Blue Mind - In coversation with J. Nichols

A great teacher of mine once said: "There is no work; only love in action." Whenever I find myself in the midst of some heinous task on this trip, like biking uphill 8 miles without pause, hauling my bike and belongings down a 1/4 mile of sandy road, huddling under the eve of some grangehall for shelter from the rain and trying to pump and flat tire... it can seem like an awful lot of work. But it's then I have to remember: I signed up for this. I'm doing this because I love it. For the uncertainty of bicycle adventure, for to see all of this best coast, and be awed by the ocean I grew up by. It's the same reason we're doing this work for sustainable fisheries. We didn't get on our bikes to ride 2700+ miles out of fear that there might not be any fish left in the ocean when we're old. We did so out of a love for the bounty of the sea. 

When I spoke with J. Nichols in Carmel a few days ago, this was where we connected. J spent 20 years researching sea turtles as a result of finding peace of mind at the water-- and because "nobody asks you questions underwater." I knew he was serious when I asked him what the ocean meant to him, and he responded "For me it's my source of joy, and wonder and awe and romance, and connection with the planet I live on."

This isn't the answer we are often taught; that the ocean covers 71% of the planet, gives us jobs and food and a stable climate. Tbough these economic and ecological pieces are important, they're not the whole picture. It leaves out the emotional component-- perhaps the context in which we first became aquainted with the ocean. 

"We're not good at talking about that as formal problem solvers. We leave out the cognitive, emotional, psychological and spiritual benefits of a healthy ocean." Perhaps this seems like common sense to us ocean-lovers, but it's a realization that's often overlooked in the ocean conservation field. This is something J spent years to find out: "I spent way too long in school in various graduate degrees and nobody ever mentioned 'Hey, water is a source of emotional health."

Why should we be talking of the feeling of the ocean here, when there are so many more concerning things happening with the ocean? Acidification, plastic pollution, overfishing, sea level rise... Nichols made the point that leaving out this part of the conversation is the most serious issue facing the ocean: "People who have devoted thier lives to protecting and restoring the ocean aren't factoring in one of the greatest and most motivating benefits about the ocean: how it makes us feel."

Leaving it out, means that we're undervaluing the ocean. Spoken like a true resource economist, J said: "When we undervalue anything or anyone, bad things are are going to happen."

Not only are we undervaluing it, we're missing an opportunity. Ocean conservation groups, like most environmental non-profits, are in the business of behavior change. Yet, thier expertise lies in ocean ecology and fundraising. It's actually quite rare to find a social scientist working with a non-profit, and even rarer to find a neuropsychologist. Yet, any successful ad-campaign by private companies uses core, raw human emotion to accomplish thier goal (think Subaru, McDonald's, Coca-cola: Love, Lovin' Happiness...) But the non-profit world has chosen to stick with fear, guilt, and factoids. 

Every conversation I have speaking with people on the road reminds me of this. If I were to start with "Did you know there may not be any living coral reefs by 2040?" I would get blank stares ay best, probably ruin someone's day, and maybe even provoke some anger. Instead, we share excitement: "Yeah, we are biking all the way down the coast! Yeah all the way to Baja! Yeah it's gonna be an awesome ride, it already has been!" Most of the time, they're excited that their piece of coast was along the route and that they met us. When we say we're raising money for sustainbly managed fisheries, they're already coming from a place of excitement, and they understand we're doing this out of passion and the same personal emotional connection to the ocean as they have. Often times, that's something they can get behind, and then we're really getting somewhere.

We don't just love to ocean for how it feels. We also love it for how it tastes: Seafood can have exactly the same emotional connection that coastline does, sometimes more. If you've ever had fresh fish or crab, oysters or clams, shared them with loved ones, or had them by the seaside, there's no doubt it left you with far more than just calories. As J said, "It's not just protein. It would be rude to call it protein and money." Just as we can undervalue the ocean by overlooking its psychological weight, we can do the same with seafood: "If we undervalue food and are detached from it-- who grew it, caught it, cooked it-- the love and the care that went into it, we undervalue what we've put in our body, in the same way that we undervalue a healthy coast and ocean."

Can emotional value really be included in the economics of seafood? Ask yourself, why did lobster go from being peasant food to the luxury food? How can a single Blue Fin Tuna sell for over a million dollars? It's not just the market...

For Lluc and I, much of our day is spent around food. Constantly snacking, picking up a thing or two at a roadside stand we pass, cooking together in the evening. Admittedly, it's a lot of what we think about during the day. When we're hungry,  we get snappy at each other and overwhelmed, and we have to keep ourselves satiated to keep going. More than just calories, the food relaxes us. Soothes us. It reminds us of where we are, especially when we're eating from the local produce and fish stands we pass daily. When our bodies eat, so do our minds. It's this intense relationship between the mind and food that grounds us in place: we are what we eat, and we are this place, this community that grew/raised/caught this food, prepared this food. We are all of it. This, I think, is the Blue Mind J Nichols was talking about. The collaborative, calm, feeling of wholeness. It's the feeling we get by the water-- any water. There is no life without it, and it is what makes our Earth home. 

When we parted, J gave me a blue marble. A symbol of our little blue dot. I hold it in my hand and try and concentrate on the feeling. What would it be like if we were all of one blue mind?