I don’t remember when I saw it exactly. Or where. But I sure remember seeing it. I had trouble going into any body of water for quite some time after the experience. That might have been the year I decided never to take a bath again. It has been showers for me ever since.
The thing was, on June 20, 1975, Jaws opened in theaters. I was eleven years old at the time. I can’t imagine my parents ever letting me see such a movie, but somehow I did.
We all know that film that was directed by Steven Spielberg. It convinced so many people that going into the ocean would be a terribly bad idea. A good portion of the world’s population still feels this way about sharks. In this case, it is the story about a great white shark that terrorizes a New England resort town, with the police chief, none other than Roy Scheider, trying to serve and protect.
It was an instant hit at the box office and became the highest-grossing film in movie history. Its distinction held until two years later when Star Wars earned the biggest ticket draw. Spielberg was only 27 years old when he made Jaws.
The movie took place in the beach town of Amity, a fictitious place. In reality, it was filmed on Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. Whoever put the cast together got it quite right. In addition to Roy Scheider, the other big star was Richard Dreyfuss — the marine biologist named Matt Hooper. Then there was the crusty old, squinty-eyed Robert Shaw as a gnarly fisherman named Quint. Of course. The biggest star of the show? Jaws.
But sharks? They aren’t as bad as Jaws made them out to be. Let me put it this way. The United States averages just 16 shark attacks each year. Of those, only one shark-attack results in a fatality every two and a half years. On the other hand, over the last 30 years, the U.S. has averaged 43 reported lightning fatalities per year. This, from the National Weather Service Storm Data.
But there are many sharks in our waters. Over 375 shark species have been identified. Of those, only about a dozen are considered particularly dangerous. The big three, the ones responsible for most human attacks are the great white, the tiger, and bull sharks.
They come in all shapes in sizes. How crazy is the hammerhead? And be in awe of the largest shark. The whale shark. They can grow to 60 feet. That’s about as long as a school bus. The dwarf lantern shark is the smallest shark in the world. They only grow up to be 6.3 inches long.
But that’s not the long and short of it. Sharks are among Earth’s most ancient animals. Ancestors of modern sharks date as far back as 400 million years ago, according to fossil science. They must be designed awful well because shark species have changed very little during all that time.
There is so much more about these wonderful beasts. But those sharks seem to be misunderstood all because of a few bad apples, and one epic movie.
Sometimes, we are misunderstood. One of the hardest things is being misconstrued by other people. All of us, at one point or another, have realized that someone simply does not see us the way we see ourselves. And might not ever.
How we respond to being misunderstood makes all the difference between spending our time trying to correct other people’s misperceptions — or — being free to carry on with our lives no matter what others might think of us.
And that just might be, the lesson of the shark.
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It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood. Share this Quote Karl Popper
Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/misunderstood-quotes
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“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”
— Carl Jung
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“Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain but it takes character and self control to be understanding and forgiving.”
— Dale Carnegie
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“All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.”
— Galileo Galilei
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The whole tooth, and nothing but the tooth.
