Fishing is a great way to experience nature and shut off the world and be immersed in the present moment. So, while watching someone on the pier trying to pull in some big fish, probably a Cobia, I had a thought:
Imagine this fish going about its day looking for food. It finds something and takes it. The next thing it experiences is resistance. It has no concept of being hooked. It's not thinking "Oh crap, I just got hooked". It must feel pain in some primordial way, but it has no concept of physical pain like humans do. It's not crying or scared, it is merely resisting some force it does not understand or even comprehend. Some force is pulling the fish one way, and it wants to go the other way and perhaps pain triggers the fish to fight against this unknown feeling.
Do you ever resist something? Do you ever fight an urge to go one way, but something keeps pulling you another way. You might feel a pain of some kind and resist this unknown force. Perhaps that is just God, or the universe (if you don't believe in God). It could even be some extra-dimensional being hooking up on you and trying to reel you in one direction, while you fight to go the other direction. Perhaps it causes mental or even physical pain, but you fight and fight and fight and just can't get away. I know there are things we just can't comprehend going on all around us, just as much as a fish not comprehending being hooked in the mouth and being pulled. There could be something physically in front of us but we do not have the ability to sense that is even there, just as much as the hooked fish. We have to be like a fish to some higher power, not the ultimate being in the universe like we sometimes think. Next time you feel something pulling you one way while you resist it, think about the fish being reeled in, it may change your perception of the situation. Will you accept the force or will you resist it?
And by the way, the fish being pulled in at the beginning of this post, won the fight and got away.