Page 27 - Plowing the Desert

To Cosmos’ dismay, he learns that plowing of the rows is all the plowman ever intends to do. If he were to plant anything then the rows would no longer be perfect. If plants grew there would need to be weeding and then there would be harves ng, which the plowman has no inten on of doing.
In fact, according to the two oxen, He does it (plowing the desert) because it is easy and fun and he never has to do any of the hard stu that they do on other farms. Cosmos realizes that the plowman just plows the desert over and over again with no inten on of ever doing anything useful. He is not really doing anything, just was ng me.
Cosmos points out that the plowman is not lazy but he is reluctant to try new things. He only wants to do something with which he is familiar and knows that he can do well. In those quali es, he is much like many children.
A reluctance to try the new and di cult is easy when you can distract yourself with television, video games and the Internet. You can deceive yourself into believing that somehow these distrac ons are of some value and that you will get to the math and language homework someday.
Of course we all know that someday is not a day of the week. Someday is illusion we content ourselves with when we are engaged in was ng me.
None of this is to say that you must be a workaholic and never have fun. The inten on is to help us realize that the rewards of not was ng me far out weight the momentary pleasure of a was ng me diversion.
A youth spent trying to insist that, Things should come easily to me, will insure that the rest of your life is spent as fruitlessly as plowing the desert.
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