I have always been convinced of my genius, my greatness, my originality. But they are only words. I sought freedom. And so I am free to sail endlessly back and forth across the empty sea and read books I could more easily have read on land. I thought I would make the sea my home as no man ever has. Nonsense. I would become the greatest solo sailor the world has known. Foolishness. I came to sea to find solitude and grandeur and victory. Instead I have myriad petty breakage and despair and defeat. My vision of myself has formed my life. I have benefited by it, and now I suffer from it. Through a process of self-deception for twenty years, I am become a victim of my grandiloquent dreams.
