#I've thought and written a bit before about the psychology of being trapped aboard a ship and surrounded by other people | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

saints-who-never-existed · 7 months ago

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"Richard Henry Dana [author of the 1840 memoir 'Two Years Before the Mast'] experienced firsthand how the morale of a ship's crew could deteriorate to the extent that even the slightest incident might be perceived as a horrendous, unbearable injustice:

"A thousand little things, daily and almost hourly occurring, which no one who has not himself been on a long and tedious voyage can conceive of or properly appreciate - little wars and rumors of wars,- reports of things said in the cabin,- misunderstanding of words and looks,- apparent abuses,- brought us into a state in which everything seemed to go wrong."

- In the Heart of the Sea, Nathaniel Philbrick

#Just found this quote really interesting today #I've thought and written a bit before about the psychology of being trapped aboard a ship and surrounded by other people #How difficult that alone must have been even without all the additional horrors - both real and fictional - the Expedition faced #I'm still so interested in that psychology #In the need for every man to somehow carve some kind of private internal space for himself #To compartmentalise and be alone with his own thoughts and feelings #And the way - clearly - things really could boil over in close quarters if one couldn't create that personal space #Just some thoughts anyway #I'm very much enjoying In the Heart of the Sea and would thus far recommend #Quote #Observations #Meta

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