Fallow

I was thinking last night just before I went to bed about the word fallow. In agriculture fallow is a good thing. If you take a field and leave it to its own devices for a year, choosing not to plant it, it's supposed to be good for the soil. The soil is less likely to become exhausted and it is less likely to harbour both pests and crop disease. Fallow is a good thing.

But not for people. If you stop using your body, stop exercising, your muscles will atrophy. You lose your stamina, flexibility and health. If you stop using your brain it atrophies as well. Little bits of your memory go and you begin to have difficulty connecting certain concepts that you used to not have trouble with.

The only really good thing about lying fallow is that the word implies a latent creativity somewhere. Some sort of good things yet to happen, lying under the surface. Good things to come, but only for the dirt.

I think about these things at night sometimes. Too bad that it means I usually can't sleep.