This Ocean We Call Life Book Extract

Prologue

"If you look too close at the oceans horizon on the right day, you might notice a haze of heat bouncing off the thin band where the sky meets the water. They call it an optical phenomenon where light bends and refracts to produce an illusion of sorts. Which was what I figured was beyond the horizon itself. Just some illusion. Some fantasy we were told growing up that tricked us into thinking that if only we could reach the horizon and make it into the North all our problems would go away. That if we could somehow dodge the storms, reefs and the sharks and keep our boats together long enough we might just find success. And prosperity and rich’s. Oh and happiness. You know, all that rubbish everyone forces down your throat from an early age. Think happy thoughts they taught us. Dream big. Visualize. It’s all hogwash. Well that’s what I thought anyway.

I don’t mean to be so negative. That’s not why I’m writing you this message. I just need you to know that what we have been told isn’t exactly right. That thinking big and all that other stuff, it’s not enough. I mean how many times had I tried everything I could to reach the horizon and still failed. Over and over and over again. I just gave up in the end because it’s easier that way. No more sharks trailing behind me, no more currents throwing my boat around the seas like a rag doll in a washing machine. And so I stayed on my island, in my own complacency. Inside my little box. But I never stopped watching the horizon because that’s what keeps us going right? Hope is what makes us hold on to the fantasy of the North, that gives some meaning to our trivial lives. Hope is what brainwashes us into thinking that something greater lays beyond the skyline and that if we follow the magic recipe and if we’re super lucky we might just get a taste of the moonshine.

I figured that the North had to be a mirage and I’m not the only one who thought it. Hardly anyone says it out loud of course. We’re all trying so hard to delude ourselves into thinking we’ve got it all sorted but hardly any of us do. And what even is success? How does any one person define such a complex word. I had heard stories of people who had ‘made it.’ People who had found their purpose or their divine calling but the hope the news bought me soon turned stale. It was all a lie. It had to be. My whole life my family had moved from one island to another but the horizon never got any closer. We watched boats go past from the shoreline, chugging along beneath the darkened skies, but I was smart enough to know that most would never make it. And I figured that was just life. Fate. That we all got dealt a hand and that was that. No amount of positive thinking or wishing it was different was ever going to change anything.

Boy was I wrong. 

It’s strange how you can believe something your whole life and in the flick of a finger, what you thought, that belief you held so tight, is just gone. One moment you believed one thing and the next, something completely different. Do you get what I mean? Are you following me? I’m sorry if I’m going too fast it’s just that I’ve got a lot to tell you. She told me that when I was ready I had to pass everything I was taught on. And that’s what I’m trying to do now. ‘That’s your purpose’ she told me. ‘That’s everyone’s purpose.’ And so if I tell you maybe you’ll do the same thing. Maybe you’ll help spread the light.

I know I’m getting ahead of myself and so I’m going to take you back to the very beginning. Not the very very beginning, like the Big Bang or the first day when the heavens and the earth were created or any of those other possibilities, but to the dawn of my own awakening. So do me a favor and pay close attention would you. Some of what I am about to tell you is pretty complex but I imagine that if you’ve lived in the same world I have, you can probably handle it. We are, after all, capable of extraordinary things. You just have to trust in the magic."