Given all the global issues, and given the uncertainty about our economic future, some days it feels good to drift off wondering about something so far from my current reality … I know, I know, this column is about investment, trading, finance, and money in general, but sometimes I come across “news” that simply takes me away …
A British woman who survived fierce storms and a near-drowning on her journeys across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans set off from Australia on Wednesday for a rowing adventure across the Indian Ocean with a new worry on her mind: pirates.
When I read the excerpt above, my first thought was “What on earth inspires anyone to get in rowboat by herself to row across thousands of miles of open ocean?” As I mulled over that thought, mixing it with memories of my own life adventures, I smiled. Yes, I smiled because I have experienced sailing across open ocean in a small boat, but I was not alone, nor did we rely on rowing to get where were headed. Although our boat was not much larger than her rowboat, we did have sails and a small outboard motor in case we needed that power. My memories aside, the bigger reason I smiled is that I imagined a boatload of “hardy” pirates out cruising for victims in open ocean coming across this solo woman in a small rowboat.
Mind you, I get the fear of pirates. When you are out there, you understand that you are alone; no help could ever come if you needed it, so when you see a boat, any boat on the horizon, your first thought is about possible danger, that is, “pirates”, the comprehensive word for anyone who would want to rob or kill you.
So, I appreciate that from her perspective, but the image of a fast-moving motorized boat with a large caliber gun mounted on the bow filled gruff, dangerous looking men coming across a small rowboat containing one person in the middle of the ocean struck me as so absurd that I smiled. Perhaps, inappropriately, as that picture also contains an abundance of real danger for the woman who chose to be in that rowboat, but, nevertheless, my good nature initially imagined the absurdity of the pirates seeing this scene and laughing themselves.
Now that I have drifted from the often serious nature of what do in this column, I might as well offer up something else that touches on the serious, but, in and of itself, is somewhat laughable.
It’s financial literacy month, which means everyone’s offering ideas on how to end the dearth of financial knowledge in this country.
This is funny because my job is offer up financial knowledge, but the sheer vastness of need out there in “open” America makes me like that woman in a rowboat out in the middle of open ocean. Pirates, however, are the least of my worries …
Trade in the day – Invest in your life …
