Horse, Peccary, and Path

Those who have walked past paths in some ways similar to the ones I walked, attempted to leave words of wisdom on the trail, that others might avoid the mistakes made by those earlier travelers. I saw those wisdoms: but I have a difficulty in learning in that I need a specific instance of something, then I can conceive the generalization of its principles. So, looking back at the lonely tracks I made through the vast desert to here and now, I recall two most wise of those messages the ancients left on the trail.

One is “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.” And the second wisdom is “ Cast not your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet and turn to rend you.” Since my kind of thinking needs a specific example to comprehend the generalization, here are some of which I lived, repeatedly.

The horse one so clearly tells of my efforts to lead people to new capabilities for the struggles ahead, and even with years of great difficulty I only managed to get a few people to look at the potentially extremely useful concepts I had for them, yet they nearly always disdainfully acted out that they had no need for it and they were proving they were the heavies here, and whatever got done it was going to be their way, not mine. They couldn’’t see I offered it for their way, nor could they imagine the long trek through desolation we would have to make together. So the treks weren't made, and here we sit, the huge horse as pompous as ever.

Then the second one, about the swine, the peccary. I think I understand this one, and can even somewhat generalize it. “Peccary” seems a bit more dignified than “swine” (I don’t mean to be disrespectful) as well as indicates more of their incredible ferocity potential. The peccary (swine) look for corn or some grain to be cast before them, that is all they are interested in; they have no need of pearls which look just like more small pebbles to them, inedible, thus they see the pearls cast before them as trickery, worth only of attacking in response, how dare you do that.

So the too proud horse that wouldn’t prepare himself , and the indignant peccary that so disdained my hard-created valuables.

And that summarizes the state today. Do I have time, resources left? How can I get the horse to drink of vision worthy of gallup? How can I get the peccary to realize I have no corn to give them, but the pearls can be used to gain more grain than they can ever eat.

“How do I love thee, let me count the ways?” is another old saying: I have written many of those wisdoms on my webpages, and blogs such as this one: count the ways.

Jim Cline 20050828