There is something about staring at the ocean. It just goes on forever with a land break every now and then. It represents the timeless continuum humans are caught up in. Human species go back 3 million years. Our own species seem to have been around at least half of that time.
That being true, one has to consider that language also has to have been around that long. Communication had to have happened in order for the species to stay alive. So, when archaeologists find cave paintings dating back 35,000 years, those paintings are believable and instructive. When archaeologists find cuneiform tablets with writing dating to 3000-3500 BCE, then we also know that those tablets represent years and years and years for the writing to have developmentally reached that point. Humans have been around a really long time, as has human writing.
Staring at an ocean can enhance one's comprehension of the distant past because it too stretches on forever, inspiring one to think of what has happened on its watery surface for eons. The ocean makes one curious.
And from this curiosity, I allow myself to think of the world's origins and human origins. It makes me know that the first 11 chapters of Genesis is something recent. Although traces from human origins are in the text, the whole story is not—most of the story is not. It seems to have been condensed. Thousands and thousands and thousands of years of human activity have been made into story form. I choose to think the story is in allegorical form rather than literal form because too many years passed before the story was perpetuated in writing.
A little view of the ocean inspires such thoughts and much, much more. I keep my ocean pictures around for just such moments.
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