There is a common misconception that a wave consists of water traveling over the sea surface, when in fact it is energy that is moving through the medium of the water giving it a particular shape. An analogy would be that of a whip that is cracked. Energy snakes out from one's hand along the length of the whip to deliver a nasty sting but the whip itself doesn't actually move freely towards the target. At sea waves are generated by wind energy which disrupts the sea surface creating haphazard patterns. Over time these disturbances become arranged into more coherent patterns which we see as waves. As energy passes through the medium of the water it does cause the water to move, but only slightly, and the molecules return to their basic positions once the wave has passed. Pretor-Pinney, author of The Wave Watcher's Companion, writes that basically waves just "borrow" the water briefly to express their form. The wave energy transfers from molecule to molecule very quickly without ever attaching to just one position or part of the water.
He then points out that we too are constantly changing, though much slower of course. The atoms that make up our adult bodies are not all those with which we were born, and should we live long enough it's fair to suggest that all atoms and molecules will eventually be replaced, making us a completely different and new being from who we were on our first day on Earth. Like the waters both within and outside us, our very physical nature in which we invest so much energy and identity in, is in constant flux. We are continuously breaking down and forming up, transferring old material for new, borrowing atoms from the world to shape ourselves! And so like waves that borrow water for their energy to flow, could we not also be seen as energy borrowing temporary forms to express ourselves? In 1835 the French zoologist Dujardin discovered protoplasm, the magical and mysterious, and formerly secret, ingredient of life. To paraphrase Marks, protoplasm is 75% water and is found in every living cell of all living, and only living, organisms. Protoplasm is the stuff that is "alive" in animals and plants and is believed to be the first life form on Earth. Humans cannot create protoplasm, we have to receive it from plants or plant-eating animals. Despite difficulties in actually defining just what protoplasm is, its clear that without it life cannot exist. Surfers live for the death of the wave. In its last moments the breaking wave offers a place for us to play. But as Pretor-Pinney states energy never dies, it only changes form. So the end of the wave is not really the end. Some of the energy converts into sound waves as the crashing of surf, some energy become small tremors felt on the beach as the wave meets the shore or reef, and some energy even converts into heat through the friction of rocks and sand. If we are energy, or soul or spirit, then where does our energy go when we end? Does it continue to a place of rest as in Heaven, is it converted and recycled as in reincarnation, is it reabsorbed by the universe for other use like the atoms that we discard? What other manifestations of energy are there that we can't even imagine?
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