Qualitative's Quantitative Dilemma

I don’t pretend to have many answers. I nevertheless find poetic questioning ever the challenge. (Photo anonymous)

Qualitative’s Quantitative Dilemma
                              by Odin Roark

Numbers in checkers
Numbers in chess

Thinking beyond 2 + 2 = 4
Knowing 2 & 2
Portends extension
Invites the mind to ponder
Knowing a concluded 4
Indubitably finite

And so it goes
This constant tug-a-war
Placing the challenging value of quality
Against the easier calculated quantity

Like the riches of a fairytale ruler
Versus the needs-fulfilled of the provincial
One wallows in numbers for counting
While the other sees their every move
That of thinking through what constitutes
The next hour’s harvest of nourishment

Who is with the fear of losing?
The burden of fright?

Who smiles trustingly on patience?
The gift of nurturing?

If life were a board game
Which terrain would you choose?

That of hop skip and jump
The plundering of any spoils within reach
Or that which demands careful decision
Where precise positioning of tomorrow
May continue to provide all one needs
While protecting all worth dying for
That stealth-like foreshadowing gift
Answering one of history’s
Exhaustive conundrums

Must quality of long-term goals
Always be threatened by
Quantity of short-term rewards?