Responding to Forces Beyond Our Control

Sometimes we need to listen to our primordial selves

Watson and the Shark by John Singleton Copley, 1778 (public domain - National Gallery of Art)

“We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea—whether it is to sail or to watch it—we are going back whence we came.” — John F. Kennedy, 1962

Have you ever been to the beach and picked up a shell large enough to put up to your ear and to listen to it?

As much as we would like to think we’re hearing sounds of the ocean, it’s simply seashell resonance — the sound of ambient noise in a concave enclosure.

But the romantic notion of hearing the ocean in a shell has some magic about it. The proximity of the shell to the seaside makes it all the more appealing and believable.

This myth is similar in structure to the old yarn that the salinity of the ocean and of blood are of a similar percentage (they are not, in fact). Yet we still find these tales circulating.

Humans have always been d…