Swimming (Pleasures and meanings) - Essay Example

Swimming is a pleasure that engages the literary interpretations of water, the individual and the public seeking to refresh and make new their spirit through the flow of cooling water over their bodies. Clients Name Name of Professor Name of Class Date The Pleasure of Swimming Water flows around the body, the pressure made by cupped hands propelling the movement forward or back, as the flesh parts the liquid and glides through. There is little resistance as movement presses it, manipulating the shape, and using it to change direction or displace oneself from one distinct space to the next.

Never the same nor ever not defined through its volume, the shifting current is always about what is new. Water refreshes and refines, carrying great symbolism in the literary discourse, while still having stable and concrete purpose in the physical world. Nothing in the world represents purity in quite the same way as water, even though in its natural state it is constantly full of different types of bacteria, algae, and life. Bodies are mostly water, tears are water, and the road to health is full of water.

Swimming through water is a pleasure of the spirit, one of the most solitary sports that, even in a room full of spectators, becomes an interaction of quiet between the water and the swimmer. Pleasure and sensation are not the same thing because pleasure is a definition of a type of sensation. The philosophy of pleasure is tied to the physiology of sensation, but sensation is not always required for pleasure. Puccetti conducted experiments trying to define the pleasure centers and concluded that pleasure was within the brain and could be located, but despite the fact that he also found the center of punishment, and that a monkey would deteriorate quickly if the punishment center was stimulated repeated over the course of hours, indicates that there is more to punishment and pleasure than can be found in physiological discourse.

Pleasure is a discourse as much as an experience. It is the framing of ideas that result in something that extends into the social and cultural experience. Swimming is an event that can be discussed through a great many different concepts. Swimming is an isolated event, the water creating barriers between one swimmer and the next. It is also a social event where crowds of people come together to enjoy the nature of water, the cooling effect that it has on a summer day or the atmosphere it brings for enjoying the interactions of family and friends.

Sometimes it involves a sporting event where crowds gather to watch the prowess of a swimmer, their sleek, long muscles gliding fervently through the water. Akiko Busch discusses the idea of swimming as a way in which to cross a divide, to summon up enough spirit to conquer space and one’s position in the greater scheme of life. When Busch took up the challenge to swim across the Hudson River, a great many cultural connections became apparent through the course of the event. The Hudson River is a place of deep history.

In the late 1990s a team of scientists decided to create a sonar map of the river bed floor in order to investigate data relevant to marine life habitation. However, what they discovered was more than 200 wrecks that catalogued centuries of history from the time of the American Revolution, through the subsequent river tragedies. In addition, a 3000 year old wall