The Whale
When I was 11 my grandfather, who lived in downtown Baltimore, died and it tore my childhood heart apart.
I didn’t know my mom’s dad that well, other than I shared his nose and “barrel chest”, that he made wooden toys for me, and I saw his face every time I ventured into my parents room on an old copper hewed military photograph. Like dystopian survivors, we went to his home after his funeral and got what belongings seemed to matter, loading up tool boxes, books, and solid furniture in an old pickup to haul 1000 miles to our home. One of those artifacts was an unabridged, Reader’s Digest copy of Moby Dick, which I read that year. Looking back now the book had never been opened, but at the time, I thought there must be something of my grandpa Bob in there for me to find, something to understand, and maybe something to make sense of the pain and uncertainty that had entered our home. I read it cover to cover and remember the astounded look on my 6th grade teacher’s face when I responded to his having sat me down after class to ask me if I understood what I was reading. I have no idea what I said, but I do remember it was a rare moment of this critical man showing his lifted eyebrows of affirmation, in the absence of words.
26 years later I picked up a fresh copy in the Atlanta airport on my way to Africa to train entrepreneurs and fuel passion to end the catastrophe of a water crisis devastating the materially poor. I read a few chapters and got caught up in the life of being a new father until two years later, when I grabbed it with intent this year. Connecting reading it with my childhood, I realized now that beyond the voyage, there was something deep as those waters in me that desired to surface and something to be discovered akin to the great heat of “white revenge and challenge of great whale.”
One section, in chapter 87, however hit me like ten tons of glorious mammalian fish. Here’s the chapter in a gist:
The ship carrying the central characters is called The Pequod. It belongs to a whaling firm, which has hired a captain and crew to hunt whales for the oils from their fat that make lamp oil, perfumes, and other products. Ahab, is the peg-legged captain who’s heart is bent on avenging the White Wale’s having removed his leg in combat, Ishmael is the seasoned sailor narrator and introspective, Queequeg is the tattooed polynesian and harpooner, and Starbuck, a devout Quaker, is the scrupulous and steadfast first mate. In chapter 87 the Pequod overtakes a huge school of whales in a hunt, described as an “armada.” There are three skiff’s deployed so each can chase a separate whale with it’s small crew. Queequeg throws his harpoon and strikes a whale but that whale plunges right into the middle of a group of whales, endangering the boat that’s being pulled along behind. Queequeg frantically steers the boat around the violently rising and falling whales as best he can while Starbuck uses his lance to stab at those too close. Queequeg’s harpoon gets pulled out of the whale they’re chasing, the whole time the other two boats are spearing other whales with harpoons attached to logs so they can run them down later. Blood is everywhere.
Once Queequeg’s harpoon falls loose, they are no longer being towed by the fleeing whale and the boat slides to a halt in a strange calm area, like the eye of a hurricane, in the miles of frenzied whales. While they sit motionless, young whales come up to them curiously like little pups sniffing around. These warriors, Queequeg and Starbuck pat their heads and scratch their noses gently with hand and lance. More intimate still they see pregnant whales and nursing mothers with their infants, with one still attached to her baby by the umbilical cord. Queequeg, looking down, confuses an umbilical cord with a harpoon line, a graphic image contrasting the beauty of nature with the harsh realities of their hunt. Ishmael makes the whale pod a metaphor for his own soul—even when the outside is a wild, fearful tumult, the center is calm and peaceful.
“And thus, though surrounded by circle upon circle of consternations and affrights, did these inscrutable creatures at the centre freely and fearlessly indulge in all peaceful concernments; yea, serenely revelled in dalliance and delight. But even so, amid the tornadoed Atlantic of my being, do I myself still for ever centrally disport in mute calm; and while ponderous planets of unwaning woe revolve round me, deep down and deep inland there I still bathe me in eternal mildness of joy.“
From their peaceful place in the middle of the herd, the men in Ishmael’s boat can see the other two boats still fighting some whales and using harpoons on others. One of the other boats tries to attack a whale by stupidly throwing a cutting-spade at its tail. The whale breaks away, but its wound is deep and painful, and now it’s thrashing around entangled in the harpoon-line, unintentionally towing the still-attached harpoon and injuring other whales. Most of the whale-herd responds to this chaos by drawing into a tighter and tighter group—with Queequeg and Ishmael’s boat in the center. Starbuck, Queequeg, Ishmael, and the rest of the crew fight their way out of the middle of the group of whales, which now takes off swimming for the horizon, too fast to be pursued.
