Have you ever heard someone describe someone else as “that guy who’s never met a stranger?” I want to be described like that. But, actually living like that is fraught with uneasiness. I like to look people in the eye or nod my head to them and acknowledge their existence. I like to smile at everyone. Other people say they identify with this, especially with southern folks. Yeah well, don’t go to Atlanta, or Houston, or Miami, or any big city in the south and expect to get away with it. Big city people are as impersonal as the bricks and mortar that define their environment. I’m picking on the South here, but it has been my experience that all big cities have this attribute. Big city folks also transport their bubble with them as they travel.
We decided to winter over in a marina where there are many of these city dwellers visiting. I pass them on the dock every day and acknowledge them, only to be ignored and sometimes rebuffed. I was asked one day “why bother?” My answer was that I have as much right to acknowledge them as they do to ignore me. Further, with enough acknowledgments most everyone becomes friendly.
Living on the water does not lend itself to being a stranger. While the degree of independence is higher than other lifestyles, everyone out here has a certain amount of interdependence. The longer you stay on the water, the higher your probability of needing assistance from other boaters becomes. I don’t like needing help. Needing help means that my planning failed, or I have mismanaged my resources, or I have found a void in my education and experience.
Occasionally I get help that I didn’t even know I needed. Yesterday I was approaching my boat and realized that my other dinghy was in the water tied to the boat by the painter. When I left the boat in the morning, the dinghy was hanging from the stern davits. It turns out that one of the eye bolts failed and the dinghy half fell off the davits and was thrashing itself against everything. The fellow on the boat moored beside us boarded our boat and got the situation under control. If he hadn’t, the swinging dinghy could have done untold damage to the transom. I’m glad I was friendly to Gabe, our neighbor.
I like being able to help. Furthermore, I readily offer my help because I know forcing someone to ask for help is making them pay the highest human price. I mean that personally as a matter of human courtesy, not entrepreneurship.
The closer you live to the rhythms of the natural world, the simpler things become. On a boat, you do not ignore waves, wildlife, sunrise, sunsets, moon phases, clouds or the wind. How anyone could be so removed from their nature as to ignore another of their own species is beyond me. Acknowledge everyone out of necessity because interdependence is a necessity.
Capt’n Mike
www.Whensday.us
