YOUNG SEA GYPSIES |
“Que pais?” What country, he asked,
as he pointed to the flag flying from my rigging.
“No pais!” No country, I answered.
“No pais?” He responded in a puzzled
manner.
“Correcto, soy un gitano del
mar.” That’s right, I am a sea
gypsy.
Realizing that he still did not
quite understand this, I lowered the flag down so that he could see it
closely. It is an Earth Flag with the
classic photo of our planet from space.
“El Mundo es mi pais. El Mar es mi pais, comprende?” The World is my country. The Sea is my country. Do you understand?
“Si, fantastico,” he said. And then we sat quietly and finished our
beers as the darkening sky shadowed the bay.
He passed me back the empty can and then reached into his bucket and
brought out another fish. In Spanish he told
me that it was a gift – “for his friend whose country is the Sea.”
*******
Ironically, the memory of this lovely
episode with the ancient fisherman inspired a meditation about sailors at the
opposite end of the age spectrum. The
more I ponder our present world and our planetary future, the more discouraged
I become. And if it is difficult for
someone like me, who is sailing through his Middle Years, imagine how bleak it
must appear for those a few decades astern of me.
And so I am writing this essay in the hopes of inspiring
young people all over the world to consider adopting the sea gypsy life. I am urging them to become - as the old
fisherman so eloquently expressed it - “a man or woman whose country is the
Sea.” And here is why…
*******
For the last decade, the internet - and in particular
the alternative media portion of it - has courageously revealed the true nature
of Power in the modern world. Today,
only a fool still believes that they control their own destiny via “duly
elected representatives” who carry out the wishes of the people. The reality is that we do not have leaders -
we have RULERS.
Plato yearned for a world of “philosopher kings” that would
benevolently balance the rights of the People and the needs of the State. He would be horrified by what has actually
evolved. The global leadership class (political,
military, business and media) is a putrid swamp filled almost entirely with
psychopaths and sociopaths. They have no
concern whatsoever for the Common Good - even though they spout platitudes applauding
it whenever a TV camera is nearby. They
are addicts whose drug is DOMINATION.
They are money and power junkies; and they will do whatever is necessary
to keep their fixes flowing.
Furthermore, they are more vicious and devious than ever.
Witness the NSA spying revelations. When Edward Snowden showed the world how
widespread the unlawful surveillance of practically everyone on the planet was,
the reaction from the U.S. Congress should have been: “This is illegal and
immoral and obscene - and it must end immediately!” But instead, they shifted the discussion to a
debate over how much spying on ordinary citizens was acceptable for ‘national
security reasons.’ So for all of the
young people out there who I am trying to convince of the merits of the sea
gypsy life, here is my first argument:
THEY ARE
SECRETLY WEAVING A TOTAL CONTROL WEB AROUND YOU.
They are tracking you through your smart phones and
your computers. They are monitoring you
with highway license plate readers and the GPS units in your cars. Those “smart” electric meters that they are
installing, are their eyes into your homes.
Up in the sky above you the first drones are patrolling; and they are
now admitting that over 30,000 will be launched by the end of this decade – “for
your protection.” And the ultimate wet
dream of these control freaks is to shoot an RFID chip under your skin - providing
them complete knowledge of your location and your activities. In the meantime, they will add these chips to
your passports to keep track of your whereabouts.
And all of these horrible invasions of every person’s
right to privacy are being expanded at the same time that they are completing another
phase of their control junkie plan. This
is my second argument in favor of abandoning the slave matrix and embracing the
sea gypsy life:
THEY ARE
MILITARIZING THE POLICE NOT TO PROTECT YOU BUT TO OPPRESS YOU.
Those at the center of power – who I like to call The
Malignant Overlords – are either aware that an economic collapse is coming or
they are actually engineering that meltdown.
Either way, they are mindful that a pushback from those whose lives have
been destroyed is very likely. They truly
understand that a torches and pitchfork moment may be out there on the event
horizon.
