Waves

It is amazing sometimes to think that we live on a world that is mostly water, oceans, rivers and streams are not the aberration, but the norm. It is solid land that breaches the surface of the water, rather than the water breaching the land. And when the icebergs melt, even if we don't find ourselves playing through our own version of Waterworld, we may as well move to Holland as to Iowa. And with all that water, is it any surprise that people have been using it as their own private liquid telegraphs for thousands of years.

I'm talking of course about messages in a bottle. The concept is simple enough. Just toss a bottle in the water. Put a note inside. Do the second thing before the first, or you may find the process a little confusing and awkward. Then wait for the tide to take it up. Who will your message reach it? A better question is who can't your message reach. With most of the earth filled with water, with so many thousands and thousands of miles of coastline between and around the continents, why your message could end up positively any place at all.

And that is the appeal of the message in a bottle. It is a message that is likely to reach no one, but can in theory reach anyone. It is an open statement, an open appeal, an open message, an open ended venture. Today people may stick to Twitter and blogs and bulletin boards, but there is something refreshingly daring about the courage to finish that old fashioned glass bottle of Coke, scrawl your message to the world on a piece of paper, tuck it inside the neck, making sure to get rid of the straw first, and let is sail on the waves.