Pliable As Water

Sometimes it seems strange what energy we expand working at, or planning for things that we question the value of to start with. I thought about this today when I finally decided I just had to get back to the woodshop and work on a project that I had started just before Christmas. Since my hospital visit and surgery I have picked up most of my work load, but I have been avoiding the woodshop, due to the fact that working with power tools that can very quickly remove body parts, particularly fingers and hands, that I would prefer to keep attached.

Today I decided was the ‘day’ to get back at it. The first thing I discovered was that “the dog had ate my homework”! Literally! The little ‘criminal Beagle” has been sleeping there at night, due to the winter cold and I never gave another thought to my project plans, that I had left laying on a low shelf, after having expended a lot of time and energy in drawing them up. Mr. Trigger must have gotten bored and decided my clipboard looked like a good ‘chew toy’, all I could recover was a few well chewed pieces of scrape paper. Since I had the framing for this project mostly done, it won’t take as much work to re-draw my plans as it did the first time. But it got me to thinking about the way we go about our lives.

It is my decided opinion that a person, young or older, should have some plans and direction they want to go in their life. It appears too many people simply ‘float’ with the stream, never having any solid ideal what who or what they want to become. The result is often poor. We find people who are never content, but from all known appearances, we can’t figure out why because they don’t seem to be working toward any tangible goals in their life. Often they jump from one meaningless job, that they despise, to another that is just as hateful. Complaining all the while that they are ‘mistreated’ by ‘society’, as if, society owed them some kind of debt by making them “happy”.

I consider that since I have reached the prime age of mid-50’s that some advice might be worthwhile. No one can make decisions about my life except me and the same goes for you or anyone else. The ultimate responsibility for our contentment must rest upon on our own shoulders. No matter what circumstances come our way that might interfere with our plans, we have to become like a stream of water. What I mean by that is this; water will find a way to flow downhill to it ‘goal’ no matter what is standing in its way. It might have to go around bends in the earth, cut its way down steep mountains or make a path around large boulders, but by and by water will reach the ocean for which it is headed, one way or another.

It is certain that all people cannot possibly reach some ’pie in the sky’, unrealistic goal. In our society, it appears that most people think only in terms of “wealth” as a measure of ones success. No wonder there are so many miserable people walking around. It is impossible for all of us to be multi-millionaires, that just can’t be under any known economic system. So using ‘wealth’ as a measuring device is a poor standard to judge a persons life, in fact, it is right down foolish or maybe a better term would be “insane”. Yet, all the communication media we see paints the picture of ‘contentment’ as, in one way or another, having to do with money or the things money can buy as the means to be ‘content’.

The “American Dream” that has been ‘sold’ to a couple generations now is something that has been modified and twisted into the “American Nightmare” for far too many people. Just look at any real estate advertisement. What you have is a nice house in the suburbs with a small yard and a two car garage that has many times been ‘thrown together’ with junk building materials and doctored up with cheaply made but nice looking furnishings. You can have it all if you will only take out a 30 year mortgage, that a two income family can barely manage to pay each month.

My advice to young folks is, don’t buy that “dream”. You will be far ahead in the long run to buy a smaller, older, better built, cheaper house. One that you could make the payments on even if you were reduced to a ‘one income family’. By exerting all your effort to pay this house off in less time than the mortgage calls for you will save a bundle of money and, if you are lucky, the value of that house will increase. At which time if you still what the more expensive house, you can sale your first one and use that money to greatly reduce a new mortgage.

This gets to a flaw in our current thinking, as a society. It has been said over and over, because it is true, that Americans no longer look to the ‘long term’, but want everything “now”! The bankers, finance companies and government have been very helpful in seeing that we don’t have to “wait”, they will find a way to “loan” us the “funny money” for whatever we want. At least that was true 5 years ago, now, as the saying goes, ‘our chickens have come home to roost’ and it is time to pay the bill.

I know that not everyone in our society has fallen for that ‘dream’ (nightmare), but enough have to put our whole economic welfare in danger of collapsing on our heads. I won’t go into a ‘rant’ on how the government and our politicians have helped to enable this mess, I would rather consider ways to “escape the trap”.

To start with we have to change our thinking if we find that our current mindset is flawed, in other words, “check your premise”. The ’premise’ of our current system is that a modern society like we have is “too big to fail”, or we are too advanced to collapse as a society. Sorry if I am the one to inform you of this fact; but it is not true. Many great societies and empires of past history were not much different than we are. The only difference between us and the Roman Empire is really just in our technology and that might be a questionable “advantage”.

By 400 A.D. Rome had lots of high level creature comforts that many people aren’t even aware of. For example most people know that they had aqueducts to deliver running water to many homes, but they also even had ’air conditioning’ that was provided by water pipes that would circulate cold water through some of the wealthier homes. Imagine air conditioning long before the invention of electricity!

Rome also had something that proved to be their “Achilles heel”, it was the “Just in Time” deliver system of food and other necessary products to a city of over a million people. It is not much different than most all of our cities, and even small towns, which are dependent on the steady flow of goods to the grocery stores on a daily basis. Just imagine what would happen if for some reason, any reason, the trucks were stopped in their tracks for even a week or two. This is what happen when Rome was surrounded by her enemies, the supplies to the city was shut off. Before that was over, people in Rome were reduced to little more than animals, even resorting to cannibalism, eating each other. As they say, the rest is history. The marvel of the Rome that was is no more than ruins that amaze tourists.

Let me advise you to think over your current state of affairs and ask yourself some questions. Then make some common sense plans on how you will deal with any crisis that might occur. Remember that water is pliable and will go around any obstacle, so I like to think that I will learn to be as pliable as water. I might have to change course and do a lot of turning and wandering, but as long as I have life I will keep moving, no matter what might stand in the way.
Got to get those chewed project plans redrawn and go back to work.