labor omnia vincit.

Virgil published ‘Georgics’ in 29BC, yet the simplicity of his wisdom continues to find relevance in the internet-driven, sleep-deprived and emotionally-distant contemporary years.

True ‘work’ is something that cannot be replaced; Instagram posts, eye catching filters, vague captions and pain faced people are far from a substitute. The tacit knowledge and maturity required to truly turn the gears in one’s head to get abody to move in ways that hurt, burn and cause discomfort are not hereditary. They’re learned. By watching. By practicing. By participating. By testing.

Define for me a Test.

“It is rare for people to be asked the question which puts them squarely in front of themselves” ― Arthur Miller, The Crucible

The test, or many, which lay in the foreground of any individual’s future may not be black and white. A time in which the very structure of one’s soul is torn between animus at the world and a desire to better. A crucible. The opportunity to be put frankly in front of one’s self can feel like a damning one, but alas it is nothing more than a test, and like all things created or developed in the world, it too will pass.

The test may lay hidden in a day to day event or just as likely lay in looming with the presence of an ever growing shadow of stress. That race, that fight, that conversation. It can be as simple as a 26.2 mile run he’s been preparing for the last couple months or as complex as having the constitution to get up and move her life far away from the negativity, mundanity and complacency its become saturated in. A test can be defined, but the only question is, by whom?

Salting the Earth & Cresting the Hill

“Hard labour conquered all,

and poverty’s oppression in harsh times.

Ceres first taught men to plough the earth with iron,

when the oaks and strawberry-trees of the sacred grove

failed, and Dodona denied them food.

Soon the crops began to suffer and the stalks

were badly blighted, and useless thistles flourish in the fields:

the harvest is lost and a savage growth springs up,

goose-grass and star-thistles, and, amongst the bright corn,

wretched darnel and barren oats proliferate.

So that unless you continually attack weeds with your hoe,

and scare the birds with noise, and cut back the shade

from the dark soil with your knife, and call up rain

with prayers, alas, you’ll view others’ vast hayricks in vain,

and stave off hunger in the woods, shaking the oak-branches.”

The iron plow is the classic interpretation of man’s metaphorical will to cultivate value in the reality which he inhabits against the lands of decrepit possibility. The loss of a mere harvest does not dictate nor facilitate the growth of a savagery or a subtle slip into the narrow crevices of duplicity, but rather acts an opportunistic manifestation of metal on metal. A grind. A rock & a hard place. A harvest this year may yield joy, success and the endorphin dump you get at the crest of the last hill, the last lap, the last rep or the final pull. On the contrary, it just as likely, unattended, has the opportunity to leave a barren field of instability. If he salts the earth on which he cultivates and dams the stream which he irrigates from, the barrenness is not a result of chance, but preparation.

“Put your outdoor work in order and get your fields ready; after that, build your house.”

One can’t build their house without a foundation. They can’t tend to their house without a yield to fuel the worker. The disparity of digging the earth while simultaneously building is the backbone of the crucible. The disparity rests in the heart of the individual, not in the world which they inhabit. On the last steps of the last crest, he finds his footing through the pained muscles, numbed mind and ached joints, but alas, it was a false peak and a hundred meters ahead lay the next. The disparity between the body telling the soul to turn back, shutter and run from the step and the mind deciding against the signals and the cogent argument to stay at all costs is the crucible. Cresting the next hill puts the last in the past and soon the anguish and stress of the event begins to pass. The next step is taken and one foot does not follow the other, but charges fast behind, guided as a disciple by its leader, making haste towards the next step. Repeating again, again and again. The hill has been crested again. The crucible passed and the measure of the man increased, albeit internally or externally.

You can’t buy this. You have to earn it.