Thought Picnic: In the husbandry of futility

In the stream of time

As the end of an era beckons, the reckoning begins from the closing of accounts and the realisation of balances, many uneven between the credits and the debts, that whether there be profit, loss or a break-even, life is never as simple as the figures you see.

In the memories of the past are the stories for which no value can be placed, there is virtue and there is emotion, the feeling you get in clarity and in turmoil, nothing giving you a sense of finality.

Yet, in the irreversible event of things we have learnt of from the miraculous, that seems to escape reality apart from in theatre, sometimes as absurd as never to be witnessed but relayed to the corners of the earth, time is a perpetual motion machine, only stopping or slowing down in the expanse of galaxies and the knowledge of astronomy that blows away your imagination.

In a wasteland of barrenness

No, we cannot turn it back, much as we might have hoped, rather we live many of these events in the subconscious, in the dreamy landscapes of slumber bringing to life that incongruous or even the incomprehensible, difficult to process or understand.

For a moment, there was a shock, a numbness, resignation and then a journey into the annals of the mind to retrieve episodes and snatches of the somewhat insignificant that paints the pictures of the relationships and person you once knew. Then, in the light of the present, you were overcome with a saddened pall, for what could have been and what never did become.

If a man were half the big brother of the many who were given so much and yet made little of what they received, you can only marvel at the parable of the talents. For the servant given one talent should probably have never been given anything, but the one talent was the least that could be given to that servant, the master knowing before he gave the talent that it would profit nothing.

A harvest of little

In another tale, many servants were given several talents in access, in opportunity, in prospect, in advantage, in advice, in business and much more. Still, it all came to naught for both servant and master, the servant remaining poor and the master made poorer in means and in spirit.

Dare one believe that the husbandry of many lives might yield a harvest of a very little gain, much regret, and a multitude of hurts impossible to assuage in any way? Must a farmer know the soil in which he sows? Can one hope that life can arise in the valley of dry bones cracking from the searing heat of the desert? Alas! In the untold is the mystery of the unfortunate to be bewailed in a dirge for which there are no words.