Sometimes I Miss the Simplicity of Life on a Boat

When you live on a boat, you cannot hide your life away in storage rooms, garages, basements and attics. Every object must have a purpose. Every possession takes up space that could have been used for something else. When you bring something new aboard, you often have to remove something old.

It teaches you to distinguish between needs and desires.

On land, people often accumulate possessions without even thinking about it. One chair becomes four chairs. One pair of shoes becomes ten. A cupboard becomes full, so another cupboard is purchased. Eventually, a larger home is needed to accommodate everything that has been bought. The larger home then becomes more expensive to heat, maintain and insure. More work is required to pay for the home that is mainly needed to store all the possessions.

Strangely enough, this is considered normal.

Life on a boat made the opposite possible. I could see my entire home from one position. I knew where everything was. There were no unused rooms and no cupboards filled with things I had forgotten I owned.

When space becomes limited, decisions become clearer.

Do I truly need this?

Will I use it?

Is it worth the space it occupies?

These questions are not really only about possessions. They gradually become questions about life itself.

What do I want to spend my time doing?

Which people do I want close to me?

Which problems are worth carrying?

What can I let go of?

Simplicity Does Not Mean Life Is Easy

It is easy to romanticize life on a boat. People see sunsets, morning coffee, the water and the sense of freedom. They do not always see the damp, the cold, the wind or the practical problems.

On a boat, faults are never abstract. If there is a leak, water comes inside. If the batteries are empty, the lights go out. If a mooring line breaks, the boat can drift away. If the wind increases, you must understand what it is doing to the boat, the dock and the surrounding environment.

You learn to pay attention.

The weather is no longer something you merely check in an app. You feel it in the hull, in the ropes and in the sound of the wind. Temperature determines how the day is organized. Water, sunlight and humidity become part of everyday decision-making.

The man in the film chooses his locations according to wind, sunlight, wave formation, water levels and the danger of falling trees. He reads the natural environment in order to decide where the boat can remain safely.

This type of knowledge cannot be replaced by an impressive degree or a polished presentation. It is built through experience, mistakes, observation and respect.

I recognize that.

Throughout my long working life, I have learned to notice risks before other people discover them. At a stage, a festival site or a construction area, I can often sense that something is wrong before I have fully identified the problem. It is the same on a boat. You develop a sensitivity to the systems around you.

You listen.

You observe.

You act before the problem becomes a disaster.

Torus Became More Than a Sailboat

When I moved aboard Torus, I was not in balance. I was struggling both mentally and physically. The boat therefore became much more than a place to live. It became a protected space where I could begin to understand myself again.

There was something healing about the limited space.

On land, life can feel limitless in the wrong way. Demands come from every direction. Bills, work, expectations, messages and other people force their way into your thoughts. There is always something more to do and always someone who believes you should live differently.

Aboard the boat, the world became smaller.

I had to take care of the boat, myself and the most immediate practical needs. I could not solve the problems of the entire world, but I could solve the problems of the day. I could repair something that had broken. I could create warmth. I could clean a limited space. I could sit down and listen to the water moving against the hull.

That was where I slowly began to regain control over my own life.

People often speak of control as something negative, but when someone has been unwell, control over small things can become the path back. Knowing where the coffee is. Knowing how much water remains. Feeling that you can solve a problem with your own hands.

Every solved problem becomes a small message to yourself:

I can manage this.

I am still here.

Reducing Expenses Is Also Freedom

One of the most powerful thoughts in the film concerns money. The man explains that there are two solutions when money is not enough. The first is to earn more, something we do not always control. The second is to spend less, something we can control to a much greater extent.

It sounds simple, but it is a radical idea in a society where almost everything is based on encouraging us to want more.

We are encouraged to work harder, climb higher, buy larger and upgrade faster. Someone who reduces their expenses is sometimes viewed as having failed. But the truth may be the opposite.

A person who needs less becomes more difficult to control.

When fixed expenses decrease, you do not have to accept just any job. You do not have to remain in destructive environments solely because of the salary. You can say no. You can choose time over status and freedom over consumption.

During my years aboard, I discovered that real wealth is not always found in how much we own. It can be found in how little we need in order to feel content.

This does not mean that money is unimportant. It means that money returns to being a tool rather than a measurement of human worth.

The Normal Life May Be the Real Trap

The conventional life is often described as secure. A permanent home. A permanent job. A car. Insurance policies. Furniture. Subscriptions. A home filled with possessions.

But that security comes at a price.

Everything must be financed. Everything must be protected. Everything requires energy. A person with high fixed expenses is, in practice, dependent on a monthly income continuing without interruption.

The man in the film explains that when he was younger, he owned a house, two expensive cars and carried large monthly costs. Today, he can live for an entire year on approximately what his previous lifestyle cost him in only a few weeks.

That is a dramatic difference, but the true gain is not merely financial.

It is time.

What happens when you no longer need to spend most of your life working to finance a system of possessions, loans and fees?

What happens when you can spend more time living, thinking, creating and discovering?

Many people work throughout their lives in the hope of eventually having more time. They believe retirement will provide the freedom they have been missing. But when that day arrives, the body may be tired, relationships may have changed and dreams may have become more cautious.

Life on a boat taught me that freedom does not always have to be postponed.

It can begin by needing less.

The Sunset or the Ferrari

Near the end of the film, the man says something that stays with me. If you can find as much joy in a sunset as you can in owning a Ferrari, you can become extremely rich simply by choosing the sunset.

That may be one of the simplest and most accurate descriptions of minimalism.

A sunset cannot be stored.

It cannot be resold.

It may not impress people who judge life through material possessions.

But it can be experienced.

During my years aboard Torus, there were many such moments. Times when the light changed over the water. Evenings when the harbour became silent. Mornings when the boat felt like the only place in the world.

I did not own the view.

I did not need to own it.

I was there.

That was enough.

It Is Not Only the Boat I Miss

When I say that I miss the simplicity of life on a boat, it is therefore not only the boat itself that I am thinking about. I miss a particular kind of order in life. I miss the feeling that problems were visible and possible to solve.

I miss every object having its place.

I miss the weather having more authority than the calendar.

I miss the silence, the closeness to the water and the possibility of closing the hatch on the world.

But perhaps what I miss most is the person I became aboard that boat.

More attentive.

More independent.

Less afraid.

Less dependent on other people’s ideas about what life should look like.

Life on the boat did not give me every answer. Nor was it a perfect existence. But it taught me something I still carry with me: simplicity does not mean living without substance.

Simplicity means removing the things that obscure what truly matters.

Carrying the Boat Life Forward

I may never return to exactly the same life. Torus belonged to a particular period of my journey. The boat became my home, my workshop, my refuge and, in many ways, my rescue.

But that does not mean that the boat life has ended.

Its principles remain in the way I think about housing, work and freedom. They are present in my attraction to small, intelligent living spaces. They are present in my thoughts about alternative buildings, living pods, cylindrical homes, yurts and minimalist solutions. They are present in my conviction that a home does not have to be large in order to contain an entire life.

I now know that quality of life cannot be measured in square metres.

I know that comfort is not always the same as freedom.

I know that a smaller life can sometimes allow a person to grow larger.

That is why films like this affect me so deeply. I do not see a stranger living on an unusual boat somewhere far away. I see a principle that I have lived by myself.

I see a home built with simple means.

I see a person who has rejected parts of what society calls normal in order to move closer to what is real.

And somewhere inside me, I can still hear the water moving against the hull of Torus.

That sound reminds me that I once chose simplicity.

And that it still lives within me.