A ship adrift and lost at sea - Part 2

After spending time anchored in safe and quite surroundings, we turn our heads and gaze at the sea once more. We have unfinished business and our ship is ready to sail.

We leave port looking for new adventures and new environments in which to trade our goods and we believe that this time we will make better choices, be more careful and less hurtful.

We come across ships willing to barter, but we stay away. “I don’t trust them”, “they will trick us”, “I don’t want what they have”. We become drifters and so time goes.

We come across ships carrying the same load as we do ourselves, and we avoid confrontation in fear of the known. After all, we don’t need what they are carrying, since we carry it ourselves.

But after spending time in lonesomeness we realize that we must engage in dealing with other vessels. We can’t survive on our own, and maybe we can find someone willing to trade our goods for something else. So we become searchers.

We meet ships with whom we trade; even if it is random without any promises of ever doing it again, we get what we need out of it, if not what we most deeply desire. We lower our thresholds and we don’t care what they look like or what they have in store. We need temporary relief and exchange of goods.

We trade with ships as damaged as ourselves, and it leaves only emptiness inside that we don’t need right now. After a while when we have settled our most basic needs, we stop what we do. It gives us nothing of value.

So once again we become drifters. It turns out we where not ready to deal with the outer world on its own premises again.

After drifting for months and maybe even years, out of the blue comes a vessel so fine. With a host that matches our selves perfectly. It feels so good that we forget our load in the bottom of the hull and it never occurs to us to display it.

We have managed to gain good value over time and this time we engage as much as we can. We agree with the other ship that we should join forces. Together we can make better in this hostile world, and we can share the loads we come across and we can better fight of external difficulties now that we are two.

Our new partner agrees. New, prosperous and better times are awaiting us.

A ship adrift and lost at sea

We drift like damaged goods in high sea. Torn ships looking for a safe harbor where we can mend our wounds and repair our sliced-up facades. But the shelters only show themselves as silhouettes in the mist. We never really get there.

Occasionally, though, the wind slows, the clouds shatter and the sun reaches down to please our torn bodies. We get some seconds of peace to patch up the worst damages and maybe even mend the rudder.

We focus on keeping our ship afloat and barely take time to restore what has been moved inside the hull by the storm. We do what is most necessary. And we are happy. We survived once more. We do not ever drown, our sails are ok, and the rudder is once again in place. And we believe that we will manage the next storm as well. After all, neither this storm killed us.

But we are still damaged. A little more than before as our patchwork is just that. Patchwork. Our rudder is weakened and our façade is barely held together by rusty nails. And we are still drifting at sea when the next storm hits us with full force. This time it is worse. We are tired and hungry. Our ship is weakened and we don’t really understand why we fight anymore.

The wind never completely disappears and the fight never ends. We fight for moments of peace, and then we fight some more but we come more and more adrift and lost. But just occasionally, we reach harbor. We anchor up but when we try to unload our cargo, we realize that even if we leave our ship, we are destined to carry our load by ourselves until we find someone willing to carry it for us.

So we do our best to repair our ship. We fix it the real way. We do not mend boards with rusty nails and stitch sails with wet thread. We work from the ground up and we work hard and eventually the ship is ready to sail again. But we carry our load with us. No one wanted it. It was damaged goods, so we carry it back onboard. And if we ever leave our safe haven we carry the load with us.

So we set out to sail with a nice façade. But his time we carry just bit more load than the last time.

And history repeats itself.

Simple, naive and childish?

I recently bought the album "It´s not me it´s you" by Lily Allen, with the mega monster hit "Fuck You". Or "F**k You" as the Americans has termed it. (If the name would have been "I'll slit your throat and blow your brains out" THAT would have been a non-issue). Digression. Anyways. I had been bombarded with "Fuck You" on the radio and in the gym for weeks and i thought itwas catchy enough. Aggressive text, nice and smooth voice and eloquently tuned melodies.

Listening through the whole album once, twice and thrice i was convinced this was a gooooood album. As expected and more actually. Easy to listen to, nice song, cool and angry texts, much like early Alanis. A few more listenings started to unveil that perhaps it was too easy to listen to an quite simple and childish? Maybe a bit naive as well with regards to what you expect from the listener. Are we really this simple. Shouldn't we have higher demands?

But still there was SOMETHING that appealed to me. So i continued to listen. After another 10 times the conclusion is: Yes, this is indeed simple, childish and naive. With two exceptions. "Fuck You" still sits with me after listening to it a 100 times. And the tune "He wasn't there" is simply fantastic with its baseline picked straight out of an old movie. It´s easy to picture an old Victor Victrola gramophone turning Lily Allen on vinyl while the owner of the house walks around, puffing his pipe in a blue bathrobe and a scarf around his neck neatly tucked inside the robe while Lily performs her convincing tune in the setting of an english library.

Be it that this record will not stand the test of time, but maybe we shouldn´t have higher demands for a measly 10 bucks on iTunes?

From me to you: Buy " He wasn't there" and skip the rest.

Listen to Lily Allen – He Wasn't There on Spotify!

Enjoy :)