Author Robert Fulghum has calculated (with some notable exaggeration) that in his life so far he has spent 35,000 hours eating, 30,000 hours in traffic getting from one place to another, 2508 hours brushing his teeth, 870,000 hours just coping with odds and ends, filling out forms, repairing things, paying bills, getting dressed and undressed, and 217,000 hours at work. “There’s not a whole lot left over when you get finished adding and subtracting,” he says. “The good stuff has to fit in somewhere. Which is why I often say, ‘It’s not the meaning of life, it’s the meaning in life.'” All of us have attended lectures which end with the speaker asking, “Are there any questions?”
On such occasions, Fulghum says he usually asks the most important question of all: “What is the meaning of life?” He says that the question is never taken seriously–people laugh and nod and gather up their stuff and the meeting ends on that ridiculous note. But once when he asked that question, to his surprise, he got a serious answer.
It came from Doctor Alexander Papaderos, a Greek philosopher and teacher and founder of an Institute on the Isle of Crete dedicated to human understanding and peace. One summer, Fulghum attended a two week seminar at the Institute. At the conclusion of the final session, Doctor Papaderos asked: “Are there any questions?” There was only quiet. So Fulghum asked, “Doctor Papaderos, what is the meaning of life?” … The usual laughter followed, and people stirred to go.
Papaderos held up his hand and stilled the room and looked at me for a long time, asking with his eyes if I was serious and seeing from my eyes that I was. “I will answer your question,” he said. Then, taking his wallet out of his hip pocket, he fished into a leather billfold and brought out a very small round mirror, about the size of a quarter.
Then he said: “When I was a small child, during the war, we were very poor and we lived in a remote village. One day, on the road, I found several broken pieces of a mirror. A German soldier’s motorcycle had been wrecked in that place. I tried to find all the pieces and put them together, but it was not possible, so I kept only the largest piece. This one. And by scratching it on a stone I made it round. I began to play with it as a toy and became fascinated by the fact that I could reflect light into dark places where the sun would never shine–in deep holes and crevices and dark closets. It became a game for me to get light into the most inaccessible places I could find. I kept the little mirror, and as I went about my growing up, I would take it out in idle moments and continue the challenge of the game.
“As I became a man, I grew to understand that this was not just a child’s game but a metaphor for what I might do with my life. I came to understand that I am not the light or the source of light. But light– truth, understanding, knowledge–is there, and it will only shine in many dark places if I reflect it. I am a fragment of a mirror whose whole design and shape I do not know. Nevertheless, with what I have I can reflect light into the dark places of this world–into the black places in the hearts of men–and change some things in some people. Perhaps others may see and do likewise. This is what I am about. This is the meaning of my life.”
And then he took his small mirror and, holding it carefully, caught the bright rays of daylight streaming through the window and reflected them onto my face and onto my hands folded on the desk.
Robert Fulghum, “It was On Fire When I Lay Down On It.”
