TYBEE BEACHCOMBER | MAR 2019 11
All the Knowledge
(That can’t be taught)
In my travels I have found the skeptics, the cynics and critics,
A greedy group of non believers who share a diminishing faith.
One of them asked me, with mockery in his voice,
Why waste time looking for stuff that isn’t there?
I told him,
Maybe I’m going the wrong way, but I’m headed in the right direction.
It’s never a straight line between here and perfection,
And sometimes the answers you find confuse the questions.
My reply reconciled no credits to a man distracted by finance,
And he asked again,
Why waste time looking for stuff that isn’t there?
I told him again,
I’m no expert on designing a life.
It seems to me that one shouldn’t be in a hurry,
There’s more to life than time and money.
But his mind was shut, this captain of industry;
A man set in his ways,
Moving on a lonely path with other empty souls,
Moving on a path of totality towards his own extinction level event.
He responded to me in the language of greed and time,
He explained there is no reward in delayed gratification,
There are no analytics to measure fear or intimidation,
There is no discoverable unit of inspiration.
None of these things matter.
I shook my head sadly and responded,
Some of us are ready to dance but miss the last request,
Sadly, you can’t even hear the music.
There is always room for gratefulness and compassion,
For building consensus.
Life is effort and giving of yourself,
It’s not a single event on the stock exchange,
But rather, choosing over and over again to keep growing,
You will find self sacrifice is the cornerstone of life.
He smiled at me sadly as my message was received,
Then nodded and left without a word.
And I thought to myself,
Time will be well spent contemplating all of this,
Adding another chapter to the book of knowledge that can’t be taught.
By J. Beebs