Tony
In comedian Tim Minchin’s skit of the first-ever fish to get feet, the fish Tony goes to his ocean-dwelling friends and mumbles:
“I’m getting out.”
About a week ago I was struck with the notion of moving myself to live on an island far, far away. This happened when we had consecutive evenings of stormy weather after hot, humid days. I was thrown into the idea of island-life. A one-way ticket type of escape. Scrolling through near-amusing, near-depressing articles of how to cope with island-life and changing to that lifestyle I knew that I would be largely uncomfortable for a while living that way. But a much larger part of my brain was going ooohhhh, in an excited and wondrous manner.
It’s the paradigm of “what’s stopping you?”
I’ve been told many times, and often by my Dad, “why not?” But for all the things that have received that response they have not been as wildly out there as, say, moving to an island.
Connotations for me have always been sensible, loyal, responsible, reliable but there’s a visible part of me that has manifested in the last 5 years of really desiring a drastic change of scene.
Tony the fish does so. He evolves and gets out onto dry land with his new feet and freedom.
In the second series of the Doctor Who revival, the show’s protagonist ponders on this exact question of an inherent curiosity of doing the things that are deemed ridiculous or foolish. The Doctor and Ida are stood before a black pit that goes down an unknowable distance and the conversation goes as follows:
‘There it is again. That itch. Go down go down go down go down.’
‘The urge to jump. Do you know where it comes from, that sensation? Genetic heritage. Ever since we were primates in the trees. It’s our body’s way of testing us. Calculating whether or not we can reach the next branch.’
‘No, that’s not it. That’s too kind. It’s not the urge to jump, it’s deeper than that. It’s the urge to fall!’
A spine-chilling score of a lonely string instrument accompanies this scene, evoking an archaic and near-sinister sense of the unknown that the characters face. It’s a beautiful piece of music and captures the honest allure of jumping into the pit, taking that step into ‘the other’. It’s the internal side of getting out, facing the deeper inside of your mind that implores you to take the risk.
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