Deep calls to deep

'Why do we think so horizontally?'

That was the conclusion I came to after visiting the Deep exhibition in the Art Science Museum.

(Also, random fact: I always pronounce it 'the art see-yonce museum' in my head, using the French pronunciation. Pretentious, I know. Strangely it doesn't happen for other things, like life science or scientist. Hmm.)

The exhibition lets you descend through the depths of the deep ocean, to see the flora and fauna there through pictures and preserved specimens. You go from 150m below sea level all the way to 'The Abyssmal Plain', which is the bottom of the Sea. The creatures are weird and wonderful - they have bodies which light can pass through, or are gelatinous in nature, some use the colour bright red as a camouflage because red is the first wavelength to disappear in the water, many of them are bioluminescent, and they produce energy via chemosynthesis rather than photosynthesis because of the lack of light.

But despite the averse conditions - lack of light, food and warmth, the different levels of the sea are teeming with life. In fact, the sea floor is thought to have a more diverse range of animal life than the Amazon Rain Forest and the Great Barrier Reef combined!

And yet here I have been, walking on the thin layer of earth floating above this whole other world, and thinking of things with human created names like 'mathematics', 'buses' and 'visas', for the past 18 years.

Sometimes now, when I am walking to buses or running on roads or combing my hair, I suddenly remember that below my feet lie fathoms and fathoms. And I arrest myself momentarily - I am so small, and there is so much to be seen.

I feel like that businessman in 'The Little Prince'

"Three and two make five. Five and seven make twelve. Twelve and three make fifteen. Good morning. Fifteen and seven make twenty-two. Twenty-two and six make twenty-eight. I haven't time to light it again. Twenty-six and five make thirty-one. Phew! Then that makes five-hundred-and-one million, six-hundred-twenty-two-thousand, seven-hundred-thirty-one."

"Five hundred million what?" asked the little prince.

"Eh? Are you still there? Five-hundred-and-one million--I can't stop . . . I have so much to do! I am concerned with matters of consequence. I don't amuse myself with balderdash. Two and five make seven . . ."

"Five-hundred-and-one million what?" repeated the little prince, who never in his life had let go of a question once he had asked it.

The businessman raised his head.

"During the fifty-four years that I have inhabited this planet, I have been disturbed only three times. The first time was twenty-two years ago, when some giddy goose fell from goodness knows where. He made the most frightful noise that resounded all over the place, and I made four mistakes in my addition. The second time, eleven years ago, I was disturbed by an attack of rheumatism. I don't get enough exercise. I have no time for loafing. The third time--well, this is it! I was saying, then, five-hundred-and-one millions--"

"Millions of what?"

The businessman suddenly realized that there was no hope of being left in peace until he answered this question.

"Millions of those little objects," he said, "which one sometimes sees in the sky."

"Flies?"

"Oh, no. Little glittering objects."

"Bees?"

"Oh, no. Little golden objects that set lazy men to idle dreaming. As for me, I am concerned with matters of consequence. There is no time for idle dreaming in my life."

Surrounded by beauty and yet I bend my head, get down to the grind, count and count and think I doing something of great importance when - why can't I see - importance has been done, it is all around me.