|
Volume CXXXIII, Number 7 |
 |
Simon tells tale of 13-year journey
LESLIE BRIDGERS
STAFF WRITER
Alvah Simon spent 13 years circumnavigating the globe in what amounted to an incredible experience. On Monday night in Kresge Auditorium, he shared his adventures with a packed house in his lecture, "A Life Well Wasted."
Simon set sail with his brother, John. As a young man he fled a country that suffocated him with societal norms. Though the prospect of adulthood and its looming threat of responsibility ultimately set Simon's ship assail, the journey began in boyhood. Simon's sense of adventure was almost forced upon him by his father, and Simon took to it well. As a boy of ten, Simon was sent out into the woods only with what he could fit into an empty cigarette box. By distinguishing "what he wanted" from "what he needed," the resourceful son pared down his belongings and manipulated them to fit into the pack. This was lesson one.
Later in childhood, Simon built a boat that would later take him out to sea, only for his father to tell him to swim to shore. With these constant challenges set before him, Simon learned to grow up fast. Yet, his maturity was of a special kind, as his lasting sense of adventure would suggest that he never stopped being a boy. Though Simon refused to sit behind a desk, pay bills and do taxes, the knowledge he gained from dealing with problems on his boat and with people he encountered turned him into a rare and valuable sort of scholar.
The story of the sail was thrilling, funny, tragic, and triumphant. During the voyage, Simon lost both his father and his brother, but found his wife. He battled malaria three times. Hopping from island to island, going from one continent to the next, Simon made countless friends by simply offering his hand in work, in friendship, and in thanks. In a journey initiated by a desire to find himself, Simon discovered the world.
The lessons that he extracted from his travels, and, in turn, imparted on his audience, were infinite. Each village he visited had its own story to tell and its own skills to teach. By providing examples of a social security system founded on sharing and a procedure of luring prey, Simon showed how what at first might seem a primitive people hiding away in hostile territory was, in actuality, a peaceful, functioning community living and working in the world's most beautiful landscapes.
The lessons did not only come from foreign people and far away places; Simon communicated morals of his own, not through what he said, but through what he had done. The events of his voyage were unthinkable; yet, with little money and an undersized ship, the courage, perseverance, incessant optimism and excitement that came from Simon were truly astonishing. Whether faced with victories or defeats, he always wanted more. After hearing Simon's speech, it is hard to think of one that could have been better lived.
|
FastCounter by bCentral |