SAILING

Far away, very far, I make out the contour of a small sailboat. It is the white sails that give it away, lit up by the Mediterranean sun that streams plentiful light. Like a watercolour, the small boat almost seems to float on the horizon line.

We never stop sailing through life, sometimes foundering against the rocks, sometimes with a firm grasp on the rudder.

We haven’t been taught the art of sailing through life. We learn it when we come up against hard weather. The subject of learning to live, to love life, to love the truth, philosophy, so beautiful, so necessary, so literally vital. We’ve forgotten them, they’ve been put aside, and we’re paying the price for it. If there were more philosophy, there would be more culture, and less of the kind of fraud we’re seeing in this euphemism they call a crisis when it’s really a robbery.

Know yourself. Know who you are. Said the oracles and the wise masters of the Eastern Mediterranean.

The novelty today is in going back to them: Socrates through Plato, Epictetus, Aristotle and so many others it’s good to read in a gesture I feel is closer to conversation than reading.

Thank the world for this beautiful Mediterranean. And thank those who invited us to love thought. It’s in our hands to bring them back, in a simple gesture, by opening and reading the legacy they left us.

And to sail through this life we’ve been given, even if we do it on our feet.

Hugs and kisses,

Álex