MobyDick

The speaker, Ishmael, shares that he likes to sail to escape boredom and sadness. He explains that when he feels down and finds himself fixating on death and negative thoughts, he knows it's time for him to go to sea. Call me Ishmael. Some years ago, never mind how long precisely, having little or no money in my purse and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It's a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth, whenever it is damp, drizzly, November in my soul, whenever I find myself involuntary pausing before a Coffin Warehouse and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet, and especially whenever my hypos get so ahead of me that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street and methodically knocking people's hats off, then I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.