Deep sea diving in the ocean of madness

[Wertbag]

I sit on the side of the boat, preparation for a dive is mostly mental, stealing yourself for the rigours to come.  Why do I inflict this upon myself?  The dive is a harrowing experience but one which reveals much about the human condition.  My thirst for knowledge leads me to push myself to new depths, the risk of losing yourself in the darkness an ever present concern.

“Are you ready for this?” my crew asks.  I’m not sure you can ever be truly ready, but I’m as prepared as I can be. “I suggest just a quick dip to the Ham level to make sure you are ready for the depths.”  I agree, the Ham levels are fairly safe, with most of the madness equally balanced by conflicting sanity.  My initial dip confirms I’m ready for the main event.  With a final lung full of logic I plunge into the ocean of human madness.

At first you pass the light and colourful displays of ignorance.  People who are confused but not beyond learning.  You dive deeper, through the layers of religion, seeing the many coloured fish permanently fighting one another, knowing that while schooling as they do it would be nigh on impossible to change their direction.

But those are the shallows, I want to see what lays below.  Scams and pseudo-science, but the proponents don’t believe their lies, they spout nonsense for the money, no my target is deeper still.

Here the big fish swim, the schools of madness.  First I spot a scientology tuna, a rich gold colour, very valuable but I didn’t bring a spear gun.  A beautiful anti-vax swordfish cruises past, pausing to eye me up before swimming on its way.  Then a flash as a religious martyr barracuda races passed, those are truly dangerous often attacking divers for no reason other than the colour of their wetsuit.  A whale, the great white Hovind, swims leisurely pass.  While not as aggressive as the barracuda, the share size of the madness is daunting, and I’m sad to see the baby Hovind whale following in its parents wake.

Deeper still, spotting the Islam fanatic shark, a terrifying species that has killed many.  Some divers say they are simply misunderstood, but having seen the bloody feeding frenzy it is certainly something which all logical humans should be wary of.

I come to the edge of the abyss, the great hole of pure darkness, conspiracy theories and cults form a waving sea of weeds around its edge. Here the truly horrific creatures hide.  The angler fish of terrorist bombing, the moray eel of self-immolation, the swarms of glowing plankton, those who have succumbed to the madness and believe that killing another person is justified. 

But what is this coming out of the darkness?  A giant squid of Christian ignorance, its tentacles each covered in illogical suckers.  I’m prepared for its attack, batting away the tentacle of creationism, slicing the belief in a young earth, parrying the whipping global flood and almost laughing at the final feeble flail of the genesis tentacle.  It disappears into the darkness looking for easier prey, usually it will feed on the young, those not yet strong enough to repel its madness.

Exhausted but determined to proceed I swim on.  What is that cloud?  A dark swirling mass, the crazy is strong.  I investigate, the madness hits strong this time.  A web of paranoia, naturalnews.com, stupidity on a grand scale.  The muddy cloud is some kind of algae, sticking to everything and leaving a foul taste in the mouth.  I see claims of assassinations that don’t come true but people keep on believing.  Innocent videos twisted to point to lizard men ruling the world and people believe.  Terms like illuminati, masons and new world order flash pass my eyes, and people believe.  Claims of evil but without a target, is the great evil left or right?  Is it the president or his opponent?  Big corporations or the new media reporting on them?  No one target is clear but people believe them all.

I feel my sanity slipping.  Is there no hope of humanity?  Are we all so stupid as to be sucked in by these frauds and preachers?  Perhaps human kind is not worth saving, are we the root of all that is wrong? 

I feel a tug, my safety line pulls tight as I’m dragged to the surface.  My head clears as I hit the fresh air, I breath a lung full of Dawkins, Hitchins and Harris.  My vision re-focuses on the real world and my crew help me back onto the boat.  “Quick give him a shot” one man calls, “We have Tyson, Nye or Dennett, which should we administer?”

“Give him all those and check the front cabin, I’m sure we had a bottle of Penn and Krauss, give him a shot of that.”

I stand unsupported, I rinse the slime of the algae from my wetsuit.  I can see now that there is hope for humanity, the madness is deep but there are plenty of people above the waves and more daily moving from the dark to the shallows.  You will not easily kill the more horrendous beasts in the depths, but hopefully if their food sources are removed then they will go extinct like the dinosaurs before them.

[☆ DarkBishop ☆]

I like the relation to diving. I was open water certified myself last year. Looking forward to diving again this year. ?

 

DB