An image of the present
A very good friend of mine from my HKS years, Mark Brohard, shared this painting with me recently (read on to see the painting) that is titled “Surviving the Struggle.” Mark explains that he had to get this painting out of his system, and that it “… represents the survival of the struggle of 2009 and the stumps represent some of my friends that got cut.” Mark, a young buck, and I, approaching being worn out, are among those stumps.
Mark’s painting made an impression on me. First, I did not know Mark painted, and second, I believe he has captured what so many of us have been experiencing the last year and a half. We all enjoyed a bountiful former life that was full of bright sunny days of a blossoming spring followed by a burning intensity of a prosperous world moving faster than we could run. But then, those days turned into the dead brown leaves of fall that then gave way to the cold, dreary, gray, wind-blown days of a hard winter not unlike the record snowfall that recently blanket North Texas.
Like trees that are at the mercy of the forces of nature, we are at the mercy of the forces of the economy. However, while the forces of nature are predictable, the forces of the economy are more fickle because they are sometimes manipulated by decision-makers that do not always have the best interests of society in their minds. The aspect of the current times that are frustrating is the feeling that people who none of us know purposefully caused the conditions in which we struggle to survive. If that be true, I am comforted by the thought that you might join me in wanting to cut a few trees down.
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