REJUVENATION BEGINS WITH ME

White, the immaculate, furry wolf who had been running the now deteriorating animal farm for over a year, was growing weary. Apart from managing a pain in his anus for which he was receiving treatment, the whole governance business exhausted him. He was tired of the complaints of ungrateful disloyal animals, especially non-wolves. He was tired of the animals with good memories, especially the elephants who remembered every single thing he promised when he was trying to take over from the cow that ran the farm before, Goodhead. The elephants recited his promises to him. They reminded him that he promised rejuvenation. That he promised 5 bags of grain to each animal family that couldn't afford food. That he promised to stabilise the exchange rate of grains. That he promised not to be like he was as a young, violent, aggressive wolf. He promised he had changed. He was born again. 

White was tired. And so his farm hands, seeing the wrinkles on his face, devised a plan. It was an amazing plan. They told him to flip the tables. “Change things,” they said, “make them work for it. You are wise and benevolent. You are kind and holy. No one should make you tired. Yes, you promised rejuvenation, but so what? What work are the lazy animals doing? Do they not have a duty also to rejuvenate themselves? When they are hungry do they not look for food? When they are thirsty do they not look for water? Do they wait for their bodies to magically rejuvenate? Why do they place this great burden on you?”

White heard this great argument and was convinced. He thus commissioned a new slogan titled: “Rejuvenation Begins With You” with posters of camels drinking water at a stream. He spent a lot of money launching this project and said it was directed at making animals take responsibility for their own lives. “If a camel is thirsty, it drinks. And it stores water inside its body for times of drought. All animals must make rejuvenation of the farm start with them.”

White spoke passionately (even though he still felt a pain in his anus when he squatted to defecate) and told animals to take their destinies into their own hands and not wait for him to fix the farm. And the worshippers of White fell on their faces and cried out in praises, calling White wise and great. And they painted it on their bodies: Rejuvenation Begins With Me. And they preached it. And they sang it. 

White was still tired. Tired of having to say a new thing each time he visited a different set of animals. “They expect me to have a new speech every time, like I had words waiting in my paws.” And the farm hands of White too were tired of writing new speeches. And they made a list of great speeches made by great farm managers across the animal world. They read through those speeches and picked out the ones they really liked and circled the paragraphs that would resonate with animals on the farm. And each time White would go out they would sneak in a paragraph from those speeches so that White would not have to make up all the words himself. Because White was tired. And they were tired. And White did not read enough to detect when his speech was stolen. And in the end, it was just words; no one owns words. 

While all this was going on, the wife of the former farm manager Goodhead, who almost wrecked the farm with his theft, was living her life peacefully. The farm hands of White who were looking into the theft by Goodhead’s farm hands found lots of grains stashed in a field owned by Goodhead’s wife, a female cow who had eaten so much of the farms grains she looked like she was about to burst. And she swore that all those grains were to maintain her weight because she was told by the veterinarian she met outside the farm (and he took a lot of grain for his treatment), that she needed quite a lot of grain to maintain her body weight and that if her body weight dropped, she could have a heart attack. 

And although White swore and promised that he was going to imprison all the animals that had stolen grain together with Goodhead, White was too tired to see it through. And he settled for embarrassing them in public. He released information about their theft so that the whole farm would know. But he didn’t have the energy to actually imprison the senior animals who had stolen with Goodhead. 

And the leader of the crocodile farm kept quietly plotting to replace White. 

And there was famine creeping up on the animals in the farm.

And the worshippers of White chanted: Rejuvenation Begins With Me.

And the farm hands castigated the elephants who had long memories. 

And the entire farm went into a recession.

And the farm hands said that recession was just a word. (And they were right)

And grains became more expensive.

And the farm hand in charge of grains blamed the rising cost of grains on the disloyal animals who ate too much grains. 

And Whitist priests prayed:

In the name of the White father

And of the farm hands

And of the holy Whitists…

Bless us White for we have sinned

Bless our thoughts

Bless our desires

Bless our intentions

Blessed be thy name

Thy will be done in every quarter among every animal species

Teach us to love your will

Teach us to be teachable

Teach us to trust your will even when your will may not be clear

Teach us to defend your will before it becomes your will

For thine are the decisions, the thoughts and the glory

For as long as you choose to be farm leader

Amen