These diaries are the casual offspring of some recent unrelated readings (Stephen Crane’s The Boat, García Marquez’ El Naufrago, Han Blumenberg’s Die Serge ghet über den Fluss) and a particularly dark phase in my ongoing mid-life crisis.
Whatever the context, images of shipwreck suddenly acquired a deeper and more poignant meaning. I myself felt not unlike a castaway adrift in a powerful, indifferent sea, all energy put into just not sliding of my own “slim spar” and slowly sinking.
Of course, another -probably worthier- reason for perpetrating this, is that I am in the process of quitting smoking and desperately need to do something with my hands.
Not that I volunteered for it. A bad case of pneumonia last Christmas which led to discovery of emphysema decided me to postpone suicide, at least by progressive asphyxia. I can’t say I’m really crazy about life, but I draw the line at long, slow and painful death.
Believe me, not being able to breathe is a disagreable affair. And that brings me back to one of the possible outcomes of shipwreck: drowning.
As German philosopher Hans Blumenberg points out (op.cit), ancient mariners did not bother to learn how to swim, an activity which, considering technology available in those times, just prolonged the agony. If we must drown, they probably considered shakespeareanly, “…twere well It were done quickly" (Macbeth -1.7.1-2).
