A Tiny Injury and the Stream of Life

For the past couple of days I have been feeling quite handicapped because I couldn’t use my right index finger. About a week ago I must have hit or squeezed it somewhere… and pretty hard, too. Despite all I can’t remember when or where or how. All I know is that the fingertip was slightly swollen and uncommonly rosy all of a sudden. And worst of all: it hurt terribly! At first even a gentle touch felt as if my finger were caught in a screw. I didn’t see a doctor about this because I thought that it couldn’t be anything serious really, maybe a small haematoma that would heal before soon. Luckily I was right and the finger hurt less every day. By now the pain has changed into a prickle.

However, I’m much behind with work. Not being ambidextrous like Leonardo Da Vinci, handwriting was completely out of the question and typing with only nine instead of ten fingers was an ordeal. In my job I didn’t really have a choice, but at home I postponed all manual work – writing included – that didn’t need immediate attention. It’s incredible that such a tiny injury forced me to refrain from writing for a whole week! For me as an avid writer this was quite a sacrifice. Well, I couldn’t change it. It was necessary to allow my finger to recover and I made the best of it: I gave my current read more time than I would have been able to otherwise.

Life is like that. We make our plans according to probabilities and previous experience, but we have to accept that our knowledge is limited. Out of the blue small causes can trigger a chain of unexpected events and we have to adapt to a new situation. No need to be frightened! Evolution has cut us out for learning and for changing plans. In fact we should be grateful for the surprises that life has in store for us every day. I’m sure that it would spoil my pleasure if I always knew what was coming. Admittedly my injured finger wasn’t a pleasant surprise and I could well have done without it, but having additional time to indulge in good literature was nice, too.

The stream of life doesn’t run smoothly through a straight pipeline with the perfect fall! There are stones and other obstacles everywhere, the bed is narrowing and widening ever again, the height of fall is always changing. There’s a very diverse landscape unfolding along the banks. Isn’t it beautiful?