The Seaward: risk and the ocean

Abstract

ndividual existence fluctuates between security and vulnerability, risk and certainty, short-cuts and long routes. It is because nothing in life can be guaranteed that human beings take pleasure in their relationship with the world, with nature. In today´s world, the sea is crossed in innumerous ways. In the human imagination, as it always has been; but now, there are a plethora of other means at our disposal. Current societal logic emphasizes individual challenge, the search for legitimacy, notoriety and recognition that in turn instrumentalizes the sea as a danger to be overcome. The figure of the sailor, therefore, is evoked and becomes a point of numerous reflections. Within this context, the discussions of the present article show that when society is unable to give individuals the feeling that life is worth living, nature, and in this case, the ocean can; through a symbolic game with life and death, it confers what seems to be an uncontestable truth. Death, symbolically defeated, allows one to continue to live, under the guise of a new legitimacy.