Allegorically all of us are passengers or sailors on board this ship. Including Atle, of course.
The voyage is interesting, mind-numbing, abhorrent, joyful – you name your adjectives of choice.
Try and open your mind for everything that is happening, has happened, and will happen and your head will almost burst. Then try and sort things out, organize all the impressions in a systematic way to manage coping with the plethora of things. Atle says ”Ship o hoi!”
Ship of fools/ship of savants – is there any difference in the course set by the ship? Man seems to have an aptitude towards making systems of everything, even where there are no systems.
This year the sea has been quite rough, maybe more so than in a normal year. However, what is normal on the ”Ship of Fools”?
The world economy is in turmoil despite there are more highly educated economists than ever. In the Arab world governments looked upon as stable have collapsed, and more will probably follow. Former American President Bush boasts of his part in the waterboarding of prisoners (Japanese soldiers responsible for waterboarding during the Second World War were sentenced to death for this), and President Barack Obama remains silent – this is nothing less than a disgrace.
In China people who express dissident opinions are put in jail, probably due to the legacy of the late chairman Mao. In North Korea we hear and see that parts of the population shed bucketfuls of tears because the beloved leader passed away. – nobody in that country mentions that people starve to death because of innate insanity in the leadership (remember the Sovjet Union and Stalin, and The People’s Republic of China and Mao).
Global heating is a hot issue. Politician and scientists talk as if the end of the world is very close. But the political leadership act very differently.
Iran is another hotspot where anything can happen.
Atle wonders who is the helmsman on board this ”Ship of Fools”? As the political leaders have abdicated, there seems to be a fight on a higher level between God, Allah, Jahve and whatever names people give the divine genies they say the believe in.
So the course is set/not set. The voyage next year will presumably not be very different from decades and millenniums before.
As we have to stay on board, the only thing we can do is to enjoy the voyage.
As for myself if the wind is smiling to me this evening I think I will have a try getting aloft with my paramotor.
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