I watched a programme the other day on National Geographic Channel about a 14-year old boy, Jessie Martin, who wanted to be the youngest person to circumnavigate the globe alone and unassisted. He set out from his home in Australia in a small yacht, sailing along the southern oceans, a trip that would eventually take him 11 months to complete. Except for a brief, 40 minute encounter with his parents halfway through the trip, he on his yacht and they on another boat in the middle of the ocean, his only occasional company were dolphins and whales. He kept a video diary of his trip and one of these recordings really struck me.

He was passing Cape Horn, the tip of South America, and was hit by a huge storm that continually knocked the yacht over and threatened to capsize it. He turns on the camera and is seen shivering from the cold water that hit him while he was topside and now liberally enters the cabin. At one point he speaks about how cold he is and then says "I'm afraid" and starts crying. The storm lasted two days and we next see him after the storm speaking into the on-board camera about the experience. He said that if he had died in that storm it wouldn't have been a tragedy. For him a tragedy is when someone dies at 80 never having done anything with their lives.

This was not an original thought, but coming as it did from a 14-year old who faced death alone, it took on a heroic meaning for me. It also made me think why he and countless others brave whatever the obstacles to do something extraordinary, while equally countless others don't. Would we be so careless with our lives if we knew that this was the only life we would have, that life after death is a concept that gradually emerged from the jungles with our evolving ape forebears? If we knew that the life we live on this planet is the only conscious experience we will ever have, would we squander it in self-indulgent unconsciousness? Does the notion that future after-death experiences await us prevent us from engaging fully in dramatic action in this life? And is a belief in some kind of heavenly experience an adequate excuse for not squeezing every bit of experience out of life?

What a terrible disappointment awaits those who expect more when there might be nothing. Although, if there is nothing after this life, those of us who blissfully idled away this life's opportunities will be relieved of that tragic awareness.

16 September 2003

Dion Marc Delport

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