Shark: Part 5

Therapeutic Center – Ocean

 

Approximately 269 million people around the world regularly use drugs.[1]

In a recent study published in a journal of experimental biology, scientists in the Czech Republic investigated how methamphetamine, a drug increasingly used, affects wild river trout.

BBC, 16.08.2021

In 2019, scientists in the United Kingdom found cocaine in freshwater shrimp in all fifteen rivers from which samples were taken.

Beta, 05.03.2023

Fish in pools downstream from water treatment plants changed their gender from male to female within weeks due to exposure to hormone-altering chemicals found in contraceptive pills.

BBC, 02.04.2023

Recent studies have shown that antidepressants can cause a range of behavioral changes in aquatic organisms, from aggression to light attraction and increased “bravery.”

Blic, 18.09.2022

 Scientists have found that some sharks near the Brazilian coast test positive for cocaine. Biologists tested 13 Brazilian sharpnose sharks taken from waters near the shores of Rio de Janeiro, finding high levels of cocaine in their muscles and livers. The concentrations were as much as 100 times higher than those found in other aquatic creatures tested previously. Experts believe the cocaine reaches the water through illegal production labs or via users’ waste.

Danas, 23.07.2024

 

In 1975, Steven Spielberg made the film Jaws. The plot takes place in a small coastal town where a shark kills a girl who goes for a night swim. The sheriff closes the beach, but the mayor, fearing a loss of tourism, decides to reopen it, which leads to the death of a boy…

The movie became a global hit, followed by a second, third, and even fourth part in subsequent years. The movies were so popular that they demonized sharks to the extent that it became widely accepted that they were among the deadliest animals.

 

Shark – Part Five

Therapeutic Center – Ocean

Genre – Dystopian Rom-Com

 

There is a little good in all evil. (Says an old proverb.)

 

Dystopia. (The opposite of utopia.) Ecological catastrophe. (Inevitable in any scenario.) Humanity, by its very existence, has polluted everything. Greenery is scarce, the air barely breathable, and wild animals wander through cities in disoriented confusion. Rivers and oceans are filled with tons of garbage; microplastics and drugs saturate all aquatic life, triggering increased aggression and turning rivers, seas, and oceans into death zones for humans.

Sharks, hooked on narcotics flushed from human waste into the water through sewage, embark on a bloody rampage.

However, a handsome middle-aged scientist, who gained popularity on TikTok, believes that drug use could be beneficial for psychotherapeutic purposes. According to him, drugs, especially ecstasy, known as MDMA, induce empathy, emotional openness, and introspection about one’s own traumas. He believes that the most challenging patients, with deeply repressed traumas, could respond well to drug-assisted therapies, allowing them to open up and connect with their most vulnerable selves. He gets the chance to prove his theory through 13 drug-positive sharks. If correct, it could mean that drugged sharks might confront their traumas and thus become less aggressive.

A young transgender influencer, a vegan and animal rights advocate, uses her social media influence to prevent the doctor from carrying out his plan, believing that she is protecting the sharks. Over time, she realizes that this is actually a way for the oceans to become places of harmony, contributing to the building of a new world without greed and war, where everyone, under the influence, faces their traumas and works on personal growth.

It turns out that sharks, by nature, aren’t aggressive – they’re tired of the killer image and really just want a peaceful life. Right now, as we lament the ecological disaster we’ve caused, evolution is changing, and unconsciously, we’re creating a new order that will be fairer and better for all. Perhaps in a future encounter between a shark and a human, the human won’t even recognize that the glint in the shark’s eye isn’t because it sees dinner, but because, somewhere in its mind, it’s working through its traumas and sees a path to personal transformation.

[1]Unverified information