call me ishmael

Without much evidence, I’m a believer in the God or cosmic energies that steer us toward the right books at the right times that we need them. Getting halfway through a long book at 19 years old hoping to be able to say you finished is objectively less satisfying than finishing it with a decade’s worth of extra life experience that allows one to have felt the loneliness the author writes about; to have felt the subconscious drive toward self-destruction despite oneself or the fear of finding meaninglessness at the end of a barefoot pilgrimage toward an idea of success. I do my best not to cater only to my moods when deciding what to read next, as I’ve found doing so is an effective way not to grow as a reader. Somehow, though, books like these regularly find me at my most sentimental and end up as lifelong favorites.

This could be romanticism getting in the way of the near-one-hundred-percent likely explanation that we look for the themes closest to us in the books we read, however, like in all things, I prefer the romantic. With that said, and 14 chapters of Moby Dick logged, another book has found me at the moment I need it. This time as I’m drawn toward questions regarding identity, authenticity, and what leads us to be people we are desperately not. See also a fixation on what may have drilled the psychic hole that men regularly seek to fill with power (and the cruelty often used as a tool to obtain and maintain that power); what real brotherhood entails and, on the other hand, how brotherhood, when based on superficial bonds, can end up looking a lot like mass hysteria; and a curiosity about the history of the American novel and its relationship with the masculine. This series of essays is meant to track my progress as a reader and a student as I go. If it's not for you, then it’s just as well for me. I’ll have a record of the time I spent looking for answers in a novel that’s already become a favorite of mine as well as a record of a hunt for a white whale of my own, which may become clearer to you as time goes on. Feel free to read along and freer to let me know when I’m wrong, confused, way off the mark, or when I take the easy way out, for example, in cases such as using exhausted metaphors about hunting for white whales.

The Beginning 

When Ishmael introduces himself, it’s with the put-on nonchalance of a kid who smokes his first cigarette after telling his friends how he totally smokes all the time, despite his hacking and retching with each puff. Ishmael wants us assured he can hold his own as a hardened sailor, that he doesn’t want the status of higher-ranking crew, nor that he’s one of the poseurs who go to sea as tourists. He passes the luxurious New Bedford inns because the cheap ones are better anyway. Eschewing comfort is a point of pride because all he really cares about is the excitement of “forbidden seas.” He makes all this clear in his gentrified language the way a Wisconsinite living in Echo Park might make it clear that they’re above drinking anywhere that’s not an authentically grimy dive. When he finally reaches The Crossed Harpoons, though, his enthusiasm wanes when faced with the reality of slumming it compared to the romantic idea of doing so.

Compare this now to the modern person and their tendency to posture as salted experts in any given field while essentially living as tourists. It’s not difficult to fool others (and especially ourselves) when we have information on demand, even if most of the information gleaned is the thinnest layer off the surface of the surface. Even though Ishmael’s façade drops––evident in his dramatization of the decrepit state of the inn and its tenants or when he details his neuroses about sharing a bed with the still unknown harpooner––he at least has the experience of his merchant voyages. The modern poseur, however, doesn’t need skills or expertise to back up their performed identity. A few hours’ worth of Googling provides one with everything they need to know to impress a date who might have a thing for screenwriters, surfers, or sommeliers. Even if the intention isn’t to impress, there is still the drive to be labeled, to be perceived as something, and that drive is especially visible today with all the means that exist to portray ourselves as things we’re not.

This isn’t to diagnose an epidemic of inauthenticity because it’s apparently always been a human quirk to overcompensate for our less socially desirable traits by going all in on something else; most often, something conventionally deemed cool, as coincidence would have it. To Ishmael, the life of a sailor seems more intriguing on paper than that of a schoolteacher, the same way we’re led to believe the life of a psychedelically enlightened nomad is more interesting than that of a middle manager with a trust fund. The difference here is that, in the latter case, the traveler has a handful of tourist destinations bookmarked on Instagram defeating the need for exploration. The flight from LAX to Lisbon will be smooth besides some turbulence, the fear of which is simply cushioned by prescription meds and a neck pillow. Upon landing, most of the locals speak English, but if not, there are always Google Translate and data roaming. For the modern poseur, the inclination is to perform for an audience, whereas if Ishmael is lying to anyone, it’s to himself. The danger and discomfort involved in his travels tell us there’s at least some truth in his act. The traveler is nonetheless liable to posture as he does, singing the merits of adventure for weeks to come until the novelty wears off and it’s back to doomscrolling and bottomless brunch.

I’ve been the modern man, and if I have to, sure, I’ll attest to champagne tasting better sitting next to the Seine, particularly as the sunset’s reflection spills out from under Le Pont-Neuf rendering grass greener and smiles contagious. I, however, have the self-awareness not to let moments like these form the structural integrity of my personality… but it would be so easy. Just as easy as it is for a writer to ensure he’s seen scribbling pensively in a leather journal at a coffee shop with a copy of Moby Dick set to the side. Of course, the writer wouldn’t admit to posturing unless accused or given time to reflect on why he’d like to be perceived this way. He might ask himself what he’s compensating for and what part of himself he’s escaping from. Is there a tribe to which he’d like to belong that welcomes the thoughtful (or those who at least appear to be)? Is every hammed-up expression of identity a cover-up for the subconscious desire to sit with the cool kids? Is this desire largely what makes up militaries? Police forces? Corporations? A world could be built by self-serving intentions, don’t you think?

It's safe to doubt Melville’s purpose here is to campaign against the phonies of the world––however, I don’t mind being wrong this time and running with it, even if I’m only motivated by a grudge against tensions caused by a collective desperation for belonging. This is to point out that most of us don’t realize where we’d even like to belong in the first place. We throw slices of mystery meat at the wall and build outward lives based on whatever sticks. We retreat further into ourselves, progressively relying on appearances provided by the niches we’re sold by algorithms that are oblivious to the ways they make us lonely. It will only get easier to purchase a sense of self than it is to reflect on who we actually are, which is usually a lot messier and harder to get along with than the neatly packaged, pre-made ideas we’ve made ourselves accustomed to.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a solution that doesn’t require geriatric tones of pretension or self-righteousness. My only suggestion would be to develop an overwhelming self-consciousness about everything you do to ensure you’re doing them for the right reasons, especially those that aren’t motivated by an image of an advertisement of an idea of who you’d like to be. Fall in love with the act of doing rather than the appearance of someone who does. Reading this book is a lot more fun than being seen with it, but I should remind you that I’m here writing about it with the hope to be read, to hopefully be seen as someone who knows what they’re talking about.