The artist Robert Wyland famously said:

“The ocean stirs the heart, inspires the imagination and brings eternal joy to the soul. When in doubt, go to the ocean. There you will always find whatever you’ve lost in yourself.

For those who do not know what seasteading is, go here: http://www.seasteading.org/

Or, watch this:

Joe Quirk, the governance potential of seasteading. Copyright, The Seasteading Institute.

What drew me initially —honestly — to seasteading, was the splendor of it all. I mean… floating, self-sustaining, independent seacities that could travel and attach all on their own volition? Make it happen!

It was all mere fantasy — whimsy, to me. I thought it would look cool.

I never thought of it as a practical idea, or even as a solution to anything.

Copyright, The Seasteading Institute.

But as I dove more into the idea, and as I began to encounter the world around me after entering university, I truly came to relish in the social and political aspects of it, as well as the humanitarian good behind it all. Because, after entering the real world, I could no longer ignore the very real issues facing me — facing all of us.

I am pursuing a Media Studies major with a double-minor in Philosophy and Writing and Rhetoric at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., so I am intrigued by the very philosophy of seasteading, the jurisprudence, and all that.

Personally, I feel that the goal of human society is to work towards a truly free and equal civic society. All of humanity’s efforts and developments up to now have been for this goal, to make human life as productive and enjoyable as possible, to allow for every man and woman to make what he wishes and earn what he desires — and be free to do so.

What humanity does best is think. We’ve no claws or wings or gills. It has often been said that the goal of any species is survival, and mankind survives with that which he uses most superlatively: our logic and reasoning. Man strives to better himself, as well as the whole species, and so there is a grand effort to make thinking better, faster, stronger. Some call it progress, others, evolution. And when man is able to think and think well, he is able to live more so, as well as those around him.

Joe Quirk: Seasteading and the Next Frontier, Copyright The Seasteading Institute.

People are only truly able to live better lives, be happier, do more, and create more when they are free; free to think, speak, create, challenge, say no… move, even. Many of the issues we face today are political in nature and are fueled by the body politic. As Joe Quirk said, governments are the slowest evolving human invention, yet it creates the most problems — so it ought to be as fluid as any other innovation and open to improvement, such as technology or medicine.

Seasteading allows for that kind of freedom and invention in a society.

We are running out of land but getting more and more people every day. We are burdened spatially, and yet governments and elites make it seem as if people are the burden, when really all society needs to do is evolve. I mean, do you see how much water we have out there? Talk about space.

Socrates said the few do things well.

Essentially, two men in a room can get a lot more done much faster than a hundred. Inadequacy thrives in large numbers, indecision in mobs, indifference in collectives. Perhaps an alternative to the larger issues facing us on national levels is the possibility for smaller nations. When people have the freedom to choose where to live and under what circumstances, then they are happier.

Seasteading, I believe, is the future — an untapped venture, where we will eventually be headed.

I also believe that millennials will be the ones who help make this a reality and kick it into high gear.

Generally, today’s “young people” are more politically aware than we’ve seen before. They are exceptionally vocal and involved due to social media. They are empathetic, passionate, and brimming with ideas. I would argue that any person’s views are rooted in virtue; they agree or disagree with something because they hold true conviction that it is RIGHT, and they are opposed ideologically to what is otherwise WRONG. People fight for good things, or what they believe to be so. And anyone can disagree on what they believe to be good or bad.

Millennials have a lot of ideas, a lot of dreams, a lot of good they want to make reality. They also have a lot of issues facing them, waiting at the bottom of the hill like a giant boulder just waiting to be pushed. Many of these issues have been passed down from the generations before us. In the U.S., for example, there are the issues of immigration, national debt, a stagnant economy, foreign entanglement, and a disappearing social security system.

And like Sisyphus, millennials are expected to roll that boulder up the very same hill, just to have it roll down for the next era following them. Because it is big governments that keep preventing real progress.

Ought people have the ability to start over? Some issues are so entrenched, so deep in a nation, so soaked into its soil that it will take years to solve them.

Yet the future waits for no one.

Some have suggested in 2016 that what America needs is a political revolution. Eh, not quite. What America needs, like all nations at one point or another, is a political renaissance. A new Enlightenment. And just like the New World presented itself as that floating island in the sea where new ideas could be tested, let us go forth and make our very own islands, where we can boldly go where we have simply not yet been able to.

Floating seacities are the future anyway. Might as well hop on board. And as Wyland continued,

“When in doubt, go to the ocean. There you will always find whatever you’ve lost in yourself.”

~ A. Morgan