To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim

Host: The night had settled over the harbor, a slow breath of fog curling through the streetlights like ghosts from the sea. The air carried a salted chill, and the sound of waves echoed faintly against the rocks. Inside the old café by the pier, two figures sat by the window — Jack, his face dimly lit by a flickering candle, and Jeeny, her hands clasped around a cup of tea, steam drifting upward like a silent prayer.

The rain outside tapped gently, as if reminding them that time, like water, was always flowing, always slipping away.

Jeeny: “Alan Watts once said, ‘To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don't grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float.’”

She looked at the window, where raindrops slid down like tiny rivers. “That’s what life feels like to me lately — learning not to fight it.”

Jack: (leaning back, lighting a cigarette) “Or just giving up control, you mean.”

Jeeny: “No. Not giving up. Trusting. There’s a difference.”

Jack: “Trust is a beautiful word, Jeeny, but it’s also the most dangerous one. People ‘trusted’ the market before it crashed. They ‘trusted’ their leaders before wars started. They ‘trusted’ love before it broke them. Faith doesn’t make you float — it just makes you forget how deep the water really is.”

Host: The wind pressed against the glass, and the flame of the candle shivered, casting shadows that danced across their faces — her soft, his sharp. There was a quiet tension, like a violin string pulled just before it snaps.

Jeeny: “But what if floating isn’t forgetting, Jack? What if it’s remembering — that you were never meant to control everything? The water doesn’t ask you to fight it. It just asks you to move with it.”

Jack: “That sounds poetic until the tide drags you under. Tell that to someone who lost everything in a storm.”

Jeeny: (her voice rising slightly) “You think faith is naïve. But look at history — Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Rosa Parks — they had faith, Jack. Not in luck, not in fate, but in the idea that something greater would carry them if they refused to drown in fear.”

Jack: “And how many people followed them and died? Faith didn’t keep the bullets away, Jeeny. It didn’t stop the batons. It just made people believe their pain meant something. That’s a dangerous illusion.”

Jeeny: “And yet, without that illusion — as you call it — nothing would’ve changed. It’s the people who trusted the current, who let go of safety, that moved the world.”

Host: A siren wailed somewhere in the distance, its sound fading into the fog. Jack exhaled a cloud of smoke, his eyes fixed on the table, where a ring of ash spread slowly across the wood. Jeeny watched him, her gaze both defiant and tender, like someone holding a wound open to the light.

Jack: “You talk about letting go as if it’s easy. But people don’t float, Jeeny. They fight because the world keeps pushing them under. You can’t tell a man who’s drowning in debt, or grief, or guilt, to ‘trust the water.’”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s exactly when he needs to. When there’s nothing left to hold onto.”

Jack: “That’s romantic nonsense.”

Jeeny: “No. It’s human truth. Even science agrees — the more you struggle in quicksand, the deeper you sink. Sometimes survival means surrender. That’s what Watts meant.”

Jack: “So we just relax and let life do whatever it wants with us?”

Jeeny: “No. We learn the rhythm. We learn to float until the current brings us somewhere new.”

Host: A pause hung between them, heavy and fragile. The rain had softened, becoming a mist, a kind of whisper that filled the space. The café clock ticked, a metronome marking the heartbeat of their silence.

Jack: (quietly) “When my father died, I didn’t float, Jeeny. I sank. Everything inside me fought the water — the grief, the anger, the questions. If I had just ‘trusted’ the current, I’d have drowned for good.”

Jeeny: (gently) “But you didn’t. You’re still here. Maybe somewhere in all that fighting, a part of you still trusted — even if you didn’t know it.”

Jack: “I didn’t trust anything. I just kept moving.”

Jeeny: “That’s what swimming is, Jack. Moving. Breathing. Letting the water carry your weight for a while.”

Jack: “You make it sound peaceful. But life doesn’t carry you; it tests you. It’s more like being thrown into the middle of the ocean with no shore in sight.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But even then, the only way to survive is to stop thrashing.”

Host: The light from the streetlamp outside cut through the fog, casting pale gold over the wet pavement. A bus passed, its reflection sliding across the window like a moving dream. Inside, the tension between them softened, as if the room itself had exhaled.

Jeeny: “Do you remember the first time you swam as a kid?”

Jack: “Yeah. My uncle threw me into a lake.”

Jeeny: (smiling faintly) “And what happened?”

Jack: “I panicked. Tried to grab the water. Thought I’d die.”

Jeeny: “But you didn’t.”

Jack: “He pulled me out.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. You fought until someone saved you. But what if, that moment, you’d just let go? You might’ve floated.”

Jack: “Or I might’ve sunk faster.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But you’d have learned something different about fear.”

Host: The candle had burned low, its wax pooling around the base, like time melting quietly. The room felt warmer, not from the flame, but from the shift between them — the kind that only comes when two truths begin to see each other.

Jack: “You think fear is the problem.”

Jeeny: “I think fear is the water we keep fighting.”

Jack: “Then maybe faith is just pretending it’s not there.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. Faith is admitting it’s there — and swimming anyway.”

Jack: (his voice softening) “You always find a way to make drowning sound poetic.”

Jeeny: “Maybe because we all drown a little every day. In doubt, in expectation, in memory. But that’s okay — as long as we keep coming back to the surface.”

Jack: “And what if there is no surface?”

Jeeny: “Then maybe the act of believing there is — is the surface.”

Host: The rain had stopped. Outside, the sea stretched into the darkness, a vast mirror catching the faint glow of the moon. The sound of water lapping against the rocks was almost like breathing — slow, patient, eternal.

Jack: (after a long pause) “You know... sometimes I think I’ve been grabbing the water my whole life. Trying to hold onto things that were never meant to stay.”

Jeeny: “We all do. That’s how we learn to let go.”

Jack: “So faith isn’t about believing in something out there… it’s about believing you won’t drown when you stop fighting.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. It’s about trusting yourself to the water.”

Jack: “Maybe Watts was right, then. Maybe floating isn’t weakness. Maybe it’s the only strength that lasts.”

Jeeny: (smiling) “You see? You’ve been swimming all along, Jack.”

Host: The fog had lifted, and the moonlight spilled across the table, silvering their faces. Jack put out his cigarette, and for the first time that night, his eyes looked lighter, almost peaceful. Jeeny sipped her tea, its steam now fading, but her smile lingered like a warm echo.

Beyond the window, the tide rose — slow, calm, and endless — as if the world itself was breathing in faith.