Guilt

13/01/24

Today was a day for guilt. It started early when I caught sight of a disposable vape while swimming. It lay about 15 metres down and though I tried I could not get to it. Just out of reach my lungs constricted and I started to get the familiar spasms in my chest that come from the body fighting for breath. But I’ve done a freediving course and I know one’s body can last long after these convulsions kick in. But I panicked and I didn’t fight it. I swam away without looking down anymore. But that vape stayed in my head: “why should fish die while I survive?” I know pondering this question is futile and not as simple as I posed it, the vape a drop in the ocean (pun intended) in the global plastic problem. Yet, I felt guilty.

The day was obviously doomed from the vape sighting as next I was consumed by guilt as beach combing I picked up some shells and not others. “Who am I to determine that some are more beautiful and worthy of collection?”

It’s an even sillier thought to have and thing to feel guilty about I know, but it’s just one of those days.

On top of it all I’d killed thousands of flies by driving into them at 120km/hr. This was all too much.

I stopped in Rotorua to visit the hot springs, I didn't cheer me up. They stank.