Our hopes and dreams don’t have to be careerist or proprietary in order to be valid. Having an ambition to achieve something, be it a skill or a practice, can offer much meaning to our lives, but with that being said, you’ll never want anything as much as men want boats. Here’s how to keep on keeping on despite this harsh reality:
Aim to understand that, not understand why.
Scientists don’t know why men want boats so much. Our contemporary best guesses have to do with white masculinity’s cultural ties to ownership and “exploration”, and also that boat is car for the ocean. Ultimately, you don’t need to know why men want boats so terribly. What’s important is that you remember no matter how badly you want to write that novel or finally visit the country your grandparents are from, you don’t want it as much as some guy named Mark wants to purchase a power and/or sailboat, then name it something like “Fare Weather”.
Validate your own desires instead.
Just because you don’t want to follow your passion and start a small business that will serve your local community as much as some dude in Sperry’s wants to stand on the deck of his new boat and use terms like “knots of wind” doesn’t mean you don’t still want it! No, you can’t match this level of sheer, almost base yearning for your dreams, but you can still open your small business and refuse to serve adult men with lacrosse-player hair.
Remember some men’s boats will sink.
Unfortunately, some men will fulfill their craven desire to own a boat. But for every person of millionaire experience who saw that Robert Redford boat movie and decided to buy one, there is at least some chance that his boat will be destroyed by climate crisis or personal idiocy. You might not want to pass the bar as much as Kelvin wants a $250,000 cruiser, but at least if he gets one there’s some chance it will sink to the bottom of the ocean due to a firework accident. It’s something!
So follow your dreams! But do so while knowing that you don’t want those dreams to come true as much as men simply want boats that they can drink alcohol on and refer to as their “own little slice of paradise”. C’est la vie, matey!
