Irlande, july 2023.

On the wave-swept deck, whipped by wet gusts, adjusting
his precarious balance constantly, the sailor enjoys with delight his intense life
in contact with a virgin nature as on the first day. Often from
embellished stories of his predecessors, he truly fulfills his literary dreams.
Reckless, the sailors? No doubt a little. But how many are missing
totally lucid, carried away by their fertile imagination in a whirlwind
galleys that they would never have known without this strange decision to
take the sea ?
On the contrary, the Earthling is anchored in an ancestral reality to which his
millennial evolution has gradually shaped it to a level of perfection
almost done. Perfectly mastering the use of the escalator like that of
the elevator, moving quickly at the wheel of his racing car, the Terran, equipped
of this relaxed ease and his satisfied smile, strikes the spirit of the
Sailor, kneeling on his gangway, clumsily clinging to his
railing, soaked to the bone and shivering with cold to have one day
be seduced by his desire for adventure.
All of this would remain very innocent, if we ignore the constraints that the
Sailor back in port, this mysterious universe, neither sailor nor land, with
confines of these two opposing worlds, which tries in vain to reconcile the
with each other, if not to promote the mutation of one into the other.
Because you have to know what the Sailor endures before going to sea and afterwards, if he has
the chance to come back: administrative hassles, verification of equipment
compulsory safety, repairs as diverse as they are numerous,
replacement of parts unable to withstand the saline atmosphere that the
largest oceans in the world like the tiniest seas their
impose with malice, are only a few examples of what obliges
finally the Sailor to spend more time in port than in his
predilection: Freedom. While the Terran, comfortably installed in
its enveloping sofa, enjoys unhindered the gentle warmth of the fireplace and
its freedom of information broadcast in ultra-high speed on its high-speed screen
definition with extra-wide diagonals, the Sailor, faced with malfunctions for which he can never find the cause, is desperate to leave
one day this port which also robs him of his last savings.
And when finally, the long-awaited day comes to the sailor who has invited the little
of friends who remain faithful to him after all the misadventures they have, one day
or the other, shared at their expense, it is common for the weather to thwart the
glorious project of a start punctuated by enthusiastic encouragement and
the applause of Earthlings as dubious as they are compassionate. Be the
wind stubbornly refuses to adopt the direction of the first stopover
long scheduled. Either his excessive force would immediately expose the
Marin takes a risk that is far too frightening for those around him, either
the announcement of rain would make the expedition, already ambitious, too uncomfortable; THE
word is very weak for who knows the pangs of a wet boat outside
as inside, and the dramatic consequences on physical health and
morality of those who suffer it. Either the disproportionate UV index
would risk
lead to the development of skin cancer in the medium term, which
could become generalized, thus nailing the Sailor to a vegetative life that he
feared and hated above all.
This is why it is common to find the sailor, on the evening of a new day.
of disappointment, drowning his nostalgia and his disappointed hopes at the back of a tavern
with an evocative name: “Bar du Bout du Monde” or “Pub of the Last Hope”
according to the country where his dreams of spray and surf come to an end for the night
fantastic in the South Seas. You will distinguish it without risk of error,
his sad look, his drawn features, his animal smell, his worn clothes, his
hair in disarray, his bruised hands, his sweater still wet with water
salt and sweat mixed and mostly empty around him in a pub by
elsewhere crowded with Earthlings come to slum. The contrast is striking. THE
Earthling on the contrary, freshly shaved and perfumed, surrounded by pretty Earthlings
subjugated by its elegant assurance and its fascinating verb, offers a
luminous face and his general tour, dragging the Mariner into the abyss
reflections clouded by the incipient intoxication and not always controlled.
Because if love and passions are for most of us the salt of life,
it must be admitted that sharing them with a sailor can only be a source of
repeated disappointments and interminable weariness which, accumulated over the
days, ultimately result in bitter contempt for those who pass at best
for a dreamer, but more often for a storyteller. Only the most
neglected by women, for their disgrace, their bad character or their
fragile mental health, remain a little longer, for lack of anything better. On this side there
also, the Sailor’s disappointments add to his melancholy and invite him to
take refuge in its fertile solitude.
But sometimes all it takes is a ray of sunshine, a favorable breeze and a
finally lasting repair, so that these idealists wake up again
without memories, the taste of the open sea and starry nights. We will never denounce
enough the cynicism of the authors who produce these imaginaries devoid of any reality. Their ravages can be devastating on naïve minds, ready to
all the madness to accomplish the inaccessible dream that inhabits and gnaws at them.
Be indulgent for sailors and do not in turn clog the seas
so beautiful without you…

Jean Paul

* Thanks to yam for the drawings