What Is Water?

What is water? HO, that’s all, an oxide of hydrogen, a ubiquitous chemical molecule. That’s water. Or is it? Upon analysis, is that all there is to it? No, at least not for me. What is water? When I take a long soaker in a hot tub, I’m enjoying something more than a mere chemical. When I have a tall glass of cool water on a hot August day, I experience something beyond a formula. So, with a gentle shower on a June afternoon, or the sounds and sights beside a shady babbling brook. HO may be an accurate objective definition, but the full truth of water is known only in subjective experience. Life cannot be explained away by objective analysis, however valuable that may be. Life is known and felt to be real only subjectively. Both are needed. What is water? I’m going to stop writing and get a drink.