but I am a sailor, and I understand the idea of a history, a subculture, and an instinctive way of looking at a tiny little piece of reality from up close, very close. And yes, it is a source of valuable insights, insights that cannot be easily explained, or even articulated, but to those who possess them, undeniable and irreplaceable.

The hull grips the sea, the rig penetrates the atmosphere, and it all comes together at the interface of the two, rudder and sheet, at the hands and brains of a man who stands at the very dead center of this very personal view of the universe, mediating between the cosmos and his own soul through the medium of the skills and experiences of his long-dead predecessors.

There are the rigid laws of nature, the fractal chaos of the local changing conditions, and of course, the human dimension of thousands of years of mariners and shipbuilders coming together at one single point in space and moment in time. The human mind deals directly with the infinitely complex and random universe, through the finite but nonetheless remarkable properties of the boat.

It is, simultaneously, an intensely spiritual, intellectual, and physical activity. When you come back from a sail you know you have dealt with the universe directly, on its terms, and you have acquitted yourself with dignity and grace.