“Oh ! the musty and musk-like smell of packed lecture theatres »
It is well known that lectures delivered in university lecture theatres are a place for chatter and sweet dreams rather than complete devotion to academic learning. I myself cannot say that I never indulge in this behaviour, quite the opposite!
This setting frequently gives rise to a creative flow rarely equalled: from the percussionist drumming his 2 forefingers on the board which is otherwise used as a desk, to the artist busy repainting this very same desk and in so doing unleashing his craziest fantasies through his stick of tip-ex……
If business and management are quite respectable subjects, god how they are far away from our childrens dreams.
I certainly don’t remember having dreamt of becoming a financial analyst “when I grow older”, sheltered in my make-shift hut built with 2 vegetable boxes and rusty wire…
Why then, when old enough to be able to choose one’s path in life, why resign oneself to following a path determined more or less in advance when one makes scholarly decisions based on a will to do what is best, without considering what one really wants to do?
Its here where our lack of guile and our naivety, characteristic of young utopians, comes into play. Without chanting « fuck the system » slogans at the top of our voices, we chose to take an alternative path. That decision is at the heart and the foundation of our organisation, where there is a will there is a way.
Regarding our decision to go on a world boat tour, we owe it to a professor who was supposed to teach us how to estimate the economic costs of environmental degradation….two notions which rarely make good bedfellows.
Then pessimism strikes more pugnacious than a tick on a cows back-side « in any case its not us, its big business that pollutes and the americans as well ! What ?! airplanes pollute as well?! and how do you think you go to majorca then ?!!
Confronted with such an argument, what can you reply with?
And so we will show them that if you really want something, if you really want to have an impact, even without having much at your dispoal, you can do it !
We then knocked our heads together : « the environmental voyage seems impossible..
haha ! let’s try it then ! let’s tour the world by boat ! let’s bring back pictures of the oceans and the seas, of the men and women whose lives are dependent on them, and who are at the heart of nature and its upheavals ! let’s show people what will power can do !
Jeez ! i can tell you that when you make this decision and you know that it will really influence your life, that it is not a wild imagining brought about by class room boredom, all your thoughts rush through your head, you feel dizzy, are greatly excited and feel inspired.
Despite all this, as we are good at management we take stock of things. We are students, with no proper income, no boat and without even the miminum of knowledge about sailing…oh well, everything seems fine! We only need to find a boat, learn how to navigate, find sponsors, patrons, promoters, funds and all the rest.. all in 2 years…….
It seems impossible!
Thats exactly what we need :
To show the world that where there is a will there is a way !