When we think about nature, we often imagine balance, ecosystems in harmony, waves rising and falling with rhythm, the shore holding steady against the sea. But Steve Mentz reminds us that this vision of stability doesn’t hold up when we actually pay attention to a massive part of nature, the ocean. In A Poetics of Planetary Water, he borrows Adam Nicolson’s phrase, “strife is justice,” to describe how ecological systems thrive through tension, conflict, and constant change (Mentz, Poetics of Planetary Water, p. 151). The ocean teaches us that instability, not balance, is the true condition of life, and that lesson changes how we think about both ecology and ourselves.
We see this truth played out every day on the shoreline. The waves erase footprints as fast as they are made. Hurricanes reshape beaches in a matter of hours. The “justice” of the beach isn’t a peaceful balance, but an endless battle between land and water, constantly moving and never settled. As Mentz explains, Nicolson’s tide pools reveal a Heraclitean vision of the world: “Nothing is stable, and yet everything coheres” (Mentz, Poetics of Planetary Water, p. 151). In other words, order doesn’t emerge despite strife; it appears through it.
This idea challenges the comforting “green” ecological ideal of sustainability, where everything is in harmony. Instead, the ocean tells a harsher but more honest story. Systems survive by adapting to disruption. Coherence comes only in temporary, fragile forms, like sandbars that will one day be washed away.
That vision can be unsettling, but it’s also liberating. If strife is justice, then change isn’t failure; it’s the rule of life. The ocean doesn’t offer us peace or permanence. It offers us dynamism. To live with water is to accept instability as our ground, or better yet, our current. And maybe the most human thing we can do is learn how to float.
Great post, as you ground your interpretation and argument in the text. You write, “This idea challenges the comforting “green” ecological ideal of sustainability, where everything is in harmony. Instead, the ocean tells a harsher but more honest story. Systems survive by adapting to disruption. Coherence comes only in temporary, fragile forms, like sandbars that will one day be washed away.” This is the kernel of a larger essay/discovery, which I hope you will continue to explore. Good work!
Hi Omar, you had so many amazing points! Something that stuck out to me was ‘change isn’t failure’. Part of our society is valuing permanence/believing in it. When some things in our lives become unstable it is easy to turn the narrative onto ourselves, that we caused it to happen by some fault of our own & that it is unnatural. Looking to the ocean and seeing instability in its most natural form definitely serves as a way to rethink and re-approach our own lives, not as a failure when things change, but as natural. Thank you for sharing!
Hola Omar, I have to say that was beautifully written and well said. You have these punctual statements in your paragraphs that really pack a punch and allow the reader to pause and think. It’s a true gift, and it’s done in such an organic and humanizing way that it doesn’t come off as preachy or pretentious. You really said it best, “all we can do is learn how to float.” Put, if the world is ever changing, then so shall we and our ways of thinking and embracing that change, even if failure is looming in the back of one’s mind. Just like Mentz’s version of the open ocean, we should be the unwavering vessel that’s there to explore wherever the sea may take us. Great post!