Machine dreams

Originals: Essay

I’m indie writer Teague de La Plaine, author of the bestselling Sea at Sunrise and other stories. This is my weekly newsletter, where I talk about writing and self-publishing in addition to my own life. I keep the newsletter free, because I prefer you spend your money on my books.

There’s a reason some of us are drawn to machines—not the kind that blink and beep for attention, but the kind that move. The kind that carry us toward the unknown. A Land Rover. A sailboat. A starship.

Three machines. The same shared dream: Freedom.

Not just freedom from (from routine, from screens, from sidewalks) but freedom toward: toward wide-open places, toward the edge of the map, toward new ideas, languages, people, cultures. Movement isn’t just escape. It’s a way to make meaning.

The Land Rover: Four Wheels Toward Wilderness

I’ve owned many an old Land Rover before (six last time I counted). Real Land Rovers (Series and Defender), not rich soccer parent transporters (Range Rover, Discovery, the new Defender). I drove them hard and far. They rattled over dirt roads and under jungle canopy, rolled slowly through border crossings, waited patiently in ferry lines. They all smelled like diesel and canvas and road dust, and every time I climbed inside one, it felt like something might happen.

They were machines that taught me how to be still while in motion. How to trust torque and simplicity. How to find home in the gear locker and the back seat.

My Land Rovers didn’t care if I shaved. They didn’t care where I was going. They just said: Let’s see what’s out there.

The Sailboat: A Discipline of Liberation

Now I sail. A cutter-rigged sloop with tired teak and a heart of purpose. The wind pushes, the keel bites, and suddenly the world is quiet in the way only water shushing along the hull can make it. It’s not glamorous. It’s not quick. But it is honest.

A sailboat is a conversation. Between you and the sea. Between you and yourself. You earn every mile. You learn the names of clouds again. You track stars. You wait. You endure. And then one morning you wake up in a new place with different customs, a different language, and different light.

That’s the point.

To keep learning. To keep arriving. To keep being slightly unready.

The Starship: The Final Form of the Same Desire

Which brings me to the third machine. The one I don’t own—yet. The one that only exists in the minds of dreamers and on the blueprints of madmen.

The starship.

It might sound like science fiction. But what is sailing, really, if not space travel across liquid terrain? You plot coordinates. You calculate weather. You sleep in shifts. You trust your vessel, and you go.

And when I imagine exploring the stars—not just as a tourist, but as a builder of bridges between worlds—it doesn’t feel different. It feels inevitable.

What draws me to space isn’t technology. It’s culture. Discovery. First contact. Not necessarily with aliens, but with new ways of being human. That’s the same drive that sent me overland in a Rover, and across oceans under sail.

To find the others. To listen. To learn. To change.

Photo by NASA Hubble Space Telescope on Unsplash

Machines That Make Us More

The Land Rover taught me courage.

The sailboat teaches me patience.

The starship? It promises perspective.

We chase freedom in many forms. Some roll. Some sail. Some fly. There are motorhomes and motorcycles, gliders and seaplanes, even a good pair of boots will do in a pinch.

But all of them answer the same call: go farther, learn more, be changed.

Staying put is easy. We make excuses. The reasons are simple.

We don’t need a reason to go—we just need to do it.

P.S. What’s your machine? Your ride, your rig, your ship? I’d love to hear what carries you to the edges.

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