The sailor's side

When has the calm sea made a good sailor? Every person going through the torrid time is told this by a preacher. There are only two outcomes in the case of storm stricken sailor. Either he comes out alive or he dies fighting. In both the cases he is a hero in my view. That is fine with me. What makes me uneasy is the fact that his heroics are so situation dependent. I mean, what if there is no storm at all? Won’t there be any hero in that case? Never does a calm sea produce a good sailor?

I think it does. Rather I strongly believe it. Though in that case the sailor has pivotal role to play which is so obvious that the sailor himself plays the major role in his own success. I always feel that when a capable sailor takes his ship into the sea, he implants a fear into the sea. Every act of the sailor exudes confidence and he has an aura which has been built by years of hardship. The resultant storm is an act of sea but the root cause is the same fear which the sailor has instilled. The storm comes this time around not to test the sailor, because his caliber doesn’t need any proofs, but to suppress him, to quell his lofty ideas.

I won’t try to fiddle with the end. In this case too, either he comes out alive or he dies fighting. In both cases the calm would be restored. But both the calms will have a valley of difference. In the first case, the calm would be of submission, not to power but to potential. In the latter one the calm would be that of a sadistic victory mixed with the fear of another such sailor.

We assign too much importance to the state of the sea. The sailors keep coming till the day there is a hero who comes out alive. And this keeps repeating. Just look around yourself.