The Japanese fishermen had done everything right.
They caught the fish fresh from the ocean, placed them carefully into oxygenated tanks, and adjusted the temperature to match the sea before they were overnighted to restaurant groups across the Pacific via express air freight. They fed them, kept them in motion, added soft lights and gentle currents. But no matter what they did, the fish kept dying in transit. One day, a fisherman slipped a single octopus into the tank. It was a risk. The octopus would, of course, eat a few of the fish. But the other fish arrived alive and alert. They had spent the night being chased.
“We’re tired of the good times,” a European friend remarked of America from afar.
“Everyone needs an existential threat,” offered another.
“Have you considered having kids?”
Okay, so maybe a child isn’t an octopus, but they’ll still chase us out of stillness. The argument goes: a comfortable tank with perfect lighting and optimal fish-to-nutrient ratio leaves us nothing to do but float around in circles, until we float our way to the top. Eventually, it kills us. An octopus in the tank, however, keeps things interesting.
The octopus slips into our lives in different ways: a child, a mortgage, a deadline, a gym buddy who texts “ready?” when we’re about to slink back from responsibility and crawl into bed. The key to existential safety, it turns out, isn't the absence of a threat, but the presence of a commitment: something that demands more of us than mere comfort will allow. The octopus introduces consequence, one condition that comfort can’t supply.
said it best when she wrote:You don't need another aesthetic, you need stronger values.
We don't need comfort, we need commitment.
And if you need a rule of thumb, here’s mine: choose the octopus that turns you into someone you’d be proud to become. It may cost you some scales, but it will give you a life. Maybe that octopus is a newborn wailing at 3am, a partner who keeps you honest about your lived versus stated priorities, or a friend who coaches Solidcore at 6am (and is definitely expecting you to be there when you’re in town 🫶). Either way, the principle holds: let something catch you, so you have a reason to swim.