Amil Rishikan’s Synaesthetic World, 14 Jan. 2020
You’ve probably heard your paranoid neighbor accuse public schools of tainting drinking fountains with chemicals, or seen a chain email claiming climate change is a government-controlled phenomena, or been informed by your overconfident teenage daughter that corporate moguls are exploiting the youth of South America to pull water out of the ground.
This is all (probably) misinformation, but it is true that humanity’s relationship with water is evolving to new places as hydropathy emerges as the new sense.
Anyone who attended public school should have a basic knowledge of sense transition, but even those of you who slept through history class will be familiar with the Chthonic Shift of the 12th century—maybe not by name, but we’ve all seen Chthonia, Cameron James’ Grover-winning 2004 historical drama. Who can forget Raphael DiPecorio’s heart-throbbing performance as the son of a Viking chief who was among the first to lose his sense of echolocation and feel underground vibrations instead?
By the end of Chthonia, half the Viking tribe is living under- ground, and it’s implied that the mutation will spread across the world in a matter of years, but in truth, sense transition takes much longer than a James movie has time for, and it isn’t nearly as obvious. If not for some recent headlines, the subtle shift away from terrasensation would be almost unnoticeable; if not for some recent scientific studies, the emergence of water-sensing abilities in younger generations would be ignored.
We’re lucky to live in a time where sense transition is understood as a historical and biological phenomenon, even if prejudice against the unknown still rears its ugly head. Personally, I find it exciting to see sense transition happening around me in real time, and I’m grateful to live aboveground where hydropathy is more common.
So, who are the hydropaths living among us, both above and below the earth’s surface? Here’s my list of five hypothesized, heroic hydropaths living in a world that isn’t designed for them and making it work anyway.
1. Helena Niskanen
You probably already do know Helena Niskanen is a hydropath. After all, she’s a famous young climate activist who’s been open about her abilities. What you don’t know about Niskanen is that her hydropathic abilities are in the 99th percentile. Kids these days, huh? Her family moved to Finland’s surface in 2014 after realizing she was completely terranegative and thus more dependent on sight than her peers. Not long after, it became obvious that little Helena knew when it was about to rain, and that she was more than just unusually comfortable in the swimming pool.
Niskanen wasn’t fated to become an activist because she’s a hydropath. Her advocacy focuses on more than just hydropathic rights, and her main plea to the governments of the world is to tax corporate timber companies. But if Niskanen is a sign of things to come, a migration back aboveground might be inevitable, and it’s time we start thinking about what kind of a surface we want to live on.
2. Dr. Joyce Gould
If you saw the headlines last year about the brain’s “taste region,” you already know Dr. Joyce Gould, even if you don’t remember her name. Dr. Gould is a leading neurobiologist at Carlsbad University and head of the research team that explored the brain’s sense regions. Her discoveries in taste’s role in emotion launched her work into the public sphere, but she was originally studying hydropathy, not taste.
Dr. Gould is happy to talk about her research, but tight-lipped about her personal life—and for good reason, if her colleagues are to be believed. It’s an open secret among the Carlsbad faculty that Gould is a hydropath, but for the sake of her reputation, she hasn’t publicly acknowledged it. I’ve been digging through her research team’s old interviews, and I discovered interesting social media posts that shed some light on Gould’s motivations in sense research. With anti-hydropathy stigma much stronger beneath the earth’s surface than above it, it’s understandable that she’d like to keep her abilities a secret, but I hope when her next sense-related study rolls around, she’ll be confident enough to come out as a hydropath herself. Society needs people like her to make the world a better place for all of us!
3. Alexander Chen
Look, it’s a long shot that he’ll win the nomination, let alone the presidency, but you’ve got to admire Chen’s dedication to equal rights. Rumors abound about the “real reason” he’s so gung-ho about accessibility for underground terranegatives, and the retorts are usually along the lines of “Can’t you just let someone do the right thing for no other reason than being a good person?” And, well, fair—but that undermines the reality of marginalized groups fighting for their own rights.
Even if Chen is a hydropath, we do know for a fact he’s not entirely terranegative. Most hydropaths aren’t—sense transition doesn’t happen all at once. It will take generations before the human race loses its terrasensation altogether. But it’s a give-and-take thing; when one sense appears, another disappears. Hydropathy is replacing terrasensation, and Chen is on the right side of history when it comes to his advocacy for the rights and acceptance of those who don’t fit society’s terra-centered norms. If he’s a hydropath, as he’s hinted in his many campaign speeches, he’s saving that piece of information for a turning point in the presidential race. For now, he’s a quiet beneficiary of accommodations he’s fought so hard to make mandatory across the nation. Countless people have been aided by his activism, and he has my vote in the primaries!
4. Alyissa
“Sensitive” is topping the charts right now, not just because it’s a bop, but also because it touches on the poignant reality of our world. “You’re so sensitive,” Alyissa sings, “but I’m losing the sensation.” She’s talking about love, of course, and a failing relationship, but I’m far from the first person to point out the subtext of terranegativity. “You’re so grounded now,” she wails, “but I’m raining from on high.” It’s that line about connection to rain, the classic first sign of a hydropath, that really gets me thinking: maybe she’s not just alluding to the current sense transition. Maybe she’s hinting she’s a part of it.
Alyissa is arguably the biggest pop star of our generation, and if she’s also hydropathic, even slightly, it would be massive news. Hydrophobes would lose their minds, forced to disavow her contributions to pop culture or reconsider their bigotry. Alyissa is a lyrical genius, and there’s no way she doesn’t know what she’s implying in “Sensitive.” Her press team has worked hard to keep this part of her life quiet, but they can’t stop the world from listening when she belts out that high note on the word “rain!” My heart sings along with her, and I can’t wait until her next single drops.
5. Your nephew
Okay, this one’s cheating a little. But I’m serious: your nephew, and many of his peers, are hydropaths. You might even be a hydro- path and not even know it! This is a phenomenon appearing more and more among today’s youth, and it’s the future of our world. There will come a day (probably not in your lifetime or mine) where hydropathy is the default, and terrasensates are the weird ones. And then, not long after that, terrasensation will become a thing of the past, just like echolocation is now.
But Amil, I hear you protesting, aren’t there echolocatives nowadays? Yeah, but it’s a learned skill, not an innate sense. It’s not the same as it once was.
This change might seem scary, but it’s inevitable. Terrasensation’s retreat into history shouldn’t be seen as terrifying, but exciting! The world is shifting beneath our feet. We should relish that feeling while we still can and embrace the future as the tides of sensation turn.
Sometimes I wish that our world was like this already, that hydropaths weren’t treated like second-class citizens... I don’t want to be too subjective or preachy, but this is something I feel very passionate about. I have a lot of hydropathic friends, and as a hydropath supporter, I really can’t stress enough how important it is to accept hydropaths and embrace the future.
So, be kind to your hydropath neighbor. Be kind to your hydropath nephew. Be kind to me, and to yourself. Remember Raphael DiPecorio and Chthonia: what side of history do you want to be on?