Between Dualities, Dreams, and Sharks
- Alonso Rodriguez
- Jun 23
- 9 min read
By Alonso I. Rodríguez de la Parra, explorer and documentarian
"Without sharks, dreams will not exist; without sharks, you won't get far — and a world full of questions is better than one of ignorance where we know it all. One day we'll meet again and talk about all the moments when we got it wrong. Because the ones where we got it right left no further question to talk about."
I have no doubt at all that we live in a world built on dualities — or, more than just dualities, thousands of opinions and different ways for things to exist.
In almost everything good, something bad can be found, and in almost everything bad, more than a couple of good things can be found. But something else I have no doubt about is that I'm full of questions… What irony, right? These questions aren't always the most accurate, and as much as I might say I know everything about what I'm talking about, I know there's a lot — or twice as much — that I don't know, and precisely for that reason it doesn't come to mind, because I don't know it. I can also tell you that I know a great deal about all that I don't know, and I'm a professional at questioning myself about what I think I don't know. The rhetoric in this strikes me as very curious, because for many I probably said a lot, for others enough, and for others I said nothing at all. And what am I getting at with all this?
Today I woke with a feeling of ambiguity; I felt caught between the world of dreams and the real world. The way we can come to think when we're in that state is very strange. Inside me was a mix of thoughts and feelings. I have to admit that the urge to write is what almost always wakes me; sometimes I even dream what I want to write. My waking felt ambiguous because, between the dream world and this one, I could think about wanting to write about the beauty of an encounter with a whale I had when I visited Bahía Magdalena. In my dream I was observing and slowly approaching this whale's eye, just as it happened in the waking world: large, round, of a color between blue and a matte gray. But it was a matte that allowed things to reflect, that allowed my own reflection.
Looking at myself through this whale's eye, I realized that what I saw wasn't me, but the representation of my life through different thoughts, figures, and ideas that, all together, create me. It's crazy how, in the world of dreams, we can break the barriers of physics and everything we know, how we can find simple answers to the most complex questions about life. In this modern world we have devalued the power and importance that dreams hold in our lives, and dreams feel real because they truly are real. Naïve is the one who no longer listens to them, or who has trained himself to ignore and forget them upon waking. Naïve is the one who doesn't use this tool to keep building day by day; naïve is the one who thinks they're only a fantasy. Among the many things I saw, I knew immediately that this story would no longer be about that whale — which, without a doubt, I'll have to come back and write about, because although that story is very beautiful and full of the connection with the universe that I felt, this other branch into which the story breaks off in the world of dreams is one that leaves a thousand questions in my head; questions that, on their own, answer many feelings for me.
When I set out on this journey to get to know the oceans, nature, and the animals that inhabit it, I realized there was so much more than just what my eyes could see. The stories of all the people I've met, the characters I've managed to interview, the jokes of the different friends I've made throughout this exploration, and that whole world of the sea that exists only in words and thoughts — that is everything that truly makes up the ocean. It isn't just the different shades of blue and the abyssal depths, it isn't just the species and their behaviors, it isn't just the perfect description of science, and it isn't only what we can observe and measure that the sea is. The sea is the experiences of everyone around this body of water. The sea is the happiness it brings to people; the sea is the enormous sadness and all the salty tears of those who have suffered beside it, for it, or with it. The sea is everyone's good and everyone's evil, the sweat of effort, the tears of joy, and the weeping from sorrow. The sea is where we come from, what gives life to the whole planet, where the oxygen we breathe comes from. The sea is everywhere, even if we don't see it up close; you can feel the sea even at the summit of the highest peak in the world. The sea is all around us.
Bull sharks and hammerhead shark — Alonso I. Rodríguez de la Parra
Many of the memories and beautiful things I've seen have been near the sea. Encounters with the species that inhabit it are among the things I most like to talk about, because every encounter with every animal is always special, and every individual that lives there, even if it's of the same species, still has a unique personality.
Suddenly, all this mix of figures, thoughts, and ideas that revealed almost my entire life in seconds — it's as if I saw my whole life in that whale's eye — turned into the image of a shark. This shark was swimming in the opposite direction from me, and although I tried to get closer to see it from the side, every time I was about to reach it, it would turn around and pull ahead of me again. Its tail moved gently from side to side; each stroke awakened in me memories of different encounters with animals of this species. Moments in which being in front of this animal filled me with empathy, because this predator has given me one of the greatest lessons: that, despite your strength, power, or fame, you should always be fair, always be objective or even-handed.
