When I was younger, maybe 8-10, I was at the beach with my family. I had always been a strong swimmer, we went to this beach fairly often, there were plenty of people around, and always had lifeguards on duty. It wasn’t stormy or bad weather at all.

I was swimming on my own when I got stuck in the undertow of the waves. I remember getting pulled back about 6 feet underwater before I was able to surface again. By that point, I was hit by the next wave, knocking me over and back into the undertow. This repeated for what felt like an hour but was probably only around 5 minutes, maybe 10. I was anxiously looking for lifeguards and trying to signal for help anytime I was on the surface, but no one ever noticed me.

My grandmother had taught me what to do if I ever got stuck in the waves, though, and instead of trying to fight the current I just started riding it and swimming parallel to the shore. I eventually got back to the beach and walked back to my family, and I remember it being so much longer to get back that seemed reasonable.

I was sure I was going to drown, getting sucked out and down under the ocean.

It isn’t the “quality” of the piece that makes it more valuable, but the intrinsic quality of being the original. An exact, molecularly identical copy might make that messy, in that you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between them, but the true original is still the one with the value.