Sandcastles

I used to know a Guy. Several decades ago, he sat next to me in a couple classes and wrote the occasional story. He noticed that I wrote, too. I never really saw it as a competition. My earliest stories were written purely as entertainment--for me.

I suspect he did, though. Eventually, the Guy stopped writing. Maybe it was just a phase, I don't know. But later, the same guy picked up the guitar. A mutual friend did as well. This mutual friend was pretty talented and after a little while of playing together, the Guy stopped playing guitar altogether.

Now, there's nothing wrong with trying new things and then giving them up. You gotta find what fits, y'know? But it's sad when a person gives up on something just because they aren't instantly the best at it. To quote Max Erhmann:

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter;

for always there will be greater & lesser persons than yourself.

The competitive spirit can be a good thing, but not when it ruins things. This thought makes me think of sandcastles.

Now if you go to Seaworld (or just Google them, I suppose, since that's probably a little faster and easier for you), you can see professional-grade sandcastles, hardcore deals with discernible towers and windows and battlements, so real you expect to find little sand-soldiers manning the walls.

When I make a sandcastle, though, it looks less like a castle and more like what you'd get if a cement truck disgorged its contents while traveling at high speeds down the interstate.

And yet I still make them. These elephant-droppings don't last, either. Out of laziness, my castles are always built below the tide line, where the water has made the sand easier to mold. I guess if I were a medieval lord, I'd be the type to build my fortress right next to the quarry just to speed things up. Anyway, this proximity to the water means my work is swallowed by the sea that much sooner.

So I know that, no matter how much work I put in, how much sand I get on my elbows or how much sweat burns my eye, the product will always go the way of Atlantis.

It doesn't bother me, though. It's life in miniature. Time is the biggest sea of all, wiping the beach clean century after century. That might depress people, but not me. If all of our sandcastles are going to be swallowed up the same, why waste time comparing yours to others?

Just build and enjoy.