by Ray Jason
It’s early morning down here in the
Banana Latitudes, and I am savoring the languor of the Tropics. Sitting in the shade, with my back against
the mast, I notice a small cayuco emerge from a nearby creek and steer directly
towards me. Suddenly it feels like I have been swept back to the era of Captain
Cook when the natives would row out to the visiting ships to trade with the
sailors.
However, this local trader turns out
to be a seven year old boy - with a cargo of coconuts and chickens. I happily purchase four green “drinking
nuts.” When he offers me a fine hen, I
pantomime what a hilarious ordeal it would be for me to control an unhappy
chicken aboard a small sailing boat. He
laughs vigorously, flashing beautiful white teeth undamaged by sugar and
civilization. It pleases me to know that
when he returns from school later today he will not vicariously butcher
hundreds of “bad guys” on some video game screen. Instead, he will fish for supper with some
line coiled around a stick.
He notices a cable attached to my
boat that is dangling in the water and asks me what it is for. I tell him that it is protection against
“relampago,” which is the Spanish word for lightning. I try to explain the principle that if the
lightning hit my mast it would travel down this wire and back into the water
instead of inside the boat where it could destroy my electrical equipment. With an innocence born of living in the
authentic, natural world, he asks, “But what would that do to the nearby
fish?” Nice priorities, I think to
myself – living creatures more precious than radars and radios.
His reverence for the real world –
for the non-human built world – touches me, and so I go below and grab a bottle
of cooking oil from my own trade goods stash.
I pass it down to him so that he can give it to his mother when he
returns from school. He smiles and
thanks me and rows away.
*******
This sweet, fleeting encounter
penetrated to some deep region of my core being that I suspect I had been
avoiding for a good while. After slicing
open one of the coconuts with my machete, I return to my spot beside the mast
and sip my Tarzan Tea. Meanwhile, my
mind tries to identify what I had been so rigorously ignoring for the last few
months.
The answer does not emerge while I
drink the sweet coconut water, nor does it appear during my breakfast of
scrambled eggs and papaya. But it does
reveal itself during my morning row.
About 50 yards away from AVENTURA, it jolts me so dramatically that I
put down my oars and drift. Seeing my
lovely boat in this exquisite lagoon with the sparsely-peopled jungle behind
her, reminds me of how extraordinarily different my sea gypsy life is now.
In 1992, when I first sailed away
from it all to wander the Wide Waters, my desire was to seek experiences just
like this one with the young Indio boy and his floating chicken-vending
operation. Back then, the so-called
“real world” did not feel at all “real” or authentic to me. It seemed artificial and empty and vapid. I thirsted for Life in its more elemental and
almost feral essence. To cast my fate to
the wind and visit lovely out-of-the-way places and befriend the exotic people
who lived there, seemed like the ultimate expression of free and joyous
living.
The days passed happily during those early sea gypsy
years. Along the way, I shared many of
my adventures with readers in the sailing magazines. This led to my first book, Tales of a Sea
Gypsy, (Amazon link here) which is a light-hearted collection of stories
about the misadventures of sailors and locals that I met in my wanderings. Had my life continued in that bliss-rich
manner until my final anchorage hove into sight, I would have appraised it as a
life well spent.
*******
But about ten years ago, everything seemed to
change. There was no single moment of
epiphany, but a gradual awareness of a massive looming darkness enshrouding the
planet. I had grown up with the nuclear
war Doomsday Clock ticking malevolently in the background, but fortunately the
fall of the USSR had diminished that apocalyptic prospect.
However, even though this new foreboding was less
distinct, it was equally disturbing. The
emergence of the Internet in the New Millennium allowed almost everyone to observe
global trends that were previously hidden by those in power, whom I refer to as
The Malignant Overlords. My conclusion
was that there were three cataclysmic vectors that were accelerating and that
could cause horrific societal ruptures. I
dubbed these The Big Bad “E”s. They are
Energy, Economy and Ecology.
Energy. The
insatiable needs of the modern techno-industrial society require an ever
increasing flow of liquid petroleum. But
because oil is a non-renewable, one dividend only resource, much of what is
perceived as normal living will be swiftly destroyed when the fuel flow becomes
too unreliable or too expensive – or both.
Economy. Globalization
has fostered such profound inter-connectedness in the realms of commerce and
banking that the entire planet is vulnerable if one economy collapses. The amount of un-payable debt sloshing around
the world’s banking systems and the seemingly insane faith in fiat currencies,
are only two examples of the dangers that threaten the stability of the house
of cards that the global economy has become.
Ecology. A stunning
number of influential people still believe that there can be infinite growth on
a finite planet. They delude themselves with the assurance that
somehow technology will rescue us and offset the metastasizing increase in
population, resource extraction and pollution.
Gaia is showing dozens of symptoms of terminal illness, but these are
largely being ignored.
And as if these three are not severe enough, a fourth “E”
has recently arisen which is possibly even more suicidal. That would be Empire. The U.S. foreign
policy geniuses have decided to reignite the Cold War by their proxy revolution
and civil war in the Ukraine. These
insane “diplomats” are scratching and clawing to retain their imperialistic
fantasies of the United States ruling the world. Tragically, through their efforts to demonize
Russia and China, they are playing with fire – thermonuclear fire – end of the
human species fire!
*******
As I increasingly recognized how desperate the human
existential situation was becoming, it no longer felt appropriate for me to use
whatever writing talent I may have by merely spinning whimsical tales from my
eccentric travels. That’s because I am cursed
blessed with that strange genome that wants to help make the world a slightly
better place. And so I have dedicated my
recent years to writing these essays in order to alert people to the dire
possibilities that may lie ahead. Certainly,
I hope that my cautionary advice is misguided; and that it will just be a
source of amusement to me in my final days.
But I still feel compelled to share my message as powerfully and
poetically as possible.
However, that does not mean I have to live a gloomy,
morose daily existence. Today’s encounter
with the seven year old poultry entrepreneur reminded me of what a delight this
sea gypsy life truly is. And perhaps
next time he offers me a hen, I will buy one.
Watching its antics on a sailing boat should certainly distract me from Armageddon!