...A Book
Man-made gadgets come
with instruction books. Natural gadgets, such
as life, do not. Rather, life is a
book. In the beginning, however, all of its
pages are mysteriously blank, and we are puzzled as
to its meaning. Some imagine the pages to be
imprinted with a grand but invisible plan, and order
their lives to conform to that vision. Others
spend their lives speculating about the meaning of
life, leafing through the empty pages, waiting for
life's significance to be magically revealed; and one
day they reach the end of the tome, only to discover
that life is all gone and that it meant nothing.
But life is not a book
of mystical revelation; it is one of
experience. We write it ourselves, by living
it; its meaning is what we make it. Whether our
own book of life attains the cosmic best-seller list
is unimportant; after all, that list includes not
only the names of Jefferson and Einstein, but also
those of Torquemada and Hitler. What matters is
not whether what we write is spectacular, but whether
it is worthwhile. The humble life-scribblings
of a single honest laborer, devoted parent, or
earnest scholar far outshine the most elegant script
of all of history's "successful" demagogues
and tyrants.