Striking Out
Posted by PintofStout on December 7th, 2009
Have you ever felt like striking out on a voyage across many seas, beyond all prior skill and experience? The old romantic notion of the sea has been enchanting men to become sailors for centuries. Something about the unreachable horizon or the energy of the undulating ocean draws us to it. Just by glancing at the titles of a few books on my bookshelf, the desire to go to sea popped into my head – the same desire that had enchanted me when I purchased the books – even though I have never been on a boat larger than the Staten Island Ferry or on a body of water larger than Lake Erie (and then only 1/2 mile to a mile out in a small 12′ fishing boat).
The oceans and the seas are a great wilderness with the power to destroy the most technologically advanced tools. From the largest ships to the smallest crafts, it is the skill of the captain and/or crew that matters most. The seas are probably the greatest of wildernesses; larger than any other, impossible to tame or terraform, and still not under the false jurisdiction of some arbitrary authority. The seas as we see them today are essentially the same seas that people have seen for millennia, a testament to the untameable nature of the seas, and a far-reaching connection to our species’ history.
Edward Abbey, among others, had written about mankind’s need for wilderness. The need for someplace wild, untamed, and potentially dangerous. He is quoted to have said (or written), “We can have wilderness without freedom; we can have wilderness without human life at all; but we cannot have freedom without wilderness.” as well as, “Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread.” Couple these statement with a fundamental need for freedom, which I believe we all have, and wilderness seems pretty important. The wilderness acts as a bridge between our ancient ancestors who survived in this environment as a matter of course and had to overcome it in order to progress and, dare I say, evolve. Connection continues as we become, in the wilderness, a part of the universe on equal footing to the rest of existence (as opposed to sitting atop of it) and integrating ourselves with it, sharing the energy that resides in this existence. It also keeps us connected with parts of ourselves we need to nourish to survive: our vitality. The wildness inside of us that wants to go toe to toe with all the natural forces of the world. We thrive on this natural chaos. Our society hasn’t tamed the wilderness so much as tamed ourselves.
My Watered-Down Wilderness
I can’t say I’ve ever been in real wilderness. The furthest into wilderness I can claim would be merely watered-down wilderness, barely out of earshot of a highway somewhere, and never losing sight of the shore. But even these mild tonics are enough to sustain me. Such powerful medicine may take some getting used to, and is most certainly addicting.
December 8th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
What a lovely photograph. And great thoughts, too; thanks for sharing them. I hadn’t thought about the seas in that way before, but I do think you’re correct. Perhaps it’s the buckeye in me talking, but I think I’m better off exploring the wilds of the land, such as they exist, rather than the water.
December 8th, 2009 at 10:44 pm
Funny, I started reading “Walking It Off” by Doug Peacock after I had started writing this. I finished writing it after having read some while semi-conscious the night before. I reread the stuff I kinda read and much of it ended up in this post, indirectly. Mostly it was the unchanging environment of the canyon lands and the connections to past civilizations that stuck in my head and made it into the post.