To The Sea

“.… Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear in every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off ---- then, I account it high time to get to the sea as soon as I can. This is my only substitute for pistol and ball.”

MOBY DICK
Chapter 1: Loomings
By Herman Melville

 Melville’s Ishmael went to the sea and it damned near killed him. His “hypos”… I like that word… would have… well; it was either suicide or homicide. Some go to the sea for adventure while others go to escape. I went to the bottle for adventure but it really doesn’t matter why or what drove me there. Had I not gone there, who knows how I would have ended up? My neurosis, or “hypos”, led me to randomly knock “people’s hats off” regardless and I had to somehow escape the grip of my neurosis. I tried to excuse my excesses and blame my drunkenness for them. Sometimes I would black-out with little or no memory of what had gone down.  I did know deep down, however, that whatever I did do drunk, whether it was in a blackout or not, those outbursts were what I wished to do in the depths of my heart… sober or drunk. Jack Daniels merely put me to sea. The leviathan of my impulses ranged free there and were completely out of my control.
    When I sit in meditation I am in contact with the innermost reality that sees and admits and observes what is there lurking in the depths. If I see that reality as an evil that must be conquered I have lost the battle already. Let go of it… put the harpoons to rest… this isn’t a battle won by will power at all. Leave the leviathan alone, go to a safe place and let it go. It is a simple admission that I am what I am and then turning it over wholly to the Heart of Compassion. The hunt is over and I am merely whale watching.

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