Don’t Drink the Water

Wisdom From A Seafaring Stranger

Photo by Joshua Clements

In Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner, a haggard-looking old seafarer stops a young man on his way to a wedding. The old man begins to tell his tale to the young wedding guest. The mariner tells of how he, on a whim, shoots the albatross that has been leading his ship through icy waters.

This “hellish thing” cursed the mariner and the crew. The boat then floated from the frozen deeps into fairer waters, with the sun and heat bearing down. Coleridge wrote:

Day after day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath nor motion; As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean.

With no wind and the ocean at a standstill, misery sets in. One of the most staggering lines in all of poetry comes next:

Water, water, everywhere, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, everywhere,

Nor any drop to drink (bolded mine)

The lead-up to this scenario illustrates much of our modern condition. We often act impulsively, without regard to the repercussions, costs, long-term effects, etc. Seeking entertainment or cheap thrills, we mortgage our futures in Huxleyan fashion. We find ourselves adrift in a sea of information, but none of it is useful to get us out of our predicament. We are surrounded by it, but…