And in using Google to find the exact wording of that quote, I found someone who thought that quote was about the destination. That it has to do with the idea that if you don't know your destination, no wind can take you there.
I disagree! What a dummy he must be. To take so little from that quote. It's like taking one giant bite out of an unpeeled grapefruit, rind and all, and hurling it into the ocean. Saying, " and that's how you eat a grapefruit."
No! That quote isn't about destinations. It's about the wind. The wind is the punchline of the knowledge-nugget.
More specifically, it's about the favorable-ness of the wind. You wouldn't put that emphasis there if you were just talking about not being able to get to somewhere.
You'd say, "If one does not know to which port one is sailing; one will never get to port."
The basic idea is the importance of goals, yes. But there's a reason he's talking about the wind. And favorablility.
Wrong-Head McWrong says that without a destination, the wind becomes irrelevant, you are adrift.
FALSE!
The wind is still there! The wind symbolizes events that happen in your life, happenstance. The forces that act on you and change frequently and without warning. That's what the wind is. Events don't stop happening if you don't have a goal. Things totally keep happening to you. Just like the wind will keep blowing.
When Seneca says, "no wind is favorable", what he means is that if you aren't trying to do anything with purpose, everything will annoy you.
You can't differentiate a bad wind from a good wind so you'll be in forever caught in a stinky maelstrom of awful. All you'll be able to do is complain because you're at the mercy of happenstance.
He's making a statement about the natural human condition. It's pretty funny too, because he's sort of implying that being annoyed or unappreciative is something that requires no effort. It's the easiest thing in the world to do. You don't have to know anything to have the opinion that something sucks.
But without reason and energy and effort, we are bound to be unhappy. Nothing will be good from your perspective unless you are pursuing something and you know where you're trying to go.
But, even without that, we can still complain. It's like in Pokemon when your pokemon runs out of PP for all its moves and it just uses Struggle. That's the one thing you can always do and it kills you a little bit every time you do it.
But the recoil is coming, Pikachu. The recoil is coming for you.
What really upsets me about that reading of that quote is that it leaves out this wonderful image of a sailor in a tiny sailboat out in the middle of the ocean with his arms crossed and his lower lip stuck out in a pout. He's got a tiny little sailor hat that's balanced on his giant forehead.
And the wind blows one way and he goes, "This wind sucks." And the wind blows the opposite way and he goes, "Now this wind sucks." And he has no idea where he's going. He should appreciate the fact that there is even wind at all. But we don't do that. It's a great commentary on cynicism and how it arises.
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