I’ve decided to buy a boat
It’s been a very interesting exploration
I heard someone calling into a radio show with a fixer-upper boat for sale… a 24 foot (7.3m) fiberglass boat for $1000
An insanely low price almost regardless of condition
On a whim I decided to call the guy back… turns out I was the only person that called. Went and looked at it with the owner, it was predictably a mess
But maybe a salvageable mess?
That evening I looked more into these boats, apparently they have an especial reputation for seaworthiness in the bumpy waters Alaska is known for. This piqued my interest in a big way
All along, I knew my Dad wouldn’t like the idea one bit. I’ve been aware that I have some internal (& external…) conflict with him for a long time, and I live right next door to him / on his property.
As I learned more about these boats, I made the unpleasant discovery that sometimes if the wrong parts are rotten, the boat has to be completely stripped down to the hull & effectively rebuilt. I started to think that maybe this wasn’t such a good bet. When I took a closer look at this boat I could see that indeed, some parts were pretty rotten. It might need such a rebuild.
But something strange happened as I researched this rebuilding process: I began to be fascinated by the process itself. I’ve always enjoyed doing this kind of tinkering & projects, and this would be the mother of projects, with the ultimate payoff in the form of a really solid boat.
I came across all kinds of comments online… “run, don’t walk away” “$$__$$”
But I started to not care… as I outlined all the different possibilities, I started to see that I really couldn’t go wrong
If it’s such a trash heap in the end, I could always resell it for what I got it for (a basement sum) or a loss… that’s ok
Even if I put a bunch of money into it and then had to scrap it… I kind of don’t care. I’ve been broke before, at this point it doesn’t carry much of a sting for me.
Sure it may cost some $10,000, but that’s worth it to me. Sure I’ll screw some things up as I work on it. Sure it will be a lot of work. I’m just to the point of greeting those things as challenges to be met. What is life if not doing things? If not doing the things I want to do? My worries about what my Dad would think were fading rapidly. My friends telling me it was a terrible idea was immediately apparent as their projected fears.
And I could see that my own fears of what would or could happen were only that… I was imaginatively projecting forward all kinds of uncomfortable situations… they became transparent. They’re nothing but imagination. Just like my fantasies of having the best time on the boat in the sun are imaginative projections. I have no way of knowing what will happen. I’m just greeting each day, each new situation, as it comes.
And it is delightful. The freedom here is palpable.