Icky karma germs in the ocean?

May 10, 2013 9:27 PM

Yesterday the body of a surfer was found naked and nibbled by sharks at my daily surf spot. While surfing today in the exact vicinity I couldn't shake the feeling parts of his body, both physically and meta-physically were still 'there'. Have one science and one karma question about this:

This is in San Diego, tourmaline/pacific beach. The details are tragic. He was found nude nibbled by sharks and his board (with his wetsuit tied around it) found earlier. All signs point to suicide....or something.

I surf this spot regularly, almost daily, but today I couldn't shake the feeling I was paddling around in contaminated water.

So:

1- I have a pretty good grasp of water, tides and how dropping a cup of water gets eventually dispersed in the pacific ocean. What, realistically, we're my chances of encountering some of his remains?

2 - my daily surfing spot feels somewhat tainted. I don't really believe in mojo, but I don't feel right surfing where a man died. How do you come to enjoy a space where something terrible happened?

posted by remlapm to Religion & Philosophy (24 answers total)

1. I think your chances of running into actual pieces of this man's body are slim.

2. Dunno if this helps any, but the ocean is full of life and death. This particular death is notable to you because it's a human and a surfer, but thousands upon thousands of creatures are born and die in the ocean every day, and the ocean's big enough to take all of that psychic toll.

I am not a Buddhist and don't really believe in reincarnation, but somewhere I picked up the habit that when I see roadkill I think "may you be reborn a Buddha." To carry that metaphor over to your situation, since the sense that a person was in turmoil in your surfing spot bothers you, maybe when you get the willies you can use it to remind yourself to generate some compassion for this man (and for other beings who still suffer) -- and to hope that this particular guy has found some peace.
posted by feets at 9:35 PM on May 10, 2013 [11 favorites]

Interesting question... What are the odds...? reminds me of that question "what are the odds that you've breathed the breath of Jesus. This is really a pretty existential type of question, everything is connected. Given that, the question becomes, how much of your thinking about this is distorted to the point that it impacts on your behavior... If this is really bothering you, to the point that it inhibits your activities, a bit of therapy (probably only a session or two) to get this into perspective might be useful.

As for your second question, perhaps you take that energy and reverse it. Again, it isn't the event that impacts on your behavior, it's the way you think about it.
posted by HuronBob at 9:39 PM on May 10, 2013

2. Repeated exposure to the beach would probably be helpful to me.
posted by aniola at 9:54 PM on May 10, 2013

I don't really have an answer to your question, but maybe this will help you think about the second part of your question.

A few months ago, one of my neighbors holed up in his apartment with a stockpile of weapons. He held some family members hostage at gunpoint and refused to come out despite MASSIVE police response (snipers, helicopters, the LAPD evacuating the rest of the street, basically as close to a nuclear option as you can get from the police when something like this is going on). Eventually the situation was... resolved. Violently, I'm sure, even if no deaths resulted. Even now, months later, the apartment is a crime scene. Like, literally, there's yellow tape and a notice stuck to the door and the place is obviously deserted. The only people I've seen around the property are police or other municipal workers.

I walk my dog around the neighborhood every day, and I don't like walking past that house. It seems wrong, somehow. If I have to go over there, I don't really like looking directly at the door with the notice pasted on it. I don't like thinking about what happened to that man and his family, what brought them to that position, and where they are now since obviously they no longer live there. I really really don't like thinking about who's going to live there in the future, and whether they'll know anything about what happened to the last set of tenants.

Realistically it's silly not to walk on a certain part of the street because it's close to an apartment where something scary/criminal happened. But it gives me the wiggins anyway. So I say own your wiggins. Do what you need to do. If you need to stay away for a while, that's OK.
posted by Sara C. at 10:21 PM on May 10, 2013 [4 favorites]

Maybe reclaim your beach? Have a nice little ceremony, a little fire, some words that acknowledge your common bond and wish him well. Surfing is about freedom and loving the ocean, but the ocean is also a cruel mistress. Acknowledge the world is a little less good with one less surfer, but that the ocean is also going to keep on being exactly the same. A blessing/farewell,/tasteful party might help you replace the bad karma with good.
posted by Jacen at 10:29 PM on May 10, 2013 [10 favorites]

The sad event has basically tainted your emotional connection to a place you've otherwise enjoyed going. You need to go back and have good (and normal) experiences at the same place or it'll be marred forever-- but only in the less evolved part of your brain. Some other surfer will roll in from elsewhere tomorrow and have no such connection to the dead surfer, only great waves.

I have a restaurant I used to really like but can't make myself go to anymore, because once I ate there and got violently sick 2 hours later (with a flu I likely had been harboring for a day or more before I ate). Your lizard-brain, your emotional brain (and everyone else's) formed an instinctive (gut) feeling of unease about the place because something bad happened there, and your lizard brain is defensively marking the place as bad because it's protecting you from whatever it is about the place that killed the surfer. It's not rational, but that's the point, it doesn't know how to be rational. That's what your monkey brain is for. Problem is that we go with our gut way more than we admit to ourselves, and we very commonly rationalize a reason to explain how the facts might support a gut feeling. And it's a gut feeling, backed by some rationalization about surfer molecules and fragments circulating in the water that you're asking about.

