“O, God, thy sea is so great and my boat is so small.”
  – Breton Fisherman’s Prayer

What is there to gain from life, friend?

Perhaps the comfortable notion that one should not expect life to be gainful.

So, that is to say there are things to gain, whether or not I expect to gain them?

Surely. As many as there are to lose.

Like what?

Well, my friend, to name them all would be to gain lost time. But, if you must know, I’d say there is knowledge to gain. Wisdom too can be gained, but only through the application of knowledge. And through that practice there are also inestimable lessons to be gained. I’d say the lessons total to the wisdom, in fact.

Yes, there is love to gain, as we know. But there also is love to lose, and they rarely mention the misery gained from that. Gaining the misery might not even be worth gaining the love in the first place, but who’s to say that to the heartbroken?

My friend, really, there are too many things to be gained than can be mentioned in one sitting or maybe even in a lifetime. Probably not in many. So much to gain and yet we have been granted limited time to gain it. Of course, the problem is that no one yet has gained the knowledge of how to gauge the time or, if they have, the wisdom to pass it on.

Then we could prioritize what we’d like to gain. Which itself is a thing to gain, priorities. Deciding what is important. As I said, though, there is just so much to gain that even deciding which to gain first would take precious time that could instead be spent out gaining. Yes, it would be freestyle, completely arbitrary, but perhaps quality shouldn’t be the focus after all. Who knows? And that is a sincere question.

Oh, there is confusion to gain, my friend. Confusion sometimes to a pitch such that you’re left thinking there might not be anything left for you to gain, or that you’re simply unable to gain any longer, or perhaps you even gain the idea that gaining anything at all would not be worth the effort and gaining an early death might be more gainful than sticking around to see whether or not it was. The confusion, my friend, it weighs heavy.

But, of course, there are pleasures to gain too, my friend, that you’d surely be keen to know. I don’t want to scare you. Yes, there is nature’s beauty, the joy of art and music and reading, rest, and the hard work that earned it. Simple pleasures to some, and to me too. If I had to, I’d say those are the ones to gain, my friend. They are the ones most helpful in deterring the confusion. Yes.

Yes. You have clearly already gained your sense of wonder. And wonder, wonder can be quite useful in the hunt. Asking questions won’t gain you a meal, but you’re bound to find out something, maybe something about yourself, which is not nothing.

Friend, as to myself, I have learned that simply wondering about a boat will not keep me afloat in a flood.