Those warriors with rope-taunt-harpoons being drug over both their potential riches and their potential deaths by the object of their desires, hauled to the middle of all they sought after in the multitude of whale-wealth, cut loose from the exhilaration and adrenaline of it all through loss, only to sit in stillness of the liminal while the storm or crashing waves and bodies churned around, to have their eyes opened to life, to birth, to renewal through the innocence of a mother and child, while the consequences of false passions roll on for time to come.
This is what leadership has been like for me. The HR issues, the dip in profits, the disgruntled client, the mergers and turnover, the extra hours, the budgets, and pro-formas are all tied to our hunt for more, our mission for impact, sustenance, and the lives we envision and dream of. This is fine, because well, it costs money both to sail and to live life in this world, but our “work of whaling” often becomes a hunt for the unobtainable image of our White Whales.
But before my 1st daughter was born I travelled 6-7 months a year on a quest to make and impact and have a legacy in the world. I was a Diamond Medallion traveller on a rice and beans diet, drilling wells and doing good in the world. Yet my health was terrible. My emotional state was terrible. My finances were meager at best. And my wife was a martyr to the mission in too many ways. When I held my daughter for the first time the harpoon of that obsession fell loose and I've spent the last 4.5 years trying to keep my eyes open to the task at hand and the beauty before me.
How many times must I, in my own life, be pulled white knuckled across the cajoling backs of my ambitions? How many times has my compulsion to action out of fears of scarcity in a period of abundance driven me to make that impulsive decision and/or purchase? And after harpooning that desire, how many times has it let me down and let me loose in the liminal of my expectations and reality? My eyes were open to the mystery of love and life abundant when in the beauty of the “in between”. My family, my wife, my children pull this warrior back to the still seas. My intention in life, of land, of being outdoors with the laughter and light of those three girls helps me stay grounded and remember what is right. What the hunt is all about. If for glory, for legacy, or for wealth I know my skills of harpoon and hand can serve me well enough. But that’s not what I say I’m out here for.
In the end, Ahab and Starbuck almost made it back to Nantucket. The memory of his son and wife almost persuaded Ahab to abandon the chase, the evening before his final encounter with Moby Dick. Ahab’s ship was full, he had all his commissioners required, they needed nothing more to be satisfied yet his lust for more kept him from the true peace that lay for him with his family onshore. In the end all but Ishmael perish, clinging to a sealed coffin to survive. The older I get the more I see other sailors missing the point and hunt after hunt surviving but not soaking in the beauty or radiance of mindfulness for what's around us. We get hurt by seeking fullness in “more”, our loved ones put us back together in the calm or our sorrows, but then we “go big” again and again, ever forgetting the fullness and peace of “going home.”
On the backside independence and stubbornness i’ve found within myself something pretty beautiful. Optimism. Now when I say optimism, i’m talking about a Rocky Balboa type of optimism. The type of optimism that knows you’re going to get punched in the face but also “knows” you’re gonna win for a higher purpose.What I see too much of in the world are individuals on either side of a bell curve being either “triggered cynics” who pounce on every statement that comes packaged outside their dogma or “mimics” who desperately cling to the ideas, behaviors, and practices of their societal “heroes” like my two year old following around her big sister. And let me be clear, cynicism is just a cowards mimicry.
It’s easy to be a cynic, it’s easy to be a mimic, but optimistic contrarians change the world. Holding independent ideas on the world, with a sort of contrarianism that refuses to conform, anchored in both our experiences and sound logic, enables us to truly contribute to society. The work of thought, introspection, reflection, and independence does not come cheap but if we hold our grip long enough on those disciplines, the box becomes irrelevant, and the prize is worth it.
Matt Hangen is a self-professed “Creative Rebel” as well as the President & CEO of Water4, a global nonprofit leader in the water crisis headquartered in Oklahoma City. Matt’s 2021 TEDx talk, Putting Charity Out of Business shares a blueprint for using the power of entrepreneurship and empowerment to solve some of the world’s most pressing issues.