The seagull glides effortlessly above the cold Atlantic, carefully combing the surface for any unsuspecting fish. He’ll glide all day long here and there, searching for his dinner, which he will promptly eat and then go to sleep. There is always plenty to eat. The wind is very, very powerful today, but as long as he glides with the current and not against it, he’ll have very little work to do. When you consider that his only job consists in finding food for the day, you realize that it’s good work if you can get it.
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| It's good work if you can get it. |
Down below the surface of the cold Atlantic,
the fish also glide effortlessly, combing the surface for any fast-diving gulls
while they drift in search of dinner.
They’ll drift all day long here and there, searching for food and trying
to avoid being dinner for something else.
There is always plenty to eat. The
current is always strong but even more so because of the tremendous wind today,
but the fish have always known how to let the water hold them and how to drift
as lazily as possible. This, too, is
good work if you can get it.
The boat is moored and dips violently up and down on the
brilliant, sunny surface of the water.
The sun is a very temporary feature for the day, having come out for
only a few minutes, but its appeal is undeniable. The surface glitters like diamonds, and the
viewer from the shore is mesmerized.
Although its motor is powerful and its shape is conducive to a life on
water, the boat cannot choose to lazily drift among the diamonds but must fight
the current at all times. Someone works
very hard to keep the boat afloat, and there is nothing effortless about
that. It involves a great deal of energy
and work, and that is not as good as being a gull or a fish.
It would seem that anything beyond food and a very modest
shelter involves a lot of work. The
further you get from just a very modest shelter and enough food to eat, the
more effort is demanded and the more undesirable the job becomes. The further removed you get from the basics
of life, the more unnecessarily complicated your work becomes. At some point, it is not work at all but
slavery. There is a big difference
between working to eat and eating to work.
It’s good work to glide with the current at all times, if
possible. It is almost always possible, but
it is not usually considered.
