March 2000 - Faith
In eight days, both of us will give our two week resignation notices to our employers, ending perhaps the best job opportunities we will ever have. At least that’s what everyone else is telling us. They’re also warning us about the health insurance we won’t have for the next few months, how it rains 225 days a year in Juneau, and of course how expensive everything will be—especially without jobs. Or the best one: "Why don’t you just work a few more years in the booming Seattle technology industry…then you can buy a BIGGER boat!"
What they’re really saying is they just don’t understand what it means to go voyaging. I’ve read about this, this "syndrome" people have when you tell them you are leaving to sail around the world. It’s characterized by a blank or confused stare, then a question like, "but how will you retire?" When we embarked upon this goal of ours, we expected everyone we knew to get very excited, want to join up with us in exotic places to go sailing in the tropical sun. We did anticipate some warnings, lots of well-meaning advice and words of caution. What we didn’t expect was the reaction we got from many, basically: "Why on earth do you want to give everything up to go sailing?" Two bright young people—we should be in college or working full-time for Microsoft. Heck, we could have a nice big house in a few years and a couple of brand new cars!
Time and again these people would just shake their heads at us and remark "what a shame. I just don’t understand." For those people, we have no explanation. At least one they could comprehend. We’ll just leave them behind in their work—rush—commute lives as their own dreams wither and die.
For some other people though, after the telling of our dreams, we would watch their eyes glaze over, not with confusion, but with understanding. "Ah yes," they might, or might not tell us. "I would like to do that one day…" Those are the ones who understand what we dream of, to voyage the oceans in our small boat. They have read the tales of Captain Slocum and know the desire to travel to distant lands. They know the meaning of true freedom: to be bonded to other people by friendship and love, but not necessarily tied to a house or job. They know that life is not about how big your bank account, house or boat is, nor are you defined by your career. They know that nothing in life is certain, nothing secure, despite our ineffectual attempts to make it so. As good sailing friends of ours once remarked, "Going offers the potential for so much more." We know that true adventure, truly living, lies somewhere in the unknown. And that is what feeds us.
We don’t know for sure what we’ll be doing once we’re in Juneau. We don’t even know if we’ll be able to cope with all the rain. We don’t know when we’ll be "back," if we even choose to call Seattle home again. We don’t get tired of living in Jenny P’s small space because to our eyes, our ceiling is the sky, the sea our living room. We don’t know what the future will bring, but to us that only makes us want to turn the page to find out what happens next, and keep living the dream. We do know that wherever we are, whatever happens, we will make it through. For us, voyaging is the ultimate act of Faith.
From Sterling Hayden, Wanderer:
To be truly challenging, a voyage, like a life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. Otherwise, you are doomed 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.
"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 the 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, playthings that divert our attention for the sheer idiocy of the charade.
The years thunder by, The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed.
Where, then, lies the answer? In choice. Which shall it be: bankruptcy of purse or bankruptcy of life?
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