I was sent the link to this video clip via an e-mail list to which I belong. Watch it, then we'll talk.
I'm sure he's enjoying himself. I'm glad he's able to live his dream so young . . . but what will his future be? Is there a future in bumming around the ocean on boats, in this day and age? Is there still room for the footloose and fancy-free life, or is the modern world antithetical to it?
In my younger days, I'd have been all for something like this. Nowadays? I'm not so sure. What about you, readers?
(Hey - at least he's not carrying on like the feral urban youths referred to in the previous post!)
Peter
15 comments:
Kids today are priced right out of the housing market. That boy's white so he has affirmative action to worry about - and even if he didn't, today's corporate workplace is a soul sucking nightmare of political correctness and office politics. He can't fart, burp or tell a rude joke for fear of the office HR fatty overhearing it, or some other PC pencil head. His wages will amount to peanuts.
With the dissolution of marriage, having kids is a 50/50 crap shoot. If his marriage fails he goes to the poor house.
What you're looking at, Pete - whether that boy realizes what he is or not - is John Galt.
Agreed.
Good for him, it's his choice and I hope it's everything he hopes it will be.
JackCrow
God bless him and his attitude. Even if he has an TEOTWAWKI moment, not sure it'll hurt as much as it will elsewhere.
If he gets hit by the "nesting syndrome", he might be in trouble.
If not, he will have been happy and lived a full life, for him. Unless Lizzie can't weather the weather once.....
There are boat bums today, world-wide. There are always boaters looking for deckhands, or engineers, or mates. There are also jobs for people delivering boats around the world. AOAT (any ocean any tonnage) masters are always in demand, if one wants to go that way too...
He's earning his own living, not taking handouts or entitlements from anyone and living in a way he finds fulfilling: More power to him.
While he may not be able to, or want to sustain it indefinitely, right now he is happy and self-sufficient.
Interesting and enticing to someone working a 9 to 5 job.
I wonder how he makes his money? As he said, he doesn't need much, but boats are notoriously expensive, even when you do the maintenance yourself, especially wooden ones like that one.
The adventure is out there......
Heltau
Don't know Peter; but it is my observation that people, who have followed their hearts, had the adventures, when they reenter society they are the mature ones, the wise ones, the live-n-let-live ones. Which maybe what's wrong with today's feral urban youth. They haven't had enough time outdoors fending for themselves.
looks like a winner to me.
He's not really John Galt, he's to passive and reactive for that comparison. On the other hand I think he's doing something depressingly few of the current young generation have the guts to do: trying to find out who they are and what their relation to the world really is; not what the "society" expects him to be or do. He'll probably not find his 42-kind of answer, but someday he'll hopefully be more secure in whom he is in his relation to the rest of the world. That's when he'll come back into the "real world", like Judy said, a more mature person.
It worked well for Tristan Jones, for most of his life anyway. Tristan's life didn't end well. You can live like this while you're young, but as you age the mileage tends to catch up to you.
Unless I missed something he's not depending on the "good nature of others" to sustain him, and he's putting in a SHITLOAD of work to maintain his lifestyle. I'll take it. Sure, 10yrs down the road when (IF) he decides its time to buy a house and settle down with a "normal" job he might have trouble convincing some employers to take him on, but I know enough about boats and boat living to know that he's having to put ALOT of work into maintaining what he's doing, so I expect he could cope.
I considered doing a live-aboard life. The fact that I have an allergy to most/all? seafood was a factor in the decision to not do it. Having worked as a car/motorcycle/boat mechanic would have been a plus for boat maintenance, and earning enough to fund the lifestyle.
A friend decided to do it, but the sailboat he bought had an unconventional rig, and he discovered too late that it required full shoulder/arm strength and mobility, and he had a bad shoulder joint. He was an Oracle Database designer, and he figured he could limit his jobs to locales that had water access, but he died under suspicious circumstances before he could change boats.
If it makes him happy, more power to him. We only receive one Life and you may as well spend it pursuing your dreams. To find a 'Special Someone' who is willing to share the dream may prove to be difficult. Or when he runs across that person, hard to convince to pursue the same Life.
Peter, The missus and I lived that life for about twelve years. The differences between him and us are that we waited until we could afford it and we kept watch while underway 24 hours a day.
We sailed from Seward, Alaska and wound up in Mexico.
If he can make enough money through his photos and his writing - or whatever else he does, good for him.
I think he is making a mistake doing it as a single-hander because he can not keep a proper watch when he is underway. Also, he will have no help if he is injured.
We had a friend who was a single hander. He fell overboard in calm seas and died. Had he had a mate he might have lived.
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