It needs scarcely to be told, with what feelings, on the eve of a Nantucket voyage, I regarded those marble tablets, and by the murky light of that darkened, doleful day read the fate of the whalemen who had gone before me.
Yes, Ishmael, the same fate may be thine. But somehow I grew merry again. Delightful inducements to embark, fine chance for promotion, it seems–aye, a stove boat will make me an immortal by brevet.
Yes, there is death in this business of whaling–a speechlessly quick chaotic bundling of a man into Eternity. But what then?
And therefore three cheers for Nantucket; and come a stove boat and stove body when they will, for stave my soul, Jove himself cannot.
Chapter 3 – The Chapel, Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Now if I only knew what lees is. Like, the opposite of dregs?
Actually, lees and dregs are the same, which makes sense in this context.
Okay, the lees and dregs distinction is immaterial.
I’ve a new attitude, characterized by this statement:
I’m not in this body, this body’s in me.
Now the question becomes: What can you take with you? Ultimately that is.
perhaps everything
“I’m not in this body, this body’s in me.” <—-
That!
Said another way, “ I’m a spiritual being inhabiting a human body, rather than a human being having a spiritual experience.”
PS Amazing graphic with this post!