It's easy to find a lake and think of it only in terms of it's surface. You hike around it, you camp at its shores, you sail across it, you go for a swim, or maybe you do this stand-up paddling thing I never really understood. But if you spend some intimate time with the lake, like floating on its surface for hours, you can't help but wonder what's beneath. Most lakes are too deep and too murky to just dive down and have a look.
But it's fascinating to think of what you might find. How many fish there might be and how large the largest ones are. There's probably a lot of trash that people have dropped into the water, but some of it might be valuable even. Maybe there's gold? There could be old anchors, whole sunken boats, or even corpses down there. Secrets that the lake is not ready to give up. Lost knowledge. Things that no person on earth might know, just waiting to be uncovered by the first person who dares to dive down.
But are you willing to do that? Maybe you are a certified diver and have all the know how and gear, I certainly don't. I'm not sure if you're allowed to just dive in any lake, maybe you'll even need to get a permit. I'm certain, though, that you'll need permission from the lake. If the time is not right, the water might be too murky, the currents might be too strong or you might even get surprised by a storm and endanger your own life.
On the other hand, the conditions are just super right sometimes. You might get these rare opportunities to peek beneath the surface without diving gear or any real effort. The water might be extraordinarily clear, the sun might illuminate it just right or the water level might be extraordinarily low. Then you, at least in part, get some true impressions of the things you could previously only speculate about. You find out which of your assumption, guesses, concerns and dreams were true and which you'll need to abandon.
So let's say, for the sake of argument, that you peeked beneath the surface. Either you were lucky or you even spent the effort to get some diving gear. Or maybe you got one of these remote controlled underwater drones. However you achieved it: Are you satisfied with what you found? If you actually found some gold, probably yes. Maybe you found a really cool shipwreck or something totally unexpected that's just interesting enough to make the experience enjoyable. But let's say you just found some trash. Old car tires, soda cans, bottle caps, that sort of thing. Maybe you didn't even find any fish.
Are you disappointed? Probably. I would be. I mean, there could have been gold, ruins of an old civilization, the corpse of a long lost person, just at least one decent fish, or anything worth talking about. But there just wasn't anything there. There never was. Even at the time you were floating on the lake's surface, dreaming about all the things that could be down there, there was nothing.
But is it the lake's fault there was nothing down there? The reason you expected some interesting things below its surface was that it made the experience of floating on it more exciting. You dreamt up those mysteries, so you're responsible for coping with the fact that none of them held. How will you look at the lake from now on? Will you still enjoy the experience of floating on its surface, or will it just not be the same, now you know what's below.
If you don't, maybe it's time to move on to a different lake. Only then you might be able to conjure up some new mysteries. Only then you might get that uncertainty back that you need in your life to feel less like you're treading water and more like you're swimming. Go on, the lake won't judge you. If you ever need to return to some safer shores, it will still be there.
