Up for the Challenge

Oh dear! That’s one sad sorry sod dragging his feet like that here under the trees. Flattened by the events of the day, set back on his heels more than a smidgeon by something the boss had said, a sales target missed just when he was within striking distance. DARE TO DREAM BIG had jinxed the young man this third day of the New Year. Somehow the lad would need to gird his loins and make a better fist of it for the year of the hound around the corner, a larger signpost for his kind in any case. Hopefully he did not have a wife at home to whom he needed to explain himself; didn’t look likely. They pay for such tees here by the way; they’re not giveaways at the office or community sports. Much rallying, stirring of spirits and steeling of intent, onward and upward and never retreat. Breathtaking. On a bad day taking the wind from the sails of the most settled and balanced among us. Today Mr. Ee waiting on the G. Garum to arrive suggested nothing served the human animal so well as the old reliable standby acknowledged by all the cultures across the ages— patientia and nought else. Courage, hope, loving, kindness and the rest useless without it; getting one nowhere fast. The old hardy sailor had the grace to hear out and appreciate the line that was delivered him from the I Ching, the text from whence stemmed all the man’s precious Buddhism, the Mahayana kind and all the other bundled together. (Hearing the critique without objection on this day the sailor man well-versed in the school of hard knocks.) For the challenge in the task of life what was needed from man, said the old ancients on the banks of the Yangtze back in the day, was the patience of the bird on its nest.... (The precise wording unable to be offered off the top of the head as the author’s copy of the wonderful recent translation by David Hinton had been lent to a young aspiring artist much in need.)