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July 16, 2008

Sterling Hayden on Life, Entrepreneurship, etc.

After my post mentioning Dr. Strangelove earlier today, late tonight I got to re-reading actor Sterling Hayden's classic (and controversial) seafaring book Wanderer. Hayden, who was a top Hollywood star at the time, suddenly up and quit, abandoning a career, and went sailing -- and he then chronicled it all in this 1963 book.

Yes, yes, Hayden is a dreamer and a romantic, and, yes,the book is more than 40 years old, but it still has its appeal. The following section is often excerpted, but it is still one of my favorite bits from Hayden's book. And you can substitute "entrepreneur" for sailing, and the gist will be the same.

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.

Little has been said or written about the ways a man may blast himself free. Why? I don't know, unless the answer lies in our diseased values. A man seldom hesitates to describe his work; he gladly divulges the privacies of alleged sexual conquests. But ask him how much he has in the bank and he recoils into a shocked and stubborn silence.

"I've always wanted to sail to the South Seas, but I can't afford it." 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 beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, playthings that divert our attention from 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?

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