07/01/2026
In a faraway land, there once was a peaceful and hardworking people who dug their own tiny wells each and every day in order to survive. The land was hard and rocky and rough, meaning every well they dug gave just enough water to live another day, before going dry again. So they would wake up every morning and start all over, digging a whole new well from scratch. Now while this was not an easy life, it was the only one they knew and so, to them, it always felt rewarding: as long as the people worked hard each day, they always had just enough water to live. What more could one want? And sometimes, if they were especially lucky, they might even find a little extra water, which they could save in a jar for days when their efforts came up short. And this of course meant that they could occasionally help out their neighbors, too, on days that they could not find enough water and were struggling to get by.
And so life went on in this way, each person existing in balance with themselves, the land, and each other. This made for a very content and cheerful people, knowing full well that every morning — even with much labor ahead of them — they were always in control of their lives.
~
But then came the giants. The giants were powerful and could easily overpower the well-diggers.
The giants knew what to do, how to live easily, because they were clever in a cruel sort of way. They would simply hide and wait. They would hide behind the nearest hill and watch. And then — as the people dug their wells each day — the giants would rush into the village, and with their powerful hands sweep all the well-diggers out of the way. Then they would take half of each person’s water.
Now, the giants, being clever in a cruel sort of way, knew that they could not take all the villagers’ water, because to do so would mean all the well-diggers would die. And if the well-diggers died then the giants would have to get their hands dirty and dig for themselves! The burden of survival would be transferred onto them. The giants were clever enough to know you should always have people below you who are struggling, because strugglers work the hardest. Plus, strugglers keep you from struggling yourself — they do all the struggling for you.
So they always left a little water behind, just enough so that the people did not die, but little enough that the well-diggers always felt thirst. Thirst was a great motivator. Being clever in a cruel sort of way, the giants knew that thirsty well-diggers dug the most wells — because they actually experimented with this — testing out different levels of deprivation on the villagers. The villagers optimal setting was to always be thirsty, but not so much that they were weak. Strong and thirsty, this is what made a good well-digger. Plus, when well-diggers were constantly in a state of lack, they could not help each other out and grow stronger together. The well-diggers became selfish, and even a little mean — they had no time for their neighbors anymore. How could they? They needed the whole day for themselves in order to survive, and they certainly had no water to share. It was best, the well-diggers had come to believe, to not get involved, to always keep one’s head down and just dig your own hole.
And it was this attitude, which seemed so natural to the well-diggers who never knew otherwise, that produced such an abundance of wells for the giants. And with such a steady stream of water, the giants forgot what it ever felt like to be thirsty … although in their bones they still carried some distant memory of it. This memory always came with an uneasy shudder, like recalling a nightmare, and they quickly shrugged it off. “Thirst was for workers,” the giants told themselves, “abundance was for giants.” This is how it had always been. This is what made the world stable. This is what made the world make sense.
~
And so it went on like this for a long time, for generations and generations, and generations more … the giants growing ever bigger and more powerful the more and more they drank … and the well-diggers growing leaner and weaker but never quite dying, because you always had to be strong to survive in such a world. But even though the well-diggers had adapted to their adversity, they could never ever adjust to their thirst. Thirst is something that can never be cured by lack, only by abundance. And abundance, as we all know, was always far out of reach. So the well-diggers only ever knew this constant gnawing feeling, the feeling of never having enough.
But all this had gone on for so long, you see, that the well-diggers had forgotten something of their past as well. Just like the giants had forgotten they once knew thirst, the well-diggers had forgotten they once knew abundance. Well-diggers forgot they ever once had it, except in stories told around campfires, tales of such celebratory abundance that these stories could only possibly legends. They could not be real. The only possibility is that these were fairy stories, created to keep innocent children momentarily spry and alive, before the struggling realities of adulthood came and snuffed their spirit out, too.
So, even the well-diggers had forgotten that these stories were once the truth. They forgot there was ever a time when each man and woman could truly provide for themselves, that one well for one person was entirely enough, before the time when the giants swooped in started to take their share. In the bright light of day, well-diggers only knew effort and thirst. THIS is what life was. THIS was reality. So the sooner a young well-digger knew that, the better. This was the world each well-digger was born into, this was the only one they would ever know, and this was the one in which they would die.
~
But one day one of the younger well-diggers did question this.
“Why?” said a young well-digger to one of the older ones, swinging their picks under the blazing hot sun as they dug their daily holes … “Why do we struggle and strain all the time? Why, despite working sun-up to sunset, are we always so damn thirsty?”
