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Moitessier, Bernard – The Long Way

I have set course for the Pacific. . .last night was too hard to take, I really felt sick at the thought of getting back to Europe, back to the snakepit. ……..

My mother. . .her spirits are so high, her inner life so rich ! I know she will not worry, I know I will see her again. But I had better not go as far as the Galapagos. Francoise and the children can take it, too.
I am really fed up with false gods, always lying in wait, spider-like, eating our liver, sucking our marrow. I charge the modern world-that's the Monster. It is destroying our earth, and trampling the soul of men.

'Yet it is thanks to the modern world that you have a good boat with winches, Tergal sails, and a solid metal hull that doesn't give you any worries.'

That's true, but it is because of the modern world, because of its so-called "civilization" and its so-called "progress" that I take off with my beautiful boat.'

‘Well, you're free to split, no one is stopping you; everyone is free here, so long as it doesn't interfere with others.'

Free for the moment . . .but before long no one will be free if things go on. They have already become inhuman. So there are those who go to sea or hit the road to seek the lost truth. And those who can't, or won't anymore, who have lost even hope. "Western civilization" is almost completely technocratic now, it isn't a civilization anymore.

'If we listened to people like you more or less vagabonds and barefoot tramps, we would not have got beyond the bicycle.'

'That's just it; we would ride bikes in the cities, there wouldn't be those thousands of cars with hard, closed people all alone in them, we would see youngsters arm in arm, hear laughter and singing, see nice things in people's faces; joy and love would be reborn everywhere, birds would return to the few trees left in our streets and we would replant the trees the Monster killed. Then we would feel real shadows and real colours and real sounds; our cities would get their souls back, and people too.'

And I know all that is no dream, everything beautiful and good that men have done they built with their dreams. . .but back there, the Monster has taken over for men, it dreams in our place. It would have us believe that man is the centre of the universe, that all rights are his on the pretence that he invented the steam engine and lots of other machines, and that he will someday reach the stars if he just hurries a little before the next bomb.

Nothing to worry about there, our hurrying suits the Monster just fine. . .he helps us hurry. . .time is short. . .hardly any time left. . .

'Run! Run!. . . don't stop to think, whatever you do; I, the Monster am doing the thinking. . .run toward the destiny I have planned for you. . .run without stopping to the end of the -road where I have put the Bomb or the complete degradation of humanity. . .we're almost there, run with your eyes closed, it's easier, shout all together Justice-Patriotism-Progress-Intelligence-Dignity-Civilization . What, you aren't running. . .You're sailing around on your boat, just to think! . . .and you dare complain into your tape recorder. . saying what you have in your heart. . just wait, you poor fool, I'm going to shoot you down in flames. . .guys who get angry and speak out are very dangerous for me, I have to shut them up. . .if too many of them started getting angry, I wouldn’t be able to drive the human cattle as I please, their eyes and ears blocked by Pride, Stupidity and Cowardice …. And I’m in a hurry to get tem, bleating ad satisfied, where I want them to go….

The violent things rumbling within me vanished in the night.  I look to the sea and it answers me that I escaped a great danger.