You know, I suspect that no matter what is out there (I mean SPACE!!!) With what?? teeming with life - LIFE!! Well, such ordered worlds cannot possibly equal what we have down here on this fragile, blue, en-periled water planet. The zaniness, the sheer madness of it all - human LIFE.
How then to best get a smidgen on the unlimited, touch the dreams, push the envelope, as our American friends say.
Office job, something in the mega-bureaucracies?
Are you Nuts! No, No NOOOOOOOO!!!
Adventure, now that might do it. As a kid I simply must travel. It was like being in love! I just had to get out and so joined the last moored training ship in the whole world, T.S. Worcester, at Greenhythe, Kent, on the Thames. I remember white uniform caps tumbling through the air; there was a sword fight! War heroes were everywhere.
I had 15 Pounds Stirling for snacks, etc. but in the (4 months) never touched it. This was in respect to Mum, who was a widow. This led to The Marine Society paying for my uniform with the brass buttons. One lunchtime I decided to do it. I did what no cadet had done in years, and then there'd been some sort of an accident. I climbed to the very top of the main mast. I could see Greenwich --- the world.
I went to sea aboard tramp ships of the old Hain-Norse Company. While I was still in my 18th year I had been around the world both eastwards and westwards. Imagine! God I must have been the luckiest person in the whole world!
However, it was, I discovered, the land and especially the Peoples of the world that I really loved, not the Sea per say. That led me to paying off a Maltese registered, Pakistan owned tramp named Omar, where I had served as 2nd mate, and then hitting the roads of South America. The young officer became a specialized kind of tramp. I travelled for years and with out money. You will find reference to that in other parts.
Save to say that the journey I was privileged to make -- first ever crossing (by any means) of the Western Hemisphere last of all primal continent crossings and better known, longest unbroken walk of all Time (30, 421km.) Well, the inspiration for this lot, came from when I was 6-years-old and growing up in Rainham, Kent, and trudging the gentle streets. I had never sold out on the adventure of life. I had held true.
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