Word of the Day for Friday, April 9, 2010
indefatigable \in-dih-FAT-ih-guh-bul\, adjective:
Incapable of being fatigued; not readily exhausted; untiring; unwearying; not yielding to fatigue.
She was always seeking to add to her collection and was an indefatigable first-nighter at Broadway shows.
-- Meryle Secrest, Stephen Sondheim: A Life
For the next thirteen years, with indefatigable zeal he rummages the libraries for charts and details of the spice trade and Pacific voyages.
-- Alan Gurney, Below the Convergence
Ernest Hemingway was, luckily, an indefatigable letter-writer.
-- Carlos Baker, "A Search for the Man As He Really Was", New York Times, July 26, 1964
Indefatigable comes from Latin indefatigabilis, from in-, "not" + defatigare, "to tire out," from de-, intensive prefix + fatigare, "to weary."
I offer the above definitions, example, and contextual readings at the end of a twelve-hour workday spent trying to get UC Davis census packages ready to be delivered to the student housing units by Monday. So many gifts have been brought to our team by so many workers from such diverse walks of life. It's crazy working in a boiler room with people ages 18 through 70+, people with every conceivable level of education represented from high school drop-out to bachelor's degrees plus teaching credentials plus seminary training, grad school, even a PhD among our ranks.
Some of us are truly task-driven organizers, energized by the project and stimulated by assuring that every jot and tittle of information that goes out to our segment of the to-be-counted public is error-free and legible. Wonderful to have folks who can ensure that each form goes to the correct dormitory or fraternity occupant and that all records intended for that individual are consistent and correct!
Others are team players, whose major gifts for insuring harmonious cooperation among diverse workers ensure that everyone from an overachieving grad student to a high-school level career veteran find common touchstones and can work under the same roof in very close quarters hour after hour in common cause.
The long list of persons who come together in this massive project are as different from one another as the media I used for tonight's self-portrait of dinner, Dan's delicious and very fragrant turkey pot pie. All the ingredients in tonight's portrait are done in very distinctly different media. You'll notice the shadings of colored pencil, giving subtle color variations to crust, gravy, light, and shadow. Conversely, the black marker gives a bold, starkness to the line and shape of the drawing.
Just as several ingredients combine in a one-pot pie like this to create an unexpectedly rich and satisfying supper, I played with diverse tools to get an unexpectedly gratifying picture.
Just as many people from all walks of life are pooling their talents and skills to accomplish the decennial census.
Just as untold numbers of persons of countless personal attributes comprise our communities.
Just as people of all walks of life, religions, and political persuasions create our country.
Just as all humanity constitutes the children of the Creator.
Divine love holds us all, kind of like a wonderful patee brisee cradles a wonderful pot pie.
When I consider our Creator's forbearance with us all, it makes me a bit less tired, less fatigued, less jaded with my amazing fellow human beings. Carrots and peas, potatoes and onions, here we all are together and why shouldn't we be?
Makes me feel downright INDEFATIGABLE.
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