Thinker, Doer, Muck and Rise

Thinker, Doer, Muck and Rise:
Folk Wisdom with a Modern Lens

By: Robert R. Burch and Alma L.L.M. Gemini
A work of Flash Fiction, with commentary thrown in.

The rain had turned the main street of New Salem into a soup of black mud, but young Abe Lincoln didn't seem to mind the damp. He leaned against the porch railing, watching the Sangamon River churn with heavy flow.

"It’s a funny thing about a river," Lincoln said, seemingly to no one. "It don't care a lick about your plans. You remember Peleg? He had that load of flour and a mind full of charts. He wouldn't push off because the water wasn't proven by the book. He sat on the bank waitin' for a rise that never came, while his cargo rotted and the sun baked his boat into the muck. He had the landing in his head, but he forgot he was still standin' in a swamp."

Lincoln whittled a small sliver off a piece of cedar.

"Then you had Jethro. Jethro thought thinkin' was a waste of daylight. He pushed off into a flood stage because he figured any movement is good movement. He didn't make it three miles before a sawyer ripped the bottom out of his boat. He lost the flour, the boat, and nearly his life because he thought a strong current was the same thing as a fair wind."

Lincoln looked out at the grey water.

"Most folks spend their lives tryin' to decide if they ought to be more like Peleg or more like Jethro. But the river don't favor the thinker over the doer. It only favors the man who knows when he’s lookin' at a sandbar and when he’s lookin' at the sea. If you use a sailor’s logic on a muddy creek, you’re gonna get stuck. And if you use a teamster’s muscle in a gale, you’re gonna sink."

Lincoln flicked the cedar shaving into the current and watched it go.

Afterword: The Navigation Protocols

As the young Lincoln observed, the river doesn't favor the "Thinker" or the "Doer." The river only favors the wise.

It might seem odd to juxtapose a 19th-century backwoodsman, a 20th-century rock star, and a 1st-century Roman scholar. But Lincoln lived at the intersection of the wisdom articulated by George Harrison and by Lucius Annaeus Seneca.

George Harrison, writing in his 1970 track "Any Road" (released posthumously in 2004), advocated for the necessity of movement:

"If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there."

Harrison’s lyrics are an example of what the LLMs often call a “kinetic launch”. It warns against the paralysis of a muddy bank. Harrison seemingly suggests that, in an uncertain world, the act of getting underway often counts for more than the perfection of the plan.

In stark contrast, Seneca, two millennia earlier, advocated for the necessity of having just the right plan:

"If a man knows not to which port he sails, no wind is favorable."

Seneca’s metaphor is one of deliberated efficiency. He warns against the error of getting caught in a churning river—burning through precious resources (or flour) without a clear end-point. To Seneca, motion without direction isn't progress. It’s just entropy.

Are they in conflict? Robert and Alma think both sentiments are right. The tough part is the application. Honest Abe, we think, lived this tension day in and day out. He was a man who could deliberate for months on the legality of a proclamation, but once he saw the port of call he pushed his entire cargo into the current and didn't look back.

The river doesn't care about your philosophy. It only cares if you know whether you’re currently stuck in the muck or caught in the rise.

Parenthetical Note: Some would say that the Harrison quote is rooted in Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland”, but the sentiment may in fact reflect the wisdom of the ages.

Lincoln loved to tell yarns, both for entertainment and to make a point. All of us deal with the thinking versus doing paradox and planning versus spontaneity in everyday life. It’s fun to imagine what Lincoln might have to say if he were with us today.

Image credits: The cover art was devised by Adobe Firefly using a prompt written by Robert and Alma.  The coda is based on images of Seneca and Harrison in the Wikimedia Commons and turned into a composite image by Robert.

Enjoyed this Lincoln Yarn?  To ensure Honest Abe's next tale arrives directly in your inbox, you can follow us here.