(This book is where I read about all that. It's sometimes disheartening, but always interesting.)

Go back to the beach and have good times. No, you won't encounter the body, because what's left is not a body. It's as much the late surfer as the skin cells he shed on his bed last week. Our monkey brains draw the line, but your lizard brain is trying to blur the line.
posted by Sunburnt at 10:34 PM on May 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

2 - my daily surfing spot feels somewhat tainted. I don't really believe in mojo, but I don't feel right surfing where a man died. How do you come to enjoy a space where something terrible happened?

Someone or something has died or will eventually die everywhere. I am a surfer as well and I surf at several spots around here where people have died for whatever reason, usually accidental drownings, it seems. This doesn't reflect on the location of the incident. Death is a part of life, and it happens everywhere that life happens. The other day I was out surfing at Pleasure Point and a clearly unwell fish slowly swam under my board, unable to keep itself oriented right-side up. I can only assume it died shortly afterward. That's bad news for the fish but it's just part of what happens in the ocean.

I'm typing this message in the room where my wife died. The room is not tainted. She died here because she was dying, and this was the best place for her to do that.
posted by tylerkaraszewski at 10:37 PM on May 10, 2013 [21 favorites]

I would estimate the equilibrium concentration of your friend in the Pacific Ocean at less than 1 attomolar.

This means that, in the limit, there will be about half a grain of sand's worth of surfer per olympic swimming pool of ocean. Of course, we're not at equilibrium yet and won't be for years, but shark-facilitated diffusion is pretty fast.
posted by lambdaphage at 11:04 PM on May 10, 2013 [3 favorites]

I've been surfing for almost my whole life, so I can offer this bit based on a bit of 40+ years in the water...

First, you have no control over this stuff, so don't let it get you down.
Second, there's already a TON of stuff you don't want to know about already in the water where you surf - both physically and on other levels - no matter where you throw your board in, so you've got to accept and ignore it.

I'd like to address what I think is your real point though - " How do you come to enjoy a space where something terrible happened?"

This is a big topic and applies broadly. I've unfortunately dealt with this many times. I'm an EMT, so I regularly revisit ( or pass by) places where I've seen death and injury. I was at the WTC on 9/11. I survived another terrorist bombing at a young age. My advice is to not let the place define the reaction. It can be tough, but if you simply honor those lost in your thoughts, I think that's enough.

Your question seems to seek permission to go surfing with a clean conscious - I think there's no question that you can. My guess is that other surfer would have wanted other people to keep paddling out there.
posted by blaneyphoto at 11:08 PM on May 10, 2013 [2 favorites]

What if he died in the carpark above the surfing spot? Would you have the same feeling about parking there?

I don't think the ocean can be tainted by souls. That's what plastic and chemical runoff is for.
posted by Mario Speedwagon at 11:32 PM on May 10, 2013 [3 favorites]

Surf in that spot in his honor. Do what he can't anymore.
posted by HeyAllie at 12:06 AM on May 11, 2013 [7 favorites]

Traditionally, Buddhist monks would meditate in terrifying charnel grounds. The basic point: "This body of mine also has this nature, has this destiny, cannot escape it." Why not meet it with interest and respect rather than fear and aversion?
posted by mbrock at 3:13 AM on May 11, 2013 [3 favorites]

Like blaneyphoto said, I'm sure he'd want you to keep surfing there.

Is there a paddle out being arranged? If not, maybe you can organize one.
posted by Room 641-A at 6:22 AM on May 11, 2013 [3 favorites]

I agree very much with those who note that death happens everywhere. I find that this understanding is more prevalent on the East Coast, where we have a lot of old old structures that have certainly seen many deaths over their three or so centuries.

The suggestion of performing a ritual is a great one. Do something that acknowledges the feelings that disturb you (his pain, his death, the loneliness, whatever existential fears it raises in you) and then embrace the chance to go on living.
posted by Miko at 7:14 AM on May 11, 2013

I came in to suggest that you perform some kind of a ritual to expiate the tragedy and to symbolically reclaim the beach in the name of kindness and coexistence and life (which includes death) and whatever else you may believe in, and I'm glad to see others have suggested it as well.

So get some other folks together on the beach. Read some words about life and death, about the sea giving and taking away and being fundamentally untamed and mysterious. Light something on fire. Hold hands together around the fire and have a moment to mark what has happened. Pour out wine into the earth. Grieve a little for a stranger who was one of us. And I'll bet that, having grieved and having marked the event, you will find it easier to reclaim the beach and to go back to your normal feelings about it.
posted by gauche at 7:52 AM on May 11, 2013

Okay, the guy died and was nibbled by sea critters. Kinda cool, actually: he loved the sea, loved to surf, and where did he check out? His favorite kind of place: a surfing area. And what was his final action? Giving back to the sea he loved. To be honest, he sounds luckier than the many people who die a withered lump of meat in some nursing home.

