Sing it Again Popeye, (et al)!
The Bathtub Bailer Boy
Sophia: Today, we watch a boy at work, endlessly bailing water from a bathtub. Tell me, what do you see in his effort?
Walt: I see a life fully lived in the moment. He is complete simply by being himself, by doing what he does without apology.
Henry: And yet, we measure him by the world’s standards—productivity, ambition, consequence. But perhaps the measure is in his awareness, not in outcomes.
I exist as I am, that is enough.
— Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
Emily: I notice his focus. There is dignity in small acts when they are carried with presence. Even a mundane task can reflect the fullness of existence.
Sophia: Exactly. The boy’s labor is not less because it is ordinary. His essence is contained in the act, in the rhythm of water lifted and released.
Walt: Being enough is not something we earn—it is inherent. We need only recognize it in ourselves, as he does in the simplicity of his task.
Henry: So, the lesson is humility in recognition, both of ourselves and of life’s small, continuous motions.
Emily: And perhaps a quiet celebration of our own sufficiency, even when the world tells us otherwise.
Sophia: Then the bathtub bails itself of water, but the boy bails himself of doubt. He exists, and that is the beginning and end of everything necessary.
Walt: Enough, simply enough, is all we ever truly require.
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Heraclitus
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