What has always stroked me is how the sea seems to have a unique place in people's heart. Like it's special or something and not just... water.

Sea also has a special place in my own heart, and maybe that's the reason that I want to talk about it. During my childhood I was spending a quarter of each year with my grand-parents, in a house with a door about 5 meters away from the sea. All day swimming, playing at the beach, diving for seashells and having the sound of the waves in my ears non-stop, even during sleep. Then, I have this memory of being inside the water, about a hundred meters away from the coast and all bathers, staying in as long as my breath can hold and weirdly not feeling alone at all for a few seconds. Many years have passed since then, and I still anticipate these moments of privacy; getting the chance to swim as far as possible in order to be alone with the sea. The thing is, I do know that sea is not living and I don't think it ever crossed my mind that it might be, even as a kid. But this never stopped me from being filled with emotions when being close to or thinking of it. While I can't explain why this all is happening, as I said in the beginning, it is striking that it seems that I am not alone in this.

Greece is a country with 13.676.000 meters of coastline and a current population of about 10.720.000 people. If all these people connected their hands and made a big circle (and a few thousand smaller ones for the islands) that would still not be enough to cover all the coastline. So no need to explain how the sea always played a major role to the people living there, related to all aspects of their life in one or another way. As a Greek person, I have so many songs in mind, mostly old ones, that talk about the sea. After browsing lists and lists of them I found out, that heavy sea can mean furious sea, but it can also mean sea that is in pain, that is hurt. Peaceful sea can mean calm sea, happy sea, sad sea, nostalgic sea, treacherous sea that is plotting against you. Loud sea can mean enamored sea, out of control sea, wounded and screaming sea, betrayed sea, sea that asks for your attention, sea that shouts to make a point, sea that mourns. Silent sea can mean lost sea, absent sea, secretive sea, tired sea, peacefully sleeping sea...

When speaking of subjects, in all of these songs, sea is and sea does. And all that it is, as well as all that it does, is quite unpredictable. Actually, If I want to put it in my own, human, terms: it is quite messy. Of course we are talking about metaphoric use of language, and a poetic way of seeing things that doesn't correspond to reality. But the persistence of subjectifying the sea is so frequent and in such a passionate way, that makes it hard to ignore.

At first, I thought that this text would be about unpredictiveness. About how being all over the place feels so alive, while anything that has the characteristic of being all over the place may be seen as a subject. Even though I still think that is an interesting discussion, taking the time to write down about my personal experience with the sea reminded me that our special connection doesn't seem to be based on any logic or thinking at all. The sea is still a mess, and I as a human, am quite messy myself. However, I am convinced that the connecting piece between my summer childhood memories, the sea, and all these oftentimes cheesy Greek songs, is simply human emotions.

To be clear, artificial creatures may or may not feel emotions, it doesn't really matter. It's our own perception and emotions that matter in this case. If for any reason they make us feel things, for example because when looking at them they remind us of “two sugary eyes that we miss” or because their wide waves makes us “love them because they look like us” or even just because deeping our head inside them makes us feel not alone, then that's it. That's enough for them to leave the realm of the objects. Where do they go then; that is a question for another time. And though all this process may sound such a foolish thing, I can't think of a reason that subjectifying non-subjects makes us even close to fools. I would gladly argue, that if anything, it make us even more human.

All that being said, let's go for a swim.