Being a father is quite similar. I can provide a home environment and a variety of resources for my children. I can support them and even influence their growth. But I cannot direct their lives or mold the future for them anymore than my parents could do so for me. I can only offer them the benefit of my years on the planet, and hope they pick up the best, not the worst, of my ways (for some insight into how well or badly I'm succeeding, see the poem Father Figure).

We seem so powerless at times. How can we possibly be the Authors of our own lives? To me, this question is answered by the basic human paradox: We are helplessly caught in the flow of destiny, but our efforts affect its direction. The pawns of the universe are actually gods in chrysalis.

That's why I like to think of each day as a new page for my autobiography. Will my tale be intriguing or depressing, full of joy or soaked with sorrow? The good news is that we don't have to follow someone else's script. Our choices and attitudes are irrevocably our own. The bad news is that free will must also be accountable. We choose our own roles as victims or heroes. We decide whether to call an event a blessing or a curse. We can use our time here to be joyful and passionate, curious and alive. Or we can suffer and complain, worry and decay.

This dilemma of choice is the theme of The Last Book. We may not be able to choose all of the circumstances of our existence. We may be born rich or poor, male or female. We may even come into this world with disabilities which seem to put us at severe disadvantage in realizing our dreams. But we are constantly presented with options. And our own choices determine the course of our individual lives.

If my life, as presented in my writing, seems filled with travel and adventure, it is because I make my choices based upon how well they will "read." I treat living as a quest for new knowledge, experience, and understanding, with myself as the central character. I will deliberately place myself in interesting circumstances. That means taking risks, bending and breaking rules sometimes. It also means dealing with occasional failure and subsequent penalities. But I am always on the path of my own choosing, exploring my relationships to nature and others, to my self, and to God.