The Coxswain

The ( former ) subtitle of this blog is a bit much isn’t it, “I am the coxswain on my boat of thought”. But the phrase “train of thought” is common, implying something that travels from one station to the next, on well established and solid tracks, to exact destinations. And if it goes off the rails at all, everything is lost.

Whereas I have a “boat of thought”, it goes in a general direction from one port to the next, but it’s buffeted by waves and storms, and sometimes is forced to take interesting diversions. Wikipedia says that the coxswain is the person in charge of a boat, particularly its navigation and steering. The etymology of the word gives a literal meaning of “boat servant”, which I kind of like.

I expect to be experimenting with blog formats slightly, the standard blocks of linear text are like train tracks, which doesn’t really suit this boat I’m on…

( Metropolitan Transportation Authority of the State of New York, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons )

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