Who’s the Jackass Now?

Originally posted July 30, 2014, by cruisingrunner

In my last post before we left Suwarrow I presented the picture of a jerk, a real jackass, if you will. He is one part passive aggressive victim and one part out and out jerk bent on making the net controller’s life miserable. Of course, in painting this picture, I fell into the fallacy of treating human nature as black and white. Two-dimensional. Good and bad. This is not real life, and I can’t believe I did this, because a proper treatment of the complexity of our species is something I’ve always appreciated in art. In movies like “Crash” and even TV series like “Lost” (the first season anyway, before it “jumped the shark.”) you sometimes lose track of who’s good and who’s bad, and isn’t that real life anyway? We all have good and bad in us, and we all have shining moments and then the duller ones we’d like to sweep under the rug but can’t because they are a part of us too.

On one of the evening radio nets during our current passage, someone underway, much further south of us, asked if anyone had weather information for his area. I was only half listening, I had a poor copy on him after all, and I was also simultaneously preparing dinner. Nevermind that I HAD downloaded weather only a half an hour before, but I didn’t really hear where he was, and I just really couldn’t be bothered. Well, after the net was over, Mr. Jackass, who must have been listening the whole time even though he didn’t check in, called the vessel requesting weather and told him he’d download it right away, so stay on frequency and he would get back to him. Who’s the jackass now?

I’m sure this guy, this “jackass” has many sides and many angles, just like all of us. That doesn’t mean he isn’t as annoying as all hell on the net sometimes, it just means he doesn’t deserve to be painted as a two dimensional cartoon character.

We should arrive in Pago Pago, American Samoa late this afternoon. Since I haven’t really had a proper run since Mopelia, I am looking forward to stretching my legs on a road, rather than on sand, rocks, and coral.

-D.