Fishes

What is it that so completely captures our attention when we see the fish in the aquarium? I love to stand and watch the fish swim; I feel an odd affinity with them. Not that I would like to be a fish in a tank ... but the patterns of their movement, their unconscious beauty and their muscular power somehow embody an aspect of my dreams. Watching them is like a meditation (or more properly, perhaps: watching the fish is a meditation).

Part of me wonders whether it matters -- to them? to me? -- that the fish are trapped in the artificial environment. But of course one aspect of existence is to live within an environment, within a context, and to learn how to live most fully within those limits. The fish don't have to wax philosophical about it; they just are where and how they are. All their energy goes into swimming.

The fish are beautiful and strange. They ignore each other, and yet every movement communicates clear knowledge of where the others are.

I move from tank to tank, watching. Crisscrossing in the airy building from one viewing spot to the next, mingling with crowds then standing alone, I watch. The fish don't care that I am there. But there is something meaningful to me about the fact that they are there.