Futility is no excuse for failure!

I'm listening to some accapella polka while I write this, so I can't help but be infected by its catchy cheerfulness despite the fact that I am nearing my second failure in as many days. I, like many others, set a goal to do 1k push ups and sit ups on Chinese New Years day. Unfortunately yesterday was a failure and today, though looking better, is likely to be counted another failure. Both will be logged as zeros. Until I succeed in doing 1k/1k/1 day, it will be zeros. 1000 or 0, nothing in between! I could use my new job as an excuse, and it is an obstacle to be sure, but such would cheapen my failure. Failure, like an expensive spice, makes one's success taste that much more delicious. This success is shaping up to be perhaps a little too seasoned; good thing I'm a fan of deliciousness.

I've spent the past two days getting accustomed to a new job: operating a skid steer. I've been pushing snow around an area south of Keephills known as Pit 3. I began by clearing around where the poles for new power lines will be set and having finished that, my new task is to break new trails in the next section of land. This though, rather than open fields, is wooded and rugged. The land is so beautiful, full of birch, pine, and an assortment of other lovely plants and fauna, each one a work of art. My little bobcat bounces through it, and the damage I am paid to work seems almost humorous in its insignificance. Even on the fourth or fifth pass small trees stand defiant. Unfortunately, nothing stops the dozer. A mechanized armada of progressively heavier equipment will follow behind me to tear the land asunder, strip the rock bare of the soil and life it has hoarded for millenia, the funeral mound of those who came before. The rock will be blasted and drag lines will pace the site, grave robbers of impressive stature. Thereafter the abyssal black they dig will brighten in the boilers to power the offices of the Green Party.

Ben Davies
Silent River Kung fu
Stony Plain, Alberta, Canada
www.silentriverkungfu.com