Christopher Colombus and Being Better Safe than Sorry
Monday, October 10, 2011 at 6:07PM I attempted, once, to do something similar to Christopher Colombus. I had a sailboat and I tried to travel the world.
There were a few slight differences, however. Little things like GPS, charts, radar, satellite internet, refrigeration, VHF radio, a generator, motors and a much greater certainty that at some point I wouldn't fall off the edge of the world.
I used to ponder upon explorers like Colombus in my sailing days. After having spent three days asail after having spent a week in a place like Cabo San Lucas enjoying fine foods and women I'd arrive, wearily to a place like Mazatlan where I'd pull in to a 5 star hotel marina and immediately order room service before plugging in to their wifi, showering up and then heading in to town to, once again, enjoy more fine food, beverages and local women.
If Colombus were reanimated he would be shocked at how much easier and safer sailing is today than it was back then. He would also likely laugh at people who thought that I was a great risk-taker for undertaking my sailing trip.
WE'VE ALL GOTTEN SOFT
Recently, the Murderer in Chief of the USSA, Barack Obama, stated that, "America has gotten a little soft". Coming from the lips of a man who has never accomplished anything productive in his entire life and who approves the murder of people as he warms up on a putting green, it sounds despicable and hypocritical.
However, he is partially right. In fact, most of the world has "gotten soft"... especially when you compare us to the way they lived in Colombus' time.
Think about it. Colombus undertook his adventure mostly to find a better route for the spice trade. He was literally just trying to find an easier way to get cinnamon and temeric! He worked at his dad's cheese stand but studied, on his own time (not in some public school) to learn Latin, Portuguese and Castilian, and read widely about astronomy, geography, and history.
Sure, he thought the world was way smaller than it was and he actually thought the Americas was India, even until the day he died. But, what adventures he undertook!
Compare that to today. Full grown, healthy men in their 20s and 30s approach me at conventions and tell me they are scared to leave their own country and go somewhere like Argentina or Singapore and try to find a way to make a living. They say things like, "I've got good medical care here, I don't want to give that up."
Argentina or Singapore are a 12 hour flight from most places in the world, now! In the time it would have taken Colombus to get out of the bay in which his wooden ship was moored you could already be on the other side of the world. Not to mention you can book your flight and research any of hundreds of hotels online, have access to bank machines, cellphone service and internet upon arrival.
Think about Colombus the next time you are considering expatriation and remind yourself what a wimp - compared to Colombus - you are for even having any reservations.
TRAINED FROM BIRTH TO BE SOFT AND FEARFUL
It's really no wonder that most people are like that today. The state coddles us along from cradle to grave with all sorts of safety nets. And, they continue to take it further and further. In the E.U. this week it was announced a new set of laws whereby it will now be illegal for children to blow up party balloons.
A Criminal Engaged in an Illegal ActivityAccording to the story:
"Another EU official admitted that the new regulations could be difficult to understand but insisted that safety experts knew best. "You might say that small children have been blowing up balloons for generations, but not anymore and they will be safer for it," said an official."
Now, it is apparently far preferable to most people to have men with guns watch over their children and ensure they don't do so much as blow up a balloon anymore due to the possibility they could choke on it.
It's no wonder in a society like this the phrase, "better safe than sorry" now gets used with as much regularity as "good morning" in many parts of the western world.
It's as though those put in charge of "safety regulations" are unaware that not only some people die, but, everyone dies. There has not been a single instance of someone not dying yet. Yet, these laws are put in place at such abandon that it can only be assumed that the people making the laws assume that death happens purely as a result of insufficient oversight and legislation.
Now thanks to these world improvers it is perhaps an even sadder state of affairs. In today's regulated, unfree world everybody dies but hardly anybody lives.
Think about that and pass this along this Colombus Day.
Reader Comments (14)
Niccolo Machiavelli
But also......
"The only authentic voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes."
Marcel Proust
The situation Jeff writes about is a great filter of men.
Those with courage, go.
The rest stay at home.
Out here, we can meet other men of like mind.
Back home, we only meet stay-at-homes.
I've lived in 5 countries on 4 continents (currently in the Golden Triangle of Northern Thailand).
Out here -- away from Western government attitudess -- you inhale liberty with every breath.
There is government here, yes, but it's not watching every move, listening to every word.
I've written about the liberty that expats can experience at this link:
"Retirement Paradise For White Men"
http://www.henrymakow.com/thailand_is_paradise_found_for.html
Happy to discuss more, either on this forum or by email.
My email is below.
-- Peter
Peter4@allmail.NET
.
Yes, today we are used to have certain commodities that we give as a certain. In the Era of Colombo, Vasco da Gama, Diogo Cão, Pedro Alvares Cabral and others, they had nothing like clean water or every day shower, but then again.. those commodities were gained like 60-50 years ago. Today, a Flu is nothing but a minor inconvenient, in those days, it would simply kill you! Period!
Are we Pussies ? i don't think so... we just evolved and solved several problems and simplified lot's of other tasks such as, drying our hair with a air dryer which can help avoiding to catch a minor cold :P
Today there are other serious problems such as AIDS... Today we use condoms, in those times, if they got a sexual transmitted disease, it would be considered a God's punishment..
Different times, different problems, different solutions.... it's not possible to compare.
PS: A Paradise is a place were we fell well and are treated well. For a terminal patient, that place, might be a Hospital. Remember that.
According to your statements, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are both wimps that never did anything.
It's preposterous to think that you're a pussy and a wimp just because you prefer to stay in a safer location and develop mental acuity to be rich, produce some of the greatest technology on Earth, and produce thousands of jobs, rather than travel the world with nothing, which in the ends amounts to nothing at all except your own personal development.
Other readers have a point too. We're not wimps, we just don't go dying from something as stupid as cold, and we can make greater things then.
BTW, your concept of where a "safer" location may be is subject to debate. I personally think one of the least safe places to be for the next few years will be the US. It used to be one of the safest... it is now fairly unsafe by international standards... and soon it will be incredibly chaotic and full of turmoil. This Occupy Wall Street movement is just the beginning of riots and a further police state.
In retrospec, however, and after having cooled down a bit, I realized one thing: the truth hurts. I was upset with your post because it spells out my own reality if you know how to read it the right way. I work in the Government of Canada in Web development, and there's a lot of stupid things going on, but the mentality here is that "Oh well, there's nothing We can do about it". Hence, you could call me a wimp, not because I stay in an office all day, but because I face problems at work with the same mentality of everyone in the office, never having the guts to actually bring about a change.
I just started reading your stuff yesterday, and "awakened" if you will, yesterday. What you say is pretty spot on. And it's surprising how many things went by under my nose without my ever realizing it before reading what you write, like the fact that the Government even steals/taxes the money I spend. It's a "holy crap" moment.
That is great! I was actually going to say in my first comment that your original post sounded as though I had identified something in you which you have not accepted yet and that is why you sounded angry!
Well, it is great that I have helped you to realize things about your situation and perhaps even do something about it. And I respect you for admitting this... most people never admit their faults or mistakes or issues and those things then just get worse and worse. The first thing to do to impact positive change is to accept reality.
As for working for the Government... ugh... I used to work for a government job decades ago... and I learned very quickly that you don't try to change things there... they actually don't want to do a good job... they want to do a poor job... because then more money will be given to them to "fix the problem"... governments have the opposite incentive/reward structure than private businesses.