“Well, that is a foolish question,” said the older well-digger. “We are thirsty all the time because this is what life IS. Life is struggle. And not going crazy in this life means accepting that it’s your job to just keep going, to just do all you can every single day to help provide for the giants. Seriously, son, enough of these questions. Get back to your work.”
“But why?” asked the young well-digger. “Why is it our job to provide for the giants?”
“Boy, you ARE a fool!” said the older well-digger. “We feed them so that our village survives. We give life to the giants so that the giants give us life in return.”
“Wha — ? I don’t get it,” said the young man. “How do the giants give us life? It seems like we are always struggling for ourselves.”
“Huhhm… Must I explain everything? The giants give us life by giving us just enough water to continue to live. Boy, you really are stupid.”
“But, wait, that still makes no sense to me. WE are the ones digging the wells every day. WE give ourselves water. THEY take it.”
“Son, do you not see? Do you really not see? …
… Do you not see that the giants can take ALL the water if they wanted to? That by LEAVING us some of the water (that they can take all of if they wanted to) that they are GIVING us life? …
… These giants can kill us any moment they so choose. Do you not see that by NOT killing us … it is a daily act of kindness from them? A blessing even? Do you not see that giving the giants half our daily water is a small price to pay for being allowed to live? To survive? What about this do you not understand?”
“But WHY do we let this happen? Why do we let the giants take our water? Wouldn’t we have more water? Wouldn’t we live abundantly if we had all the water for ourselves?”
“BOY, you still are not getting it. Look, I don’t want you getting into any trouble, which you WILL if you keep going on like this. So, here, sit down a moment and just shut up, and let me explain this to you …”
~
“… A long long time ago the giants WERE us,” said the old man.
The young man could not believe it.
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“Wait, what do you mean ‘they were us’? That’s not possible!” said the young well-digger, utterly shocked and astonished.
“Legend says,” continued the old man, “that long ago the giants were no different than you or me, or any of us. They were once regular men. The only difference is that, back when it mattered, they were lucky enough to have found more water than all the others first.”
“And…?”
“And that means they were able to grow bigger faster. And the faster they grew, the more they could dig. And the more water they found, which made them even bigger. Eventually, they got so big they realized that it was easier to not dig at all. All they had to do was wait till a weaker person had dug their hole and then take their water away from them. And this only helped them grow even more! …
… And so once they finally got above a certain size, well … they didn’t even resemble us anymore. Suddenly it was like we were two separate species, even though we all had the exact same start, even though once we had all been from the exact same people. But eventually, as I said, they had changed so much that we couldn’t see ourselves in each other anymore. They had permanently changed. They had become … better.”
“Better? … Better?! You can’t possibly mean that. Giants are horrible beasts, they are lazy and fatted thieves. All they do is take our water, and they do no work themselves! They contribute nothing! And yet you say they are … better?”
“Yes, son: better. Once they became powerful enough to take water instead of digging for it themselves, they became a whole new tribe of beings. They had elevated themselves. They had become The People Who Rose Above The Dirt. No death for them. No sickness. Life always good. Their days long and filled with leisure. Their children frolicking and thriving ...
… Just look at a giant’s hands and you will see how they have risen above the vileness of labor: their hands are always clean. So to a giant, the worst thing in the world is to be dirty because it reminds them of what they came from. And this, my son, is why they hate us so much, even though they must keep us alive for their steady production of water. They hate us because we are their past …
… and the reason we love the giants so much is because — “
“Wait a minute,” said the young man. “What do you mean ‘love the giants’?! … We don’t love the giants! Every single day, under their breath, I hear every single neighbor, every man and woman on the street, cursing the giants for all that they take, even though they never speak this aloud for fear of retaliation. Giants are HATED by every well-digger I have ever known. So how on earth can you say they are LOVED?!”
“Son, listen to me very clearly when I say this: They ARE loved. They are loved very deeply. Because not only do they keep us alive, but each man and woman in this village dreams of being them one day. We love them because we see them as our future. It’s the reason our people get out of bed in the morning. No person dreams of getting up each day to dig for water and barely stay alive. Instead, it’s the deepest desire of every man, woman, and child to one day be lucky enough to find a rare deep well — a very deep well — one with so much water they’d be able to quickly drink it and grow into a giant themselves, in those few precious moments before the giants stole their water away. I’m telling you, boy: work hard enough for yourself, trust no one, and one day you might find a secret deep well, too. And if you do, even you — yes, you — can become a giant overnight. Think about it! No more suffering, no more dirty hands, no more thirst! Everything in life would be yours for the taking!”
“But wait, won’t that mean I’d be turning on my neighbors? If I become a giant, don’t I then enslave even your family, your friends, my family and my friends? Don’t I become evil and awful?”
