When making big life changes, I tend to stagnate. There’s always some side mission I have to get to before finishing the main one. It’s not that I am not making any progress in my life, but it’s not where I need it to be. I go on tangents easy. I go perpendicular from the point. It ties into that superficiality that seems to consume me. I want to be understood, but I am afraid of the acknowledgment, like when you have something to say to someone but are afraid of the consequences.

It seems like it would help to know others are going through problems as well, but it only helps when they solve the problems I am currently going through. If I already solved those problems, I don’t really need alternate solutions. They are nice “what-if’s”, but that’s part of my problem: giving those questions space. Some questions should not be entertained.

Anyways, it feels like we are each on a raft and sometimes it feels better to trade it for a boat. I wonder is it ever worth it to trade a boat for a raft. I mean, they had to on the Titanic didn’t they? It’s a good last resort, so it is good to have both. Being stuck alone in the vast ocean is a death wish, so any way to stay visible is an aid. I might be getting too distant from the original point, but it feels like we are in wars for these rafts and boats. Everyone wants to live in a yacht, but nobody wants to trade up their rafts. We want our boat and our emergency raft too. Who is to blame us?

So if there is this constant battle with the old and the new, it must help to have both. Like Theseus’s ship, maybe the real question of whether the ship is still the same after replacing all the parts is in the blueprints. People with all their problems solved do have the blueprints to their success. Some people sell the blueprints, and some sell the ships. Some own the dock and they must feel so proud of the platform they created. Some built the lighthouse so that the sailors stay safe.

You don’t have to trade up your rafts for a house or vice-versa. You don’t need a boat or a yacht. Fisherman, traders, and military need boats. The rest of us need to learn how to support them instead of always wanting to be supported. That yacht won’t float forever.