wind – Observations and Misunderstandings

I’ve done a bit of sailing. Not loads but enough to be fairly proficient. I could survive I think, I say that despite the failed sailing exam. There were extenuating circumstance with the thirty knots of wind and a crew who had never sailed before, but I must take responsibility for panicking when a navy boat came up behind me in a small channel and me dangerously tacking into the wind, proceeding to get stuck behind an oil tanker as it started up it’s engines and then messing up my reefing as I tried to make the sails smaller. I needed to be better but it was a ridiculous and comedic situation. Anyway, I’ve enjoyed learning so far, it’s a good way to see the world in a whole new way. I hope I get to carry on again at some point once everything has calmed down.

The reason I bring this all up is I was thinking about the weather. It’s really hot and humid. I had to learn about the weather when learning how to sail because, well, it’s quite important. To avoid embarrassment I’m not going to try and explain it beyond that I think we’re moving through a period of low pressure, we should be getting westerlies and the rains are coming. Now I could be wrong but I think I’m right. Being able to read these barometric charts is quite cool in an uncool way but probably only if you’ve ever needed to know how. It’s actually really interesting knowing what weather is coming up by working it out for yourself. It adds another type of practical to the whole.

I’ll never be a sailing wanker but I am fan. It’s a very social way of life. Everybody is living on top of each other, working together, helping. It’s the complete opposite to living life in lockdown isolation. The calm and the space. I’ve experienced community in a few different ways and this is just another version. Mini communities for one week, one month. Strangers coming together with an intensity everyday society cannot match. This is something I actually miss, this intensity of interaction. Working together is something that can be hard because we don’t have to ordinarily. We will become better at it or lonely. You get to really know people. People are real very quickly.

I realise I miss the travelling community. I love the art of sailing but it’s the travelling that gives me the real kicks. I have arrived places I’ve previously been but this time by sea and they feel like whole new versions. You’re viewing everything from a different angle. I’m looking at places around the world I have never previously thought that much of before. I dream of sailing in the Arctic around Svalbard, the Antarctic, the fjords around Tierra del Fuego and the tip of South America. These are magical kingdoms. I can’t imagine there being a better way to explore them. But that will be then, for now I’ll just enjoy this moment and what it brings, I’ll keep an eye on the weather all the same.

I was lying in bed this morning feeling frustrated. I’ve not been sleeping as well as I usually do and that usual is to close my eyes and suddenly the alarm is going off nine hours later. I’m not sure why I’m not, but for whatever reason I find it understandably annoying. The frustration I suspect is like a wind that gives the fire oxygen but it’s a lack of something that’s the kindling.

I’ve led a reasonably interesting life so far, been to a few places and met many faces. I don’t really feel proud of it like it’s some accomplishment despite the positive response I get when I tell some people. There is certainly a lack of contentment and despite how it may appear I feel a constant drive to achieve things. I often see some of my friends or really successful famous people and I’m envious of their lives. They seem to have a success I don’t. Careers, homes, families and bank balances yet I’m thirty four and my instincts have rejected all of these things until now. In fact I still see the futility of some of them and I know the things they have sacrificed to achieve them, things I’m seemingly still unwilling to as I plan my next adventure. Can we adventure forever though? We can’t eat our memories, we can’t shelter under them and eventually we just become those repetitive old travellers others avoid because all they have is their stories. I don’t often tell my stories unless they come up as a relatable anecdote, I don’t want to be that person.

So why the frustration? I hope you don’t feel me to be self indulgent with this piece but it’s simply I know expressing thoughts like this can help others with their own thoughts. I’m not saying my thoughts are anything special but more that I’m not unique and we all suffer the same things just through different eyes. The frustration stems from a lack of something in life as I said. I’m not sure if it’s a home because I have one now and it’s great and safe but it’s not going to bring me happiness on it’s own. Maybe it’s a family? A wife and kids. Again I’m unsure of that, although I don’t doubt it would be nice to have a woman in my life. Perhaps it’s just wanting it all, or more precisely wanting an idea of how I imagine it’ll be.

I was thinking that for all the knowledge I’ve learnt over the years; meeting wise people, reading wise texts, experiencing moments of understanding; I still don’t seem to put much of this into practice in my own life. It would explain why it is still knowledge within and not wisdom. The only thing I’ve learnt is that unlike twenty five year old me I try to avoid giving wise enlightened advice or talking in that empty way people do when they think they know it all. I feel an immediate inclination to end the conversation, or I’ll carry it on but sometimes it just feels stupid. I know it can impress people, and you see people taking it in but it doesn’t feel real. Unless you start living it it’s just a series of empty words.

A series of desires about something we imagine we want and a series of empty words then. I know the rhetoric about contentment and desires but I’m not content and I still desire. I know the words that give the impression of a level of enlightened but I feel as far from enlightened as I’ve even been. This is the frustration then. Why what I know doesn’t correlate in any way to how I act. This is why I feel confident I can say this aloud and it will resonate with others, another thing I know is that others don’t act on what they know either. Perhaps it’s just part of being a fallible human. Perhaps we just need more than knowledge of words. This drive to achieve life, live it to whatever fullest version we choose. Again this is just an idea of a desire. I think I need to end this here because I can see myself going in circles. The answers aren’t attached to my tail. Maybe the answers aren’t attached to anything. Maybe there are no answers. Perhaps that’s what I’m missing, but what does that even mean? Just empty fucking words again.

Tag: wind

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