If ocean water were sweet, we’d have it in coolers and convenience stores, slapped with a logo and lined up on a shelf like other products.
But the ocean isn’t sweet.

It’s salty, stubborn, and hard to swallow.
That salt works like a quiet kind of resistance.
It keeps the ocean inconvenient for what we want right now, and because of that, it stays safe from becoming just another product we place a barcode on.

The easier something fits into our plans, the quicker we try to claim it, fence it off, and call it ours. The things that push back, the harsh, the difficult, the ones that don’t turn a profit, those tend to slip past our grip.

In that way, the ocean’s salt feels like a line drawn in the water between simply existing and being owned. It reminds us that not everything in this world is waiting to be turned into a commodity or a convenience.

Some things stay free precisely because they refuse to taste the way we wish they did.
Being salty isn’t just about the ocean