For the past ten years, whenever I hit a beautiful coastline, I’ve kept a habit that most people call insane: I swim out. Way out.
I swim until the noisy crowds on the sand shrink into tiny, irrelevant dots. I swim until the roar of the waves hitting the shore becomes nothing more than a faint, ghostly echo. In places where there are no warning signs, my urge to dissolve into the heart of the ocean only grows stronger.
People always ask me, with a mix of worry and judgment: “Aren’t you terrified? What if you cramp up? What if a rogue wave takes you out? That’s it. Game over.”
My usual response is a shrug and a smirk: “If I go, I go. Big deal. We’re born from dust; returning to the deep is just going home.”
But look, behind that “don’t-give-a-damn” attitude is a cold, hard calculation. This isn’t a suicide mission; it’s mastery. I know my body. I’ve spent a decade honing my skills. Based on ten years of data, the probability of something going wrong is microscopic.
However, I don’t ignore that tiny fraction of risk. Instead of fearing it, I embrace it.
To me, if life were to end in the middle of the vast, blue nowhere, that’s a beautiful, stoic ending. This acceptance isn’t blind recklessness—it’s the premium I’m willing to pay for the privilege of absolute silence.
Out there, in the deep, where it’s just the rhythm of the water and the infinite sky, I experience a level of peace that most people will never know. It’s the moment I feel the Earth itself recharging every single cell in my body. I’m immersed in a space of pure passion, far away from the pressures and the petty calculations of daily life.
Given the choice between giving up my passion for “perfect safety” or tasting total bliss and accepting whatever comes next… I’ll take the second option every single time.
I don’t know if there will be a swim where I don’t return to the shore. But what I do know, with absolute certainty, is that in these moments, I am truly living.
Through my lens, swimming into the deep isn’t about flirting with death. It’s about flirting with life. It’s a journey worth taking. It’s a life worth living.
Give it a go. Or don’t. Life’s a ride, anyway.
