You’re already doing it

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?

 -Sterling Hayden

A veteran teacher and globe-trotter at the high school I teach at printed this quote, from Sterling Hayden’s The Wanderer.   He slipped it to me in the hallway last September, shortly after my return from my summer adventure in Ecuador.  It remained posted to the cork bulletin by my desk until today, and my friend’s words still sing in my ears.  “Some people figure it out too late,” he said “but you’re already there.  You’re already doing it.”

There isn’t anything wrong with the quote-unquote routine traverse.  I come from a family that was always able to provide for me.  This is the reason that I am not shackled by college loans or buried beneath the pyramid of time payments, and they are the safety net that I know would catch me if somehow my vessel were to sink.  And I know that I want a family of my own someday, and that I want to give my children the same opportunity to boldly pursue their dreams.

Still, I feel that pull of the south seas, and I know that, right now, I cannot afford not to go.  Security someday, yes.  But right now I am young and I am free and I fear that if I do not set sail, my dreams will follow in the wake of expectation my entire life.

This week I gave my official resignation at work.  I’ve heard that I am crazy to quit my job in this economy, but I think that I might be crazier not to.  The time to go after your dreams is always “now,”  and as my wise friend has assured me, I’m already doing it.  So, goodbye Boston, cya lata stable income, and good night old woman whispering “hush.”  Hello to my adventure.