Fishing for Meaning

I am not a fisherman, although when I was five years old, I thought it would be fun.

Dennis and Ronnie 1946

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You can skip to the end if you're in a hurry. I wasn't in a hurry so the rest is just rumination.
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Catching a fish was whelming, not overwhelming because of threading a live worm onto a hook, which is underwhelming. When we finally caught a fish one day, seeing it hanging by its lip from the hook was dyswhelming. I imagined the fish was longing to be rewhelmed. That is just a kid doing the thinking for a creature that doesn't think much. But then, what did I know about fish?

I am not a fisherman, but I aspire to be a writer. I have the same relationship with meaning that I had with that fish way back when. I got stuck on the previous paragraph when the word overwhelming came to mind, and I discovered that I didn't know exactly what whelming meant. So, I baited Google Search with the word whelm and hooked a response from the ocean of meaning known as the Internet. Whelm, meaning submerge, comes from Middle English whelmen, to overturn, or Old English hwelfan, to cover. The meaning struggled on the hook for the remainder of the paragraph while I tried it out in my story. Then I threw it back because submerged was not exactly what I had in mind.

Here is an edited version.

I am not a fisherman, although when I was five years old, I thought it would be fun. Fishing did not live up to expectation because of threading a live worm onto a hook, which is yucky. When we finally caught a fish, seeing it hanging by the lip from the hook gave me the heeby-jeebies. I imagined the fish was longing to be back in the water. But that was just me thinking fishy thoughts on behalf of the fish who probably wasn't thinking anything.

Not sure that says what I want to say. I gave it another try. Here is an alternate Hogwarts version.

I am not a fisherman; but when I was five years old, catching a fish was pretty cool, though not magical since you have to thread a live worm onto a hook, which sucks like Slytherin. When we finally caught a fish, and it was hanging from the hook by its lip, it looked like lunch for Voldemort, and I do not serve the Dark Lord. The fish, if it was thinking anything at all, was looking for Hermione to rescue it. But who knows the mind of a fish? Catching one doesn't make you a piscean empath.

So many ways to tell the story, it's hard to choose. One more try, the primitive version.

I am not a fisherman. I thought it would be fun. It wasn't. I don't think worms like it. Nor fish. But then, what do I know? 

 Writing about fishing is more fun than fishing. I now fish with words as bait cast into the dark semantic ocean to hook some meaning onto which I project my own intent before tossing it into the basket or letting it loose in the story. No living things get harmed. I write, you read, we wonder. I believe we writers and readers are whelmed in the magic of meaning, which connects us more securely than shared DNA. But then, what do I know?

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Anticipating COP27, I have been casting out words like While Heaven Thaws, EIEIO and Growing Up. Did you catch my meaning? Here is what others are saying.

According to Antonio Guterrese, we are 'on the highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator'. Well said, Antonio.

Here's how to put on the brakes.
Act now: the UN campaign for individual action.

However the story is told,
don't be overwhelmed.
But for sure be whelmed.
If underwhelmed, we're done for.
Not quite the right words,
but you know what I mean.