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“I’ve always wanted to sail to the South Seas, but I can’t afford it. What these people can’t afford is not to go. They are enmeshed in the demands of security. And in the worship of security we fling our lives beneath the wheels of routine and before we know it our lives are gone.”
“What does a person need, really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie down in and some form of working activity that will yield a sense of accomplishment.”
‘That’s all, in the material sense. And we know it. But we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up entombed by a mountain of time-payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, playthings that divert our attention from the sheer idiocy of the charade.”
“The years thunder by, the dreams of youth grow dim while they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we sense it, the tomb is sealed.”
“Where then lies the answer? In choice. Which shall it be, bankruptcy of purse, or bankruptcy of life?”
Sterling Hayden
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I use to read this quote a lot when I was kid.
It was tapped up in the kitchen at my Mum's restaurant.
I never understood back then, but it was always in my face, telling me something I didn't quite understand.
And I did follow it without thinking about it.
I rebelled against the world in my early 20's, and let my hair out and sailed the metaphorical south seas. I still want to sail more.
Now, as I read it years later, my feelings towards it have changed.
Bankruptcy of the purse and Bankruptcy of life are not binary. You can have both.
Sailing into the south seas and having a sense of security are not mutually exclusive. They serve one another if you look at it that way.
Sometimes you have to live in the material world to thrive into the metaphysical one.
Life isn't black and white; it is a myriad of colours, weaved together in an intricate mesh.
I find it interesting how the words you grow up with change as time goes on.
Everything is dynamic and growing.
