An Enduring Landscape

There is only one landscape on the surface of the earth that has remained unchanged for tens of thousands of years. It has not been carved out by erosion or shifted by earthquake. It hasn't cracked from drought or been eaten away by the virus of mankind. The revolving seasons leave this landscape relatively intact and the simple colour palette remains fairly monotone.

Find yourself floating on the ocean, far away from land, and you will know what I am talking about. The stretching surface of the deep sea was seen in much the same way by pterodactyls and breaching whales. And although little has changed here, it is the largest landscape on the planet.

Yet, it is in a constant state of metamorphosis. Its chaotic patterns of wave and chop and swell are constantly moving and changing, never remaining the same even for a moment.

And what is interesting is that no matter how chaotic the sea appears to be in its movement, once the heaving waves complete their long journey to the shore, the dizzying patterns turn into regular steady parallel lines that break on the sand in a very repetitive and soothing pattern.

The ocean and her mysteries have provoked my melancholic curiosities. Her form, ever-changing... her patterns, ever-reliable, leave me quiet and contemplative. She is full of paradox, and so am I.