And so they are arming local police departments as
though they were Galactic Stormtroopers.
They are now almost indistinguishable from front line combat infantry
troops. SWAT teams are multiplying like slime in a
petrie dish. Tiny little towns now have
military surplus armored personnel carriers that are just one step below tanks. These in-your-face vehicles, designed to
terrify and subdue the general population, are now even popping up in school
districts around the country. Why does a
school district need grenade launchers and semi-tanks?
So, why might The Malignant Authorities be so
vigorously installing a militarized police and surveillance state? The most likely explanation is that even
though they are already almost omnipotent, their lust for even more control is
utterly pathological. So they seek a
world where they rule and beneath them is a small group of technicians to run
the surveillance and police grid. And
beneath them is a massive group of modern day serfs. This leads to my third reason why the sea
gypsy option is the best escape for awakened young people:
THE FUTURE
THEY ARE OFFERING YOU IS LOW-GRADE SERFDOM
Imagine a planet that combines the worst of Aldous
Huxley’s BRAVE NEW WORLD and George Orwell’s 1984. What you have just envisioned is BRAVE NEW
EARTH 2014. Even Orwell could not have
imagined the surveillance capabilities that our contemporary Big Brother has
achieved. Our rulers understand that the
boot on the neck is a powerful tool of repression, but they also recognize that
subtlety is even more effective.
So they dazzle and distract us with electronic hypnotism
that would amaze even Huxley. Almost the
entire planet now walks around staring at and talking into screens. Around the clock, through hundreds of
channels, the TV screams out its message of “consume and conform!” We are bombarded by a hologram-like thread of
spectacle: Super Bowls, award shows, and movies that are dominated by comic
book super heroes and violent special effects.
And as we lap up this vapid tripe from a metastasized “un-culture,” we
fail to notice the profound and steady deterioration of any genuine meaning in
our lives.
This is no way to live and for the young it will
become even more difficult to JUST LIVE. A college degree no longer assures a
tolerable, decent-paying job. And
getting that diploma usually requires taking out loans that practically make the
student an indentured servant for many years after graduation. And the blue collar work opportunities have
vaporized as the obscenely greedy corporations “off-shored” – or more
accurately STOLE – those jobs from the working class. The young are looking at a future of burger
flipping, changing bedpans or being grunts in the imperial war machine.
*******
The reason I have tried to paint such a vivid picture
of the trauma that awaits the younger generation, is because I have an antidote
for this diseased society. FLEE … and
more specifically FLEE TO THE SEA … become a man or woman “whose country is the
Sea.” You cannot reform the system
through political action or protest or even revolt. The Malignant Overlords have it too locked
down. Instead, sail away and let it
collapse under the weight of its own hubris and over-reach.
While it crumbles, you can enjoy a life of authentic freedom
and adventure and harmony with Nature, while surrounded by young peers who also
made the same bold decision. You can
reconnect with your less-domesticated and more feral self.
In one year from the moment you are reading this, you
can have joined the sea gypsies already out wandering the Wide Waters. Here at my blog there are several essays that
detail exactly how to do this. Begin
with this link to the one called THE SEA GYPSY TRIBE
and work your way through the others. For the price of just the average down payment
on a house, you can own a fully-equipped, self-sufficient sailboat. But you will quickly realize that it is more
than just a boat – that it is a magic carpet capable of carrying you across
oceans of wonder and possibility.
*******
I certainly realize that most of what I write often falls
on deaf ears or no ears. But my “Inner
Fool” keeps insisting that I strive to add a tiny bit more light to a darkening
world. So I hope that one day that
ancient fisherman will again row up to AVENTURA to sell me a fish. And he will be amazed to discover five or six
other boats all flying the Earth Flag. Then
he will think to himself: “This truly pleases my fisherman’s soul - for here is
an entire tribe whose country is the Sea.”