Me and my buddies were shaped out of rough clay & we climbed out of the ditch & picked up tools and tried to create what meaning we could. We hardened into positions which in time displeased us. Some of us got jobs in the factory, some of us held doors open, and some of us ground at our joints to make a paste and then other people bought and used the paste. But the paste did not last forever. That's how it was for me and my buddies. And we realized after a while: we had it better in the ditch. And the ditch, after all, was still there. And we tried to break ourselves - to change our shapes - and some of us did, and we fell back in. But we were of no use to the new clay that we lay on top of. And we were of no use to the world outside the ditch. And most of all we were of no use to each other, way down inside, jumbled and confusing, apologetic but unable to help, full of promises to carry each other as far as we needed to be carried and to carry our promises to each other beyond even that. If only we could find our way out again.