Confidence is like going after Moby Dick with a rowboat, a harpoon and a jar of tartar sauce.

Orben’s joke treats “confidence” as a comically inadequate form of preparation: a tiny rowboat and a single harpoon against the enormity of Moby Dick, capped by the absurdity of bringing tartar sauce as if the outcome were already a meal. The humor hinges on disproportion—grand ambition paired with laughably insufficient resources—and it gently punctures the self-help cliché that confidence alone guarantees success. Implicitly, the line argues that boldness is not the same as capability: optimism without planning, skill, or proper tools can be reckless. At the same time, it acknowledges the psychological bravado people summon when facing daunting tasks, even when they are outmatched.