OT....or maybe not?

General Discussion
1

http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html

When I first read this, all I could think of was surfing. For me it’s an activity which doesn’t have a purpose or meaning. It means what it is. It is a means and an end all wrapped into one perfect activity. Sure, it can become complicated, expensive and even political. But at the end of the day, riding waves is a pointless, unproductive and purely subjective joy. This is the true meaning of life for me. Maybe I’ve stretched the reach of Russell’s essay a bit, but how could surfing be described better, than as an idle pleasure?

2

Lord Russel has a point there - add to that the idea that all this mad striving and insane consumption yields ....well... the mess we're in now.

And how much of a working day actually is productive... and how much is watching the clock waiting to 'get the hell out of here and do something I like'. And work, done right, acccomplishes a helluva sight more if you take the time to think about it beforehand, 'how do I do this a little better'.

Working working working, stressing out, winding up old too young and worn out when they'll finally let you slow down a little and enjoy life. But by then the habit is set, and they keep on running straight to the grave. And for what? A bigger house, that costs too much to run and you rattle around like a grain of sand in an empty shoe? Or have a giant car to take you where you don't really want to go and burn more fuel than you want to buy.

To what end? The cliches go that there's no pockets in a shroud, you can't take it with you. And nobody on their deathbed ever complained that they didn't work enough.

The last few years, I've maybe learned a little. Now, more due to age than anything else, I do my work a tide at a time. This old body ain't up for more any more.

And the clams and the oysters take time to grow, their time tells me what to do and when to do it  .

But - it took far too long to learn it. I shoulda done the reading. And on that note, let me also mention Economy from Thoreau's Walden .

Or, from the seaman and actor Sterling Hayden, written fifty years ago:

  • "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?

Now, get out there and....relax

doc.....

3

Well put Doc! The system has us so well trained to chase the carrot on the end of the stick that even when the carrot is obviously non-existent, we assume it’s because we aren’t chasing hard enough!

But surfers manage to put aside time and money for a pursuit which is entirely unproductive, and self indulgent! Thats a good way to thumb your nose at the system once in a while!!!

4

No, not on topic but I can't resist ...

This is a classic essay, thanks for reminding me of it.

Russell had many faults as well but I love to read him. Check out "Why I'm not a Christian" for another zinger,  

And Doc, you remind me that I've been meaning to read Sterling Hayden for a couple of years now. I'm off to the library, and then maybe off the radar, we'll see. 

C    

5

Thanks C-slug, I’ll check it out! What would you recommend by Hayden?

6

A little name-dropping, of a sort....

You see, The Old Man was a prep school boy, place called Tabor Academy up here in Southeast Massachusetts. And what they have instead of 'head boy' or chief prefect or whatever is a position called 'Mate of the Schooner'...because they have a schooner, they do a kind of blue water sail training thing in addition to academics, and the best seaman of the class is made Mate of the Schooner.

Well, it's 1942 or so, and The Old Man is at a party in town here in his Academy uniform with the brass buttons and all, and this Great Big Guy sees him and asks what the hell he's dressed up as. The Old Man, a kid of 16 at the time, tells him;"Mate of the schooner Tabor Boy".

The Great Big Guy asks what his spot on the schooner was, and the Old Man tells him: foremasthead man. The Great Big Guy grills him on what a foremasthead man does and the Old Man tells him.

The Great Big Guy ( now joined by a really lovely woman) says "That's right"....it was Sterling Hayden and his first wife, Madeline Carroll. And Hayden had been a foremasthead man on a schooner. And not just any schooner, but on the Gertrude Thebaud for Capt. Ben Pine in the Fisherman's Cup races between fishing schooners and had been pretty much hand picked for that crew.

Hayden is usually written up as an actor who liked boats, but what he was was a helluva good seaman, dory fisherman, trading ship skipper and such who had sailed around the world before his 20th birthday, and that was what he was proudest of in his life. The acting was a joke to him, for the most part, a means to an end.

His books, there's but two of them. His autobiography:Wanderer and a novel called Voyage.  Both genuinely written by him, no ghost writers, both written pretty well. Hayden was the kind of man who always had some pretty good books ( literally) in his seabag and loved good books.

I'd suggest Wanderer first and follow that up with Voyage. Neither is particularly small, both good reads, Wanderer is still in print and Voyage still available from Amazon.

And once you've finished with that, you could have a go at Bernard Moitessier's stuff and more, most definitely Joseph Conrad. The really good seamen, some of them write very well, and time working at sea can strip away a lot of the foolishness and pettiness that is everywhere ashore.

hope that's of use - be forewarned, running away to sea isn't as easy as it used to be.

doc...