First, we need a lifeboat. It's a sea of despair we'll be floating on, and there are others who will need to be rescued.
Sailing in the North Sea
How did this happen?
Pride, which led to overconfidence; going too fast at night through a field of icebergs; no headlight to show the frozen white mountain dead ahead; believing the gorgeous new ship could never sink. Of course we screwed up. Irony always wins, doesn't it?
What kind of lifeboat is best? The philosophical one is time-tested and proven to keep us sane through every kind of tragedy. The religious lifeboat, too, is extremely good if we can understand its complexities. Both are proven life savers, and better than the one called "reason", which is unreliable due to the faults of pure logic.
Example: If we want to cross a room, reason tells us we must go halfway, then halfway again, and halfway once more, ad infinitum. We can't ever get across. This leads to despair, probably the greatest enemy in our lives. We must never give up and lose hope.
Rescuing fellow survivors is a great way to form alliances for the future. We should gather as many as we can find. There's a lot of work that needs to be done to improve the safety of ocean travel; which is a perfect allegory for our journey through life. We all need maps and charts for our trip, and a reliable compass that will keep us going in the direction we choose. Without a compass we'll end up going around in circles. The vagaries of wind, tides, storms, and currents can easily sink us, no matter how large our ship is. We can learn a lot by studying the sky and sea. Ocean swells indicate a storm that's coming days before it can be seen.
The vast deep contains islands of paradise and archipelegos of hell, as well as invisible rocks and shoals that can destroy every kind and size of vessel.
Tragedy and death at sea can happen any number of ways. Suffering is the rock upon which all religions and philosophies founder. We just have to endure the pain when it comes, and not cast blame automatically upon ourselves and others.
Why we have to suffer; the Book of Job:
