I believe our purpose ... is to participate in creating the world.

Bernard Moitessier. Tamata and the Alliance. 203-4.

I believe our purpose in life is to participate in creating the world. Each of us according to our sail surface, our draft, our tonnage, our ability to point up, to heave-to, to bear the weight of breaking waves while running before the wind. And I believe in the depths of my being that no one can break that law without cutting himself off from the human race. I became aware of that during those ten months spent in the company of the waves,* decoding the faint messages carried by the wind, which had received from the skies. Those voices-turned-intuition had cleared my path, causing me to turn my back on the stable where mounds of delicious hay were waiting, set out by the Dragon.

To participate in creating the world ...

* Moitessier is referring to the ten months spent alone at sea as he participated in the Golden Globe race, and after sailing around the world via the three great capes, continued on to Tahiti "to save my soul." In total, 1 1/2 times around the world, non-stop.