Fools are Too Ingenious!
Published: Saturday, December 18, 2021 10:00 am
By: Bob Bitchin
Have ya ever noticed how all old sailors seem to be wise, but they tell stories about all the stupid things that they did when they were young? Well I’ve noticed, and I came to an astonishing conclusion. You just gotta be young and dumb and do all kinds of crazy things in order to become wise as you get older!
I mean, face it, if you don’t get into a jam every once in a while, how are you ever going to learn how to get out of a jam? Yes, you can learn from reading a book. But always keep in mind, what you are reading had to have been experienced by someone for them to learn the lesson that you are being taught. A lot of book learning can be a good thing, but I’ve always found the lessons learned by experience get ingrained a lot deeper than those read in books. So, ya gotta head out and let the things happen that are going to happen. It’s called a learning curve, and if you survive it, all the better!
As Confucius once said, “By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.”
And I might add to that, the things you learn from experience stay with you the longest!
So you have to go out there and experience life in order to enjoy it to its fullest. Anyone can read a book about crossing an ocean. Actually, I think everyone who ever did cross an ocean either wrote a book about it or tried to. There are thousands of books about every aspect of life.
But you can’t gain the feeling of accomplishment you feel after sailing out from under the black clouds of a squall by reading The Perfect Storm.
No, you have to experience the thrill of seeing the clouds lighten, of feeling the wind start to slacken, of the seas subsiding. That’s when your chest puffs out with pride. This is a pride you can only feel by accomplishing the things that others may consider stupid.
If you are reading this, chances are you are into the boating lifestyle. Either that or you’re sitting in a dentist office awaiting a root canal, in which case that is an experience you can keep to yourself! But, I digress. The only way you get to feel the sense of accomplishment you feel when you arrive at your destination after a harrowing passage is to actually arrive. You can’t get it sitting in front of a theater or TV screen, or reading a book about it. You have to be dumb enough to go out there and do it. Ya gotta slay the dragon before you get to kiss the maiden. And I can tell you this: the bigger the dragon, the better the kiss!
I remember the first time I sailed my boat out of the harbor to sail “all the way” to Catalina Island. A whole 26 miles! I had thought about and prepared myself for this epic crossing for a month. As I pulled out of the harbor, the knot in my stomach was larger than any I experienced later sailing around the world. When I pulled that 28-footer into Two Harbors, I felt I had accomplished the impossible.
After that I kept setting myself bigger and harder goals because it took more and more to get my juices flowing. A year later, it was Mexico. Then Hawaii and back. With each voyage, the goal had to be more difficult just to see what I could do, what my boat could do, to get the sense of accomplishment, and to feel the pride of doing something that made me feel alive.
Okay, this all started out about wisdom, and there is some wisdom here to be learned. There is an old adage, “With age comes wisdom.” I agree with that, but there’s also a saying of Oscar Wilde’s that is as equally profound, “With age comes wisdom, but sometimes age comes alone.”
So what did we learn from all this verbiage? Absolutely nothing, except possibly how you can add to your life by doing things that some may consider foolhardy. Nothing is foolproof, because fools are too ingenious.
A version of this article appeared in the Buyer's Guide (November/December) 2022 of Great Lakes Scuttlebutt magazine.
tags: Lifestyle, Sailing, Travel
