The Salt Planet: Water Cycles and the Philosophy of 'Necessary Poisons'

Introduction | The Planet of Undrinkable Water

It is said that Earth has 1.386 billion cubic kilometers of water.

However, less than 1% of that water is directly usable by humans.

This planet is filled with water.

Yet, there is very little water available to quench our thirst.

That is because—

the ocean is 'contaminated with salt.'

But wait a moment.

Salt is, by nature, a 'substance necessary for life.'

Despite this,
seawater is 'poison as it is,' and drinking it shortens one's life.

Within this paradox,
the questions of human ontology and ethics are contained.

Chapter 1 | The Dry Reality of the Water Planet

Earth's water is approximately 96.5% ocean, with only about 3.5% being freshwater.

Of that 3.5%:

• Glaciers and ice sheets = 68.7% (1.7% of the total)

• Total freshwater groundwater = 30.1%

• Lakes, rivers, etc. = 0.3%

• Water actually available for human use = a tiny fraction of the total

This looks less like a miracle and more like a precarious circulatory design.

Drinkable water is only obtained through the 'freshwater cycle,'
by being returned from the sky as rain.

In other words, we
cannot survive without the filtration device—similar to the Earth and Sun's distillation process—of evaporation → clouds → precipitation → surface runoff.

There is plenty of water itself, yet it is undrinkable.

That is the true nature of this planet.

Chapter 2 | Salt as a 'Necessary Poison'

Table salt is primarily made of sodium chloride.

The sodium ions and chloride ions contained within it are involved in regulating body fluid volume, nerve transmission, and muscle contraction.

• Cellular osmotic pressure regulation

• Nerve transmission

• Muscle contraction

…and so on; it is indispensable in every aspect of survival.

However, excessive salt takes lives.

That is 'seawater.'

—A pool of excessive 'life substances'

This structure is paradoxical in the following way:

It is a poison precisely because it is necessary.

Does this not resemble a structure where 'pain accompanies love'?

Salt is the bridge connecting 'necessity' and 'death.'

Global warming does not simply increase ocean salinity in one direction;
it intensifies the imbalances in the water cycle.
In sea areas with strong evaporation, salinity becomes more concentrated,
and in areas strongly affected by precipitation or melting ice, it becomes fresher.
In short, this planet is beginning to make the water cycle itself unbalanced.

Salt is necessary for life.

Its total amount is not increasing in one direction.

Because the movement of water is becoming skewed, salty places are becoming saltier, and fresh places are becoming fresher.

What global warming is changing is not the salt itself, but the distribution of salt and water.

The WHO (World Health Organization) sets the recommended daily salt intake for adults at less than 5.0g.

Approximately 140mL of seawater contains roughly 5g of dissolved salts.

However, this is not chemically identical to the salt intake indicated by the WHO.

But excessive salt takes lives. That is 'seawater.'
—A pool of excessive 'life substances.'

Supplementary Chapter | The Body is Also a Small Salt Planet

The human body is also not made of water alone.

Ions such as sodium and chloride are dissolved in blood and interstitial fluid.

The body maintains its water volume and salt concentration within a certain range to transmit nerves, move muscles, and circulate blood.

However, the body fluids inside us cannot simply be called diluted seawater.

The components, concentrations, and roles are different.

What is similar is not that it is salt water, but the structure that life is established by concentration.

If you sweat in midsummer, your body gives off water and salt.

If you lose too much water, blood volume decreases, making circulation and body temperature regulation difficult.

The balance of body fluids containing salt is disrupted, which can manifest as fatigue or localized muscle cramps.

Conversely, if you continue to drink only water far exceeding the amount lost, your body fluids will become diluted, and the sodium concentration in your blood may drop.

Too little, and you break down.

Too much, and you break down.

What the body is protecting is not the amount of water or the amount of salt.

It is the relationship between water and salt.

On Earth, you cannot drink seawater as it is because the salt concentration is too high.

In the body, you cannot function normally if the salt concentration is too high or too low.

Both on Earth and in the body, what sustains life is not the existence of the substances themselves.

It is that the substances are placed at a concentration that life can tolerate.

Humans live on a salt planet.

And inside humans, there also exists a small salt world that will collapse if the concentration is not maintained.

Chapter 3 | The Arrogance of the Word 'Contamination'

'The ocean is "contaminated" with salt'—this phrasing itself is anthropocentric to begin with.

• Salt is a constituent of nature, and

• Seawater is the primordial form of water on Earth.

In other words, it is strange to call it 'contamination' just because humans cannot drink it.

This issue relates to the 'redefinition of the relationship between nature and humans.'

'Something inconvenient for me = dirty'

Is this way of thinking not at the root of environmental issues and ethics?

🔄 What is contamination? — The contradiction in the structure of 'radiation is contamination, while salt is natural'

Radiation is called 'contamination' when there is too much of it.

This is because it is something that humans have 'unintentionally' spread into the natural world, and it is considered to cause clear harm to health.

But let us pause here and ask:

• Radiation:It exists naturally in space and underground, but it is called 'contamination' when it is 'artificially concentrated and becomes uncontrollable.'

