I have watched on Apple TV+ THE DYNASTY. For those of you who do not live in the somewhat not quite United States this is a series about the New England Patriots’ domination of the National Football League as no team ever has under coach Bill Belicheck and quarterback Tom Brady who has won seven Super Bowls, the last with a different team. Brady is often called the GOAT—the Greatest of All Time. I do not believe in GOATs because different times cannot objectively be compared, but unquestionably he has won far more Super Bowls than any other quarterback, so we must accept his wisdom in all things, or be outcasts.
In the final episode of THE DYNASTY when Brady was being acclaimed on his return to the Patriot’s stadium he said, and this is an exact quote: It is one of my core beliefs that there is nothing significant in life that can be accomplished as an individual. It is always about the team.
So, far too late I have learned that my life has been worthless. I have believed in the individual and I have worked alone; but who can argue with a GOAT? Given a second chance I would try to do better, but as someone else observed life is not a dress rehearsal, so I don’t get a second chance. Sorry, Tom. Sorry all of you. I screwed up.
Despite my failed life, most accept that I know something about sailing boats alone across oceans. A few even think I am a pretty good writer. But until now no one has considered that I might also be able to offer advice about marriage. Odd for I have been married more than most and to confuse some have now been married to one of the most intelligent and beautiful women of her generation for thirty years, so I offer free a rare secret of a good marriage.
Everyone knows the basics: respect, compromise, kindness, communication, great sex, but few know that a key to a good marriage can be noise-cancelling headphones. I have them on now.
Carol and I agree on most things, but we have different tastes in music and television. She watches what poses as the news on television which I find an intolerable combination of Entertainment Tonight and the National Enquirer where all the talking heads speak rapidly and breathlessly, deliberately creating fear which has long been proven the way to sell newspapers and the media’s subsequent descendants, Descend indeed.
Our condo in Hilton Head is configured better to solve this problem. Carol can be watching and listening to whatever she wants on the television which is located near the kitchen while I am reading or watching whatever I want sitting in front of the bedroom window and looking out at Skull Creek. However in this apartment that is not possible. Noise cancelling headphones are a technological salvation.
To my future biographer: you are going to make your academic career by discovering a previously little known genius—not my word, I prefer ‘original’ but ‘genius’ will sell better— and one who has the advantage of being as exceptional physically as he was as a writer, who made voyages no one had ever even imagined and may still again, and repeatedly survived the seemingly unsurvival, and who defined some words—sailor, artist—better than any one ever had—plus understood as a teenager that to call ourselves homo sapiens is a cosmic joke, that we are homo insipiens or perhaps homo narcissus, so I don’t apologize that the record is split and that you are going to do some work and go to my main site, if it still exists, and to the various places the journal has been uploaded. I like, no I love, simplicity and clarity, but this technology is not in my control and I can no longer update the main site, so here are two additions I would make if I could.
I would add to the Lines page:
https://www.inthepresentsea.com/the_actual_site/lines.html
To life,
And pushing as hard as you can as long as you can and being grateful for whatever moments of peace you find.
And I would add to the Webb Chiles section of the photographs page
https://www.inthepresentsea.com/the_actual_site/webb2.html
this one Steve Earley took last month while we were sipping drinks on the Hilton Head condo’s screened porch.
The top photo was taken by me a few decades ago at a cremation in Bali when I could still see well enough to use a camera beyond shooting videos and excerpting single frames.
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