About The Lamb
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Guest piece inspired by “The Lamb” / Part 1 of eXis
Author: Tomas Salem
About The Lamb
“I hate what the world has become.”
Such a strong statement. I don’t know why it came out that way, but it did. Late at night—or early in the morning—in the backseat of a taxi, in Madrid, on my way to the nightclub with a couple of guys I had just met.
We were mildly intoxicated and the conversation did not prosper. My existential concerns were misplaced. It was not the moment for deep reflection and I already knew it.
My outburst surprised me. It was as if something that had been brewing under the surface of my awareness suddenly erupted in a blunt burst of clarity.
I wasn’t talking about politics. That would have been too obvious. No, I was talking about my own vapid pursuit of instant gratification. Comfort without effort. Pleasure without depth. Dopamine highs at all costs. Idealisations of the millionaire lifestyle. The lack of personal ethics and commitment to things that are hard but important.
I was talking about our culture’s addiction to a system built around mindless consumption.
That night, I noticed how the life I was chasing was making me sick.
***
The wind had picked up since we left the coast of West Africa behind. Last evening, on the last day of the year, the Atlantic swell had grown to a couple of meters. We had spent most of the day resting in vertical position, except for our designated time at the wheel. After the sun had set over a wild ocean, I mustered the willpower to cook us some food and share a moment with the crew in appreciation for another swirl around the sun.
I guess we were celebrating more out of duty than desire. High seas can be exhilarating but also exhausting.
Before we left port, I had let the local butcher convince me to buy a piece of Moroccan lamb. I speculated that it had been raised by Berber shepherds on a grass-covered slope somewhere high in the Atlas Mountains. It seemed like a good idea and nice touch at the moment, but with the high seas relentlessly slamming the hull of our boat, the simmering meat had lost its appeal.
Its strong smell invaded the boat cabin and merged with our nausea, imprinting itself on our memory, as if to say: “thou shall never enjoy the taste of lamb again.”
But food is never to be wasted, and we ate in quiet compliance with the slaughtered animal that had sacrificed its life. In hindsight, we could perhaps have offered it to Poseidon in gratitude of the year at sea that had just passed.
Matias was the only one of the three who seemed to appreciate the food. He had kept the ship steady at the rudder while I was trying to keep my balance in the galley.
Diego was the one who suffered the most. After dinner, while trying to keep himself from rolling out of the bunk, his stomach fell prey to mutiny. He made it halfway through the bathroom door and showered the hall in half-digested pieces of lentils and meat.
I could tell he was embarrassed. He had just boarded the ship a week ago, and this was not the good first impression he wanted to make.
I was too anxious to care. Over the last days my mind had been racing. It was playing scenarios of failure over and over and over again. Not of the journey. Of life.
Failure to get a real job. Failure to find a partner. Failure to accumulate money. Failure to fit into the societal mold. The fear came in waves, just like the ocean. It felt like drowning.
***
I ran into an old sailor in the port of Motríl, on the coast of Andalucía.
He was allegedly in his 80’s but looked at least 20 years younger. I don’t know if it was the sun or the sea that had preserved his youthfulness. Perhaps it was his body’s response to an uncompromising commitment to aliveness.
The old man had recently solo-sailed to Brazil and back and calmly offered me his pragmatic wisdom: don’t cruise at full speed, leave room for slack. Treat nature with care. Pray.
“When does it get easier?” I asked.
“I don’t know if it does,” he replied. “But somehow, it sorts itself out—it always does.”
***
The morning after our disastrous New Year’s supper I slid on a forgotten piece of bile as I made my way to the cockpit.
It was still too dark to see, but soon, the soft glow of dawn painted the sky in pale yellow tones. And eventually, unevenly, and at first for the brief moments when we hit the crest of a wave, the radiant disk of the sun showered our sails in warm rays of light.
About the Text
About the lamb uses the animal as a moral mirror, not a tender symbol but smell, flesh, guilt, and quiet compliance. The lamb is tied to a discomfort that predates the voyage: disgust with a hollow life, the compulsion to consume, and the sense of chasing something that is, underneath it all, making you sick. There’s a clear maturity in Tomás’s writing. The voice doesn’t try to show off. It holds its pace, lets the scenes breathe, and trusts the reader without underlining the emotion. With very few elements, he moves from the city to the ocean to speak about the same thing: anxiety, nausea, the fear of “failing” at life, and a small, stubborn search for meaning. It’s direct, physical, and reflective at once, and it ends on a dawn image that doesn’t resolve anything, but opens a pocket of air: a way of continuing without rushing.
Gon Vas
About the Author
Tomas Salem is a writer, photographer, and explorer sailing from Spain to Australia while documenting life at sea and the cultural encounters of his journey. His first book Policing the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro (2024) won the European Society for Criminology’s Policing Book Award. He has a background as a social researcher, and writes about happiness, ethics, and spirituality.
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