The healing power of water

And I don't mean that in the "Aqua Fina" sort of way, cos God knows that the sound of fizzling, golden-brown Pepsi cascading over a heap of crushed ice would sooner heal my colds than a gallon of pure water.

What I mean here is the healing power that comes from senses other than taste: the sights, sounds and touch of water [and in the case of some insane human beings---“feel”---yeah, those members of our very own species that actually bask in the feeling of hair bunched over their brows or water dripping off their ponchos].

I've been thinking about this "healing prowess" a lot lately and I must say that while the internet and the microchip are all good, the lesser known, less-hyped evolution of human beings that we don’t talk about in PC World is in developing innovative ways to seek panaceas for all evil.

The most popular, of course, is this higher force called "God". I don’t have a problem with God, except that, as I see it, he seems as helpless as I am at preventing the unforeseen, the unexpected and certainly unwanted miseries of life. Nevertheless, to my heretical statements, there is often intense opposition. “He can’t control everything,” people say quite vehemently, protecting the credibility of an entity that may or may not exist and that quite certainly they have never seen. Take it from me: if the attorneys for God functioned in a normal court of law, prison cells would be empty.

And if you don't turn to God, you turn to Nature and this I don't mean in a Darwinian sense (no offense to old Charles; I am a huge fan of his theory, only this is neither the time nor place---and God help you if I decide to make it). Reason why people escape to a park or a stream or for those lucky hillbillies, the mountains to be one with nature during difficult times.
For me (I have discerned after 26 years) this is the simple sight of water ---whether it lashed from the distant horizon while I contemplated trivial high-school troubles on the shores of the Bay of Bengal, shimmered in its reassuring closeness along the banks of the Hudson while I battled with more complicated feelings than the inability to be teacher's pet in many a disheartening Jersey moment or the little lake in a tiny Colorado town I crossed mountains to get to during painful graduation hurdles, water has made washing away my worries just a little easier. What can be better testimony to this than the sheer elation I felt on discovering the Schuylkill River a few short blocks from my apartment a few weeks ago…..I have certainly been a happier person since, though I am quite sure Roger Federer had something to do with it as well. But since he falls under the category of the Gods I have already discussed, I’ll leave it at that. (Isn’t it wonderful to see the sheer invincibility that allows him to make shot after creative shot, putting away with effortless ease every hurdle in his path to the crown? If only we could battle Fate with a racket and quite so supernaturally at that).

In all fairness, the idiot box deserves some credit for my newfound happiness as well. That brings me to my next contender: Nature’s hegemony at delivering solace is fast being threatened by man’s own creations ---- the towering skyscrapers in New York City have oft given me more strength than Nature's concrete counterparts along the Eastern Ghats or the Rockies. Probably comes from the sense that My own species built this mammoth: I must be stronger than I think I am!

And whilst man is deeply involved in figuring out his own ways of dealing with misery, Destiny is deeply involved in figuring out more versatile ways of doling them out. The less vulnerable he is, the more ruthless she seems.
And so the cycle of life continues....