Posted by Helen on: 10.30.2007 /
I first heard this from Jim yesterday. I think it’s awesome.
If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.
– Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Comment by: joe
1…unless you’re the British Navy – in which case you go around the place capturing healthy looking young men and press-ganging them into the work!
[of course this is not currently happening, but in the past was the main form of recruitment]
Comment by: Helen
2Thanks for your comment Joe. I take your point although my father-in-law chose to go into the Navy at 14; he wasn’t press-ganged into it.
I liked the quote as a guide to how to motivate people. I think it’s an ongoing challenge with raising children: how do you help them want what you’ve learned from experience is worth wanting from life – so they will be motivated to work hard to achieve it? Telling them they should want it doesn’t work very well and in fact may well be counter-productive if they’re at an age where they’re skeptical of everything you say :).
Comment by: joe
3Yes, I’m sorry I was teasing. I’ll go and stand in the corner..
Comment by: Helen
4teasing…how very English of you :)
Comment by: benjamin ady
5I yearn for the vast and endless sea. I miss it.
Comment by: joe
6Do you know the story footprints?
One day I had a dream. I was walking along a beach and suddenly I became aware that I was walking with God and the beach represented my life.
Looking back along the beach I could see times when there were only one set of footprints. ‘what happened there’ I asked God.
“Oh,” said God in his best Yorkshire accent “that is where we played hopscotch.”
Nuff said.
Comment by: Helen
7Joe, I question that story because I’ve been on the beach in Yorkshire and anyone with bare feet would be likely to get frostbite :)
(See, I can tease too!)
Comment by: joe
8Well y’know. I’ve been on a ferry. The wide open sea never fills me with any kind of yearning other than to be back on dry land…
PS – did you know God was from Yorkshire?
PPS – sorry, I am having a very strange day today. I will be more sensible tomorrow, promise.
Comment by: benjamin ady
9Joe,
don’t apologize. I like your strangeness. It feels familiar.
Comment by: Helen
10My Dad is from Yorkshire.
No, I’m not being metaphorical about being God’s child – my Dad as in, human being, is from North Yorkshire. That’s why I’ve been on the frigid beaches of N. Yorks.
Comment by: David H
11I get terribly seasick (went fishing with relatives in a bay off the coast of Virginia and managed to get seasick just crossing a channel that was partially open to the sea). Yet somehow I still yearn for the sea, the places beyond it; the dark, scary, unknown things lurking deep beneath it; and all the vast reaches above.
A few years ago when I was in Vietnam my brother-in-law convinced me to ride motorcycles up the coast between Phan Thiet (self-billed and smelling every bit like the fish sauce — Nuc Mum — capital of Vietnam) and Cana. It was pretty stupid because motorcycles on highway one are very dangerous (bigger vehicles feel free to pass if the oncoming vehicle is sufficiently smaller). But it sounded like more fun than rolling along at about 35 miles an hour in an un-air-conditioned bus (the drive from Saigon to Nha Trang is about 150 miles and takes 13 hours if all goes well).
We rented bikes and drivers (I’m adventurous, not stupid) but quickly had tire problems. It took a few hours to get things fixed, so that suddenly we were not nearly at our destination and the sun was going down. Night falls like a rock in the Vietnamese countryside. There is very little time for “Oh, what a pretty sunset” before you are surrounded by darkness so dense I found it rather hard to believe even when I was in the midst of it.
There are few houses and electricity is scarce, so very few homes have lights and streetlights are considered a city-boy’s extravagance.
Most of Vietnam never seems to sleep, so traffic only diminished slightly with sundown. However, visibility for the small motorcycles became practically zero. The head-lamps only illuminated a few feet in front, slowing our passage on the road (which was frequently pitted with construction sites marked by little or nothing). The trucks and buses still coming down the road also kept their high beams on almost constantly, thoroughly erasing any night-vision one might hope to acquire.
At sundown we passed a truck accident where the driver was hanging out the windshield of his over-tuned vehicle. There were no police (I was told they feel it is unsafe to patrol the road) and no one was stopping. I asked my driver if we should notify someone and he said the trucking company would come along once the man didn’t make his next destination.
