The Reality of Boating
Posted: Apr 09, 2010
I recently read an article in a boating magazine, an excellent article in fact, in which the author described boating as “an escape from reality.” I know what she meant – boating gets us away from the busyness of everyday life and puts us in a different world. But the way I see it, the reference is backwards.
The problem with busyness is that we allow it to disconnect us from reality. We become so absorbed in the rush of our routines, if we aren’t careful, if we don’t pay attention, we miss out on the deeper meaning and experiences of life. Keeping your nose to the grindstone is not without a cost. I am reminded of an old poem,
If you hold your nose to the grindstone rough,
And keep it down there long enough,
You soon will swear that there’s no such thing
As a brook that babbles or a bird that sings.
Just these three things will your world compose: you, the stone, and your ground up nose."
-Author Unknown
That’s part of the magic of getting out on the water. A boat can remove us from all of those distractions, and by reducing our world to the basics of water, sky, and land we start to see more clearly again. In the absence of all of that busyness we regain perspective, and like a fog that burns off, we rediscover what is important and what is real.
Photo by Steve Zimmerman
We take pride in our ability to multi-task, and indeed, it is a useful skill in the workplace. But learning that skill also comes at a cost. When we do multiple tasks concurrently, we rarely perform any of them with complete focus. Multi-tasking accentuates the busyness of daily life, and takes us farther from the path of paying full attention to what is happening. In contrast, when we are on the water, we find ourselves concentrating more fully on the matter at hand. Bringing a boat to a dock with a breeze across your bow and the current under your keel has a way of focusing your mind and senses on the present experience. And that’s about as real as it gets.
- Steve Zimmerman
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