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.