you… everything is in color… I’m part of it… you can’t believe all the dimensions and prisms and rays… I’ve never seen such beauty in my life… I wish I could talk in Technicolor… if you can’t see it you’ll just never know it, and I feel sorry for you.”

I’ve been doing a lot of swimming and snorkeling in our ocean this glorious fall season, and this woman’s words capture my sentiments exactly. Just under the surface there is a vast world of undulating, emerald strands of sea grass and golden kelp, uncorking themselves in a symphony of rhythmic movement, along with rippled patterns of sand, and a symphony of colorful fish unrivaled in the 21 years I’ve been swimming here. It’s mesmerizing in its beauty, and I marvel at the perfect whole system that begets such splendor and regenerates itself when out of balance. There is as much beauty in our local waters as in those fantastic waters off the West Cape of South Africa featured in the marvelous HBO doc,  “My Octopus Teacher.”

And what our ocean teaches me is that there is so much more splendor in this world than the temporal political madness we find ourselves in. And it’s worth fighting for.

So I get a bit disheartened when I course through town on my eBike and see so much energy put into the ever-escalating sign wars among our political candidates. Could anything serve as a better metaphor for the degradation of our planet than this cacophony of wasteful, disposable paper and plastic that will likely end in our seas?

People ask me whom I am voting for and, besides the ever-steady Bob Whalen, I honestly don’t know because none of them are addressing the larger, existential problems we face post COVID-19. I’m struck by how mundane and pedestrian the pledges of our candidates are. You can interchange the following verbs; “enhance, advocate, protect, improve, advance, control,” with the nouns, “budget, arts, parking, beaches, ocean, neighborhoods, wildlife, safety,” and my favorite nebulous talking point, “quality of life.” It’s the greatest hits from the perennial album “Blah, Blah Blah.”

What about climate change and the ever-expanding threat to our community of supply shortages, system or grid collapses? We got a taste of it with a run on toilet paper, and it wasn’t pretty. What are we doing about rising tides, heat waves, increasing and more frequent droughts, potential water and food shortages, affordable housing, and carbon-free transportation and energy? In other words, how do we make Laguna self-sustaining?

These are the issues an enlightened, forward thinking, affluent community and its government should be focused on. That other stuff is the tent stakes our town is already built on. A whole system of regeneration in an ever more unstable planet is critical to our wellbeing and safety. Just look under the surface of our ocean and you’ll get a glimpse of how it all works. 

Billy hosts “Laguna Talks” on Thursday at 8 p.m. on KX FM radio. 

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