Importance of seeing the big picture

The following is a 'reflection' I appended to my log entry on 14th April (day 7), at 1:00 am.


A boat at sea should be thought of, by those that want to be 'a crew', as a complete entity. To think of the boat as a set, or worse a collection of sets of tasks, spars and ropes, or as a mode of transport, is to fail to grasp something important that is going on out here.


The boat is my whole world for the duration of the journey. It is the sum and extent of things on which I can exert any direct influence, and my life, no less, depends on it. Off hand I'm not sure if that is re-assuring or terrifying, but I am certain that it is important, and that those 'that go down to the sea' do well to think of their vessel as a complete entity. And their 'vessel' it is, for it both contains and carries them, or doesn't do either, in accordance with the degree to which they have been mindful and caring for the complete entity that is a boat.

Now, several weeks later, I can't remember what inspired those thoughts. It was something to do with taking a holistic view of the experience, clearly. But it was also a reflection on focussing on details and in doing so missing out on appreciating the whole concept of what a boat is and what it can do. The boat can be lost for the failure of a small bolt or piece of wire, and those things are thus important, sometimes crucial. But their importance is in what they contribute to the integrity of the whole; and looking after those things is not done for its own sake, but for the well-being of the boat.

The fact that I wrote it at one o'clock in the morning may have had something to do with it as well. :P