A life of regression

His life revealed to me one of the most illuminating parables I have ever experienced.

I first met Jenkins, or really noticed him, some years ago when I was a kid out on a camping trip. Someone was about to nail a board to a tree to use as a shelf, so Jenkins went over to him and offered to give him a hand.

"Stop," he said, "you should saw off the head of the board before nailing it up." So Jenkins went around to find a saw. After finding the saw, before two or three sawing and then scattered. "This saw," he said, "needs to be sharpened faster." So he went back to find a file. Then he found that before using the file, the file must first be placed on a smooth handle, in order to file the handle, he went to the bushes to look for small trees, to cut down small trunks, he found that this must first sharpen the axe head. Of course, in order to sharpen the axe, he had to first fix the grinding stone, so that the grinding is easy; but this inevitably requires the production of a few bars to support the grinding stone. In order to do this in a decent way, Jenkins decided to make a carpenter's bench; but this is impossible without a complete set of tools. So Jenkins went to the village to find the tools he needed, but once he left, he never came back.

It was only a few weeks later that he was seen in town; he was haggling over the price of the instruments he needed to buy in bulk.

Since the first incident, I have gradually become acquainted with Jagins, very familiar with whatever he learned is halfway. There was a time when he studied French to the bone, but he soon discovered that in order to really master it, one must first have a thorough knowledge of Old French, but practice showed that it was impossible to learn French well without a thorough mastery and understanding of Latin. Jenkins went on to discover that the only way to master Latin was to study Sanskrit, which was clearly the foundation of Latin. So Jenkins plunged into the study of Sanskrit until he realized that the only way to properly understand Sanskrit was to learn ancient Iranian, which was the root of the language. However, this language had long since disappeared.

Thus, Jenkins had to start all over again. Admittedly, he did have some success in the natural sciences. He had studied physics, quickly tracing it from the study of forces to molecules, and from molecules to atoms, and from atoms to electrons, and when his entire research had extended to the infinite realm of space, he was still there tracing his roots.

Needless to say, Jenkins never earned a degree in anything, and his education was never useful.

But it didn't matter. He had the money to come up with $100,000 in capital to start his own business directly. At first, he invested the money to run a gas plant, but he found that the coal needed to build gas is expensive, which makes him a big loss. So, he transferred the gas plant at a selling price of $90,000 and started a coal mine. But this is unlucky, because the mining machinery cost a lot of money. Therefore, Jenkins sold his shares in the mine for $80,000 and transferred them to the coal mining machinery manufacturing industry. In this way, he could have made some money, but it was gas that was used to power the plant, and it cost a lot. So Jenkins sold his manufacturing business for another $70,000. From then on, he was like a backwards skater, sliding in and out of the various industrial sectors involved, endlessly.

Every year he lost a great deal of money, especially in the good years when business was booming. On the contrary, he did quite well in the bad days when business was depressed and goods could not be sold.

Jenkins' family life was quiet, to say the least.

Of course he never married. But to be honest, he also fell in love several times, although each time to no avail.

I still remember his first love story clearly, when he and I were very close, we talked about everything. He fell in love with a girl at first sight and very frankly revealed his feelings to her. "I want to ask her to be my wife." He said to me.

"When?" I asked him, "Just for the wedding?"

"No," he replied, "I first have to make myself a match for her."

To this end, he began to cultivate himself in the character of God. He went to teach in a Sunday school for a month and a half, when he realized that one could not make a career in such a sacred profession as teaching if one did not intend to first study the history of Palestine systematically. He also believed that it was a scoundrel to try to chase a woman when one had only a passing knowledge of the history of Israel. Therefore, Jenkins automatically fled. When he thought he had a clear conscience, no harm to propose the day, nearly two full years have passed. By this time, the girl had already married a foolish guy, wearing patent leather boots on his feet.

Naturally, Jenkins fell in love again. In any case, this time his mind and moral character is full enough.

This time he fell madly in love with a charming, five-sister girl. No matter what a real man, will fall in love at first sight with a girl like her. In that case, Jenkins will certainly propose to the girl. But when he went to the girl's house, he met her second sister. Of course, this sister is younger, so Jagins fell in love with the second sister. But one night, when he went to visit the girl's house, the door was opened by a younger sister. This, Jagins had to go back and measure the sisters one by one, and in the end, none of them were available." "Maybe it's a good thing that Jenkins never got married, because Jenkins' situation was getting worse and worse, and getting married would have put him in a more difficult position. You know, after he sold his last share in his last business, he used the money to buy a lifetime annuity that would be paid out every year. But then, the amount of withdrawals will be reduced every year, so if he lives longer, sooner or later he will have to starve to death.

At the same time, his image changed dramatically, looking both old and odd, his shirt shortened a cut, pants hanging on the broken boots, like a yakuza, his face also looks like a little old man, covered with wrinkles.

And when he talked, he always recalled the past, and he always told others endlessly the stories he experienced in the happy days of the past, mentioning all kinds of people.

For example, he said - "I remember a rather odd thing: the day I met on the train -" If you ask: "When was that, Jenkins?" Then he would look at you with a confused look, as if he were calculating the time, and say, "It was 1875, maybe 1876, as far as I can remember, something like that--" I also noticed that when he recalled these events, he always went back, further and further. There was a time when he was telling stories from his youth, and now he tells them even further back.

One day, not long ago, he told me a story about him and two other brothers he called Harpur, one named Leder and the other Joe, and he said that Leder was a very strong man.

I asked how old Leder was, and Jenkins answered me that he was three years old. He also added that the other brother was younger, but he was a real smart guy, about - here, Jarkins paused to calculate, about 18 months.

Then I realized how far Jarkins had gone in his memory. He had receded from childhood to infancy.

And now, when his annuity dried up to the point of exhaustion, he also retired to the bottom of life, whether it is death or life, I do not know.

However, his life revealed to me one of the most enlightening parables I have ever experienced.