I Could Be Wrong, But…

Sometimes—about once every 17 minutes—I ask myself, "Yo! What should I be doing? I mean, like, with my life?"

Shouldn’t I be doing something?

Shouldn’t everybody be doing something?

Sure, you’ve answered the fundamental question, "To be, or not to be?" But what do you do next?

There are an infinite number of answers. "Eat." "Wear clean underwear in case of car crash." "Borrow Norm’s snowblower." "Explain DNA." "Visit internet porn site operated by the FBI."

But not one soul in the multi-million year history of humanity has ever figured out a universal answer—a totally correct and verifiably true answer—to reveal to each and every person what they should be doing with their lives—at any and every given moment.

Until now. I have the answer. And I will share it with you.

But first, I shall wander.

My earliest memory is of walking through a small city park, with my mother, on the way to the dentist. I was maybe three years old. I vividly remember how I lagged a few steps behind my mother. She either didn’t notice, or didn’t want to show that she noticed. So I lagged some more—increasing the distance, expanding the separation. It was thrilling, and frightening. It was as if all of my three years on the planet up to that moment I had been stuffing my consciousness with stimuli and experience all to the one end of preparing for the sudden, fundamental understanding that hit me about when I reached thirty or forty feet of distance between myself and my mom—I was separate!

Therefore, I was alive!

On some deep, wordless level, I also realized—fully, intuitively and exactly—not only that I was alive, but that I was in control. I may have been three years old, but I got it: I was in the driver’s seat. That separation I had been the first in the history of mankind to discover? I could increase it or decrease it

Two nano-seconds after this flash of understanding I also realized something else—everyone around me was separate, too! But they didn’t know it; only I knew it, understood it. Everyone else thought they were connected. I was the only person in the world who knew that to be separate is to be alive. The pressure was staggering. But I remained calm; I kept my mouth shut; I coped.

Three years later at the age of six I would also be the first human in history to discover death, but that’s another story.

Over time I’ve come to realize that every relationship anyone on this planet ever has is always about this gap, this separation that I had discovered—the widening of it, the narrowing of it, and the never-to-be-completely-closed reality of it.

And ever since that trip to the dentist forty-two years ago I have been asking myself—about once every 17 minutes—"Yo! What should I be doing? I mean, like, with my life?" [This question is third on my private list of Frequently Asked Questions, right behind "Am I ever going to eat again?" (about every 9 minutes), and two spots behind "Am I ever going to get laid again?" (about every 7 minutes)].

Very soon after that epiphany on the journey to the dentist at age three I developed my first working hypothesis to explain why I was alive and what I should be doing: I was alive to grow up as fast as possible and get the hell out.

Get out of what, I hadn’t a clue. But the wordless knowledge I possessed told me I was in some kind of box, or container, not unlike the giant cardboard box the new refrigerator had arrived in and that my brothers and I took to the backyard, crawled inside of, and rolled around the yard in. Fun stuff. But kind of creepy, too.

Which reminds me that I am also the first person in history to have discovered claustrophobia, but that’s another story.

Where was I? Ah, yes: In four decades of monotonous, fruitless, non-Nobel Prize-nominated pondering over what I should be doing with my life I have developed and tested 274 working hypotheses. A few were promising, such as the hypothesis that carried me through the 1980s in Manhattan: Get a better job, a better apartment, a better lover. Or the hypothesis that carried me through five years as a substitute parent: Tell stories, play games, tell him he can do it, then stand back, but within reach, and let him.

Ultimately, I discarded all 274 hypotheses. I was searching for a Grand Unifying Theory—the one single answer that applies to all people and tells them what to do with their lives at every given moment—not just some private instruction on what to do with my own life.

This week I became the first person in history to discover what each and every person should do with their life: wander around and do what they most want to do.

That’s it. You heard it here first. Just wander around and do what you most want to do.

Sure, lots of people choose to wander in straight lines. Albert Einstein pretty much wandered onto a beam of light in his early teens and rode it through the rest of his life, going wherever it carried him. In this country at this time in history many people wander the straight line of work—buy house—have kids—buy SUV—ignore kids—watch television—buy processed food—fantasize about sex with neighbor.

But those of us who wander crooked paths, like drunken sailors, are far more interesting. Take George W. Bush, please. A fanatical Evangelical Christian rich boy from Texas with a grudge against Iraq, and a prodigal son who returned home, he wandered, by way of Florida, into the White House.

Take Osama bin Laden, please. A fanatical Muslim rich boy from Saudi Arabia with a grudge against America, and a prodigal son who did not go home, he wandered, by way of Afghanistan, into the leadership of a multinational Murder, Inc.

George attacked Iraq, to hell with everyone else, because that’s what he (and many others) most wanted to do. Osama attacked America, to hell with everyone else, because that’s what he (and many others) most wanted to do. Osama murdered thousands of people and destroyed billions of dollars of property, because that’s what he most wanted to do. And George... you do the math.

And take Attorney General Ashcroft, please. Please! While Osama could kill Americans and destroy their property, he could not touch their liberty, their individual rights. That would require someone who had wandered into the very job charged with protecting those individual rights, and who most wanted to abrogate them.

Whatever you are doing—doing right now—is what you most want to do. Absolutely. If it wasn’t, you’d be doing something else. Because you can. We all can. Even every person in North Korea or Iraq or Iran can do what they most want to do. It may be the last thing they do, or if they’re not so lucky, the last thing they do before being stuffed into a prison cell and tortured to death.

My Grand Unifying Theory to tell each and every living person what to do with their life is still perfect. Go ahead, test it. Let’s say that you assert that you most want to be having sex with Ashley Judd. But there you are, watching arena football on television. Face it: you really most want to be watching arena football on television. Until your beer is empty. Then you change your desire, and want something else even more. But do you get up, go out, and begin the journey that will take you to schtumpfing Miss Judd? Nope. You get up, go to the refrigerator, and grab another beer. Because that’s what you most want to do.

My discovery of this fundamental truth, the reason for each of us to be here, applies equally and universally, to all people—and in fact applies to every life-form on this planet. (An admission: observations of my golden retriever provided the eureka, the "Ah, ha!" moment, in my epic struggle to become the first person in history to solve this riddle.)

This truth I have discovered is so simple, so perfect, so elegant, it applies not just to individuals, but even to all groups of people, in any combination. From couples, to Elks Clubs, to nations.

And, just as every nation gets the leader it deserves, every nation does exactly what it most wants to do. Go ahead, test it. North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Russia, France, Belize, Czech Republic.

America.

We have the leader we deserve. He is doing what he most wants to do. We are each of us doing what we most want to do. When the bombs drop, I drop them. You drop them. We drop them.

Conjugate that.

Why? Because it’s what we most want to do.

While I wander around doing what I most want to do I try to always remember what I discovered on the trip to the dentist when I was three: Everyone of us is forever separate.

And I try to remember what I've learned in the other 42 years of living: Not one of us is ever alone.

See you around.

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