On Not Giving Up Sailing
E.B. White was 64 when he wrote his now-famous essay “The Sea and the Wind That Blows,” which begins as a romantic paean to sailing and then drift s, as if spun around by a pessimistic eddy of thought, into a reflection on selling his boat. Does an aging sailor quit while he’s ahead, White pondered, or “wait till he makes some major mistake, like falling overboard or being flattened by an accidental gybe?” White had decided to quit, though he went on to hedge, adding that if no buyer materialized, he might take to sea once
