Ole' Folk Speak

"When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before." –Jacob August Riis




I finally understand the frustrations of old people who hear young people say, “ I’m tired.” You know how the conversation goes,

“You’re tired? What you got to be tired for? You ain’t do nothing yet. You too young to be tired.” This may be followed by a chuckle, or a suck of the teeth.

As a child I thought that kind of attitude was ridiculous. What does fatigue have to do with age? Young people get tired too right? Everyone has to sleep, to rest. But now I see that the older you get, the more work you have to put in to survive, to keep growing. Life is work. Life is struggle. If you haven’t lived any, you don’t have the right to fatigue because you don’t know the meaning of work.

I work hard. Feels like a struggle. People say I’m driven, determined, tenacious. My father says, I just like keeping busy and doing things the hard way. And while I put up a strong front and most would assume I “have it together”, it is hard work to work oneself, drive oneself, push oneself and not get discouraged especially because it is so early in the game. Where I am now in my life is nonstop, nose to the ground, laying the track type work. This is growing pains time. And although, by lifelong standards, at 25 this is just the beginning, I can definitely better appreciate the sentiments of a more seasoned generation. Come on ~m, you too young to be tired, there’s too much living still yet to do.