There is something deliciously ironic about the human species’ insistence on treating the ocean like a communal bathtub. We pave over the earth, suffocate the atmosphere with the exhaust of our collective mediocrity, and then act genuinely affronted when a prehistoric apex predator decides to sample the local buffet in Sydney Harbour. The latest victim of this cosmic misunderstanding is 12-year-old Nico Antic, whose legs were recently repurposed as a chew toy by a shark that clearly didn't get the memo about Australia’s branding as a premier destination for leisure and overpriced sourdough. The incident, which occurred at the picturesque Elizabeth Bay, has sent the usual gaggle of pearl-clutchers and armchair biologists into a predictable frenzy, proving once again that humanity’s greatest talent is being shocked by the obvious.

Let’s be clear: a harbor is not a swimming pool. It is an inlet of the sea, and the sea is a cold, dark, indifferent place where things eat other things to survive. Yet, the residents of Sydney, a city that prides itself on balancing cosmopolitan glitter with rugged ‘outback’ aesthetics, seem to have forgotten that the water doesn't belong to them. They’ve built their multi-million dollar glass boxes overlooking the waves, convinced that their property taxes somehow extend to the marine life beneath. Then, when a bull shark—a creature that has existed in its current, terrifyingly efficient form for millions of years—decides to exercise its right to lunch, we treat it as a moral failing on the part of the ecosystem. The boy, Nico, is currently the center of a ‘devastating’ narrative, which it certainly is for him and his family, but in the grand theater of the biological world, it was simply an afternoon snack interrupted by the inconvenience of human bone density.

Naturally, the political discourse following the attack is as shallow as the water where it happened. On one side, we have the reactionary morons of the Right, who will undoubtedly call for a full-scale maritime crusade. Their solution to every problem involves more violence, more ‘culling,’ and more attempts to dominate a planet that is clearly trying to shake us off like a bad case of fleas. They want the harbors netted, the sharks tagged like common criminals, and the oceans rendered as safe and sterile as a suburban cul-de-sac. To them, nature is a resource to be managed or a nuisance to be eliminated. They cannot fathom a world where a human being isn't the protagonist of every single interaction. Their arrogance is only matched by their ignorance of the fact that removing apex predators is the fastest way to collapse the very ecosystems they claim to enjoy while jet-skiing.

On the other side, we have the performative bleeding hearts of the Left, who are likely already drafting op-eds about how the shark is a victim of ‘habitat displacement’ or ‘systemic environmental neglect.’ They’ll argue that the shark didn't mean it, that it was ‘confused,’ or that the boy’s presence in the water was a colonialist intrusion into the shark’s ancestral territory. They would rather see a child lose a limb than admit that nature is inherently cruel and violent. They want to coexist with the wild, provided the wild behaves according to the rules of a liberal arts seminar. They’ll hold vigils for the ‘misunderstood’ fish while sipping lattes that cost more than a shark’s daily caloric intake, all while ignoring the uncomfortable reality that their own carbon-heavy lifestyles are what drove the predator into the harbor in the first place. Both sides are equally insufferable, two sides of the same narcissistic coin that insists the universe revolves around human sentiment.

The media, of course, is the most parasitic of all. They descend upon the Antic family with the necrophilic glee peculiar to modern journalism, squeezing every drop of ‘devastation’ for clicks and ratings. They provide us with the gruesome details of the ‘major wounds’ to the legs as if they are reporting on a sporting event, providing just enough gore to satisfy the public’s voyeuristic hunger while maintaining a thin veil of professional empathy. It’s a grotesque dance. We pretend to care about the victim while secretly being fascinated by the violence, safe in our living rooms, far from the serrated teeth of reality. We consume the tragedy of a twelve-year-old as if it were just another episode of a nature documentary where the cameraman finally forgot to stay behind the glass.

Ultimately, this is a story about the failure of the human imagination. We have convinced ourselves that we are separate from the food chain, that our technology and our titles protect us from the primal forces of the earth. We aren’t explorers; we are intruders. We aren't masters of the sea; we are just slow-moving, fatty proteins that occasionally wander into the wrong neighborhood. The shark isn't a villain, and the boy isn't a martyr; they are just two biological entities that collided in a world where the rules are written in blood, not in policy papers. As the Antic family deals with the fallout of this ‘extraordinary’ event, the rest of the world will continue its descent into mindless debate, never once realizing that the shark doesn’t care about our politics, our feelings, or our headlines. It’s just waiting for the next person to think they’re safe.