Author Topic: Solomon's World View (Read 2863 times)

Olde Tymer · « **Reply #39 on:** February 11, 2019, 03:43:30 pm »

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● Ecc 9:11a . . I again saw under the sun that the race is not [always] to the swift, and the battle is not to the warriors, and neither is bread to the wise, nor wealth to the discerning, nor favor to men of ability;

Typically races are won by the swift, but if the swift should trip and fall, they will lose the race in spite of their superior speed. Battles are usually won by the valiant, not the timid. But again, not always. If the valiant are dunces, then the timid with brains can outsmart them. Food and money are usually plentiful in the homes of people who have a head on their shoulders; but again, if the wise should suddenly lose everything by an economic catastrophe; like the Wall Street collapse of 2008, then all the financial know-how in the world won't buy them a single loaf of bread down at the local Safeway.

The word "favor" is from chen (khane) which means: graciousness, i.e. subjective (kindness, favor) or objective (beauty). For some strange reason, nature allows only a relatively small percentage of beautiful people to have any brains or develop any really useful, productive skills. Most of the achievers in life, like chemists, astronomers, architects, mathematicians, writers, movie makers, physicists, engineers, and designers et al; are ordinary-looking people. The beautiful people are often dead wood (and dead heads). Whenever I look behind the scenes of really difficult movies like Inception, Matrix, Avatar, and Monsters Inc.; I'm amazed at the rather unexceptional looks of many of the makers of our favorite movies. They just don't appear to be all that smart and creative.

I noticed the same thing in my job as a Federal civilian employee. The headquarters in my district has a noticeable shortage of attractive men and women because the government, as a rule, doesn't hire people in respect to how well they fill out their clothes, but in respect to how well their minds work.

● Ecc 9:11b . . for time and chance overtake them all.

There are no guarantees in life. It's a gamble. I know of a clerk in Costco who spent four years in college majoring in Sociology. There was plenty of demand for people with that kind of a degree when he entered college; but by the time he finished school, the demand had vanished and my graduate friend had to get a job as a fry cook in a Mongolian grill.

● Ecc 9:12 . . And a man cannot even know his time. As fishes are enmeshed in a fatal net, and as birds are trapped in a snare, so men are caught at the time of calamity, when it comes upon them without warning.

A machinist employed by the Corps of Engineers here in Portland Oregon where I once worked as a welder, volunteered to go and help out with the rescue and clean-up operation in New York after the World Trade Center was hit with airliners flown by Islamic extremists. On return, he remarked how he was puzzled by parking structures near ground zero full of very expensive autos like BMW, Corvette, and Lexus that were covered with dirt day after day. He wondered why the people who owned those beautiful cars never washed them.

Then he realized why. It was because those cars once belonged to commuters who worked in the Trade Center-- commuters who were caught by total surprise in the sudden destruction of not only their place of employment, but also of their very lives. Whatever they had planned for that day, was instantly canceled forever. The owners never dreamed that the miles they drove to work that day would be their very last.

Sudden-death incidents like that happen all the time. Not long ago actor Bill Paxton was in the hospital for treatment of an aortic aneurism when he suddenly died of a stroke on the operating table. It took his life right out of the blue like a stray bullet from a drive-by.
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Author Topic: Solomon's World View (Read 2863 times)

Olde Tymer

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