Why You Might Need an Adventure
Almost everyone knows the first line of Herman Melville’s 1851 masterpiece Moby-Dick: “Call me Ishmael.” Fewer people may remember what comes next—which might just be some of the best advice ever given to chase away a bit of depression:
Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet … then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.
Melville’s narrator was ostensibly a 19th-century whaler, whose cure for what he called the “hypos” was to hit the high seas and forget his troubles. Whaling was not exactly curling up with a cup of hot chocolate and a comfort dog; it was a brutal, exhausting, dangerous job (just read the rest of the novel for an ample account of that).
So Ishmael’s prescription might seem counterintuitive advice in today’s era of self-care. But Melville perhaps knew something that we have forgotten: When life is getting you down, the answer is not more comfort but less. If you’re troubled by your own case of the hypos, the remedy may be a tough challenge.
