The Fortunate Man
At some point, in the distant past, something happened which created stuff. Eventually, through all kinds of weirdness, that stuff became life. Life became sentient. Sentient beings had babies with each other in the right order until they had me, you, and all the people we know. Most importantly, for this story, is that one particular sperm in the millions that have found themselves in my dad's body hit the right egg in my mom's, and I began.
I was influenced by the foods my mom ate and many of the things she said and did for 9 months and the 30 years previous to those 9 months. I spent my first 3 years as a giant, largely stupid sponge, sopping up anything and everything that came my way, including a new brother. After that, I fell down or played in mud puddles and generally interacted with the world in order to learn things like the fact that fire is hot and sharp things hurt. When I was 5, I started making friends and meeting people, good and bad and neutral.
And everyone I met was determined not by me so much as all of those exact same random factors happening in all the places and times around my immediate place and time. Such events created Daniel and Toby and James. They would soon be creating Casey and my college pals, along with all the people who would be minor players or temporary roles in my life and protagonists in their own.
Due to good parenting and myriad other factors, I learned to read early and was fast-tracked in school, so that I was always a bit ahead of the learning curve. Perhaps this instead had to do with something like inherent intelligence, a factor which I was also presented with at birth free of charge. I lived at a time where children were learning more than ever in school and the opportunities presented me have ranged from weekend nature retreats to field trips to a two year work program in a country half way around the world.
As I have grown, nearly everything that is me has formed with no real input from me. I was, without my having any say in the matter, born a white, American male to the non-practicing protestant family of Robert and Deborah Earnhart in Hamel, IL in the year of 1984. Without ever having to work for it, I got to eat healthy, home-cooked foods, go to school in a developed nation, know the English language, live at a time and place in which the mortality rate for people like me was ridiculously low, generally enjoy myself without many fears or pains, and have more opportunities for exploring, knowing, and experiencing than most stuff to have existed could ever hope for (if even said stuff could hope).
So when I say, "I am a fortunate man," please know that I mean it in every sense of the word.
Have I worked hard? Yes, I think so. I have earned many things on top of those I was given. But I can never forget how lucky I am to have had the chance to do the work I have done. I can never forget how lucky I am to be able to experience happiness, and then how much luckier to have experienced it. I can never forget that I owe thanks uncountable to all the atoms, organisms, animals, and people who have passed before me for having the life I have today.
-Pocket wishes others would remember the same.
I was influenced by the foods my mom ate and many of the things she said and did for 9 months and the 30 years previous to those 9 months. I spent my first 3 years as a giant, largely stupid sponge, sopping up anything and everything that came my way, including a new brother. After that, I fell down or played in mud puddles and generally interacted with the world in order to learn things like the fact that fire is hot and sharp things hurt. When I was 5, I started making friends and meeting people, good and bad and neutral.
And everyone I met was determined not by me so much as all of those exact same random factors happening in all the places and times around my immediate place and time. Such events created Daniel and Toby and James. They would soon be creating Casey and my college pals, along with all the people who would be minor players or temporary roles in my life and protagonists in their own.
Due to good parenting and myriad other factors, I learned to read early and was fast-tracked in school, so that I was always a bit ahead of the learning curve. Perhaps this instead had to do with something like inherent intelligence, a factor which I was also presented with at birth free of charge. I lived at a time where children were learning more than ever in school and the opportunities presented me have ranged from weekend nature retreats to field trips to a two year work program in a country half way around the world.
As I have grown, nearly everything that is me has formed with no real input from me. I was, without my having any say in the matter, born a white, American male to the non-practicing protestant family of Robert and Deborah Earnhart in Hamel, IL in the year of 1984. Without ever having to work for it, I got to eat healthy, home-cooked foods, go to school in a developed nation, know the English language, live at a time and place in which the mortality rate for people like me was ridiculously low, generally enjoy myself without many fears or pains, and have more opportunities for exploring, knowing, and experiencing than most stuff to have existed could ever hope for (if even said stuff could hope).
So when I say, "I am a fortunate man," please know that I mean it in every sense of the word.
Have I worked hard? Yes, I think so. I have earned many things on top of those I was given. But I can never forget how lucky I am to have had the chance to do the work I have done. I can never forget how lucky I am to be able to experience happiness, and then how much luckier to have experienced it. I can never forget that I owe thanks uncountable to all the atoms, organisms, animals, and people who have passed before me for having the life I have today.
-Pocket wishes others would remember the same.