There is no problem in the world that a hoe can't solve

I have a friend who bought a farm and, therefore, is obsessed with the hoe. He just talks about it! The other day we met and, beer goes, beer comes, I told him about some problems I was facing, one of those anxieties born from the told-me-said and fertilized with the caraminholes in my head. He was emphatic: “Stop it. Buy a hoe and go hoe a lot”. For this friend of mine, there is no problem in the world that cannot be solved with a little willingness. And a hoe, of course.

Oh, I don’t feel comfortable in this body – hoe. Oh, today I woke up without inspiration to deliver the chronicle – hoe. Oh, I suffer from this political polarization – hoe. Ai, the company where I work is going to implement an ESG program – hoe. Oh, I feel insignificant before the Universe – hoe. Oh, how expensive is the Häagen-Dazs – hoe. Ouch, Uber is two minutes late – hoe. Oh, I’ve been so stressed with this government that I’ve even gained weight – hoe. Oh, there’s too much weeds in this rose garden (huh?) – hoe.

There really doesn’t seem to be a problem in today’s world that can’t be solved by a good weeding session (not to be confused with

carpinejaragem). No tweet or mocking Facebook post or Tik Tok hysteria can resist the healing, if not purifying, effect of the hoe. It surprises me, therefore, that there are no quantum therapists out there offering the cure for the ills of the soul by providing people with a good hoe in the face of at least a bushel of weeds. Here’s a tip.

The hoe is there as a synonym for manual work, that is, hard work, which makes your back sweat and hurts, as opposed to intellectual work, whose pains tend to be invented – except for a little RSI every now and then. The superiority of the hoe as, say, therapy and a path to happiness is even present in the Bible. After all, Ecclesiastes already teaches (1: 18) that whoever thinks suffers.

After two hours listening to my complaints and answering with just one word (hoe), the friend suggested that I write an ode to the hoe. “Poetry at a time like this?”, I thought about asking, but I gave up when I realized that the best answer would be “why not?”. Anytime is time for poetry, even more so if it is to talk about an object as simple as a hoe. The problem is… Well, I’m having a bad day. Distressed. Thinking about how the calf’s death affects my life. In doubt if the best rhyme for “love” is really “pain”. I’m lurking on the horizon – whatever that means. Therefore, the solution for my day is not an ode, but the hoe itself.

Panacea

In which I never he had stopped to think until prompted by his friend. Poor hoe. I always saw it as a minor tool. At least a less famous tool than the hammer and sickle. Personally, my connection with the hoe is quite remote. I used it to catch worms in a life that seems different, so agrarian and simple. And I once got scolded by the Agricultural Techniques teacher for carrying a hoe over my shoulder. I almost hit a colleague in the head. Which, let’s face it, would make a much nicer story to tell nowadays.

A quick survey, however, shows that there’s a lot more to the hoe than the simple suggestion that our intellectual problems they are frivolities in the face of the noble office of carving a plot. First of all, respect the hoe! It accompanies man even before the plow. The hoe is so important that the Sumerians believed the tool was invented by Enlil. “And who is this Enlil?” you ask. None other than the head of the Council of Gods.

Of course, because it is associated with work, the hoe is the enemy of leftists. Just look at the case of the labor leader (if you know what I mean…) César Chávez. In the 1970 decade, he played Randolfe Rodrigues and appealed to the California Supreme Court to bring the hoe to trial. That’s because, in the long run, the tool caused back pain for farmers. Result: in 1975, the short-handled hoe was banned from the state.

And now we come to the end of this chronicle. I’m here thinking about the best way to finish the text, but at this time I don’t think of little verses, aphorisms or comic-political references. I resort to the infinite corridors of this badly treated gray mass. In the search, however, I end up missing the door and entering the Great Hall of Sorrows. I’m almost curling into a fetal position, about to feel sorry for myself, to cry to the sound of Nelson Gonçalves, when I remember my friend and his panacea. Hoe.

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