Living Like It’s Shark Week, Take 3
It’s Shark Week, or at least that’s the situation over at Discovery Channel. The annual, virtual immersion into the world of cartilaginous fish has been adopted by your author as some sort of metaphor, but she’s not sure for what.
“Live every week like it’s shark week” is a puzzle. In fact, this statement in a 30 Rock episode lurks at the periphery of Medical Lessons year-round. By now I should confess I’ve never watched an entire Shark Week program. But that doesn’t stop me from wondering about the significance.
Remotely, it’s about mental health. Science, too. I could head into a discourse on cartilage and the alleged beneficial effects for illnesses like cancer, but I don’t believe there’s any evidence to support those claims. Surely, Shark Week has to do with whether you embrace more risk or take a safe route, swim where divers go or watch TV about nature. At another level, it’s about time – a reminder that there are only so many days and nights in each week, in each month, in each year, by which we mark our lives.
So it’s about mortality. Maybe.
An alternative theory is that Shark Week is entirely devoid of deep meaning. It could be nothing more than a tool by which the Discovery Channel turns a profit in August. This year, the event was delayed until August 12. Although I’ve never taken a course in cable network programming, I would hazard a guess that this scheduling change had to do with the end of the Olympics programming that same day.
For 2012, I’ve decided to celebrate Shark Week by not watching TV. Furthermore, I won’t write on anything that has to do with breast cancer or hard science. This morning, I walked to a beach and went for a swim before breakfast. It was fantastic.
Enjoy August! And please rest up, dear readers, because I’m likely to get serious again, soon,
ES
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Elaine,
Isn’t it funny how we can interject meaning, deep or otherwise, into something like Shark Week on the Disney Channel? I haven’t heard of this particular designation.
I just have to ask, did you think about sharks at all when you went for that swim?
Thanks for the post.
Hi Nancy,
No, I didn’t think about sharks while swimming. I thought about being physically strong.
I too have never heard of Shark Week! How is that possible?! :-)
But swimming before breakfast sounds like a lovely antidote to All Things Shark-Related. In fact, “before breakfast” is one of my favourite times of the day, especially on Sunday mornings when most of the world seems to be still sleeping in. Enjoy…