“As Admiral Smyth quotes from Plato in The Sailor’s Word Book: ‘Reason the card, but passion is the gale’. Unfortunately, our appreciation for the compass and so the card has at least depreciated in recent years.”
It appears there are some technical problems with that, although I may be somewhat prejudiced in my analysis, by the author’s dim views expressed elsewhere. A lionizing of Andrew Jackson, bleh.
Anyway, Plato ain’t in it as far as I can tell. It seems to be a quote from Alexander Pope, in An Essay on Man.
The blog post does help interpret it though. Apparently ‘the card’ is the part of a compass that shows the directions, the part the NorthSouthEastWest etc. is written on.
So reason points the rational direction to proceed.
Passion is the storm that fuddles the resulting planned rational course.
Which is lovely and feels true.
As a case in point, I got there by trying to chart a path to understanding what the phrase ‘missing stays’ really means. But I was blown off course. Not by passion exactly, just distraction. I still don’t know. It’s something bad that happens when you’re trying to tack the ship I think. You don’t catch the right wind at the right time.
Distraction is the least intense form of passion. That’s my theory currently.
I offer it as the droplet of learning distilled from one windless summer day.