Spin

We are living in the Information Age... although I am beginning to think of it as the Great Inundation. Every day, I feel the need to learn new techniques to keep my head above water, to keep myself from getting swept away. The daily flow of information has changed from a brook trickling through town, to a raging torrent sweeping through cities, towards a scenario like that in the movie Waterworld where a giant ocean covers the earth and only the strong survive.

There's nothing wrong with great bodies of water if you know how to navigate them. Any canoe or kayak enthusiast will tell you that there are techniques to riding the current, knowing which waves to follow and which to ignore. Any pleasure craft operator has to learn the rules of navigation to be licensed; any ship's pilot or captain can explain the intricacies of moving a great ship across lakes and oceans, through the deeps and over the shallows. In all of those cases, the experts "keep a weathered eye on the horizon" for signs of danger.

But we also live in the age of "spin"... of people trying to manipulate the flow or direction of information for the purpose of persuasion, despite any warning signs. That spin can turn into a great vortex, dragging down the ship (as in the movie Pirates of the Caribbean... although with less likelihood of success) or it can whip up a calm surface into colossal waves (Perfect Storm).

I don't think we need the water to be perfectly calm in order to move forward; a little challenge is a good thing, and racing the rapids can be exhilarating if we've trained ourselves. But let's not tempt fate by trying to train the water beyond reason, by forcibly directing the natural flow into an unnatural direction to suit our own purposes, despite internal and external signs of danger to ourselves and others. Wouldn't it be great if we could all learn to navigate with integrity and keep the water clean? Maybe we would actually be able to see all the way to the bottom of the ocean... to truly fathom the life that flows beneath the surface.