I Am The Captain Of This Ship

This piece was written for a spoken word event that I attended in December, 2015. It is intended as a self-empowerment speech that draws on various maritime references as metaphor for our own lives.

I am the captain of this ship.

I didn’t choose this ship, nor did I put my hand up to take on the responsibility of being its captain. Nevertheless, this is the ship I was given and that’s the job I have.

At first, they don’t let you be the captain of a sailing vessel such as this. They put you in training for about eighteen years before they finally say “Now you are the commander.” And that’s probably a good thing. You see, like any job with actual responsibility, you can’t just throw a novice in the deep end without having the expectation that their ship will simply sink. Many who set sail on their own without the requisite qualifications, do.

So, I graduated one day. They finally said: “You’re the captain now. Training is over. You’re eighteen; a man. Good luck!” And so, the maiden voyage truly began. Every single day since, I have set sail in this ship on a voyage into the unknown. Some days, the waters are calm, uneventful. Others, they are stormy, ferocious, dangerous. Occasionally, I find treasure. Mostly, I find nothing. Nothing but the vastness of open waters promising possibility and delivering only the impartial cruelty of nature’s whims.

But that’s the game. Every day I set sail and by nightfall, I drop anchor somewhere and make entries in my ship’s log, one tiny piece of hard-wrought wisdom at a time. Often these entries amount to little more than a record of things I have seen many times before on previous voyages, but occasionally there is a surprise - an unexpected cluster of jagged rocks jutting out from an unchartered coastline. DO NOT SAIL THERE, I mention in the log. Certain doom lies around that bend. And little by little, I wisen up as captain of this ship, my experience beginning to count for something.

My problem is I don’t always treat my crew well. They serve this captain loyally and faithfully, but often I curse and shout, sometimes throwing them overboard into the drink. They grumble and groan about it, but they do not mutiny. If they ever did, this ship would certainly sink in dark waters very quickly. All captains are innately aware of this fact, yet the adventurer in all of us drives us to push the crew to new limits, regularly and wantonly. You all know the cliche of the Drunken Sailor. Well, cliches don’t become cliches because that thing never happens, you understand.

If a captain may be fortunate enough to survive the early years of sea travel, the years ahead become easier in some ways; the oceans grow more familiar, the destinations predictable. That being said... a captain should always be wary of other ships that pass in the night, and sometimes even those that pass in the broad light of day. This is why a mast bearing a flag is required - so as to signal one’s nature and intent. And whilst you, the captain of your ship, may hoist a flag that represents values such as honour, integrity and honesty, the nature of other vessels may not be so virtuous. Sometimes, this is evident at a single glance through a telescope off the starboard bow: “Ship ahoy!” your First Mate cries. “What banner do they bear?” you call back. “Black flag. Skull & crossbones, captain! Do we engage... or retreat?” Now comes the measure of one’s experience to make the utilitarian call. You ask: what is the value of engagement here? Only the captain of their own ship can decide on that, for there is no law and no navigator’s scroll that governs a captain’s authority.

Some ships will happily trade with us; yet others will bear false banners and open fire when the opportunity presents. They can damage the ship; scar it. Even destroy it.

A novice captain will fail to recognise the deception at first, but if he or she may survive that encounter, and those that will inevitably follow, they shall grow to be a wiser captain; one that may know a true banner from a false one, next time.

To the less experienced captains, I say this: you are the captain of your ship. Listen to it. It will creak and groan much of the time, but the nuances of these sounds must be paid attention to. Under the starry night sky, when all is quiet except the faint, lapping sounds of calm waters below, listen to the music of your ship. You will hear that it has a voice; a language. A captain must learn to understand this language, for whilst you are the captain of your ship, ultimately, you are at its mercy, and if you fail to hear what it tries to communicate, you may miss the signs telling you of icebergs ahead. You shall know the story of Titanic. The Great Mission: Unaccomplished. A good captain can hear the message even in the faintest whispers, the most garbled morse code and know when necessary to give the most important command a crew may ever hear: “Turn the ship around.”

A good captain shall always use their better judgment, so that even with the knowledge of imminent iceberg collision, jagged rocks or even hostile vessels, the risk may be worth it. That, of course, is the captain’s call.

So, I say: trust your ship. Trust the stars around you that stretch from one horizon to the other. A captain will learn which stars are the safest to navigate by through a measure of their consistency in connection with your voyages and your captaincy. Get to know them.

Alas, the day will come when this ship will sail its final voyage. It will set sail out to sea, as it has every other day, but it shan’t return. Instead, it will strike the one rock in the one stretch of ocean this captain never charted and slowly, irreversibly, it will sink to its final, watery resting place; a special stretch of oceanic real-estate that had always been reserved for the ship that bears the captain’s name. This is the end of the story of all ships and the captain must always go down with their ship.

But not yet.

For there is still too much to discover; too many seas to chart; too many ships to trade with; too many coasts to shout “Land Ho!” about. I pledge to put as many copies of this message in as many empty rum bottles as I can find and toss them overboard so that other captains may find them, and learn from them. But I also hope to find the messages in bottles that you may throw overboard for me to discover. In this way, we share what we have learned on our voyages and make passage to ever calmer waters not just a matter of time, but a joy; a privilege, even. The course you take may in fact be the great treasure you crossed the oceans for. Many experienced captains have already concluded: it’s not about the destination, but the voyage.

I trust that all who hear this message now are, in fact, the great captains of these oceans for if they have ears to hear it, then they have already successfully navigated some of the roughest seas there are... and made it back to shore to tell the tale. Not all crew will always make it back, of course, but the seas are as treacherous as they are filled with plenty, and one day, there shall only be one crew member left aboard your ship: her captain, sailing proudly on that final voyage.

So, I bid you safe travels, fellow captains. May this humble message in a bottle find you in peaceful and prosperous waters. I sign off this weathered scroll with the one mantra we must all carry with us at sea from the first voyage until the very last:

I AM THE CAPTAIN OF THIS SHIP!!