A child may ask, “What is the world’s story about?” And a grown man or woman may wonder, “What way will the world go? How does it end and , while we’re at it, what’s the story about?”
I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one, that has frightened and inspired us, so that we live in a Pearl White serial of continuing thought and wonder. Humans are caught – in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too – in a net of good and evil. I think this is the only story we have and that it occurs on all levels of feeling and intelligence. Virtue and vice were warp and woof of our first consciousness, and they will be the fabric of our last, and this despite any changes we may impose on field and river and mountain, on economy and mangers.
There is no other story. A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well – or ill?
Herodotus, in the Persian War, tells a story of how Croesus, the richest and most favored king of his time, asked Solon the Athenian a leading question. He would not have asked it if he had not been worried about the answer. “Who” he asked, “is the luckiest person in the world” He must have been eaten with doubt and hungry for reassurance. Solon told him of three lucky people in old times. And Croesus more than likely did not listen, so anxious was he about himself. And when Solon did not mention him, Croesus was forced to say, “Do you not consider me lucky?”
Solon did not hesitate in his answer. “How can I tell?” he said. “You aren’t dead yet.”
And this answer must have haunted Croesus dismally as his lucky disappeared, and his wealth and his kingdom. And as he was being burned on a tall fire, he may have thought of it and perhaps wished he had not asked or not been answered.
And in our time, when a man dies – if he has had wealth and influence and power and all the vestments that arouse envy, and after the living take stock of the dead man’s property and his eminence and works and monuments – the question is still there: Was his life good or was it evil? – which is another way of putting Coresus’s question. Envies are gone, and the measuring stick is: “Was he loved or was he hated? Is his death felt as a loss or does a kind of joy come of it?”
I remember clearly the deaths of three men. One was the richest man of the century, who, having clawed his way to wealth through the souls and bodies of men, spent many years trying to buy back the love he had forfeited and by that process performed great service to the world and, perhaps, had much more than balanced the evils of his rise. I was on a ship when he died. The news was posted on the bulletin board, and nearly everyone received the news with pleasure. Several said, “Thank God that son of a bitch is dead.”
Then there was a man, smart as Satan, who, lacking some perception of human dignity and knowing all too well every aspect of human weakness and wickedness, used his special knowledge to warp men, to buy men to bribe and threaten and seduce until he found himself in a position of great power. He clothed his motives in the names of virtue, and I have wondered whether he ever knew that no gift will ever buy back a man’s love when you have removed his self-love. A bribed man can only hate his briber. When this man died the nation rang with praise and, just beneath, with gladness that he was dead.
There was a third man, who perhaps made many errors in performance but whose effective life was devoted to making men brave and dignified and good in a time when they were poor and frightened and when ugly forced were loose in the world to utilize their fears. This man was hated by the few. When he died the people burst into tears in the streets and their minds wailed, “What can we do now? How can we go on without him?”
In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved. Indeed, most of their vices are attempted short cuts to love. When a man comes to die, no matter what his talents and influence and genius, if he dies unloved his life must be a failure to him and his dying a cold horror. It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world.
We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built in the neverending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal. Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is.
-Chapter 34, East of Eden 1952 by Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck.
Last night, at a very small gathering, I had the honor of meeting Dr. Joseph Murray, a brilliant man, 91 years young, recipient of the 1990 Nobel Prize in Medicine, Harvard Medical Professor Emeritus, author, pioneer, optimist and Steinbeck's Third Man.
Among the many things Dr. Murray said a few stuck with me. The first, his suggestion to read Steinbeck's Chapter 34 from East of Eden, copied above. The second, a quote: "The reason why this moment is so precious, is because it will never happen again."
Dr. Murray also expressed his enthusiasm to address a small living room sized gathering, as far different from the usual lecture theatre engagements. The wide range of the audience’s age from 22 years old to seniors added to depth of the anecdotes and lessons shared. Dr. Murray stressed the three ingredients he felt were necessary to achieve significant breakthroughs (in medicine) namely, “curiosity, imagination and perseverance.” He also mentioned a few factors to avoid such as “self-importance and obstinacy.”
I believe Dr. Murray suggested Steinbeck's "What is the world’s story about?" to point out that all we are is the sum of our choices. Every second we choose. At the end of our day, and even our life, these singular choices tell the story of our life.
Meeting Dr. Murray was an extreme privilege and something I hope I live long enough to always remember. Ultimately, his message to me was: We have only one story and we are the authors.
