Mermaids and Mermen? Worldwide Interest in The Mers Through History

Ocean Art, c. 2012, The Mers

Being a Mermaid, and being one of the few who have ever made any sort of contact with humans puts me in a rather unique position, and brings many questions that I pose to Ocean, the human I communicate with.
Of course, only to combine our strengths, ideally, to find a way to save our shared Planet, Sea, have I come forward, and only urgently would I ever.
Our history - the parallel worlds of The Mers and of humans, has never converged, and only very few sightings by some very lucky humans have convinced some of you that we actually exist.
The Mers, since humans behavior has been so suicidal against their - our- own home, our only planet - have studiously avoided contact, but we have studied you, much as you might study a subject that did not particularly interest you, but was necessary to your own survival to learn about.

I have no idea why you humans are so apparently obsessed with the idea of Mers, unless it has to do with the fact that - as yet - there is no proof that we exist, except in human imagination.

And - why do humans imagine fairytale beings at all?

Well, first of all, as a Mermaid, I can tell you that we are not obsessed with humans in the same way. Most obviously, because we know for sure that you exist!

So, let's say we take away the mystery about the existence of the Mers conclusively - not that we will ever let that happen, but...for the sake of this discussion - it still seems obvious that, given the prevalence of your myths and legends spanning the range of behaviors attributed to us Mers, there might even be more obsession with us.

And, as we suspect, most likely, annoying us, chasing us, and attempting to photograph and film us would become the number one human occupation.

So, now that you understand that we do not want to be among you for many, many reasons, we can go back to our ideas of why humans are interested in the Mers.

Not that fish aren’t fascinating - all of us - but there is that pesky resemblance to humans, that even Mers admit to, so there is the most obvious reason for our constant appearance in your bodies of mythologies from nations all over the world.

And, the silence from Mers, except for our singing that humans hear on occasion, allows the innate human quality of creation to fill in the blanks with whatever is in his or her head at the time, so myths abound in both directions - having Mers be good or bad, according to the story.

Naturally you find us beautiful and handsome, since we do resemble humans above the waist.

And, I must admit our voices are lovely, without exception. It’s just part of being a Mer. And did you know that all fish talk and sing? Yes, and many other fish species sing with great ability.

Humans are amazingly myopic. Egocentrism is the norm, and it’s used by humans all too often in order to objectify other beings in order to visit cruelty upon them.

Do you understand why we have so little to do with your specie?

At times, having seen us - male and female - seated upon rocks or sandy islets, engaged in one of our necessary occupations like combing out our tresses, I suppose the idea of the vanity of the Mers has become attached to us - quite unfairly!

Imagine the tangles we must endure!

Fashioning combs out of shells or even using combs found on the sea floor and using them is a mundane and necessary task for us, but we are often perceived as vain and petty. We are far from thinking about how gorgeous or hunky we are when we’re merely making our manes manageable!

Oh, the things that have been said!

We’re individuals, as are humans and as are members of every specie.

Some are more into themselves than others, of course, but usually, we’re just living our lives, humming to ourselves and enjoying the sunshine on our scales - and holding our breath, of course - our water, that is, since we breathe water, and can only sit in the air for brief times!

So, it’s necessary to put oneself in others’ shoes - or, fins - via empathy - for either the Mers or the humans to attempt to understand each other.

I will continue to transmit on this subject as we go along.

For now, though, I’m off for a brisk swim!