Monday, April 29, 2013

a third of the workforce

a man can learn a lot about himself in the woods. he can find his voice is more like the rich tonal chords of a wooden guitar than the whine of a puppy he once thought it was. its not always a safe thing to be traipsing about the woods looking for yourself. there are a lot of opportunities to stab yourself in the leg with stray twigs. opportunities to turn your ankle on a rock, or get your socks all wet and walk around in the miserable mud all day. but there are almost no opportunities to work in the woods. you will sweat and you will suffer, just like a man does at work. but you wouldn't add to the gross domestic product, or the economic value added, out there mincing through the pines.
so why do it? why do something hard if your not adding anything. If your just looking for something thats in there ANYWAYS, why bother looking for it? Isn't it enough to know that its there. Safely bottled up and trapped. canned, locked in, sealed, placed, frozen.
maybe its only there when your looking for it. i dont really know. i just march forward. on to the next lake, the next look out, the next summit. i itch my mosquito bites. i marvel at the stars, i note the silence of the night. it adds nothing, it changes nothing, and i do it still.
and i know that someday soon it will end. the trail will find me in a parking lot. someone there to pick me up. remark on my skinniness. i wont have much to say, and that will be ok.
and here in this interview room myself will be in a tightly sealed jar in my sternum. safe and muscled. so i will be charming, or i will come off poorly, or i will be silent and awkward. it wont change what is happening. i am in society to be judged. judged against my peers, judged against my historical averages. judged by my diction divided by my vocabulary. and that is work. its not work if no one is comparing it to something else. because no one mans vision, no matter how hard and clear, is perfect. its only through collaboration that we can come to an agreement.

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