Page 132 - The Poetic Books - Student Text

We may not like the Teacher’s observations about government, preferring a more hopeful approach. Is
he more realistic than our wishes? Modern nation builders want to donate to struggling countries in a
helpful way, so they try to measure the extent to which public power is exercised for private gain,
including petty and grand forms of corruption, as well as how much a state might be captured by elites
and private interests. Thinking that corruption hinders economic growth by increasing costs,
discouraging investment, and therefore skewing government expenditure in favor of the rich and well
214
connected, successful aid is then targeted to countries with less corruption. Would the Teacher agree?
How might he expect such efforts to succeed? “There is something else meaningless that occurs on
earth: the righteous who get what the wicked deserve, and the wicked who get what the righteous
deserve. This too, I say, is meaningless (8:14).”

Chapter nine contains three more observations along with his typical basic advice. No one has an
advantage in life – the righteous, the wicked, the good, the bad, the clean, the unclean, or the pious who
offer sacrifices. Life is in the hands of God. The same
destiny happens to all. Even though life is often
painful, life is better than death. The lowliest animal
alive is better than the noblest animal dead. Once
dead the strongest of emotions are gone. (9:1-6).
The best advice is to eat, drink and enjoy life with
your wife, pursuing whatever you choose (9:7-10).
Chance happens to the most talented human.
Humans are like a fish taken in a net or a bird in a
snare. For example, an insignificant wise man might
save a city from certain destruction by a powerful
Figure 64: Thailand monkey festival
king and his armies. Will the wise man be
remembered? Not for long. His wisdom is better than all the weapons of the king, but the sins of people
destroy what he has done (9:11-18).

The desire to live is powerful. The desire to enjoy every moment of life is powerful. Since we do not
know what is ahead even tomorrow, should we not simply enjoy what we can?

You see, I sat down one day and did a little arithmetic. The average person lives about
seventy-five years. Now, then, I multiplied 75 times 52 and I came up with 3900, which is
the number of Saturdays that the average person has in their entire lifetime. It took me
until I was fifty-five years old to think about all this in any detail and by that time I had
lived through over 2800 Saturdays. I got to thinking I only had about a thousand of them
left to enjoy. So, I went to a toy store and bought every single marble they had, took
them home and put them inside a large, clear, plastic container. Every Saturday since
then, I have taken one marble out and thrown it away. I found that by watching the
marbles diminish, I focused more on the really important things in life. There’s nothing
like watching your time here on this earth run out to help get your priorities straight.

214 Millennium Challenge Corporation lists 17 indicators for a successful project. Information can be obtained from
their website, https://www.mcc.gov/about,
131