I love movies. Yesterday I watched Captains Courageous, the wonderful 1937 adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s book, a story of a young, spoiled boy (Freddie Bartholomew) falling overboard on the Grand Banks off Newfoundland. He’s rescued by fishermen (Spencer Tracey, Lionel Barrymore, Mickey Rooney…..) and ‘grows up’ in the three months they fish before returning to port.
With my sailing background, the first ‘gifts’ are the great scenes of real sailing action aboard these actual working boats of the time, the climax of world sailing before it all went to motors and high tech. But the movie showed so much more. It accurately reminded us that people grow most closely when they experience things together; times of danger, tears, laughter, exhilaration and working for a common cause. Many of us live lives where this simply doesn’t happen, apart from cheering for sports teams. And it shows with our increasing lack of humanity as a society. We only really know what we have experienced. We experience less and less with others.
Our sheltered, proscribed and limited culture has fewer and fewer possibilities for us to experience these things. We make it this way. We don’t want danger. Seeing it on-screen is enough. We purposely plan things so that we’re not in each others company for any length of time. We shun the very things that bring out the best in us. That’s what we call civilization. It’s no surprise that we have a hard time sharing in any real way. We’ve never been ‘in the same boat’ for more than an afternoon cruise or in a place of entertainment for a few hours.
One of the best books about life was written by Peter Ustinov, the British actor in the 1900s. He was also a world-class sailor. I remember him saying that God must be a sailor because it’s so much easier to understand and grow spirituality if you’re on a boat. There you must learn to share and trust. You can’t get-away with coveting, cheating or lying. Only by trusting and working together can you survive and get back to shore.
I’m so lucky to have experienced on-board living and sailing across the Atlantic in a small boat. It gave me an inkling of the depth of understanding that we ‘modern’s have lost. It’s tragic that so many of us haven’t lived in this wisdom, just when it appears that we humans are needing it most. It’s great to have movies that remind us of what we’ve lost. I hope more of us will try new venues to learn the same wisdom. We need it.
Anthony, just another old sailor. —
