Ocean Blue

Finding Nemo is an apropos setting for exploring psychological states.

We begin in the reef, comfort thereof, though of course inevitably subject to tragedy. The tragedy permanently expands the periphery: you are now always vaguely glancing at amorphous portal ahead.

Yet no matter how much you glance, replaying the moments and wondering what you could’ve made different, the portal widens. The days come, until Another One shows, and then you realize your reef mindset doesn’t seem to have the answers for the abyss around the corner. And you can’t stand to lose much more, so you venture forth.

As the mental perimeter expands more, seeking your lost child self so, for a moment, ignoring the crumpledness within, you can find some amusement. Some semblance of progression: new friends, new winds. Continents.

Though with each goodbye and the more you look around, reef surely missing, so everything seems alien and surrounds you. Things full of broken promise. So one puts down all the books that you thought could’ve lit more ahead.

Flying away further, in a hope to recover. Of course, one day, there is nothing left. All surrounding you is an endless blue. Nothing to grab onto.

Suspended in that nothingness, a void for miles, so one could close their eyes and it’d be no different. Whether one wants to capture it as a descent or a water pressure webberized and softly supporting, nevertheless it dawns how words fail. The limits of your world and language. The unknown unknowns. Flashes of the reef once more: a single bed heaved and centered in this murky abyss; the lack of scaling and nothing makes sense.

Ocean blue, given a thought: containing multitudes to where, dared to venture, you may be swallowed in the formlessness.

Finding Nemo or the Latin rendering: Finding Nobody.

The film ends with a unity, back to reef, and all the abyss you could fondly tell. There wasn’t any answer out there. Whether you acknowledge the institutions around you or not, the most solid structure you can hope for is from me. You.

All we have is each other. In unity we naturally make the most of it.

Abyss and ocean with our golden coral blearing; kids, get up for school, it’s starting!