“All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event—in the living act, the undoubted deed—there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there’s naught beyond. But ’tis enough. He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him. Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I’d strike the sun if it insulted me.”
— Captain Ahab, Moby Dick
Of course Captain Ahab was insane. Completely bonkers. This should be well and truly understood.
But what, after all, is an insane person but someone who has once and for all dropped the pretense the rest of us cling to, day after day, that the world does not make some sort of horrible sense after all?
© 2012 The Epicurean Dealmaker. All rights reserved.
