People often ask me what it’s like being a solo founder. I usually tell them that it feels a lot like being on the open ocean rowing a tiny boat by yourself, constantly being crashed upon by the waves. Visuals in this piece, reminded me of that, and also reminded me of the importance of community. Very well done!
'A judge in his sixties, a real southern gentleman with a pinstriped suit and an elegant manner of speech, pulled me aside during a conference. Quietly, almost apologetically, he spoke of his love for sailing, for the open sea, and how he and a buddy eventually built their own boat. Then came a twinkle in his eye. "We were sailing off the coast of Bermuda a few years ago, when we were hit by a northeaster (a raging storm). Really, it came up out of nowhere. Twenty-foot swells in a thirty-foot homemade boat. I thought we were all going to die." A pause for dramatic effect, and then he confessed, "It was the best time of my life."'
That's from Wild at Heart. I read that probably 15 years ago and it still sticks with me. It's pretty similar to Crane's revelation in the story, too.
Yeah, you're out there rowing a boat by yourself, no doubt about it. But you're also going on the adventure of your life, and not for the first time, and not for the last. And you're doing something that most people will never ever get to experience.
Beautiful work! Great reminder to stop the self focus that plagues so many and is ultimately leading to record numbers of depression and anxiety. Obviously at times we are in survival mode but we must be intentional to not allow that to become a way of life. God promises to never leave or forsake us so we know we’re never alone despite feeling that way occasionally.
I read The Wager by David Grann last year and now I feel like I need to go back and re-read it with this perspective you have shared here. Good stuff man.
You should read it. Incredible shipwreck survival story from the 18th century. I need to reread it with this perspective you shared specifically around focus. I feel like that's giving me another facet of consideration for not only storytelling but practical living.
Hmm, sounds good. The only other one I’ve read is Robinson Crusoe, though fictional, one of my favorites.
Glad my essay was thought-provoking. I think writing does need that life-or-death, this-really-matters kind of energy in order to work. Sometimes I get stuck in writer’s block, and as Robert McKee says, it’s not that my talent abandoned me, but that I have nothing to say.
This is fascinating that Crane could bring to light such a visceral experience through fiction.
On the subject of shipwrecks, I recently researched the shipwreck of the Sea Venture ship en route to Jamestown, VA in 1609 during an intense sea storm, and how this shipwreck was rumored to have contemporaneously inspired Shakespeare to write the Tempest. The passengers of the boat were sent to repopulate the dwindling population of colonial Virginia, but there were only a handful of survivors, who were stranded on Bermuda for nine months. Despite the destructive and horrific event of the shipwreck itself, the captain Sir George Somers remarked seeing the incredible scientific phenomenon of "St. Elmo's Fire" during the event - electric bolts of cobalt blue and purple, illuminating all the masts of the ship- during the storm. This is a phenomenon that's been documented all the way from Charles Darwin to Herman Melville in Moby Dick, and it fascinates me to wonder what that firsthand perspective of seeing that in the midst of total chaos must have been like.
There is something about shipwrecks, sea storms, and sea navigation that demands attention. While the sea is at once majestic and menacing, its enormity reminds the individual person of the need to balance survival with wonder.
That is a really interesting story; I’ve never heard of it.
And I fully agree with your last statement. Speaking of Moby Dick, it reminds me of this passage, one of my favorites:
Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure. Consider also the devilish brilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes, as the dainty embellished shape of many species of sharks. Consider, once more, the universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey upon each other, carrying on eternal war since the world began. Consider all this; and then turn to the green, gentle, and most docile earth; consider them both, the sea and the land; and do you not find a strange analogy to something in yourself? For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half-known life. God keep thee! Push not off from that isle, thou canst never return.
People often ask me what it’s like being a solo founder. I usually tell them that it feels a lot like being on the open ocean rowing a tiny boat by yourself, constantly being crashed upon by the waves. Visuals in this piece, reminded me of that, and also reminded me of the importance of community. Very well done!
'A judge in his sixties, a real southern gentleman with a pinstriped suit and an elegant manner of speech, pulled me aside during a conference. Quietly, almost apologetically, he spoke of his love for sailing, for the open sea, and how he and a buddy eventually built their own boat. Then came a twinkle in his eye. "We were sailing off the coast of Bermuda a few years ago, when we were hit by a northeaster (a raging storm). Really, it came up out of nowhere. Twenty-foot swells in a thirty-foot homemade boat. I thought we were all going to die." A pause for dramatic effect, and then he confessed, "It was the best time of my life."'
That's from Wild at Heart. I read that probably 15 years ago and it still sticks with me. It's pretty similar to Crane's revelation in the story, too.
Yeah, you're out there rowing a boat by yourself, no doubt about it. But you're also going on the adventure of your life, and not for the first time, and not for the last. And you're doing something that most people will never ever get to experience.
Keep rowing bro
Beautiful work! Great reminder to stop the self focus that plagues so many and is ultimately leading to record numbers of depression and anxiety. Obviously at times we are in survival mode but we must be intentional to not allow that to become a way of life. God promises to never leave or forsake us so we know we’re never alone despite feeling that way occasionally.
That’s a good point. I think those numbers are related to mindset and attitude, which directs our activities, more than anything else
I read The Wager by David Grann last year and now I feel like I need to go back and re-read it with this perspective you have shared here. Good stuff man.
I don’t know much about that title. What made you want to reread it?
You should read it. Incredible shipwreck survival story from the 18th century. I need to reread it with this perspective you shared specifically around focus. I feel like that's giving me another facet of consideration for not only storytelling but practical living.
Hmm, sounds good. The only other one I’ve read is Robinson Crusoe, though fictional, one of my favorites.
Glad my essay was thought-provoking. I think writing does need that life-or-death, this-really-matters kind of energy in order to work. Sometimes I get stuck in writer’s block, and as Robert McKee says, it’s not that my talent abandoned me, but that I have nothing to say.
This is fascinating that Crane could bring to light such a visceral experience through fiction.
On the subject of shipwrecks, I recently researched the shipwreck of the Sea Venture ship en route to Jamestown, VA in 1609 during an intense sea storm, and how this shipwreck was rumored to have contemporaneously inspired Shakespeare to write the Tempest. The passengers of the boat were sent to repopulate the dwindling population of colonial Virginia, but there were only a handful of survivors, who were stranded on Bermuda for nine months. Despite the destructive and horrific event of the shipwreck itself, the captain Sir George Somers remarked seeing the incredible scientific phenomenon of "St. Elmo's Fire" during the event - electric bolts of cobalt blue and purple, illuminating all the masts of the ship- during the storm. This is a phenomenon that's been documented all the way from Charles Darwin to Herman Melville in Moby Dick, and it fascinates me to wonder what that firsthand perspective of seeing that in the midst of total chaos must have been like.
There is something about shipwrecks, sea storms, and sea navigation that demands attention. While the sea is at once majestic and menacing, its enormity reminds the individual person of the need to balance survival with wonder.
That is a really interesting story; I’ve never heard of it.
And I fully agree with your last statement. Speaking of Moby Dick, it reminds me of this passage, one of my favorites:
Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure. Consider also the devilish brilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes, as the dainty embellished shape of many species of sharks. Consider, once more, the universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey upon each other, carrying on eternal war since the world began. Consider all this; and then turn to the green, gentle, and most docile earth; consider them both, the sea and the land; and do you not find a strange analogy to something in yourself? For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half-known life. God keep thee! Push not off from that isle, thou canst never return.