The Middle-Aged Man and the Sea

Before I daydreamed about making a living from the land, I daydreamed about making a living from the sea. My maritime dream took several iterations, and I can’t remember in what order they originated. At one point, I wanted to be a professional skimboarder. If you have never heard of a professional skimboarder, that is likely because the only place a professional skimboarder has ever existed is in my daydream.

A skimboard, however, is an actual object known to reality; it is basically a small surfboard-type conveyance, albeit one that is flat and without fins, that a juvenile runs and jumps on in the spilling and retreating suds atop a beach. The skimboard carries its rider for five seconds—five long seconds of pure fun—before it runs aground in the sand and catapults the rider. I believe the only people who have ever made a living off of skimboards are orthopedic surgeons.

At another point in time I wanted to own a shrimp boat, one with big nets and outriggers and possibly a cannon for pirating in my spare time. My decision to discard this dream was likely providential—later in life I would develop a severe allergic reaction to shrimp and would have had to resort to full-time piracy, for which a shrimp boat with one cannon would have hardly been conducive.

At another point, I hoped to become a charter boat captain. I planned to start small by charging five dollars for a half-day trip on my grandma’s pond. The aluminum jon boat wasn’t the fastest boat in the local fleet, especially after about five minutes of rowing against the wind, but you gotta start somewhere. Out of all my maritime ideas, this one probably had the best odds for success, but then the pond sprung a leak one summer and went dry, which ended my charter boat empire before I ever had my first charter.

Somewhere along the lines my dreams turned more terrestrial in nature, and I shifted to wanting to make a living from the land. Many of these dreams I actually pursued, to varying degrees of failure, and I learned that dreams to work the ground aren’t the same as grounded dreams.

In hindsight, any dream containing the term “make a living” is probably doomed to disappoint because the dream itself is a corruption—whatever fancy spawned the dream to begin with is suddenly bound to the anchor of pecuniary pressure and is destined to sink into reality. For an idealist whose natural realm is the clouds, it’s probably better to earn your funds elsewhere and let them float your dreams, than to sink them.

That said, I look back on those failures with a strange sense of nostalgia, maybe not as much nostalgia as my boyhood seafaring dreams, but nostalgia nonetheless. I have jettisoned the profit-motive for farming (except for tax purposes) in favor of the breakeven motive, which is somewhat more attainable, at least in a good year. Maybe one day pigweed will become a cash crop, at which point I will be strongly positioned to achieve my prior dream.

In any event, sometimes it’s nice to remember your dreams (and to remember to dream). Running aground is inevitable, but it is better than living in a sea of regret.