Pondering quotas and limits

I've been pondering today something I've said a time or two in these postings to the VicarRidge web log having to do with fishing limits. Each person fishing in this national park is limited to keeping four fish in any given day. And, I've reported that Tal had caught our limit on the days I operated the boat.

In listening to the conversations of the party of eight who arrived on Monday I've noticed that they are talking about reaching their quotas. What interests me is that the two patriarchs of the group, the brothers, are obviously very successful men. The sons and sons-in-law who are with them are in their late 20s and early 30s and are either well-employed or are still in school. And, they're the ones talking about getting their quota of fish. One of them wondered to the group at breakfast this morning that if they didn't reach their quota of the fish they as a group were allowed to take home with them could they take any at all? What started out as a way to protect this lake, then, has turned into something quite different, hasn't it?

What I've thought about today, following that exchange, is how obvious it is that the jobs those young men hold and, indeed, the lives they are living are high-stress and competitive, and that their positions in life are less than secure. How sad it is to so immersed in such a way of life that the punitive and negative terms associated with it come along on a fishing trip to such a remote place.

Probably that conversation would not have had such an impact on me were it not somehow true for me as well. So, all my pondering will be for nothing if I don't come to understand how I am doing the very same thing, just using a different vocabulary and working toward different goals.

More to ponder ...