I Wake Up Feeling Back To Normal -> Get Out Of Bed And Gets Ready -> I'm Tired Again ):

i wake up feeling back to normal -> get out of bed and gets ready -> i'm tired again ):

i think i finally got covid, lost my sense of smell and taste. haven't had fever for almost five days, but i'm still so goddamn tired. starting to get stressed out about missing classes urgh

My fellow whalers I love you

Today is the second day of the climactic whale chase in Moby Dick, and I am so strongly on the side of the whale, it's hard to believe anyone ever wasn't.

Up to this point, we can side with the whale in a general sense, mostly on the basis of our modern sensibilities about endangered species and industrial exploitation of the environment, which no one expects either Melville or the average contemporary reader to have. The omens, Ishmael/Melville's dropped hints about the fates of the crew, and Starbuck's common sense awareness that Ahab needs to get over this stupid revenge fantasy and do his capitalist duty to hunt whales for oil instead of personal satisfaction are all enough to make everyone aware of the need to turn back and let the damn whale go, but we can grasp how a 19th century audience, primed to Conquer Nature, can succumb - like the sailors - to the thrill of the hunt and prospect of symbolic destruction of Nemesis.

But now that Moby Dick is actually on stage, his behavior is that of an animal trying to get on with its own business and acting in self-defense. Indeed, his self-defense is reasonable and measured. Smashing up four boats with only one fatality? He had a man in his mouth! He may or may not recognize Ahab, but he is familiar with humans in whaleboats, their vulnerabilities, and their aggressive tendencies. He could probably kill the whole lot of them, and from his point of view it would serve them right!

But he's a predator, humans are not his prey, and if he stays to kill them there's a chance their nasty pointy things will damage him severely. Also he knows that the amount of damage he's dealing out is enough to make whalers back off, like sensible predators, and look for easier prey. So he smashes the boats and keeps swimming, encumbered by those stupid ropes. Whales can't unwind ropes; he'll have to find a place to scrape it off or wait till it rots and falls away.

(We all know the meaning of Fedallah's prophecy here, don't we?)

Nothing this whale does is savage, vicious, cruel, malicious, or vindictive.

What happens tomorrow is all on Ahab.

"That glad, happy air, that winsome sky, did at last stroke and caress him; the step-mother world, so long cruel—forbidding—now threw affectionate arms round his stubborn neck, and did seem to joyously sob over him, as if over one, that however wilful and erring, she could yet find it in her heart to save and to bless. From beneath his slouched hat Ahab dropped a tear into the sea; nor did all the Pacific contain such wealth as that one wee drop."

To me this is one of the most moving passages of the whole book so far. The visual of the of the cruel and indifferent universe hugging Ahab and that allowing him to cry a single tear. That tear being more valuable than the entire Pacific.

Shitty Biologist aesthetic: what do you call body horror if it seems like the person in question is genuinely pretty chill about it? body delight. body acceptance. body be not afraid

The whale did nothing wrong.