Java.lang.NullPointerException #
On my visit to London, I went to the ship museum HMS Belfast. This was a ship that was built before the Second World War. It also fought in it, and many of the wars that followed.
My first impression upon boarding the ship was that it had crew, but not just any crew.
This was a crew meant for tourists.
The ship itself was docked, but in my imagination, it was sailing, and that was thanks to the sailors it had aboard, whose task was to bring the ship alive in the mind of the tourists.
And so they sailed, but who else did?
The many Navy crews, of course, are the expected personnel to have on a war vessel.
But a ship is more than the people on it. It is also the people that envisioned it, who build it, and the ones that sailed it.
They all had a role in this endeavor.
The Visionaries thought about a means to an end. They saw a vast expansion of water and imagined how they could cross it.
They observed the water, they became the water, and forth came in their mind, a way to surf these waters. They held on to the idea and the builders came along, with their pragmatic view of the world, they can make it happen, they understand the rules, and the limitations and they navigate through the challenge of building that ship.
They may also keep the Visionaries in check, for the Visionary mind has no limits. And the converse is also true, they can help the Builders surpass some of their limits, because the Builder is so used to seeing and understanding limits, that they may think that such is the nature of reality.
The Visionary can break that spell. All in all, they have a mutual relationship, based on the idea that this ship, will eventually sail.
And so, the ship became real. Fit and ready for adventure. But what adventure would that be? The Visionaries can definitely help with that. The Builders too, for the ship may require maintenance and upgrades.
But here comes another figure. The Navigator.
The Visionaries may imagine an adventure, a distant land across the sea, full of possibilities. He also got a glimpse of how he might get there with a ship if he built one.
“Easier said than done”, the Navigator would say.
For the seas have a force of their own, through current and wind, they can move you from place to place.
But how do you know where you are? Where you have been? Where will you go?
We can answer all these questions, if only we become aware of the rules and cycles of the cosmos.
We can find our way by the stars.
We can sail by the currents of the air and sea.
We can become those elements so that we may flow with them, and understand the wisdom they hide.
We could also force our way through the water, at the expense of our energy, which could be the strength in our arms as we row, or the mighty force of a combustion engine. Either one will propel us forward.
The most skilled Navigators will make use of both ways, by the flow of nature or the might of their will.
Thanks to the Visionary, the Navigator knows where to go. He might also need help from the Builders to run the ship.
But the Builders can do so much more, they can permeate dreams into reality, and they can make it happen! They built the ship, remember?
The Navigator might have a clever idea on how to circumvent a challenge, by measuring the movement of the stars in his mind.
The Builder might have observed this, even understand it, which may prompt him to build the Astrolabe. By building the Astrolabe, the Builder forged that ability into reality, granting us a key to that wisdom.
These three figures are Visionaries, Builders, and Navigators.
They will travel, explore and learn through their voyages, and above all else, they will evolve. And as we come to know, through evolution things get complicated.
Or so we think, especially when we see giant cities floating in the sea, which we call ships.
Now we have many tools for Navigation. We can travel from the depths of the ocean to the edge of the night sky. We got better, but we are still these three figures at heart. Visionary. Builder. Navigator.
So in a way, that ship I was on was still sailing.
Someone had the idea that it could be a museum.
Someone made it possible.
And finally, an active Crew is running the show, for the tourists to enjoy.
Inspiration #
A song, always.
