What I am going through, and what I am feeling, has already been better described by Melville's narrator, Ishmael, in the intro to Moby Dick.
In the intro, Ishmael explains why he embarked on the Pequod:
“Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul...then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball… If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, sometime or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.”
And so it is for me. A "drizzly November." And just about "high time to get to sea."
I would like to believe that "almost all men" feel the same as I do, but it's not for me to be presumptuous about how other people feel.
This is the way I feel. This is the road I have chosen, for this brief period of my life, to take. I sincerely hope it will be an adequate "substitute for pistol and ball."
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