Titan, Titanic
The human impulse to test the unknowable
The world was following the drama in every detail and now that the expected sad news has settled, we can evaluate. And we can digest each and every detail that is now hitting the news. For instance the 19-year old’s deep fear but that he did not want to disappoint his dad, and that OceanGate’s submersible named ‘Titan’ had real design issues that were well known ahead of the ill-fated dive. And to listen to the experts who had been there before, this interview with Michael Guillen who survived an attempt visiting the Titanic is a moving one you don’t want to miss. And of course the master himself, James Cameron.
When his epic movie Titanic came out in 1997, I was like so many other people, totally mesmerized by it. Watched it again and again and years later got the kids to watch it. They too were taken in by it. The movie was in a class of its own, not just because of the script, the acting, the special effects, the music, all of which were great, but also and I think in particular because it dared to take us into the unknowable zone that brings us close to the portal of death. And in particular in a spot where we as humans think we are safe, have mitigated all the risks but are then unexpectedly ripped away from life. We cannot comprehend how the pinnacle of human invention crumbled in the face of an iceberg and where a simple but dreadful selection took place: you live, you die. Among the floating debris Leonardo DiCaprio imparts some life advice for Kate Winslet; one submerges and dies, the other lives a life she could not have imagined beforehand.
The deep and impenetrable parts of the ocean are a frontier that has barely been captured and that is what makes it such a compelling place to explore. Uncovering a mystery while testing your boundaries, knowing very well you are balancing on that fine line that separates you from death. It has to be done. And it can be done, as long as you prepare and mitigate all the risks. It is like climbing the world’s highest peaks which I can attest is similar territory: you need to climb to enter the unknowable, to discover, defy and if you come out alive you are hopefully so much the better for it. Or so you think.
Therefore it was actually disappointing to see Barack Obama downplay all the attention for the Titan disaster as ‘an untenable situation’ because it compared unfavourably to the lack of attention for hundreds of drowning boat refugees in the same week. He misses the point. People drowning on the Mediterranean, however tragic, cannot be compared to what happened in the northern Atlantic. The public at large does not always align and identify with migrants and there is also a frequency of such news that makes it drop from the headlines. People care, of course, but they’re not on the same journey. And although most of us are very different from five extremely wealthy guys in a small submersible, we not only identify with their plight, but more importantly as humans we recognize the uniqueness of their quest, their particular journey. Their fears and their boundaries are in essence ours too and they transcend every day events that we think we know. Trying to capture that mysterious frontier, as a passenger of a submersible or as a distant spectator, is deeply human. Our fascination with it will never end.