As far as you surfing there again and possibly encountering some of his atoms goes, wouldn't it make more sense that a dedicated surfer like he was would not want other surfers to avoid that spot? And if you do encounter his atoms, think of them as good luck charms of a sort, a gift from one surfer to another.

Have a paddle out or bonfire in his honor, and remember he died doing what he loved --- we should all be so lucky!
posted by easily confused at 7:54 AM on May 11, 2013 [5 favorites]

And not to be a ghoul, but you have no idea what other human deaths and tragedies have happened on that beach over years and years; this is just the latest, the one most well known to you. But you go there and balance that out by finding joy in the water, by letting the sea and the sun and the sand recharge your batteries. That's honestly the best response to a place feeling blighted by sadness that I can imagine. Maybe go along the beach and pick up some litter to improve the beach in a tangible way, and then get on the board and let the sun warm your skin and simply find the joy there.
posted by lemniskate at 8:05 AM on May 11, 2013

Have you seen seawater under a microscope? You might be surprised. This is just one of those things that happens. All you can do is take precautions in life. Sometimes shit happens.
posted by oceanjesse at 8:28 AM on May 11, 2013

The surfer would have wanted you to enjoy doing what he enjoyed doing.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 9:10 AM on May 11, 2013 [2 favorites]

Way back when, I lived in Washington state and walked every day over this bridge to go to the store. The bridge spanned a two mile drop over a small river with steep hills and thick trees on both sides. After using this bridge for nearly a half a year, I heard on the news one day that several months earlier two people had met their demise by driving off the road, missing the guard rails, and sailing into the trees. No one saw the accident, there were no skid marks, and no one could see them from the road. They just... died...in their car... in the trees... right near the bridge. And I walked over them every day on my way to the store.

Of course, when I heard about that, I got the heebie jeebies walking over that bridge, but I had no other way to get to the store, so I had to keep using the bridge. But after a week or two, I realized that I'd been walking over this same bridge with death under me for months and months with no ill effects so just knowing about it didn't change that. There's so much life and death going on all around us that we don't know about. We can't affect it. All we can do is react to it. Now I just accept it. It makes life much easier. It might help for you in your quest to surf where your fellow surfer met his demise.
posted by patheral at 9:29 AM on May 11, 2013 [2 favorites]

Surf-able waves churn up and move a lot of water. Whatever is left of him is not tangible.

Go to the beach and read a poem, say a prayer, write a remembrance, burn some sage/ incense, or in some way pay respects to the surfer who died. Once in a while, dedicate a wave to his memory. His death is a genuine tragedy, but life, like waves, keeps moving. Remembering him is the best thing you can do for him.
posted by theora55 at 11:17 AM on May 11, 2013

you are made of dead things, you breath particles of dead things and eventually you will be a dead thing.
posted by tarvuz at 8:29 PM on May 11, 2013

There have been two murders within a block of my house. At first, I usually feel what you describe. "How can I just walk on that sidewalk?" What helps is recontextualizing the death back into the specific context of that person's life. I try to learn more by reading the newspaper and looking at the shrine that gets built.

Before i do that, I'm thinking solely about death in that geographic space. In other words, I'm thinking about pavement, an unknown person, a bullet, blood, his last minutes, etc.

But when I learn the broader context, I discover that there was a spat between this person and another guy at his high school, and that a fistfight at the last Raiders game ultimately escalated to this, and that the victim is survived by parents, several uncles and aunts, two siblings, his friends from Xx high school...

Learning more makes it more clear that the death isn't really about me. It exists "in my world" only to the same extent that all these other people in the neighborhood, and their many various realities and circumstances, do. That makes it easier to go about my business because every day I go about my business not too concerned by their world (e.g., by whether Neighbor #2 has job security at the biotech place or if Neighbor #3's yippy dog is in good health).

Of course, we do care about one another's worlds most when a tragedy enters their world. So my thoughts focus on the people who really WERE impacted. So instead of "how can I just walk on that sidewalk where there was blood?" I think "a lot of young people nearby must be hurt and angry right now" and "should I show respect for their loss by looking at the shrine or by keeping a respectful distance?" and "should i drop off a casserole for his parents even though they don't know me, or would that be weird?" It shifts the situation away from something universal that affects me, to something specific that largely affects the victim's family and friends.
posted by salvia at 11:45 AM on May 12, 2013

For me, I would feel at peace with it by dedicating the next good swim, the next good wave, a song sung over the roar of waves...whatever feels right to you...as a bittersweet personal memorial to his memory and to the primal tug of the sea.
posted by desuetude at 10:51 PM on May 13, 2013