Sailing Ship

 
It would seem rather strange to us to think of crossing an ocean in the silence of a sailing ship, but what a wonderful idea!

Only, it would be a little slow and it would be difficult to keep the food needed for the journey edible without some kind of a motor to run a refrigerator. So if a motor is needed to run a compressor, why not put a propeller on it? Well, there goes the silence.

Silence is the price we pay for so many things we think we must use. A refrigerator in any home big or small hums a constant buzzzzz. It is hard to distinguish between a washing machine and techno-pop. A vacuum cleaner literally, 'sucks' and loud. The city is an amplifier of the residual rumbling sound of the motor car with the only amusing sound coming from the cacophony of claxons. We have in the last century succeeded in becoming technopodes unable to conceive a notion of life without the support of mechanical and electrical devices. Even our brains seem to be changing as we use calculators, computers and telephones to get us through our days.

Transport across the lands and seas is now rapid with jets propelling people to their desired destinations. How many people would the breeze carry? Would the silence be worth the loss of freedom to travel at will, which brings to the mind a more pertinent question: how does the feasibility of easy travel change our perceptions about the places we go to? Are all the lands the same? Is it the sameness or the difference that attracts the will to travel and see the world? Does a Tibetan visit Britain for the same reason as a British visit Tibet? Yes, if the main reason for why we travel is to become enlightened in some way - in the hope of going beyond the conventional understandings of one's own upbringing. The ambition to better oneself is laudable but easy travel also encourages escapism, the attraction of the exotic, the feeling that the act of travelling actually compensates for the lack of life experience and knowledge. What appears to be exotic to one is merely normality to another. So when a woman in a grass skirts offers me flowers, one might be somewhat wary about what this means.

The story, "Muntiny on the Bounty" is about a clash of cultures, about the perils of mutual ignorance when different peoples meet. When travelling on the breeze, it was also difficult to extricate oneself from the experience and go home. Captain Bligh who ignored the exotic attractions was duty-bound to dominate what he found. He, I'm sure, sighed a relief when he returned to England. Instead the righteous Lieutenant Christian was captivated by his own imagination and became a new kind of being. The story ends where he realises his destiny. We don't know whether he ended up feeling marooned. The drama of his life depended on limitations. In the silence of the south sea bliss there were no money changers nor travel agencies on location to assuage any possible doubts he may have had.

 
Lucignano, 19 2 2007