In a sailboat, progress means nautical miles, but for a sailor and pilgrims alike, progress means fruitful and nourishing environments. It means being exposed to experiences constructively directed at an undeveloped potential. It means being challenged on every quality of one’s being by the relativism of culture and diversity, to be confronted on biased belief’s and inherited faults.

To achieve this, unrestricted sight, that is to say, the total willingness of sacrificing one’s comprehension of reality is mandatory. This means chaos, and the art of it is to chew of just enough to stimulate self-transformation without damage. Willful blindness is, in my opinion, the greatest sin, which is indeed deadly. Ignoring predators implies bad luck.

If we believe to be masters of our soul, then we become their servants. If we are their servants, we must make ourselves their masters, since she needs to be ruled. For our salvation and for the attainment on our soul, we must sacrifice. Thus no sacrifice can be too great for us. If our virtues hinder us from salvation, discard them, since they have become evil to us. The slave to virtue finds the way as little as the slave to vices.

C.G. Jung, The Red Book

This is one of the oldest insights in history, naturally enough because it goes hand in hand with survival. Examples of representations of this are archetype variations of “the good King”, like Osiris in Egyptian mythology and the Abrahamic story of Moses. The stories reflect that if one chooses to ignore bad intentions within the realm of one’s reality, one ends up being scattered in pieces across it, or walking the desert for 40 years. To gain knowledge requires sacrifice, which is by no means pleasant, but the discomfort might act as a compass to the dragons den. In Wace’s King Arthur and the Nights of the Round Table, the knights conclude in their quest to find the holy grail, a symbol of enlightenment, transformation and fertility, to search where they least want to look. In Norse mythology, Odinn, just as Horus in Egyptian mythology, sacrifices one eye to gain knowledge. The same happens in Dante Alighieri’s Dantes Inferno, whereas he has to descend through the nine circles of the purgatory before reaching hell to gain access to heaven. In all these stories and numerous more, there is a heroic or involuntary descent to hell and back.

The case of human civilization is the externalization of responsibility in complex hierarchies of value, and our ability to supervise our behaviour probably bypassed our capacity when reaching group-sizes of more than 70 individuals. That is long ago, and the unbelievable intelligent way of tackling this problem has been through stories, mythology and religion, which over millennia has been refined to transcendent honey of wisdom and taken a life of its own. Sometimes to be lost in its own occultness, sometimes to bear great fruits.

“God is Dead” wrote Nietzsche, whereas he described “the void” left behind by the collective abandonment of religion. The function of religion was not only to add a spiritual structure to comply with, a supportive crutch in the face of existence, but also the dissemination of values created throughout human civilization. When religion became too abstract and diffuse, and the rationality of reason so clear, the tradition that the generations previously bore was extinguished. With it also vanished the foundation of values that are every culture’s spine. We lost not only a crutch to hang our inadequate sense of this reality, but also the understanding of ourselves. That something was sacred and highly respected was left in the domain of faith, and not understood as something fundamental in the struggle for existence and self-restraint. Life loses meaning, and we wonder why. We chase happiness, forget responsibility. We rather believe in the absence of a God than to not believe. Respect as a concept withers in the prism of relativism. The present-day represent a storm with high seas, and if we are not to capsize, humanity as a whole has to manoeuvre with utmost attention and focus. 

It is now one year since Chilli crossed the Atlantic ocean, and I can genuinely say the past year has been another journey through all the twelve chapters of progress or growth; Circumambulation, the journey to the centre, the goal of a cycle of growth and start of the next.

It is, therefore, based on a compass directed at values and meaning instead of magnetic poles, that I have come to the enormously difficult conclusion of heading back north to Norway, and let the journey unfold itself further in the land of my roots. I’m also boiling on a considerable project I genuinely want to develop, which hopefully will give the world a little push in a better direction. Another factor is that my trouble with seasickness does not seem to seise, even after 10 000nm and intense research on every remedy that might cure it.

A quick summary of the last six months (since the previous blog… sorry…)
It has been a rather intense collection of chapters, with a lot of sailing, many countries, and a considerable amount of reading, thinking and writing for my studies.

I’ve also decided to release some of my work for you to “enjoy” – HERE, and a list over my largest inspirational sources which I really recommend – (Books, websites, Youtube, + reading list) – HERE

• September
  • Brazil (Belèm, Soure)
    • Started online-studies: History of Idèas (which is somewhat to blame for the inconsistency of updates)
  • Brazil – Suriname (Paramaribo) with Filipe (4+3 days, stop in Fr. Guyana)
    • Little sis, Nora, appears!
• October
  • Suriname – Grenada, with quick rest in Tobago. (4+1 days)
• November
  • Grenada – St. Martin (3 days)
    • Guro, a friend of Nora, joins
  • St. Martin – Dominican Republic (Semana) (3 days)
  • DR – Cuba (Puerto Vita) (4 days)
  • Puerto Vita – Havana (4 days)
• December
  • Cuba
    • Goodbye to Guro
    • Hello Ingrid, bye Ingrid
    • University exams at the Norwegian embassy in Havana
    • Juliana joins Chilli
  • Havana – Cayman Island ( 5 days and a storm)
    • Christmas!
    • Little sis disappear
• January
  • Cayman Island – Jamaica (Kingston)
    • Climbed Caribbeans highest mountain, Blue Mountain Peak
    • Juli disappears
  • Kingston – Cayman Island
    • Vår joins
    • Earthquake
  • Cayman Island – Jamaica (Montego Bay (current location))

Now we are enjoying calm days in the vast greenness of Jamaica, and will stay, at least in the country, for a good while before deciding on the route back north.

Sincerely, thank you for reading,

– Martin