If you have read this book, you probably have your own applied metaphors for the meaning of it and/ or know someone who has referenced it in a pep talk once or twice too many times. Well, I am not intending a pep talk here, I just had an uplifting realization I was hoping to share on a Little Friday and it was because of Santiago. The old fisherman came to mind recently - while on a trip through Ireland - because I was searching for something out in those woods and on those rolling green hills and via those creamy pints and you know what, nostalgia stepped in to remind me of past learnings.

In my opinion, the final work Hemingway left behind before taking the dirt nap, was his best. The Old man and The Sea is a quick read novella about an old fisherman named Santiago who is nearing the end of his life and has been relentlessly pursuing and failing to catch a Giant Marlin. I revisit it annually, at a minimum, to reconvince myself that there is no measure nor any reason to bother with ‘measuring up’ - there is only, your pursuit and your experience of that pursuit.

If you know the story of The Old Fisherman, you know that he is chasing a big fish and has been for a lifetime. As a fisherman, in a small town dedicated to the craft of fishing, it’s not just any fish he’s after, it's the Giant Marlin. The one he’s dreamt of his whole life, seen many of his competitors catch and the most prime measure of success in his world - the mark of the best fisherman in his town. Throughout the read, you learn of his persistence and soon start to realize that his persistence alone is the epic perspective Hemingway is sharing with us, it's as much a righteous story of man vs. nature as it is a toast to the human experience. In other words, his ultimate success is also his demise, in the end he is happy with that but the irony of life is inevitable.

There is an old saying which fits here - my wife says it to me a lot - ‘strong opinions, loosely held’ - while I can’t quote that (because I don’t know who said it) it just about sums up the idea I am getting at here. Be willing to accept the change that is inevitably coming your way because you’ve been training for it, whether you know it or not. Sure, it will be surprising and uncomfortable when it arrives but you will be prepared to face it because of your past learnings and instincts that you’ve trained in. In other words, when you get the fish on-line, reel it in but don’t be defeated if you can’t catch the thing - re-bait your hook and cast back out - there are a lot of fish in the sea. Sea what I did there?

I’ve been on an existential mission to find my ground floor lately. Lost it somewhere along the pathway of life recently and it’s been a beast of a trail run, so to speak. Ireland came to the rescue and somehow surfaced a life-lesson through nostalgia I can’t yet place but I found my answer on that hill in the middle of nowhere and it was delivered to me by Santiago, The Old Man. Here it is (and I hope it lands in an optimistic way for you, as it is intended): become proven wrong and when you are, realize that the best strengths are built from trial and error, which makes you lucky if you get up and try again.

Slainte,

M4

Blue Spot Irish Whiskey - so hard to find and so good for a 7 year. Can’t recommend enough, Fam. 

“Let him think that I am more man than I am and I will be so.”

- Santiago from The Old Man and The Sea