by Ray Jason
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| Thank you for your brilliance Norman Rockwell |
The wind arrived swiftly. The waves built more slowly - but also more
dangerously. Suddenly AVENTURA was no
longer gently tugging at her anchor. She
was lunging and jerking perilously. I
let out more chain to calm her, but the seas kept pounding us. The gorgeous little island with its massive
coral formations had protected me from the prevailing winds for the last two
days. But now that we had swung around
180 degrees, those reefs were a million-machete menace.
I had snorkeled
them that afternoon and their beauty had dazzled me. However, their contours had worried me. In many places the water depth would drop from
15 feet to 2 feet in only a few yards.
Dashed against them, my fiberglass boat could quickly be punctured,
filled with seawater and destroyed. I
would lose my home, my magic carpet, my companion.
To further complicate my precarious situation, there
were no shore lights nearby that I could use to determine if my anchor was
dragging. This was an exquisite but very
remote section of the Archipelago of Bliss.
Tonight it felt like the Archipelago of Fear.
Although I rarely use electronic navigation, on this
dark and stormy night I turned on my GPS and monitored the last three digits. If they remained the same it meant my anchor
was holding. It took about four hours
for the wind and waves to decrease and for the danger to pass. Although I was exhausted, the adrenalin in my
bloodstream made sleep difficult. So I
went on deck with my clipboard and its little light to sort out a few things
that had been troubling me of late.
*******
I don’t know exactly what sparked it - but a
philosophical weariness had descended upon me in recent days. The apparent uselessness of my late life
quest had driven me so far down … that it looked like up to me. All I sought, in what I refer to as “The
Remainder,” was to reassess the world from a perspective of maturity, and to
share my discoveries with whoever might be drawn to them. I pursued this mission because it seemed like
a noble and worthy way to pass one’s autumn years. But increasingly it feels not just like a
fool’s errand but a fool’s failure.
It just appears increasingly obvious to me that the
humans of Earth cannot reform themselves - no matter how many voices attempt to
awaken them to a wiser path. They will
continue to allow war and hunger and injustice.
They will not stop worshipping stuff and “leaders” and invisible tyrants
in the sky. They will drool over the Kardashians;
and not even know who The Great Sinclairs might be – Sinclair Lewis and Upton
Sinclair. Even though we fools cry out
to them from the watchtowers, they fail to notice their iAddictions and the electronic
eyes that ceaselessly shadow them. The futility
of it all is enough to turn a Pollyanna into a Nietsche.
And on a personal level, am I not an even greater fool
as I sit here writing this in a beautiful sailing ship that can transport me
anywhere on this lush planet where there is six feet of water? Why do I instead keep flailing at windmills
with my cyber-lance like a demented Don Quixote?
Fame and fortune is not my motive. I am too late in life to be enchanted by that
charade. My website bears this out. You will find no donations tab or Patreon
link or advertisements. It is just a
collection of a hundred or so essays trying to shed a bit more light on a
shadowed world.
*******
My closest friends know that I refer to these pieces
as my “leave behinds.” From the very
beginning I realized that they would largely be unheeded during my
lifetime. But I have tried to sculpt
them powerfully and poetically enough that decades from now, they might be
recognized for their truth and their kindness.
But now even that modest aspiration seems like a delusion.
The fool looks into the mirror and sees a clown … and
a phantom.