I just finished watching another of those pirate of the Caribbean theme movies. Always feels like a healthy rush of blood and adrenaline to watch one of these pirate movies. Let me pen my thoughts here.
The sea is always ever so fascinating. Wild, unpredictable, mighty and so much mystery around it even today. It has shaped pockets of civilizations on islands of land keeping people away from each other to grow and flourish in their own way. Today when the world is interconnected, those civilizations have come together to form a global hotch potch of civilizations working with each other and against in some ways.
Every human ever who has set eyes on the mighty seas would always have one thought in his mind – what lies beyond these waters ?
For thousands of years man awed at the sea as an overpowering force. Something no man would every be able to conquer, or cross. When it was angry it ravaged through storms and cyclones. When it was kind it provided by way of fish and rain. Only for the Gods who walked the earth the seas relented; Moses commanded it to part; Ram built a bridge to cross over it with his mighty army and Jesus walked the water of the seas. The oceans churned out Amrit (nectar) for our ancient Hindu Gods. Mythology abounds with stories about ocean drinkers and other characters who have made the ocean do their bidding. My contemplation on all these stories suggest that perhaps they are flights of fantasies of a human mind; which since the very first civilizations dreamed and desired to conquer the oceans; manifesting as super human heroes who fulfilled that innermost desire – rule the oceans.
But for normal humans, it took men of extraordinary courage and confidence to actually build a ship so mighty that he had the confidence to cross the seas and explore what lay on the other side. Perhaps insanity with an overdose of confidence. This thought gave rise to the greatest adventures and explorations which mankind has known. These explorations gave us the world as we know it today. These explorations have always been associated with legendary adventures at high seas.
These have always caught my fancy from way back early childhood that I can remember. And as with the civilized world, it is always a “Good Vs. Bad” theme. So also with all adventures at sea.
The central character in all such adventures at high sea stories has to be a stereotypical cursing, one-eyed pirate. Perhaps an image drawing upon some infamous pirates from way back complete with a talking parrot, ships with fearful cannons and hoards of shipmates every ready for a treasure hunt complete with wine, and the women.
The good guys to balance the scales are the righteous men in “shiny armor” – the men of the Navy. A typical story line would go some thing as pirates in dirty ships indulge in an orgy of loot, plunder, murder and rape always hiding away the booty on some treasure island. The clean shaven men in stiff white / red and blue uniforms with shiny brass buttons and clean ships would come along to uphold righteousness and purge the seas of the human filth – the pirates.
Even if the men in the navy were the righteousness upholders, the infamous pirates were somehow always the legendary “Heroes” who got the women.
Being a pirate is about being fascinated by the thought of stepping in to the unknown out of comfort zones, rather than snuggling in to the warmth of hypocritical familiarity built around by the society breeding ignorance, insensitivity, lovelessness; encouraging ghettos filled with people with sleeping minds like drones in an ant colony. I would rather step out of the cocoon and venture in to the unknown, maybe at great risk of loneliness, ridicule, contempt and even hatred.
Back then, a life at sea somewhere resonate with this thought of mine, for beyond the seas lie the unknown, a new world filled with mysticism, adventure.
Perhaps underlining and adding glamor to this entire Pirate business was the emphasis the so-called civilized world wanted to set as an example. To cast entire population within rules and tell them what is good and what is bad, through religion, through mythological stories and of course if all failed, by the sword. The Navies winning the war against the pirates was an important part of the propaganda in emphasizing what the definitions of righteousness and goodness are.
Look at our thoughts on Pirates. The image which comes up (as we are taught) is one of indulgence in shameless killing, raping and looting. And I ask this. Let me know of one navy of the world which has not done this – be it in the name of civilization or be in the name of the “rule of the law”. Both are to me two faces of the same coin.
However there is a huge difference.
The pirate is at harmony with the sea. He knows the ways of the waves and the rules. He knows what the sea is asking. The Navy on the other hand is a representative of the human ego which prides itself in conquering nature by brute force, to use any means to destroy if needed and gain dominance of the formidable sea. To brainwash millions of fine young men in the name of the constitution and other such political gimmicks, we make them wear shiny suits of armor; making them in to mindless workers in an ant farm or a bee hive. Definitions of righteousness, law and good bad is defined in a black book which they have to swear by. The highest honor for them is to die for the country. An ultimate sacrifice. All in the name of thin lines drawn in the sand, the mountains and the seas. Today we need armies and the navies to protect us from nothing but our own internal short comings and failings as humans. To take pride to be a soldier who will kill another or die at the hands of other just reaffirms how stupid we humans are to indulge in the thought of such violent glory. To glorify drones who vow to kill the enemy.
I would rather be a soldier in an army who heals which require so much more. To be able to reach out to another’s soul, to kill the pain than a person.
I am a Pirate by heart, ever ready to sail in to the unknown, a rebel against any Navy who consider themselves to be creators and caretaker of law.
