Jellyfish in the River Stour

It was a lovely summers morning. I sipped my tea, flicking absentmindedly through my social media timeline, mainly considering the opportunity the weather gave me to take myself and the teenager off to the beach for a swim. Until that is, my eye snagged on an influencer’s photo of a jellyfish with the caption, artfully slashed across it, announcing; “Watch out swimmers, there are stinging jellyfish in the Stour!!!”

The exclamations were hers, not mine – I mistrust multiple exclamation marks - nevertheless, not only was my eye snagged, so was my fear.

I don’t like jellyfish, especially those of the stinging variety. I’m going to make a safe guess that you aren’t that fond of the critters either. I began to reconsider my swimming plans as my imagination insisted I live through the pain of a sting and the icky feeling of a sub-aqua presence touching my ankle, as if it was happening right there, at my kitchen table.

And then I realised I was being ridiculous.

I was fearful of something that hadn’t happened, which, indeed, might not happen. There *may* be jellyfish in the River Stour now, as you’re reading this. There were clearly jellyfish in the river when this oh-so-helpful lady thought she would issue her public service announcement. But that doesn’t mean they are everywhere in the Stour and there all of the time. It also doesn’t necessarily mean that there are jellyfish in the water just around and up the coast, where I was thinking of going swimming.

We went to the beach despite, or in spite of, that lady’s virtuous warning signal, and swam happily, without any jellyfish jostling.

It was a good reminder for me.

I believe what can start out as a helpful intention to warn or inform others – an act of public worthiness and obsequious citizenship - often ends in being a plain old mongering of fear. I also believe we all do this, usually inadvertently, because modern technology enables us far too much. Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.

Yes, I know, these kinds of things aren’t intended to spread fear as their primary objective. It is meant as a helpful passing on of information. Such human kindness back in the days when the reach of that warning would be one to one, or maybe one to five or even one to twenty was definitely a good thing. But now we can broadcast our warnings to thousands in a quick click. Sometimes that’s useful, but I contend that most times it is adding to the anxiety levels of everyone else, encumbering and restricting their lives.

I don’t believe the human psyche has kept track with our technological developments and the dissemination rate of so much information these have delivered upon us. All of the doom and gloom opinions, the advance warnings of dire things that might happen, the reportage of atrocities and disasters that we live-stream night and day from the other side of the world, whilst we sit helpless with our impotent compassion for the unknown and unknowable victims is actually, I believe, a terrible kind of tyranny.

In the past, news like this, was knowledge our ancestors had time to process – information trickled slowly, was necessarily written in the past tense and so felt less imminent and threatening. The focus of our forefathers’ daily attention existed on a more human scale – the people they knew, the places they could walk to (or ride a horse to). The problems and threats people faced were no less troublesome than present-day ones. Life was much less safe back then (just consider infant mortality and childbirth death rates for instance), but history does not reveal levels of fear and anxiety in the populace the way we, in the here and now, seem to suffer from.

Yes, some of this is down to progress – a greater willingness to recognise and be open about our emotions, but my theory is that my levels of fear and anxiety are down to an overload of ‘helpful’ warnings – such as the ‘jellyfish’ one. I’m going to add to that list not very well thought out or justified warnings too.

Many of the mystic and spiritual schools encourage a practice and discipline of some form of meditation; taking the time to be still, quiet and focus on our own presence. My take on this is probably much the same as yours – that having the skill to be present to one’s own perception, at all levels of that (our objective faculties and deeper to our innate connection with spirit) – is to remove ourselves from the grip of fear and anxiety. This is because, despite the many ‘dangerous’ possibilities of life, all of us are, in any single moment, free of danger and safe. Yes, even those of us who are passing from this life to what awaits beyond. If we were to recognise this and live this truth, we might find that much of our fear-driven societal behaviour would dissolve away.

This is my belief. This is my public service announcement to the world. This is why I counsel myself to take each dire warning and reportage of potential pain or upset with a good dose of pragmatism. This is why I work to trust my own instincts, my own perception and experiences and allow myself the gift of putting that above everyone else’s commentary. It’s tough work of course. I often fail and have to relearn. It is, I think, valuable effort nonetheless.

So next time you’re subjected to a similar “Jellyfish in the Stour” announcement by somebody, or some organisation, purporting to ‘just be helpful’, take a few moments and ask yourself some critical questions.

You might find you live a freer life because of it.

Rachel x