Pardon me, but I'm feeling rather the thief, today. I read this on another site (Never ending Voyage-Hank De Velde) and copied and pasted wholesale. I found it beautiful and encouraging and thought perhaps it may do the same for another.
The quote is from Sterling Hayden who was by no account a saintly type person. He drank way too much and after joining the communist party, turned around and sold out to old J. Edgar giving names and all. Ratbastard.
I include, here, a snippet from an interview with him about that shameful period.
[Q- After the War, you joined in Hollywood the Communist Party?
A- Yes, they put me in what was called "a backlot group," though Ronald Reagan would call it a "cell." I decided right away it wasn't for me. I remember the first meeting I went to, they said the next meeting was Tuesday night at 7:30. My first thought was, "Fuck the Revolution, what about my date with Charlene?"]
Anyway, on to my original thievery;
"In passing ... by Sterling Hayden oct 17
In passing ... "To be truly challenging, a voyage, like a life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. Otherwise, you are doomed to a routine traverse, the kind known to yachtsmen who play with their boats at sea -- cruising, it is called. Voyaging belongs to seamen, and to the wanderers of the world who cannot, or will not, fit in. If you are contemplating a voyage and you have the means, abandon the venture until your fortunes change. Only then will you know what the sea is all about. "'I've always wanted to sail to the south seas, but I can't afford it,' some men say. What these men can't afford is not to go. They are enmeshed in the cancerous discipline 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 man 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 in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, playthings that divert our attention for the sheer idiocy of the charade. The years thunder by, the dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know 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)
