“Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.”
Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
The title ‘Whale Lines’ comes from my second favorite passage in Herman Melville’s book Moby Dick. In chapter 60, “The Line,” the narrator Ishmael “speak[s] of the magical, sometimes horrible whale-line.” This is not the passage I’m refering to but I should note dichotomies — real and false — are something I like learning about.
The passage I am referencing is,
“All men live enveloped in the whale lines. All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life.”
Herman Melville, Moby Dick
I read the ‘whale lines’ and ‘halters’ as metaphors for the burdens of culture, class, and race, scripts we are given and seemingly doomed to play out, the binding stories tightly woven and placed upon us like so many fish nets, the momentum of history, and the chains of habit that, as Warren Buffet has said ( or was it Samuel Johnson? Maria Edgeworth? Bertrand Russell? Anonymous?) are “too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.”
“We forge the chains we wear in life.”
Charles Dickens
We too often go about life not questioning these lines and halters, or even recognizing them. As Ishmael earlier proclaims, “Yes habit — strange thing! what cannot habit accomplish?” Habit dulls our senses, familiarity breeds contempt and complacency, and what is more familiar than the scripts we are habituated to since birth?
It often takes a shock — “when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death,” — to notice or “realize the subtle, silent, ever-present perils of life.”
It was July, 1992 — as it so happens while serving active duty in the Navy — that I was caught in the a swift, sudden turn that fortunately did not end in death. To summarize a well rehearsed story, I was shot in the face pursuant to ‘road rage’ (?) and what I can only assume was mistaken identity.
Immediately following my favorite passage, Melville closes chapter 60,
“And if you be a philosopher, though seated in the whale-boat, you would not a heart feel one whit more of terror, than though seated before your evening fire with a poker, and not a harpoon, by your side.”
Herman Melville, Moby Dick
I endeavor to be more philosophical about life and whenever possible, be more aware — not more afraid — of “the silent, subtle, ever-present perils.” Maybe I am trying to untangle myself, as much as possible, from the whale-lines, and as such avoid being dragged “into the profundity of the sea.”
About the Author
Retired (resource) crime fighter, wanna’ be philosopher, and prolific highlighter, Chris Cagle currently resides in the central valley of California.
He devotes himself to reading, freelance writing, training, and keeping up hearth and home.
Chris also trains law enforcement professionals to be mission ready and resilient — to prepare for, adapt to, and recover from stress, adversity, or challenge — and to manage their physical, mental, and emotional energies, so that they can better handle stress reactions and develop more intelligent approaches to self-regulation, and thereby sustain clarity and composure in routine situations or under the pressure of complex and rapidly changing environments.
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