The shark doesn't go through the ocean killing and eating everything it sees; it takes only what is fair, and when it sees humans it isn't a killing machine — it simply watches us with curiosity and then ignores us, because we don't belong to its food chain. There is no doing good or evil in it; there is only following its role on the path of life. Something that we humans, however intelligent we believe ourselves to be, still don't grasp — what on earth we're doing here. We live desperate to survive and desperate to give meaning to all of it. I firmly maintain that, even though we can build spaceships, live under complex governments, work, and have created the computer, we remain the most foolish species on the planet. We've created all of this because we're foolish and need to believe we aren't; we need to feel productive. Naïve is the one who believes he has to impress someone; naïve is the one who believes he must be someone outstanding in society; naïve is the one who wants more than he already has; naïve is the one who destroys in order to build; naïve is the one who turns what is necessary and the most basic resources into flashy projects that will only satisfy the craving of consumerism.
Naïve is the one who doesn't deconstruct himself to live in harmony with what there is, because nothing you build or do outside of yourself will truly change the planet. The only thing that will truly mark a real change, the only thing that will truly make you more intelligent and useful, is to build and change yourself within. And many will say I say this from privilege, and they may not be wrong, but with that said I tell you the following. I have more than 100 friends who are millionaires and rich in spirit; I have more than 100 friends who are millionaires and comfortably numbed; I have more than 100 friends who are millionaires and poor in spirit; I have more than 100 friends I don't know whether they have money or not but who are rich in spirit; I have more than 100 friends I don't know whether they have money or not but who are comfortably numbed; I have more than 100 friends I don't know whether they have money or not but who are poor in spirit; I have more than 100 friends who live day to day and are rich in spirit; I have more than 100 friends who live day to day and are comfortably numbed; and I have more than 100 friends who live day to day and are poor in spirit. What does it truly mean to be privileged? My "rich" friends always turn out to be the poorest, and my "poor" friends turn out to be the richest — and this also happens the other way around. Naïve is the one who judges believing he knows.
The shark is a species that, even though we know it is extremely important for the oceans, continues to be fished in staggering quantities. It's a species we could use to represent the entire health of the ocean. On the different trips along the coasts, I was able to observe that everyone fishes shark, and although the biggest problem is still industrial fishing, the shark is a species that is traded at every level. It's caught in artisanal fishing, in sport fishing, in trawling, in industrial fishing, in hook fishing, in net fishing. Basically, everyone fishes the shark. There is great demand for its fins, its meat, and its oil. It's used in countless medical products and for countless "magical" purposes. And I dare to say this even if many conservationists, fishers, or the general public judge me. Why do we keep fishing this species if we already know what it represents, if we already know that when there aren't enough sharks in the ocean everything else will disappear and die? I know many fish it because they live day to day, and that's because many consume it because they have days to spare.
I can't help recalling the images of those fished sharks, thrown onto the seashore or lying sunk on the coastal beaches. The feeling that overcomes me when I witness how such a vital species is traded on such a brutal scale is profoundly desolating. It's not that I belittle the importance of other forms of animal life, but sharks play a crucial role in the trophic chain. They are the guardians of the ocean's overall health; removing them from that chain leads to a rapid collapse of the entire marine ecosystem.
It's undeniable that we must consider the well-being of all species, for none should suffer. Large-scale productions, lacking any sense of sustainability, confront us with a harsh reality. I'm not advocating for complete abstinence from meat or for conversion to veganism, but perhaps we must contemplate the possibility that they — the vegans — hold the simplest solution to counter this disease of consumerism that we ourselves have fostered.
The most accessible way to fight this scourge is through veganism, though ideally we should aspire to live in a more harmonious and natural way. Those who choose to eat meat should do so from sources where it is guaranteed that those animals have completed their cycle in the chain, having lived dignified lives and being slaughtered honorably, without suffering. All human beings should honor life, living it in keeping with the principles of kindness and respect toward other living beings.
As they say in a film I recently watched, and that you've probably seen too: "You will have permission to eat me" when my role on this planet has come to an end. However, reaching that state will require us to save ourselves by saving the ocean, preserving its biodiversity and restoring its natural balance.
We are part of the same vicious circle, and there are none worse than others; together, we are the representation of all that is bad. And for everyone it seems a necessity to fish, consume, or turn sharks into medicine; for everyone it's something that solves the immediate and the near. But it remains an illusion, because for every medical matter there are other alternatives, for every economic hardship there are other sources of income, and for every satisfaction of the consumable there are other consumables.
What is a reality for everyone, and from which we will not escape, is that without sharks there will be no life in the ocean, and without life in the ocean there will be no life on land, and without life on land we will no longer be here. And without us, nothing will exist anymore, because we are the universe witnessing itself. Wherever you are, whatever you have, you are nothing and no one if we are not all something. So whether you're a fisher, an office worker, or a city entrepreneur, a service provider of any kind, an investor, a millionaire, or an astronaut trying to reach another planet, let me tell you this:
"Without sharks, dreams will not exist; without sharks, you won't get far — and a world full of questions is better than one of ignorance where we know it all. One day we'll meet again and talk about all the moments when we got it wrong. Because the ones where we got it right left no further question to talk about."
Comments