Human ambition is the fuel that keeps humanity moving towards the next step, where life is better than yesterday and another impossibility has been conquered. We all have a bit of that in our lives. It could be the ambition of a certain amount of money, a specific lifestyle, or the most obvious type: making a name for yourself. Ambition demands a lot from you; it demands hard work, consistency, and a unique approach that often leaves no room for anything else. But one part of ambition that often goes undiscussed is the adventure it brings. It’s exciting, isn’t it, when you find out that what you’ve been working towards is only a small part of all you’ve accomplished? We had read somewhere that ambitious people see what no one else sees and continue to create it for themselves. Jessica Watson was someone like that.
“True Spirit” is based on the real life of an Australian teenager named Jessica Watson, who traveled the world’s seas on her ship, single-handedly. She spent 210 days at sea and faced seven falls on her voyage. Although the film only manages to capture a fraction of Jessica’s journey, it still paints an accurate picture of the strength and perseverance of a young woman who believed in her dreams despite all odds.
Sailing has been Jessica’s love since she was a child. We saw in one of the flashbacks that she was telling Ben that she was big and strong enough to help with navigation. Imagine the optics of a girl half your size talking about taking on such a mammoth task herself. We can deduce from what we saw of her family that they must have treated her leniently, thinking it was one of the things kids did: have high fantasy dreams that maybe aren’t feasible for the real world. We don’t think she was ever actively discouraged, but probably no one believed in her enough either. When Ben Bryant tells her that he doesn’t need to prove anything to her, we don’t think he said it because he believed in her. He just said it in such a way that she didn’t owe him any explanation. If Jessica didn’t understand that, it meant that she thought Ben was the first person to believe in her abilities. But if she understood the meaning behind her words, it meant that it was the beginning of her learning not to let other people’s opinions stop her on her journey. Either way, that’s why she chose him to be her teacher and counselor to her when she could have gone with anyone at her school. When she presents the list of courses and tests she must take to achieve her ambition, Jessica is already a girl on a mission. Again, maybe her parents didn’t think she would really go around the world, but whatever preparation she does should be useful for her future.
The next part of her journey was not shown, but as she continued to check things off the list, her parents must have noticed her determination. There must have been some fights at home over his desire to go on that trip. Now, we admit that what she did took a lot of industry, dedication and courage, and we applaud her for it, but despite the fact that she was successful, we continue to believe that a 16-year-old should not have put herself in such danger.
The reason we decided to voice our opinion is that before Jessica started her mission, we must not have been the only ones to think so. The plethora of people she needed to convince ranged from her parents to her sponsors, as well as a good chunk of government officials, in order for her to obtain the required permits. That in itself shows how mentally tough he must be, especially compared to the rest of us who shed tears of frustration during any argument beyond a certain point. But regardless of the resistance she faced, she eventually had a strong support system. Her family stood by her side despite her doubts. We are talking especially about her father here. When Roger decided not to get in the way of his daughter, he was taking a leap of faith, which meant that she still had doubts, and Jessica was discouraged when she found out about them. But she had her sister to show her the other side of the coin, one in which Jessica is a strong person and has people who love and support her despite their doubts about her. It is with the knowledge of the faith that people have in her that Jessica sets out to travel the oceans of the entire world.
Once you’re in the water, failing is no longer an option. And initially, there is no reason for it either. She is finally living her dream and getting used to a lonely life at sea. But we see that she affects her, especially when she talks to her family. She realizes what she’s missing every time she hears her laugh on the phone. Her support system has become a bunch of distant voices instead of being close to her all the time, and this is something she is facing for the first time in her life. No one said being a teenager was easy, especially an ambitious one. But a teenager who sets out to take over the world also has an element of recklessness, which we saw when Jessica forgot to buckle her up during her first storm or when she didn’t realize she was going backwards because she forgot to turn on the lights. alarms. . It wasn’t just the optimism of her youth that made her believe that she would be fine, but the fact that she had always been taken care of. It was the first time she had to do it all alone, and she had to stretch her mental faculties not only to continue her mission, but also to work to support herself. When Jessica’s mother tells her that the winds will blow again for her, as they do for all sailors, she also means that Jessica will learn to take care of herself from her, just like anyone else does.
It is the faith that people show in Jessica that has always been the source of her strength. When she has to face the biggest storm of her voyage, she is advised to give up and go to the nearest available port. At this time, the world has already recognized her capabilities, and they are not talking about her as a teenager on a dumb mission, but are actually concerned about her safety. She could have gone to port and started the voyage at another time. Jessica really had nothing more to prove to anyone. But that’s the difference between being ambitious to prove something to the world and being ambitious for your own sense of identity.
Jessica wasn’t ready to give up without a fight, and she found a way. It was a risk, but a calculated one, where she was acting from a place of cautious optimism and not blind faith. By this time, her family and everyone else had come to trust her judgment, that it had actually paid off. Despite the impossibility of it all, Jessica won. It was a combination of strategy, science, and her faith in her ship, which she hadn’t given up from the start. The biggest difference we noticed in Jessica when she returned to land was that she no longer had restless legs. At the beginning of the film, we see how she is constantly fidgeting, but now what was once a dream to her is replaced with a sense of accomplishment and the confidence that comes with it, taking the fidgeting out of her.
When the Australian Prime Minister calls Jessica a hero, he says something that, while it sounds simple, is one of the most profound things we can draw inspiration from. She says it’s just about having a dream and believing in it with all your heart. Well, whatever our opinion of someone so young facing such a challenge, we agree that she has been an inspiration to millions of people around the world simply for not giving up. Those who dream big cannot leave room for doubt, and Jessica proved it by navigating further.
See more: End of ‘True Spirit’, explained: Who is Jessica Watson? How does she travel across the world’s oceans?
