Born to fish

About halfway through the story I found a line that really seemed to personify Santiago as a character. It takes place after he was talking to himself about how other fisherman have radios on their boats to listen to the baseball games and he only talks to himself. He then tells himself he should not be thinking about baseball but rather his job. The quote is: “Now is the time to think of only one thing. That which I was born for.” The first part about thinking of only one thing really shows how motivated he is and focused he is on catching the fish after his streak of not having any luck. The second line really just characterizes Santiago. He was born and raised to be a fisherman and at this point in his life his experience and knowledge really shows this. Throughout the story, he continuously speaks about how he is a great fisherman and saying you are born for something just shows that you are confident and most likely actually good at whatever it happens to be. But again, it seems strange that he considers himself unlucky. Being born for something has nothing to do with luck. The entire concept of being born to do something is because of the fact that people have natural and God given talents at certain things. All professional athletes are talented at what they do, but you don’t see them after a game in an interview saying that they are just lucky. It’s almost as though Santiago has completely contradicted himself with his thoughts on being born to do something and how big of an impact luck has with the success of a profession. He seems confident in his abilities but also feels that he would be better of with luck. My thought is simply that if you believe you are born to do something, you better be pretty great at it and understand you have a talent.