Future, post-holes and icebergs

I've been digging holes in the yard of my new house, nearly three feet deep, and filling them with fence posts and concrete. The permanence is daunting and the physical labor remarkable. The ground is hard and dry, a handful of dirt comes out of the holes with each stab and draw of the post-hole digger. How many handfuls to make a hole big enough for a fence post? More than is productive to count- the tedium would bring tears to our eyes and make the physical pain unendurable. This is clearly a project the vast majority of the materials and labor of which is intended for use in the future. In the present, a shallow hole into which to place the post and some dirt packed solidly around it would suffice to withstand the gentle breezes and children's inquisitive nudges. But these posts are intended to resist the forceful invitations of the near-tornado strength winds and small ball stones of hail accompanying the electrifying storms raging through these first brave miles of plains stretching eastward from the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Work undertaken for the future carries a meaning, a mystery and a value clearly well beyond that of simply earning wages or increasing the number of digits on a bank statement, this is well known. Perhaps beyond and above this is working from the future. To reach into the future to draw the impulse for meaningful work in the present requires a bravery and a willingness to continually search for the highest ideals and capacities in humanity, in children, in world leaders. For there, in the unrealized divinity, in the glimpses of unknowing genius, lie the seeds of the future and the starting point for the truly meaningful work of today. By working in this way we can create individuals, organizations and social structures that will have time to mature into the future and reach ripeness before or as the needs arise. It is a duty and responsibility of an innovator or self-described progressive to continually strive to not only work toward the future but to courageously propose ideas that seem unreasonable and fantastic to the rational mind of today but are relevant for distant tomorrows. A massive chunk of ice dislodged from Antarctica recently. It was the size of Delaware. My fence posts are less than three feet deep, laid in concrete. Permanence is a fantasy. Ice and fences.