The yoke of the honey bee

What a heavy hearted man is he who scurries around measuring his fellow oxen for the braces of heavy burdens. He is perhaps only looking to lighten his own neck, to find a commiseration. He is a taxman at bottom. Why bother the ox with unwanted knowledge-what benefit him? Why not leave him to his grass? What, shall they then collectivize, these half-woke beasts? For what? They have only understood as heavy a weight as they’ll accept without bucking; the weight of knowledge of all the goings on of the field in their day would crush them. They have not the strength nor will nor wish to fight a new enemy, for their concern is the grass-perhaps a fellow beast, but not the weight of the field, it’s workers, the plough and plough share. Dear god! He’d exclaim–I cannot bear! I mustn’t care! Be gone you troublesome bee! No, you’ll never awake the lot of them, and the market of traders will trade their bodies anyway. And slaughter is only appropriate for beasts of hay. Hay and slaughter. Best to saddle a few yourself, you bee; huddle them and scurry them forward to the cliff where your feast, and their fate await. Sad though you are, and try as though you may, an ox is an ox is an ox. To enrage or even engage is to speak violently to the tree stump, threatening it to grow, coaxing it to ambition; your honey is wasted, you cannot set up camp here. Flowers will bloom with its death. Let those be your fertile grounds; lighten your heart and be drunk on sugar for a while, for there are plenty of burdens you’d like to avoid just the same as the pitiful ox.

Keep your madness.