I will be heading back to Nazaré shortly in the old Citroen, for yet another session getting the Anna M ready for sea. The big uncertainty remains as to when we will manage to get the electric motor finished and installed. As has been increasingly the case, I am under pressure to convince my wife (and my own conscience) that the expense of money and time will not be in vain. Probably the best argument for Fiona is that at least it helps to keep the old man active, engaged and generally compos mentis,- but frankly that does not satisfy me. The hype about that kind of life-style concern may not be without merit, but I need better motivation than that. So why should an old boy like me put himself through all sorts of contortions, physical, financial and the rest, when he could just stay parked some place in a deckchair?
Human motivation is a funny, fascinating business, and we do well to constantly question our own. We may agree with Viktor Frankl that mental health depends on our sense of meaning. A quick Google search confirms that for him, 'meaning comes from three possible sources: purposeful work, love, and courage in the face of difficulty'. That still leaves us with plenty of queries, for instance what might constitute 'purposeful' work and what happens when it appears to clash with 'love'? Maybe I should get around to re-reading Frankl, but I'm thinking that in the end, everyone has to answer such questions for himself.
A little voice will say in this case that the only sure thing about an old wooden sailing boat is that she will end up at the bottom of the sea or rotting in the mud. Well, at least the Anna M now has a good chance of outlasting myself, by quite a few years. I hope to eventually pass on the ownership to the long-cogitated Gannetsway Sailing Association, if ever it becomes practically and financially possible, combining opportunities for members to sail, to engage with whales, dolphins and other sea-life, as well as developing and demonstrating the concept of an autonomous boat.
I have some big ideas in connection with this concept. Most people have at the back of their minds these day that we urgently require more harmonious relationships with nature and with each other,- a more intense and responsible engagement with other people - less consumerism and more activity. Our economies as well as our societies need to be rebuilt from the bottom up, with much more localism all over the globe, perhaps with a beautiful mosaic floor such as the Romans loved, complete with dolphins in there, but I have in mind a mosaic of communities!
The Roman bit is important to me, and not just because it happens to be roughly my part of the world, culturally and spiritually speaking. For all its faults and despite the fact that it crucified Jesus, the Roman Empire provided the physical and political basis for the eventual development of His Church, and indeed Western civilisation. If we are going to avoid the Brave New World of two dystopian, totalitarian blocs everlastingly at war with each other, an alternative has to emerge here in Western Europe, the nations of which are wonderfully complementary. There are so many lessons to be learned from the past! The psychic and spiritual splits are there to challenge us and to be overcome. Maybe the tension between the northern and southern cultures is a pretty good place to start,- and imagine the effect it could have in America!
When it comes down to politics and the forthcoming American presidential election, since I have expressed support for Bobby Kennedy jnr, I must say I think he is right to throw his support behind 'the Ducky', as I used to disdainfully refer to President Trump. I still have reservations about him, for instance about his attitude to the EU and Brexit, but I think he has grown in stature and understanding of his basic mission, which is to oppose that descent into dystopia which is sponsored by 'the Blob' and sadly by the modern Democratic party, as was revealed so clearly in the pandemic, with the censorship and suppression of dissent that President Biden presided over. Combined with his toughness and basic if sometimes crude straightforwardness, it seems that Trump and Kennedy really do hold out the possibility of a new start. A very short interview clinched it for me:- a smart msm lady asked Trump, 'Did he want the Ukrainians to win their war?' He replied 'I don't think in terms of winning wars. I just want to stop the dying!'
How practical this is, without pushing the Ukrainians under a bus, I hope we shall soon find out. Trump & Co will probably get it into their heads eventually that we need European solidarity as never before. For all the talk of 'draining the swamp' in Washington, presumably they would not want to do away with the federal Government? In Europe we need federal institutions too. In Britain the Government had to employ an extra 80,000 or so civil servants to cope with Brexit. That doesn't sound like down-sizing the State! But we don't need to get rid of the institutions which have been built up painfully with time, just to make them transparent and truly answerable to their members and electorates. This is not something that any president or political party will be able to bring about of themselves, though they may be able to facilitate it. How about a massive campaign to develop base communities? With solidarity we must have subsidiarity.
We each have to make a start by bringing responsibility into our own lives, but sometimes the whole paraphanalia of the political and media establishment seems structured to prevent us from doing so. We might understand it as 'saving our souls', and yet it is still meaningful to speak of, for example, 'saving the soul of Europe'. A good place to start may be in demolishing the left wing/right wing narrative, which to my mind mainly serves to divide and disempower people, while diverting our attention from the issues where we really could make a difference. Just imagine how the establishment would hate left and right wing 'populism' to combine! If one must think in dialectic terms, perhaps to be or not to be might suffice?
Sailing boats, especially wooden ones, have souls too. Their shape is determined by the elements and the struggle of men with them, as well as by the material of which they are made. I can think of no more exemplary human accomplishment than sailing the sea, nor better combination of skill and endurance, of utility and aesthetics, of immediate practicality and dreams, nor of any better school in all the things that make life really worth living! In other words, sailing the sea is a great training for the anti-zombies so urgently required if we are to escape totalitarianism, and it emphatically should not be left to the mega-rich to play with in their spare time. Not that nature is not capable of looking after herself, and for instance taking out the odd tycoon who thinks he has her taped! Meanwhile, let's keep trying for alternative means to access the great mysteries of the sea. 
