Searching for the real meaning of life
People often ask us: How did you come up with this idea? To sail around the world? I mean you guys barely knew each other when you decided? How do you expect to be just the two of you on such small space for such a long time? Do you do this to run away from something? The list is long with wonderings and, sometimes pessimistic, questions so I will tell you the story of how we decided to do this and a bit about our philosophy around this journey. And life in general.
When Alex first introduced me to Caos, he had just bought her a couple of months earlier. It was a cold and windy November afternoon. The wind blew up to around 30 knots, it was freezing cold and there was cold water everywhere so the chance that I would get bored and never step onto a sailboat again were greater than I would give it another chance. But I went through it somehow, felt a rush of excitement when we stepped off the boat again in the dark and cold night and I told Alex that we definitely needed do this again very soon. Somehow I loved the new insight this small ride gave me. Not only the sailing, or the man behind the helm - but also the new spiritual reflection it offered. I was somehow impressed that a man, a tremendously sexy man like Alex is, would prefer to go out sailing alone in rough weather rather than spending his time and money on normal type of entertainment/soul searching that the norm in his age and looks would do. This man was a far cry from the jet set world, the wheel of consumption, the overstrained businessmen and the party-people that I, at this time, was surrounded by most of my time.
Alex simply enjoyed sailing by himself and he seemed to have found peace and happiness in the natural and raw things of life and I got incredibly attracted by the strong statement that his aura was screaming out. His calmness and his passivity to all things fake and worldly was and still can be a bit provocative in the eyes of a few, as he has no intention to hide his real self, but that is exactly what in the beginning got me turned on - and still do. Me myself had always been torn between the consuming lifestyle versus the deeper insights of how destructive and pathetic the superficial consumption society actually is/was - so to meet Alex who clearly was on the real side with real values, was such an incredible relief.
So I kept on seeing this sailor and he continued bringing me out on cold nights on the sea and even though I was/still is a very lazy and comfortable person who hated the cold weather (Spain had it's coldest winter for 80 years that winter), something inside of my head told me: keep on, go through this, it will reward you later on, and I did follow that voice.
Then one day when we had been seeing each other for a couple of weeks or so, Alex asked me: "Why don't we take the boat and go somewhere warm? Africa or maybe the Caribbean for some months?" I thought for some seconds and I heard myself say: "Why not around the world?" I remember Alex was looking at me like he thought I was joking. His face was thrilled of excitement yet extremely skeptical. "Yes, why not" - he said after a while of confusion, and smiled. Still wondering what the hell did she just say? Sailing around the world was obviously one of Alex ultimate dreams, as is for every sailor I suppose, but he was far away from making reality of that dream in exactly this period of his life.
When I think about it in retrospective, I am not sure that I at this time knew the meaning of what I just had suggested. One of my crazy ideas or a social experiment in a different world, is probably what my oldest and best friends would describe it as, without leaving a shred of surprise. And what Alex thought at this time is not very clear either. I think that he barely started to believe that the dream actually would become reality for real before maybe around the early summertime, this year. I, on the other hand, was sure of that this was the meaning of my life from the very second that I suggested the idea and I happily moved onto the boat after New Year. Still not sure how it all went so fast but something inside of me told me that it was the right thing to do. And the warmer it got in the spring time, the more I learned to love sailing and the life aboard.
As I had been working with online portals, blogs and all kinds of social media networks since I opened my online boutique and started my blogs back in 2005, it was obvious that we had to run a blog and a website with the journey. It was also obvious from the start that we would bring in sponsors to lower the costs of equipment and most naturally would I take this excellent chance to develop my creativity and my passion and experience in photography and editing and share the beautiful days of the journey with the rest of the world.
Whatever we thought of and however we turned and twisted the idea between each other, it just felt perfectly right. Like there was never a better plan made. This was not only the journey of our dreams with the person we felt stronger for than for anyone in our pasts, it also clicked perfectly with our passions, life experiences and with the individual philosophical process which we individually had gone through so far, in life.
Call it the meaning of life or the mission on planet earth, we just knew that this was what we were meant to be doing. So when people ask us "how will you be able to live just the two of you on such small space and will you ever get bored" - we almost laugh as the question is so simple compared to the years of thinking process we have spent to get here. I don't think there are no better answer to all of the wonderings more than: We just know it, from the bottom of our hearts and in every corner of our bodies, we know that this is the right thing to do. If it would mean that we will have to see only each other for two long years, live on tiny space and not having contact with the rest of the world, we would still do it - but obviously that is not the case.
So when people ask us: "Are you doing this to run away from the reality?" We just say: Yes, of course we are. We are utterly convinced that a detachment from the society is what we need for now, to reach those new insights which we're so desperately longing for - as the thing you might call the normality or the reality, aren't enough for us any longer. With our life experiences and insight in different worlds, we can truthfully proclaim that we're no longer interested in the normal way of living. Though I know I do it damn good, I do no longer want to be a part of the consumer society where the image you convey of yourself is more important than the real things: love, being true to oneself and the pure happiness you get from simple things. Don't get me wrong: money have to always be made and we will both always appreciate well made craftsmanship and quality in the things that we use, wear, eat and live on, just have a look at the boat we live in - we just believe that there is a far greater meaning with life than the world we have seen so far, and we can't find a better way to put our philosophy into practice, than to sail away. To only have enough material for what we actually need, that the things we use are perfectly efficient for our lifestyle and not to live in abundance, is what we're striving for. And with the love for one another, the nature, the sea and the like minded people we will meet on our journey, we believe that we'll find a more pure and truthful happiness which we cannot find in this normal world.
The most fantastic part with it all, with this beautiful thing called life, is that we actually have found someone who's the copy of ourselves in the philosophical aspect and who completely understands, what we both always thought that no one could adapt to. We've both, unconsciously, been searching for that someone who would be able to, not only comprehend our personal philosophies and existential questions, but also being able to physically act on the desires of reaching a new level in life. That new something which requires the detachment we're now about to execute together.
The ones who knows us for real, our families and childhood friends, they know that we are two individuals who always have had the need to get out there in the unknown - yet when we feel that the time is right, we'll get back to collect some new energy from our loved ones. New acquaintances might take this type of disappearance personally, but I think most of them will get the point after a while. This is how we are and have always been. Although individually until now.
I can totally understand that it can sound provocative for some people that we're choosing to step outside of the norm to get even closer to each other and far away from it all. But this is what drives us, this is what is have to get done and this is what we have been waiting for for almost a year now. Or even a lifetime. Very soon we will finally be able to say: We made it, no matter where the journey will take us, how long it will last or how long it will be the two of us, we made it through to the other side. Mentally and spiritually we're already there - now only remaining is the physical part of ourselves, to reach to that next level where we believe that our souls will find a new, greater meaning with life.
