A Man Comes into a Canyon

A man comes into a canyon and makes it his own. With the cunning of his mind and the courage of his heart he makes it his own. With one leg of bone and one leg of wood he kills the mighty buffalo and he has what he needs for food and clothing and shelter. He keeps the canyon his own when he kills the evil one that would despoil it, the blood-drinking one of the mountains. It is his and he has made it so. But he has not done this alone.

… In his hand is a knife that was made far away by another man, a knife that was given to him by an old one, a great one. In his mind is the knowledge to make fire and weapons and clothing and to find food and to provide shelter, knowledge given to him by those who taught him when he was a boy and those who showed him by their own doing when he lived among them.

By himself he is nothing. Only the courage is his alone. All of those others are with him, even in his canyon, and he cannot ever be free of them, for what they have given is with him and is part of him, and without them he could not have made the canyon his own.

Jack Schaefer
The Canyon © 1953

I am self-driven, motivated by personnel excellence. I seek to learn, and do so. I work harder, longer, and sometimes smarter. And in its own way, my life is the American dream.

But in this dream,

(while I bring an essential ingredient to its progression)

a string of people and circumstances,

personal and abstract,

trivial and divine,

have allowed, helped, and lead me to where I am.

Focusing on my immediate vicinity, I see my elevated accomplishments. But in moments of rare consciousness (as when reading the above), I am reminded that the knife in my hand was made far away by others, that the knowledge I have was given to me, that I am surrounded by those who showed me how to live through their own lives.

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business—you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen.

President Barak Obama
Roanoke, Virginia
July 13, 2012

Our President is a bit obtuse in making these declarations, reinforced through multiple speeches throughout his recent campaign. In one very real context, his statements were dangerous and forbidding, reminiscent of the most powerful speeches of a century past, speeches that led over half of the world’s land masses down a dark path of humanistic socialized self-annihilation. I doubt, however, he intended to portray said images. Likely, he recognizes, like me, that even the best of us are surrounded by a great cloud of encouragers, supporters, enablers. There are very few islands among us.

My knife is sharp, solid, and ready to work. As I go about my life, succeeding when I can, I will rely on those before and aside me, and commit to prove reliable to those aside and behind me.