Waves breaking against the obstacle

As opposed to the “travelling waves”,  “breaking waves”  are disrupted in their journey, ending preemptively and immediately by an outside force, an obstacle. 

Departing from the  first law of thermodynamics or “law of conservation of energy”, different shapes and orientations of obstacles will disperse or absorb the effort of the breaking waves in differing ways. The repeated attempts of waves breaking against an obstacle will therefore eventually make progress and succeed (in the many meanings of this word). 

The process of waves breaking against the shore is used as an analogy for our human ability to persist and overcome obstacles on physical, mental or spiritual level. As such, the obstacle is a metaphysical object, open to individual interpretation within the boundaries of the word “obstacle”. The underlying principle,  that energy is never lost, holds true on metaphysical level in the behaviour of the element water as it splashes back into our oceans to gather for a new attempt.