Notes from the cabin - Day 48
INSANITY
Imagine yourself, if you will, being over 2, 800kms from any land, on a very tiny 2.8m rowing boat, in big seas, rowing 1.5hrs on and 1.5hrs off 24/7. Now, see yourself rowing, in pitch darkness because of cloud and rain in a desert of water, having seen less than a dozen fish in over 5, 200kms! Your body is sore, your hands with open blisters and your mind wafting between real and unreal.
Insane?
Perhaps. But let’s explore that word, insanity.
Us humans, Homo sapiens, meaning ‘thinking or wise’ ape, have wandered this Earth for millions of years, mostly in a primitive state. Then, at the apex of our domination of all life, just a few hundred years ago, we systematically begin the greatest mass extinction of all time! Leaky calls it the 6th Extinction. We are driving species to extinction at an unprecedented rate with excess of 15, 000 species becoming extinct ANNUALLY! And we, the wise thinking ape, do this knowingly! Knowingly, we kill our own children’s future! Knowingly, we destroy, forever, over 3.4 billion years of incredible evolution. Knowingly, seal our own fate. And we are doing this with the full understanding that we have no other home. And we tell our children that we love them. And we tell them that, by going to school and studying hard, so they can get a degree and a good job, we are securing a future for them. Really?
Now THAT is insane!
We row across this South Atlantic Ocean for almost two months now and it is very sad that we have seen less than a dozen fish in 5000kms!!
No dolphins, no whales.
I row across this South Atlantic Ocean for a purpose in the hope that it may become a catalyst for change; positive change, in that you and indeed everyone, may move from a place of blame and entitlement, to a space of true ownership. To move from a place of ‘how much can I get, as quickly as possible,’ to a place of ‘how much can I give.’ A simple but hugely effective paradigm shift!
You see, if I had decided to walk up a mountain or run a marathon, very few people would notice. So, I am hoping, with every stroke I pull, that people around the world will sit up, take stock of the insanity we call ‘normal’ and change it with courage and great drive…for our children’s sake, and all the myriad of life forms that we depend upon.