Moby Dick: Inspiration for Voyage and Self Exploration

During my last semester at Berklee College of Music, I studied in a class covering American art history from the 1920’s to 1979. The class functioned as a hybrid between a lecture and a seminar each day we gathered. Many different students from different parts of the world and different walks of life gathered in this classroom to listen and take notes on how art from the past influenced many other artists and how their work has an effect on artists in this modern day and age.

Herman Melville's Moby Dick cover art

With each class I attended, my soul caught on to many many sparks of interest that I would take note upon to rediscover for myself at a later time. The inspiration of Betty Boop being Esther Jones. Marilyn Monroe and the Kennedy brothers. How American politics seeped its way into music history during the 40’s to the 70’s… or was it always political?

After my second year into my college journey, I decided to take a turn and reflect on all of my experiences. At first I found myself primarily scouring and scanning my memories harbouring and holding on to all the misfortunes and adversities I had faced over the two years. The rejections, heartbreaks, disappointments and overall sense of resentment. After a few months of wallowing I realized I wasn't satisfied with my reality. I knew that there literally had to be another way. I refused to continue walking down the path I tread. But after those two gruesome years, I lacked the motivation and energy to do so, both physically and metaphysically. 

For about two months I scoured the world and the internet in search of my ray of hope. A week vacation with my best friend, one Beyoncé ticket and a few nights out in the nightclub. Amongst all this, I happened to revisit a homework assignment that I forgot to turn in that our professor assigned. That week in specific we spoke of authors from the “Lost Era”. Writers like Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald. Although Moby Dick was published before the “Lost Era”, it became popular during this time period.

Without spoiling the book, in summary, Moby Dick is a story that begins with a man confronting his ideas, beliefs and thoughts on his own life and society before he begins his voyage towards the sea. As a reader we often find ourselves asking if Hemingway was writing from his own perspective or from the perspective of the main character, Ishmael. This contradiction and push and pull of point of view makes the reader feel as if they've been dropped into the story as well, almost as if we are embodying the story in first person as Hemingway reads the tale in a beer scented, husky - sailor type of way into our ears. He does a great job of hitting that “Pirate” internal monologue voice.

Reading these first few chapters of Moby Dick gave me the inspiration to mobilize my own life. I was at a point in college where I had all the things but I was so spread out, but not in the sense where most people would want to claim.

I have always operated in a jack of all trades sense when it comes to art. Most times I see myself as someone who shares my expression with the world rather than specifically an artist, producer, writer, or photographer. My art is my beingness; the pen I put to paper is simply a medium of the craft and not the sole proprietor of my art.

That being said, born and raised in Florida, college internship in Los Angeles, family around the world and going to college in Boston left me in a whirlwind of non essential priorities. Although I had so many great things going for myself, a lot of it attributed to unnecessary stress. Stresses that I deemed detrimental to my physical and metaphysical well being. Reading Moby Dick not only invited me towards Ishmael's journey, but also advocated for me to begin on my own and question the identity of my reality, mortality and what my soul longed for.

Above everything else I knew a few things to be certain, nothing physical in this world could compare to my soul's undying love for the arts. Lowkey, I am under the impression that I've been an artist in each and every one of my past lives, I wouldn't have it any other way. I also knew for a fact that I was on the right path. Everything in my past has led me to this moment, every single subtle hint I've left for myself from my childhood has returned to me as an adult, serving as a constant reminder about the commitment I've made to my future self in ensuring that I would have lived a satisfied and content life.

However, despite knowing these things for myself, there were a few places where I was lacking. Rather, I failed to take into account a few key details. But me being young and foolish, did not pay mind to a few attributes that would have further implications on me.

When I moved away to college, my focus was on my education and career. I had thought about location and building a foundation for myself away from the institution, but that was never the priority and rightfully so. I mean if you're paying crazy costs to cover a higher education, your priority should be your education… at least for the time being of your studies. This is exactly where my newer responsibilities began to creep in. The sleepless nights studying or working overnight shifts started taking a toll on my output as a student and as an artist. My ineptitude to work in my passion while being at my dream college began taxing my mental health. The tax on my mental health led me to skipping classes. Skipping classes led me to missing assignments. And all the while, words from the chapters of Moby Dick I read continued to parade around my head during the day and as I slept.

The hope I was looking out to find in the world began reflecting my own image mirrored by the words from Herman Melville's book. With every article of clothing I folded and late assignment I turned in, I felt as if I was Ishmael, dreading his life while the sea called out to him, not as an escape but a duty to himself… as a form of release.

When we go under long periods of stress, the tension builds up in our mind and body. That energy  is not meant to be escaped. You can't escape it, you must release it. Stop compressing it. Stop fighting back.

I realized that my life, my soul, my body was calling out to me in a way it had never been done before. Just as Ishmael was called to sea. But for the first time in a while I chose not to ignore it, but rather to pack my bags and get on that boat.

08/18/25

Stephan LaFortune