So on warm autumn afternoons when cutting a good sized tree (8”dia.) up into manageable lengths (6'), it did surprise him to choose to “let them lie” at the base of the hill until the need arrived to actually have to carry them up through the wooded slope to be split, burned, and to serve their intended purpose- that being to provide enough to keep his internals flowing at 98.6.
Unlike the squirrels, he underestimated his need. He hoped that day would not come, and it eventually did, when he had to wade through knee deep snow, hoist one on the shoulder, and begin the ascent. Sisyphus would have been proud.
As he sat there in the snow grasping a small sapling for support and gasping for air, he contemplated his situation. With his wood pile diminished, he would have carry one of these up each day to provide that days heat. Learning lessons the hard way is the only way.
Reorienting his attitude he embraced the reality of daily need and substance. As much as he attempted to consider past generation struggle, he kept returning to this notion that the modern man’s needs are more complex. We have simply become accustomed to our bodily needs being met on a regular and rarely interrupted basis. Our modern needs are more self-actualizing, he was convinced.
However, while brushing the clump of snow of his neck that had fallen of the overhanging Spruce branch, he began to think more deeply about the “circular rotation of need.” Just as we return to the turkey for a sandwich hours after the overindulgent feast, our needs reoccur, seemingly driven by the hands on the clock.
Similarly, our intellectual and emotional needs are cyclical as well. We may not be on any linear path at all. He remembers thinking that the movie “Groundhog Day” had something prescient between the script lines.
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