“To most men experience is like the stern lights of a ship, which illuminate only the track it has passed.” the cynic Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 – 1834) once wrote. O.K., usually we can analyze our mistakes only some days after, but not swimming in the water behind a large ship. Usually I’m sitting dry in my armchair with a paper blank and a pencil in my hands.
photo by frizztext; ship: BBC ANGLIA, leaving Vlissingen (Netherlands) late in the evening – 21:08
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Sheesh, imagine seeing the stern lights disappearing ass you thrash around in the water. Bitter!
Yep, I would rather be on it than in the ocean!
Ditto to the above
I’m not a swimmer, so I would rather be out of the water. As for experience – how does the saying go?…”I wish I knew then what I know now”.
oh yes…
I tend to keep my feet on dry land, too (I tend to sink better than I float).
My eyes are another story, though – another beautiful image, F.T.!
Experience is life’s best teacher but not always life’s best companion, even in retrospect! Sometimes a lot more light is shed on those experiences that just from a steamer ship’s aft beam.