“No, son, you still do not understand. You are just too young, perhaps, and you have not yet had children of your own. It is every parent’s dream that they be overpowered by their child, because that means their child will have become a giant. And as everyone knows it’s only giants who live a good life, a life worth living. So even if a parent knows nothing but suffering till the end of their days, that same parent would relish their own suffering if it meant their child becomes a giant. It’s all a parent wants. It’s the only thing that makes all this suffering worthwhile — the dream of one’s child becoming a giant if you yourself cannot.”
“But … but what if there were no more giants? What if we all — together — created an army to stop the giants, to stop them from taking away our water, because then we (who far outnumber the giants) would have more than enough water to share with each other! No one would go thirsty! Thirst would end overnight!! And then it wouldn’t just be a few people here or there who do well … NO ONE would have to suffer ever again!”
“My dear lad, you remind me of when I was young, but let me set your straight: You are a goddamn fool. That will NEVER happen. Listen to me, because I am trying to tell you this for your own good. I am trying to tell you how life works. Now shut up and just keep digging, please, for your own good. Enough of these questions. Look, I had these questions, too, when I was young, but I got in a lot of trouble until — just like I am doing for you now — some of the older members of the village set me straight. And you seem like a good kid, so I don’t want the same trouble for you. So enough …
… No more talk of hating the giants, because when you speak of bringing down the giants you are basically killing the dream of every man and woman and child here, the very dream that keeps us all alive, that gets us out of bed. Don’t you see that people would rather die of not having water than die of not having a dream? Water keeps us alive for a day, but a dream can keep us alive for an entire life. Dreams are the most important thing of all, even more than water. And you, son, are trying to kill people’s dreams with your questions, the dream that we might all one day be giants. So, enough! …
… Enough of this talk of stopping the giants. Enough of this talk of sharing. Just shut up, keep your head down, and keep on digging for yourself. And maybe someday if you’re lucky you will find a deep well of your own, and you too will become a giant. And when that day comes, you will forget all about these silly questions. You will all forget about us. Trust me, THAT is all that anyone here wants: to have a full belly and to forget. To not have to work. To be able to lie in the sun, not toil under it. That is the dream of happiness of every man, woman, and child in this life, and nothing else …
… So all this talk of changing things? Let go of that. Talk like that is for radicals, and only radicals in this world go crazy. But never diggers, because diggers busy their minds only with work, knowing that very once in a while a digger actually succeeds …
… So get back to your work, son, if you want a good life. Keep your head down, your mouth shut, and keep on digging your hole.”
So the young man put his head down, just like he was told.
“Yeah, I guess you are right,” he said, not wanting to cause any more trouble, not wanting to be one of those people. Not wanting to go crazy, as only the radicals do. Not wanting to be viewed as a killer-of-dreams in the eyes of his friends and family.
Already, he could see the other villagers eyeing him suspiciously. They had overheard everything he had said aloud, all his dare-not-be-spoken questions. All his radical ideas.
So right then and there, the young man decided that he wanted to look good in their eyes once again, he wanted them to know he was a contributing member of the community, a hard worker, a valuable member of the village. He wanted to be known for diligently digging his daily hole, just like everyone else, not for digging up trouble.
So grabbed his shovel, but then paused for a moment and looked up at the hot beating-down sun. God, was he thirsty.
But even though he had known thirst all his life, thanks to the old man he now had something new to keep him going: hope. Hope that his thirst might one day end. Hope that he, too, might one day be a giant.
His work this day had not even begun. With shame, he realized he’d been talking this whole time, questioning everything, and had done no work at all. The old man was right: life was simply about doing your own share of the work. How selfish of him to question the lives and motivations of others, to question their dreams, when all this time he should only have been worrying about himself! That’s how you help the village not get into trouble, he decided, when you just focus on your own work. If everyone just takes care of themselves, then that is how we all get through. Solitary work and a little wish of luck for yourself, that’s all you need. Just like the old man had said. The young man finally saw the old man was right: this was the only way. He chuckled at how silly he had been to question all these things.
The sun was rising high now, hot and brutal. Sweat dripped from the young man’s pores, all that precious water leaving his body and returning to the earth, right below his feet, down to the very place he one day wished to find it again.
In his mind’s eye he saw the sharp tip of his shovel striking the deepest well his village had ever seen. He would never be thirsty again. He would be legendary. He would become a giant.
“Maybe,” the young man thought, “Just maybe, if I keep on working hard enough, maybe I can do it. Besides, now I understand: no one else can help me reach my goals but me. All I need is this shovel and my own two hands. With just my sweat, an honest day’s work, and a little bit of luck, maybe I will find greatness too … someday.”
And now, even faster than before, the young man began to dig …
___
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