Reaching Out

   There’s a running joke around the old homestead here: “There’s always something.” Last week that something involved burying some electrical lines and drainage tiles.
 
    This kind of thing is way better than many homestead somethings I could name, mainly because it was a voluntary job, a self-imposed “home improvement” project. That’s way different than fixing a leaky roof or messing around with a toilet that won’t stop running. Those things require tending to, usually asap.

    Aside from the want-versus-need aspect, there was a hidden bonus: I got to run an excavator!

    Don’t judge. I know that’s not everyone’s cup of tea. But it’s cool beans to me. It appeals to the kid in me. And around these parts, I figured it might even earn me some street cred. Assuming I didn’t fuck something up. (Which, thankfully, I didn’t.)
 
    I had never operated an excavator before. But it was the right tool for the job, so, damn-the-torpedoes, I went ahead and rented one.
 
    The rental came with a trailer, so getting it here was no problem. Then the fun began.
 
    The guy who was doing the electrical work gave me a 10-minute lesson, and after that I was off to the races. Off to the digging, in this case. I rented the excavator for a week, so I took it slow on the first day. I took my time learning and practicing how to move the darn thing around on its tank treads, learning how to scoop and move dirt around. And here’s the thing that struck me: After only a couple of hours, I pretty much got the hang of it. I mean, here’s this giant contraption of a machine with a huge appendage that’s nothing like a human arm or hand, and there I was operating it with ease, as if it was a natural extension of my own body.
 
    Isn’t it kind of remarkable that us humans can do this?
 
    It really got me to thinking as I was digging.
 
    People do this kind of thing all the time, without much thinking about it – at least in the physical realm. We build cars and bicycles to extend our everyday mobility. We build microscopes and telescopes that allow us to see more than we’d ever even know was there. We build airplanes that allow us to friggin’ fly, for crying out loud – which is way more than just expanding upon something that we can naturally do. We build knives and fly-fishing poles and snow skis and rock-climbing shoes and artificial hearts and garlic presses and cell phones. And on and on it goes. None of these machines function anything like our own body, yet we adapt to them with relative ease and extend our physical selves into new spaces.
 
    We end up doing things that maybe ought to be impossible.
 
    Then, of course, with us being the insatiable monkeys that we are, once we get a taste of the impossible, we want a little more. And then a little more.
 
    I’m reminds of the answer given by John D. Rockefeller – a man who, at the peak of his personal wealth, had a net worth of about 1% of the entire U.S. economy – when he was asked by a journalist: “Mr. Rockefeller, sir. How much money is enough money?”
 
    Rockefeller’s famous reply was “Just a little bit more.”
 
    Clever bastard.
 
    Yep. We all know that our monkey business can lead to bad things, alright. But we keep right on doing it. We’re hooked. Plus, it’s easy for us.
 
    What’s apparently not so easy for us is expanding our reach into the spiritual realm. For example, wouldn’t it be something if we could build ourselves a spiritual excavator, as it were?  Metaphorically speaking, what if we could, with a little bit of practice, dig and scoop big loads of dirt somewhere out on the astral plane?
 
    Are we simply so distracted by our obsession of extending ourselves physically that we’re missing out on a whole bag of tricks? Or are we prevented from punching too far into spiritual space by a glass ceiling placed there by the gods themselves?
 
    This is suddenly going deep. Maybe I should stop. If the rental company knew I was day-dreaming about this stuff while operating their equipment, I figure they’d probably impose a lifetime ban on yours truly. “Concentrate!” they’d yell. “Or else!”
 
    But we both know why I’m really ending this little ramble: I know that dudes on excavators don’t worry about this stuff. And I’m not about to nix my newly acquired street cred.
 
– O.M. Kelsey