The Deadly Calm of the Sea

Hans Blumenberg’s Care Crosses the River is an interesting piece that is composed of short meditation or what I believe are analyses of different topics forming around metaphors, fiction, gestures, truth and reality. There are a few pieces that I thought were interesting but one that has already been touched upon in another blog was Enemies. Often times we find ourselves being okay with punishment as long as the enemy gets it worse. Blumenberg makes us look deep and I like that about his work. The passage that also caught my interest was The Deadly Calm of the Sea.

In the title The Deadly Calm of the Sea we can already tell that there is a relation to life and death. If the sea is calm it is deadly and the lack of wind is what causes the sea to be calm. This passage is about a man by the name of Thomas Mann who took Hedwig Fischers daughter out to sea in a heavy fisherman boat. They had found the sea to be very calm and they could not row the boat. The father paced at shore and when they had returned they were celebrated like they had escaped mortal danger. The mortal danger is the lack of wind. In this instance it was the danger but looking at in two other ways may mean more than just the wind.

The calm of the sea can be looked at in two other aspects one “a lack of wind had once been a metaphor for subduing setting the passions and thus, a metaphor for the ideal life calmed by reason (25)”. Two “a powerful wind had to blow in the sails if the ship is to be able to hold its direction towards a goal that is in the distance but determinable (25)”. So without a powerful wind then life will not be able to keep focused on a goal, but with too much wind the passions will run wild and the ideal life will not be calmed by reason.

In conclusion the calm wind can be a metaphor for how a person lives their life. If the wind is too calm then they do not have direction but with a powerful wind there is direction. A person like a ship without direction could be dangerous.I believe that there has to be a drive in able to reach a goal. Maybe that drive can be thought of as the wind.