The raft

Life's not an ocean, it's a raft. The ocean is the universe; existence at large. But that fragile, malleable, flimsy tarpaulin of a vessel we cling to desperately in the choppy waves is Life. And though it is tempting to puncture a hole through it and escape into the ocean's dark depths, most of us succumb instead to starvation and the sun, never knowing even the tiniest expanse of the wide undulating sea.

(The sun is a metaphor for time.)