David’s Reading Update - How is this relevant?
I finally finished Moby Dick
In the case of Moby Dick, throughout much of the book I imagined that the elusive whale might have been fictitious. Maybe Captain Ahab didn’t really lose his leg to a whale and he only made it up because it sounded better than, “I got an in-grown toenail that infected my entire foot so they cut it off.” I was thinking then, that the good Captain was living a lie. Perhaps he was like many of the people today that drive nice cars, live in nice houses, and always seem so perfect. On the interior, many of them are one paycheck away from disaster.
Later, I saw that Moby Dick was real. The whale was unhappily hunted but actually didn’t seem antagonistic. He was provoked. Anyway, Capt. Ahab had Fedellah, an apparent prophet of sorts who predicted the death of Ahab. Capt. Ahab genuinely believed that he would beat Moby Dick but he never prepared properly and he also couldn’t leave well-enough alone. How does this relate to my life? I can’t leave well-enough alone, either. I’m persistant, to a point - Just not a fine enough point as of yet. People warned Ahab, including his right-hand man, a prophet, other crewmembers, and even passing ships, but to know avail. I admired Ahab for pressing on, forsaking the naysayers (the Yabotts as One Minute Millionaire
In the end, he succombed to the prophet’s vision. Fedellah told Capt. Ahab that first, Ahab would see Fedellah die, then he would see two coffins, followed by a hearse and lastly before Ahab died, he’d see Fedellah (dead as he was) again. I forgot what the first coffin was but the second coffin turned out to be Ahab’s ship going down with men in it (albeit, Ahab was on a little boat, off the main ship). That got Ahab thinking maybe Fedellah was right. I think he shrugged it off but then he saw Fedellah - half of him anyway! The poor man was wrapped up in lines that were unsucessfully used for corralling Moby Dick. These lines were tangled around Moby Dick, the hearse. Ahab witnessed these things and and I believe self-doubt finally took over.
In my world, self-doubt has corralled me into a nice secure J.O.B. with the Government. From a young age, I’ve been conditioned to believe that was all-important. I even had people telling me that private industry jobs were not secure enough. Unlike Ahab, I listened from the start.
Something inside of me is burning to set new rules - to claim my independence from the “conventional work-week.” Who ever made it 5 days, anyway? While he was driven from the start and finally came undone, I believe I started undone but now, the drive is alive.
All of this leads me to one more thought - a topic that I’ll just leave as questions, for now. Ahab was wildly obsessed with his mission to defeat Moby Dick. Some would also argue that he was a little bit “crazy.” Was he? Must one be a little bit “crazy” to take the risk of independence?