When it was well dark we were headed up a relatively straight portion of the highway, blind to everything except the small patch shown by our light and blinded by the occasionally passing traffic when an approaching truck suddenly seemed to divide into two. We were almost even with its front end when it suddenly sprouted a second set of headlights from its rear. An air-horn sounded and our two drivers made instant hard right turns and went straight off the road. I felt weightless for a moment as we went airborne (there was a ditch running along side the road) then bounced and slid to a stop in the midst of what turned out to be an orchard.
My brother-in-law was ready to stop right there. He was talking about ghosts and dead people and taking his chances in the middle of nowhere until morning. I convinced him that we had to go on until we could find a hostel of some sort to spend the night.
We pressed on and, shortly before reaching a destination of sorts, found ourselves skirting one of the remarkably steep hills for which coastal Vietnam is known. I didn’t realize we were even going up a hill until a train passed on tracks right along the road and, after a disconcerting moment of vertigo, it became apparent.
When we crested the hill there were twinkling lights dotting the night before us. Some were still others seemed to be in motion. But they all appeared to be off the same kind.
I later learned that some of the lights were from brothels. The highway is littered with such houses at which truckers stop and those are the only places that can afford to run electricity at night. Others were from fishing boats, hard at work on the sea at night. The darkness, so deep that I literally could not see my hand in front of my face, erased the division between land and sea and the tall poles at the rest houses, a sort of billboard hung with lights, looked remarkably like the masts of the fishing vessels.
Over it all were stars in a sky so inky that it blended seamlessly into land and sea making it impossible to tell where the light of human commerce ended and that of heaven began. For one tired moment it felt almost as if I was no longer on earth.
We made it to a small, decrepit hotel. The beds sagged and nothing looked within 50 years of being new. Funny how you can sleep almost anywhere under the right conditions.
In the morning we found ourselves right against the ocean. The water was dotted with standing rocks and coral sprouted everywhere. In the US it would have been a perfect place for defilement by a large resort. We swam and snorkeled until the bus arrived and we rejoined it for the last few hours drive to our destination, suddenly glad for the relative safety and comfort of the big, hot vehicle.
I tell my children stories like that, not to impress them with the daring of their father or to make them do anything so stupid, but to try and convey some sense of the mystery that is waiting to be experienced. In many ways they are not like me at all. I had to force myself to adventure. I grew up painfully shy, afraid to talk with anyone and more at home alone with a book than almost anywhere else. They love to read, but don’t hesitate to join conversations conducted by adults, and will try almost anything. I hope I have, if nothing else, taught them to yearn for things beyond the apparent security of their known horizons. We shall see.
Comment by: Julie Marie
12perfectly timed quote, for me Helen–I’ll be interviewing this week for a Director’s job and I’ve been rehearsing my answers to probable questions, one of which will undoubtedly be “how will you motivate your department through the upcoming changes?”
I’ll work St. Exupery into my answer, somewhere after I share my vision for my growing department’s direction over the next year or so…:)
Its a job that I’m qualified for if I stand on my tippy toes and stretch my arms as high as I can reach…I can just get ahold of a corner with my fingertips. The learning curve will be steep (well, the financial part of it, not the medical or people management part). Anyways, I’m giving it all I’ve got. I consider it an honor to even be a serious candidate.
Comment by: Helen
13I hope you get the job, Julie Marie! How are you, anyway? How is your son doing?
Comment by: Helen
14David, wow, what an adventure! Thanks for sharing it.
I like being at the ocean – I don’t know that I want to go on it especially but (yes even in North Yorkshire, if dressed right) I love being where I can see and hear and smell it. I haven’t lived close to the ocean (except for a few months) so it’s always been special to be there; maybe that’s why.
Comment by: Julie Marie
15My son is doing quite well, thanks for asking! He’s the light of my life – so open and free with his feelings and happiness and he wears his love for his mama on his sleeve.
As for me, a mixed bag. Professionally, I’m very happy. Personally, my husband and I have separated. Its been a hard year, but now I am having way more ups than downs, and at least, living in the house with Cody, I don’t go around hurting my own feelings. I am trying to focus my energy on that which I can impact, and give minimal energy to that which is not under my control. Sometimes I have more success with that concept than others ;) But overall, I’m doing a zillion times better than this time last year.
Comment by: Helen
16Julie Marie, I’m sorry to hear it’s been a hard year but glad things are settling down for you emotionally now. And I’m glad your son is doing great!