The “Anthropocene Reviewed,” a podcast hosted by author and YouTuber John Green, reviews different facets of the human experience on a five-star scale. Inspired by this idea, I decided to give it a shot, too. Why not? I’ve got time to kill, and I also happen to be an authority on the human experience. So, today, I will be reviewing the human activity of swimming.
I grew up in the pool. My mom started taking me to swim lessons when I was just a few months old. My older brother was a decent swimmer, so I guess my mom wanted to harness whatever talent was in my veins and give me a head start. In the beginning, swimming was just a hobby. While I don’t exactly remember how I felt about the sport at the time, I think I enjoyed it. My local swim club had a “levels” system in place, and, let me tell you, almost nothing brought me as much joy as finally moving up to the next tier, the blue level.
But, time passes and expectations change. When I moved back to China, my mom decided that I should start swimming competitively, so I tried out for my school’s swim team. Ten-year-old me did not know what he was getting himself into. In the beginning, I tried to tough it out. I tried to remember what made me fall in love with the sport in the first place. But, deep down, I knew something had changed.
I dreaded the two-hour practices that I attended three to five times each week. Only the promise of using the hot tub after training, my mom, and the fact that my times were getting faster kept me going. But then, even my times began to slip. I equated my self-worth with those times. And despite swimming so much, I was getting nowhere. I felt trapped in both the 50-meter stretch of water and the sport of swimming itself. So, I quit, ending my 13-year relationship with the sport.
I didn’t stop swimming completely, though; I just stopped swimming competitively. I realized that swimming wasn’t about how fast I could go but about getting to know myself and the world around me.
After I quit the swim team, I began swimming on my own — whenever I got the chance, I swam in the ocean. Open-water swimming is one of the best things this world can offer. It was meditative liked swimming in a pool, but without the torture of pressure-inducing competitions. With open-water swimming, there are no rules. No boundaries. There’s no telling where you’re going to go. You’re at the mercy of the natural world, and there’s something so beautiful and pure about that. For me, it is only when I am drifting in the ocean, alone with my thoughts, that I feel totally connected to the world around me.
As torturous as swim practices were, I can’t help but to be grateful for swimming’s presence in my life. So, in good faith, I give swimming three of five stars.
Graphic by Sesame Gaetsaloe/The Choate News
