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Here is why the ocean rocks our wet socks

The sea is shedding itself.

Pieces of seaweed from the reefs located just offshore meander their way to the sand as I wade through the water, trying to find my way out to the breaks. On the way to their final destination, they brush past my leg. I push them aside and keep trudging farther outward.

By this point, these floating remnants of the reefs have become so familiar to me that when I go to beaches without them, I find myself wondering where they are. But for the time being, I’m feeling as good as I ever have in quite some time. I finally feel at home – in my element at last.

The sun has begun its downward path below the horizon, but it won’t fully set for another hour. This is my favorite time to be out.

Before the sun disappears and the Southern California light pollution blocks our view of the stars, the ocean turns a color I can best describe as a mixture of magenta and black. It’s a shade I long to see and don’t ever have enough chances to view. In my opinion, it’s so much more interesting than the plain old blue (or brownish-green, if you’re in Long Beach) sea that we see during the rest of the day.

This time, however, I’m getting that opportunity and am incredibly thankful for it during this Thanksgiving break.

I know I’m one of many who enjoy the ocean a great deal. Yet I’m probably one of the few who takes the time to give the ocean the “what for.” Why do I and so many others treasure the aquatic terrain that does not naturally suit us land-dwellers?

Beautiful colors and tasty waves aside, I think I’ve found the answer.

But before I give my reason, I present the opinion of why the ocean is so great from the mystery writer Ross Macdonald, who more than 50 years ago said the following: “[The ocean] was as close as I ever got to cleanliness and freedom, as far as I ever got from all the people. They had jerry-built the beaches from San Diego to the Golden Gate, bulldozed superhighways through the mountains, cut down a thousand years of redwood growth, and built an urban wilderness on the desert. They poured their sewage into it, but it couldn’t be tainted.”

Macdonald then added, “There was nothing wrong with Southern California that a rise in the ocean level couldn’t cure.”

I find it amazing that Macdonald some 50 years ago predicted what I too consider to be the demise of much of Southern California today – how so much of what must be one of the greatest natural regions on Earth today has been ever so effectively made into a gigantic urbanized mess, corrupt with greed and traffic.

I remain, however, optimistic with the promise of the ocean to escape such things. Like Macdonald, I too feel a sense of that “cleanliness and freedom” and the self-victory of escapism when I’m in the ocean.

My answer to the sea’s greatness, though, I believe is taken one step further.

The reason why I and so many others feel such contentment in the ocean is because it’s the one place where we most feel we’ve gone back to our roots.

I’m not saying I believe mankind first came from the ocean in some evolutionary process. What I mean by roots is that because the human form is composed of more than two-thirds water, being in the ocean is like finally being amongst what consists of so much of our bodies.

Think about it. We breathe oxygen, but we’re not oxygen-based creatures. We may love trees and the woods, but we’re not made of leaves or wood. But we are made of water, and getting back in that sea, letting ourselves be fully submerged by the currents and waves, evading everything else we know on terra firma, is like going back to a surreal homeland.

And there you have it – my answer.

If you don’t like the ocean, I suggest overcoming your aquatic fears, learning to swim, learning to surf or bodyboard or learning to do anything that allows you to be one with the gigantic force that is both a large part of you and a large portion of this so-called earthy Earth.

Bradley Zint is a senior journalism and political science major and the managing editor for the Daily Forty-Niner.

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