All Who Wander are Not Lost

As most of you know by now, I love and regularly devour classic sailing books and stories.  Our bookshelf is filled with the names and literary prowess of Tristan Jones, Bernard Moitessier, Joshua Slocum, Robin Knox-Johnson, Mark Twain and many, many more. I am now pleased to add Sterling Hayden to that esteemed list.

Disillusioned by his life and forever lulled and pulled by the sea, Sterling Hayden left a successful Hollywood career and fame and fortune to sail the south seas on an old tall ship. A forever rebel and seeker,  his story is compelling, relatable, at times philosophical, at others heartbreaking and totally captivating.  I don't think he ever found the peace he was looking for in his life, but he did manage to achieve his dream of captaining his own tall ship and escaping a life and society he viewed as wretched.

Here's a teaser for you.  I find this man, his insights, and thoughts to be right on and incredibly profound.  Enjoy.

Little has been said or written about the ways a man may blast himself free.  Why?  I don't know, unless the answer lies in our diseased values...'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....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?

 

I could not agree more.


Love,
Brittany & Scott