Everything is conceived through a lens. Whether a stance on sharks, a critique of Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea,” or even a take on the ideal trajectory of casting a fishing rod, everything is thought about through one’s perspective. During the discussion with Professor Steve Mentz concerning Blue Humanities, one question popped into my head: Why so blue, Dr. Mentz?

Talking about oceans may be easy enough, though immersing yourself in the language alters perspectives. We already see some oceanic language appear regularly in our everyday life. For example, as Mentz suggested, humans “surf” the web, or data “flows.” Opening our eyes to the diction reveals details we may often overlook. In this effect, these small changes to wording subliminally hint at our passions or interests. This could be seen in replacing “field of thought” with “current of thought.” These were just a couple of examples discussed during the conversation, though Mentz’s vocabulary seemed filled with ocean innuendos.

Mentz also discussed Freud’s ideas on the dissolution of the individual human experience, which was frankly a bit confusing for me. In my take, there could be a hundred ways in which people talk about navigating the web, each differing slightly from their perspective, though if humans converged their vocabulary, it could make everyone a bit more similar. This is happening with the amount of blue vocabulary that’s commonplace across societies. It also speaks on the people who choose to use oceanic diction, suggesting they have more in common than they’d believe.

These nods to blue humanities in our everyday language suggest the vast influence of the topic in our daily lives. “Surfing” the web may be common, though understanding why it’s even said is important. Citing the discussion, it turns out that undersea cables assisting in global communication are commonplace in the ocean. So when that phrase is said, it can be taken in a literal sense. Through this perspective, surfing the web implies how humans may physically surf over infrastructure supporting the World Wide Web, possibly ignorant of this fact-unlike Dr. Mentz.

All of these points reveal Mentz to be a man truly engrossed in his work. Through his speech, knowledge, and perspective, he physically embodies bodies of water. The why is clear—he loves and lives out blue humanities, though a deeper why remains: why specifically blue, as opposed to green, digital, or others? For that question, I’ll play it easy and assume he was secretly raised by a pack of dolphins.