When God calls us forward, we come, never knowing if God's intentions are to choose us for some critical mission for humanity in anonymity, humility and anonymity or to exalt us and set us upon a path gilt with gold, or, (hopefully not) to make an example of us through revealing our faults, our infirmities, our foolishness, unworthiness and folly so that we can serve as a cautionary tale. Sometimes, oftentimes we are humiliated and exposed so that we can be tested and hardened for a future pursuit where the vital and critical lessons we learned, can be applied anew in a successful venture... but in other cases, God's intention is simply to destroy us either for the amusement of others, or to serve as a cautionary tale for all who considereth following and wallowing in our path.
The case of Donald Crowhurst provides an interesting example from which we can construct a psychological portrait of the prototypical explorer, not just of modern times, but for all humans of all times.
For the explorer, there is the notion that something can be done, and that with good fortune and some preparation, the self-selected explorer feels that they are the one that can do it.
As with the 17 NASA astronauts who lost their lives, certainly the risks were well known. Yet, what would push an individual to play with and risk their lives for a highly dangerous exploit? and yet, haven't we all? haven't we all, at some point been in a situation where we wondered if we were playing with our lives? from riding an elevator, to standing atop a tall building, to diving into a pool, we all, real or imagined, know what it feels like to face impending doom and then, take the plunge.
The NASA astronauts died in what amounted to an explosion. The force needed to launch a ship into space has the destructive force larger than any non-nuclear bomb created. One must move at 25,000 miles an hour, or 7 miles a second to escape the earth's gravitational pull. Clearly, it is something we are not "designed" to do, and yet we do it.
Could Mr. Crowhurst's dream have been any more unreasonable than that of Magellan, Hitler, Columbus, Nixon, Polo, Cortez, Shakelton, Piszaro, and even Quixote? There are several elements all of the above, share:
1. Mental Instability: Elements of Grandiosity, Brilliance, Delusion, Lability, Selective Factor Consideration and the employment of virtually every psychological defense mechanism (displacement, projection, rationalization, undoing, projective identification, undoing, intellectualiztion... but mostly, Denial, Sublimation, Withdrawel and Identification). This seems to be the Psychological make up of the Explorer.
2. Precocious and Auspicious incidents: demonstrating an inability to follow commands, and impetuous actions that take the individual to unusual, destinations or occupations/experiences.
3. A great need to unearth a "great" destiny, which will reveal the individuals inner, greatness for all to know and acknowledge.
4. Narcissistic Injury. A desperate sense that something must be done with someone's life, and soon, or risk slipping into oblivion along with every other non-descript, anonymous human, thus, never revealing ones greatness. Yes, there is fame, fortune, but most of all, the explorer seeks acknowledge and validation as a unique, special, chosen and great individual.
5. Financial Desperation/Financial Bonanza: a pending financial ruin if some other bold action is not undertaken to right previous wrongs. Or, a huge financial bonanza if one is successful In this sense, the "great exploration" is in essense, the grand undoing of ones previous unsuccesful past, an "erasing" of previous failures, and a gathering of all previous skills and experiences, which are then parlayed into a grand gambit/grab for greatness.
And yet, when we look at that the truly great presonalities of our past, which did not stare oblivion and destruction in the eyes? Did Columbus not risk life, limb, fortune? Did Washington not face the Potomoc? Did Mao Zedung not face death on the great march? Did Castro not risk his very life on a daily basis? Did Harriet Tubman always take the safe route? Didn't Frederick Douglas escape from slavery?
These individuals took opportunities that others dared not take. They were all embued with the greatest of qualities of the human explorer.
6. Je Ne Sais Quoi. A certain something. A " I know not what", A quality of being that exemplifies the beauty of human irrationality and the demon seed of both creation and destruction from which anything, everything, all things and all potential is unleased. Whether mundane, or earth shattering, all human action which is new and untested, and involves a certain set of inherent risks, are undertaken due to a certain "je ne sais quoi", found in virtually in all humans to some degree.
Donald Crowhurst entered a contest sponsored by the London Sunday Times to circumnambulate the globe, solo, in a sailboat for a 5,000 pound prize. Mr. Crowhurst had very little sailing experience. he was trained as an airplane mechanic after a 5 year apprenticeship entered after his father died of a heart attack after financial ruin. Due to Crowhurst bullheaded-ness and feeling that he was "right", he was asked to leave the airforce.
he then entered the army and was again asked to leave after a disciplinary incident. Having been born in India, his return to England was a re-entry to virtual poverty. He struck out on his own and founded his own high-tech business. He saw the race, and the possibility of winning it, as his salvation and also, his ability to assume his rightful place as a great human. Obviously, he was also pregnant with the idea that he was a great man, just waiting his opportunity for God to choose, annoit and protect him as the Gods protected Jason and the Argonauts, shielding them, not from near death, or hardship, or destruction, but from death and failure. Everything else would remain on the table, and as his journey played out, his mettle would be revealed, and the obligatory hurdles would be crossed one by one.
As Mr. Crowhurst set out on his journey, he soon realized he was not equipped to finish the journey and to continue would be at the expense of his life. What to do? turn back and lose his business, his home and doom his wife and 5 children to poverty? Should he continue and surely perish, yet, hold the slim, sliver of a possibility that against all odds and reason, he could not only survive but complete his journey?
As stated so eloquently by one of the experts on Mr. Crowhurst, there was a third option. Fake his journey, pretend he was still in the race and meander around the south atlantic until the real participants came back around, and then pretend that he had finished. Of course, he would not and could not "win". for then his records would be scrutinized. He needed to come in 2nd.
Yet, of the 9 original challengers, by the bitter end, one finished, but having set out months before Crowhurst, if Crowhurst maintained the pace he had faked, he would have won. So Crowhurst awaited the 2nd place finisher so that he could come in and finish 2nd. However, pushed by the idea that Crowhurst was hard on his heels, Tetley, the sure 1st place finisher, pushed his boat to the very brink and ended up sinking, out of and into the blue and being rescued.
The other skipper who was ahead of Crowhurst, was a Frenchman. Unexpectedly, he decided he did not care to finish the race. He turned his boat south and began to head for the cape and another trip around the world. He had "found" himself on his long journey, and no longer cared about the race.
This was a hard blow for Crowhurst. What to do? he was already near insanity at the beginning of his journey, and after 8 months of being a long, foundering on the sea, with the pressures of his leaky boat, his pending financial ruin, and the sure scrutiny his logs would get if her were to come in 1st, he was stuck between the literal rock (the ocean) and the hard place (returning home).
In his journals, he records drifting in the weed tangled sargasso sea, as his writings became more erratic.
Interesting to me, were Crowhurst's writings on God. Surely embittered and feeling that he had been let down and utterly defeated and forlorn by God, he questioned God's existence and went so far as to elucidate a deep, hidden and unspoken truth of Religion.
God did not create man. Man created God.
soon after his realization and crumbling mental state, he jumped into the sea and commited suicide. His boat and journals and deception was found 10 days later. The headlines spread the humiliation and shame across the world. His wife and children were crushed.
The "winner", the only man to finish, donated the 5,000 pound prize to the widow of Crowhurst.
Crowhurst was mistaken. he was not forsaken by God. He was now one of the most rare and unusual of human specimens, A grand, almost untouchable failure. Perhaps one of the greatest failures in history, right along with George Bush (both of 'em), Napolean, Hitler, Nixon, Cesar, Goliath...
The rarest and perhaps grandest of humans. A colossal and renowned failure remembered and memorialized due the grandeur and immensity of their folly
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