Before you start to read this coming text, please remember that I do think that we are extremely privildged to be able to travel like this instead of hunting for food every day, like most people in the world have to. This piece is merely to start a process within us, because I think, I really think, that most of us in the priviledged world are programmed to do things without REALLY questioning what we do.

Living the dream - Part 1

Ever since I read that sentence it has been bothering me.
It was on Sunrise blogg (good friends that are sailing around in the world).
It's not that I doubt they are living their dream, it's the problem I have with myself and the question, - am I living my dream?

And if so, what is that?

First of all we can look at the sentence and the individual words:

LIVING, well that means that we are not dead, but many are living without living, if I may be drastic.
My dear step mother has a wonderful saying that she uses time to time, I will try to translate:- Days came, and days went, I did not know that was life...
Many of us live a life with routines that stops us from thinking, experiencing, feeling etc. Many are happy with that, don't get me wrong.
It could may be called security, and that is something that most people on earth probably would give their right arm to get.
Security is wonderful, security is also demanding, you most probably pay a price, if not with your right arm, it's with part of your life.I think.

THE, is probably the word that strikes me as the most demanding in this sentence, THE to me means there is one dream and that's the one we are living. Well that's a choice you have to make, wich dream to live, and THE one is of course a simple choice.

DREAM, now since I do not have Google or an encyclopedia at sea, I have to stick with my memory, the very small google.Maybe it's more like ggl.
If I remember right a dream is defined by either an experience you can have while you sleep or awake. Most often asleep.
Dream is also something to wish for, a dream job, a dream vacation, a dream husband etc.
Dream sounds like a state that when you reach it you are either asleep or happy, crazy happy? Not really, but happy.
Happiness is something everybody is looking for. So if you are living your dream that must be fantasic, right?

If somebody told you: - I have a dream husband, would believe it? Probably not.

If I told you, - Im living my dream, would you believe me? Maybe. Because a boat is a metaphor for freedom. It has all the elements: you cast off, the white sails driven by the wind, the blue ocean, the island with palm trees. Everything is a proof that it must be LIVING THE DREAM, right?

Well at the same time it's scary, what about storms? pirates? reeefs? get along in a boat? etc

So there we are again, safety against freedom. You trade one for the other.

Humans are flock animals, we are dependent on each other. There are very few people that could be isolated in a cell for years and stay sane. We simply need each other. So leaving the flock is probably the scariest thing we can do. Well once upon a time it meant dead, to be thrown out of the flock-tribe-family-society etc.
So when most people think you have to be brave to cast off, their biggest concern is probably a social one.

So to live your dream you have to leave your comfort zone.
Let's try it : LIVING THE DREAM IS LEAVING THE COMFORT ZONE

When you leave the comfort zone it becomes uncomfortable, and that is for sure a boat.
When you leave the comfort zone, you have to think, to learn, to check, to survive, to adapt and that for sure gives a sense of living. You live when you are aware of that. And when you have to survive here and now, you are living in the present.
There is a modern word for it : Mindfullness (an impossible task)

So is living the dream - hapiness?

What we all search for?

Hapiness can be defined in many ways, but the one I like is Mihailowitch (sorry about the spelling), who wrote the book FLOW.
To him hapiness happens when you reach flow. And flow happens when you are what you are doing. A state of mind when time and room does not mean anything. Look at the mountain climber who concentrates on getting to the top. She is concentrated on each step, each movement, every little crack in the rock. She is not concerned about what she looks like right now. The task and the execution is everything. Time flies. She gets flow.

Hapiness comes out of the flow, because we are "bigger" than ourselves when we climb a mountain. When I'm sailing a boat and have control, I'm the boat...
Nothing breaks the flow of sailing better than flopping sails, wind that proves that you are a lousy sailor or running aground...

So being volonteers to live an uncomfortable life, what's in it?
It seemes that a lot of people that worked like mad, not asking themselves why they are doing what they are doing, suddenly get a new perspective after a heart attack or something dramatic that slaps them in the face.

Somebody said,- it's like running a race,then you suddenly fall when you are jumping over an obstacle, and lying there you ask yorselfe, where am I running? Why am I running?

It seemes to be the word that most yachtees have asked themselfes: Why? And then they cast off and took all the uncomfort with that.
Fix your own toilet, hunt down that crazy beurocrat, rolling on a bad anchor all night, being scared like shit in steep waves and a wind that screams like 3000 pigs. All that comes from one quesion: Why? Why?

So one would ask, if you are LIVING THE DREAM, what is the dream then?

And that is the drawback of being human, we always have another question, don't we?

I ll try to find that out and get back...