대박

“At my hotel I saw a middle age man lower himself into the deep end of the pool. When I expected him to start swimming, he brought his feet together placed his hands along his thighs and with his head above the surface began to float upright as if standing on a transparent shelf.

 Approaching the pool, I examined him closely - several feet of water separated him from the bottom and there was no device keeping him afloat. ‘Excuse me’, I asked perplexed, ‘why don’t you sink?’ ‘Why should I’, said the man, ‘I don’t won’t to’. ‘Then why don’t you swim’? I questioned. ‘I don’t want to swim’, said the man. ‘What do you do to buoy yourself like that?’ I asked. ‘Can’t you see?’, said the man. ‘I do nothing’. ‘But what’s the trick?’ I asked, watching his every move. ‘Being oneself, that’s the trick’, he said. Shifting in the water his thighs spread, his feet tucked under him, his hands clasping and his hands clasping his shins he became motionless gently bobbling with the movement of the water. ‘Being oneself - that’s all?’ I said. “That’s all’, the man agreed. ‘When I’m myself in the water doing nothing I drown’, I objected. ‘To drown is to do something’, the man said. Doing nothing, being yourself, that’s easily said I thought to myself. ‘Is their a place where I could learn this?’ ‘There is’, he replied, ‘Water’. ‘But do you know someone who can teach me how too?’ ‘I do, the man persisted you can teach yourself’ and with that he turned away bobbling in the water”.

This story is from an unknown source I copied down. I found it in one of my notebooks. It struck me the time. I actually included this in an exhibition I had in 2009. A lot of people commented on the story : D I should of taken it down so people good of focused more attention on the work I made….. No, just joking. I’m glad I posted the story up amongst my other works and it was great to hear that others too enjoyed this man’s talent for floating in water.