• Salt (salinity):While it is an element essential for life, it becomes a 'poison' when it 'exceeds a certain concentration.'

What this contrast shows is:

Does 'contamination' not merely refer to a state of matter that is uncontrollable or impossible to give meaning to for humans?

Contamination is not about the good or evil of a substance.

It is a state where the relationship between the substance and its location, concentration, time, and ecosystem has fallen outside the permissible range.

In other words, 'poison' is a matter of quantity and meaning, and cannot be distinguished by good or evil in essence.

🌪 The 'Violence of Perspective' called Contamination

The word "pollution" is, in a sense, an ego-driven language that says, "It is dirty because it does not suit my convenience."
• The sea is too salty to drink → "Is it polluted?"

• The sky is cloudy with PM2.5 → "Is it polluted?"

• Invasive species have increased in the forest → "Is the ecosystem polluted?"
Everything is spoken from the perspective of the human observer.

This leads to the following structural question:

If there were "no humans," would it have been called pollution?

If it were "another life form," wouldn't they have called it a nutrient source?

In other words, "pollution" is the ethics of the observer.

And this ethics has reached a limit point where it must be redefined when considering coexistence with nature.

The salt-filled sea—it is a poison that takes life.

But even from that poison, water evaporates and rises to the sky.

Therein lies a "structure of hope" that humanity has not yet realized.

Chapter 4 | The 'Salt-like Structure' of Overcrowding

We are somehow drawn to a density we should not be drawn to.

It is a poison like a "sweetness one must not touch."

• Forming lines at popular shops

• Gathering in cities

• Making "what many people are watching" on social media the definition of justice

This structure is similar to the "sea as a pool of salt."

In other words—

It is a poison because there is too much of it, yet it is something we are drawn to.

It might be a "black hole of attraction."

Chapter 5 | The Absence of a World Without Circulation

So, what happens if there is no water cycle?

• No rain = no regeneration

• Rivers dry up, salt accumulates, and crops stop growing

• No drinkable water = cannot survive

The water cycle is, so to speak, a"loop of hope" in life.

What is hope?

It is for something dirty to be purified and return again.

Circulation is like "forgiveness."

No matter how much salt the sea holds—

the clouds evaporate only the water from it and deliver pure rain to us.

That is a structure close to forgiveness.

Final Chapter | Undrinkable Water and Untouchable Love

Humans are strange creatures.

• We hold onto what we need in excess, and then we destroy it

• We yearn for, envy, and loathe things we cannot touch

• And we try to love only the "nature that is convenient for us"

But the Earth is not like that.

The sea continues to exist there as a sea of salt.

We simply stand at its edge,
kept alive by the miracle of a tiny amount of fresh water.

And even now,
rain is falling over that salt-filled sea.

Supplementary Chapter | 🧂 Salt—Crystals of Eros and Thanatos

For humans, salt is a symbol of "Eros (the life drive)" essential for maintaining life.

• Sodium transmits nerve impulses and moves muscles

• It maintains osmotic pressure and circulates blood

• We desire it. We ingest it. We want to keep it.

In other words, salt is the embodiment of the body's impulse to live.

But at the same time, salt also harbors "Thanatos (the death drive)."

• Excessive intake raises blood pressure and damages organs

• If it fills the sea, it becomes a poison that takes life as it is

• Excessive "need" leans toward death

Salt is like a tightrope stretched between Eros and Thanatos.

Life walks on this salt like a tightrope walker.

🌊 Seawater = A Pool of Thanatos?

The sea—it is the "place that gave birth to life," yet it is also a "place that takes life as it is."

• Primordial life was born from the sea (Eros)

• But seawater cannot be drunk (Thanatos)

• Only the water that evaporates from it gives life (transformed Eros)

In this structure, there is a paradox of"life that can only be reached through death."In other words, through the medium of salt, Eros requires Thanatos.

🌌 The Death of Supernovae and the Generation of Eros

In the previous article, I wrote this:

Salt is the death of stars and the gift of the wind.

In other words,

• Death of a star (Thanatos) = birth of sodium and chlorine

• The Earth distributes it (weathering/water flow)

• Humans use it for life activities (Eros)

Here too, Eros is born from the echoes of Thanatos.

Licking the lingering scent of death as the energy of life—that may be the essence of salt.

Conclusion | You Are Licking Salt

The death of stars (Thanatos) did not create table salt just like that.

However, the elements that make up salt have passed through the history of the universe's creation and death.

Those elements dissolve in water on Earth, erode rocks, fill the sea, and eventually support human nerves and blood.

Salt is a substance where the history of cosmic death has been converted into the life of the body.

It is the crystal of your inner Eros and Thanatos.

Final Definition

Salt is
a substance that life needs,
but which leans toward death if it becomes excessive.

It shows that
Eros and Thanatos are not in opposition,
but are fluctuating as concentrations within the same crystal.

Every time a human licks salt,
they are tasting the boundary between
the body that tries to live and
the body that will break if it is too satisfied.