Liberty is being free from the things we don't like in order to be slaves of the things we do like.--Ernest Benn

Sunday, August 3, 2014

What Is This?

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    1. You can't cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water. Don't let yourself indulge in vain wishes.
      -- Rabindranath Tagore

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  3. Can I do this? Every waking hour, before leaving to go to the bathroom, I ask my self. This last boat. Is it too much for me?

    It's hard for me to believe that in four short days I will have to look at it. Sail on her again. Will she be like Margay before her? Maybe yes. Maybe no.

    If yes, than the real hard part comes. The money will hurt. The arrangements will hurt. Survey. Delivery.

    The present owner, just a little younger from me is selling. Why. Because he lives in San Francisco. His slip is probably not two stop lights from home, I am guessing. Actually, not walking distance. He doesn't look down from his windows and see his friends racing. In his absence?

    That's why I have begun this journey.

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    1. Sterling Hayden, in Wanderer, wrote:

      To be truly challenging, a voyage, like a life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. Otherwise you are domed to a routine traverse,the kind known to yachtsmen, who play with their boats at sea -- "cruising", it is called. Voyaging belongs to seamen, and to the wanderers of the world who cannot, or will not, fit in. If you are contemplating a voyage and you have the means, abandon the venture until your fortunes change. Only then will you know what the sea is all about.

      Little has been said or written about the ways a man may blast himself free. Why?

      "I've always wanted to sail to the South Seas, but I can't afford it."

      What these men can't afford is not to go. They are enmeshed in the cancerous discipline of "security". And in the worship of security we fling our lives beneath the wheels of routine--and before we know it our lives are gone.

      What does a man need--really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie down in--and some form of working activity that will yield a sense of accomplishment. That's all--in a material sense. And we know it. But we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, play things that divert our attention from the sheer idiocy of the charade.

      . . . . Where then, lies the answer? In choice. Which shall it be: bankruptcy of purse or bankruptcy of life?

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