The Great Waterway of Life

When a person encounters a river,

he/she is confronted by the following questions:

Where did it originate?

Which way is it flowing?

Where is it Destined to end up?

How deep is it?

How much flotsam and jetsam is it carrying?

What size shipping can it support?

How potable is it for drinking?

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When a person encounters another person,

The questions are much the same.

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Preface

Water flows downhill.  It’s what water does in a gravitational field.  It “gravitates” along a path of least resistance and most natural inclination – unless or until it meets a barrier it can’t overcome.  Then it either sinks into oblivion or becomes a brackish pond within and around which opportunistic scavengers proliferate. 

The extent to which a water puddle or pond has an ample continuing water supply is the extent to which it can grow into a much bigger pond or lake and eventually breach the crest of the barrier to continue on its way. 

With proper oversight and intervention, water can be directed to serve multiple useful purposes.  It can provide life-sustaining hydration, sanitation, irrigation, and recreation, and can even supply heavy industry with both power and fluidic formulations and processing capacity.   

Without direction and proper containment, water can cause major devastation, including erosion, floods and mud slides that can wipe out entire communities. 

Without water, life, as we know it, does not exist.  Without strategically directed and managed water, life is simply a “catch-as-catch-can”, tenuous existence. 

Get strategically directed and learn to manage You, Inc.,

as a purposeful and productive resource.

Quartermaster

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We begin life in a very protected, small pond – the nuclear family – with a wellspring of provisions for any and every exigency, as well as plentiful doting engagement.  It’s an idyllic existence.  By age two, we learn the power of the word “No!” and we’re ready to take on the world!   

But to expand our horizons for full-scale sailing, we must – eventually – move progressively into larger and deeper ponds.  Staying in a small pond too long makes the inevitable transition to independent navigation more cumbersome and often jolting.   

Learning early to swim is a significant advantage.  Learning “Seamanship and Piloting” and how to construct and maintain a sea-worthy craft affords much greater advantages, allowing one to move much further into deeper waters with expanded opportunity.   

Final Note

For maximum usefulness, water must be de-sedimented, sanitized, filtered, and, sometimes, turned into steam (see “Asymptosis”).  Then it must be fortified with special attributes it may not already possess.  In the human analogy, macro-attributes of knowledge, skills and experience are optimally complemented by micro-attributes (“Non-Cognitive Skills”), such as  noble goals/purpose, responsibility, initiative, flexibility, tenacity/persistence, communication, helpfulness/cooperation, service-mentality, creativity, and a sense of humor.    

What’s your capacity for “Carrying the Water”, which way are you flowing, where are you Destined to end up, how “Deep” are you, how much flotsam and jetsam are you carrying, what size shipping can you support and how “potable” is YOU, Inc.? 

The extent to which water is useful, life-supporting and enterprise-sustaining is the extent to which it is valued, protected and embellished for even greater purposes (viz., pharmaceuticals, specialized reagents of all kinds, etc.).  You, Inc. is approximately 97% water.  Pour yourself liberally into the mainstream.  Wade in, jump in, dive in and become a significant contributor in the Great Waterway of life!  Quartermaster