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140 comments on On Independence, Energy Subsidy, and Freedom
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140 comments on On Independence, Energy Subsidy, and Freedom
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You are obviously the epitome of a land lubber!!! Argh!
Sailing is the more correct definition of "freedom" than almost any other...freedom in step with the normal pattern of nature, freedom that is not "abstract" in some egghead sense of nomenclature but that is in step with nature, bound by the wind, the currents, freedom allowed by riding on the very forces of nature. It is a beautiful thing. If you exceed the bounds of freedom allowed by the cosmic bounds of nature while sailing, you die. If you read them correctly, and use the forces correctly, you not only live, you thrive and enjoy the experience, the speed, the freedom of movement that nature provides. There is a reason the poets have sang about sailing since the birth of song and language, and have depicted it as the ultimate metaphor for existence writ large. Let intellectuals argue about whether real freedom exists, the sailors will live or die by their ability to work with nature's own brand of freedom.
RC
Not to mention that it doesn't take much skill to open a throttle and harness your oil slaves!
It's 5:45 AM Sunday morning and still dark outside and I'm heading out for the next best thing... Kayak diving!
I'm not only the president I'm also a member. www.kayuba.org
That looks great, some great pictures on the website! I have a friend who was trying to teach me Kayak on the Cumberland River in KY, she was a guide, but I essentially cannot swim, so the eskimo rolls don't work too well for me...for now, I am staying out of the whitewater until I can master the slow and peaceful stuff! :-)
RC
what is keeping you from learning to swim ?
i learned to swim at age 38, i thought it would be a good skill to have for a scubba diver. i did some watersking before that.
Hmm, as one who has owned and sailed his own boat, I'd say it's fun, but I wouldn't equate it to freedom in any fundamental sense.
What sense of freedom that sailing brings, in my experience, comes from the permission one gives oneself, for a time, to do nothing else. "Today I'm going sailing, and to heck with (whatever)". It's good for gaining psychological distance from the daily concerns of job, family, or whatever that may cause us to feel tied down and not-free. So are a lot of other things. I, at least, was never able to experience sailing as more than a temporary respite. And it kinda stopped being fun when taking care of the sailboat and paying for its upkeep joined the list of daily concerns that had to be dealt with.
I go with Nate's assessment that freedom is related to control -- or the sense of control. It's about feeling that one has choices, and is beholden only to the consequences of what one has freely chosen. I suspect that that has been true forever, and has little to do with the service of our modern "energy slaves".
Nate should do a free-wheeling pub crawl with me that would disabuse him of that idea:)