“Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.” –Voltaire
ScreenHunter_1060 Mar. 09 10.30In heaven, there will be no more sea journeys, says Virgil. For much of human history, to journey by ship across open waters was thought of almost as an act of transgression. It was something requiring great temerity and audacity. It was therefore something not to be taken lightly.
Crossing boundaries, such journeys often ended in ruin.
Shipwrecked.
Vous êtes embarqués, says Pascal.
Life is a journey; indeed, we are already embarked. This is akin to Heidegger saying we are born into thrown-ness. Our human condition cannot be grasped outside of our everyday projects and situatedness. Everything we know is dependent on our environment (umwelt) and is a necessary reflection of these temporal and cultural limits. But we are also on personal voyages of discovery.
Well, that is maybe the rub. Many people turn their back on the sea and journeys. Our culture now is particularly risk-averse and so maybe this above is all more about the hero's journey…? For maybe heroes alone are brave enough to risk storms and drowning? Montaigne, for example, following Horace strongly recommended NOT going to sea–not ever. Since the rational choice for man is to stay on shore.
Heroes risk everything by setting out to sea.
No, I don't think that's true. For the winds of fate are arbitrary and storms and disaster might find us no matter what–which is why this metaphor was so popular with the Stoic philosophers. For them, the goal was to cultivate one's character so that no matter what disaster strike, the philosopher will be capable of coming out of the catastrophe unharmed by the strength his own self-possession alone. Thus, Montaigne wrote:
The mariner of old said to Neptune in a great tempest, “O God! thou mayest save me if thou wilt, and if thou wilt thou mayest destroy me; but whether or no, I will steer my rudder true.”
Man is shipwrecked in his own existence, says philosopher Hans Blumenberg.
I love that.
My mom would call it a blessing in disguise. I would call it just the way the cookie crumbles.
It’s like Candide, if he hadn't been kicked out of his homeland, if he hadn't met with a shipwreck and washed unto Lisbon shores only there to be almost killed in a mega-earthquake; if he gone up against the Inquisition, if he hadn't traveled across America on foot, if he hadn't killed a baron, if he hadn't lost all his sheep in Eldorado, well, then he wouldn't have ended up sitting there in Constantinople eating some nice candied citron and pistachios where he would dream of spending his days cultivating his garden…
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