The Writer's Poke

I wanted to go on an Alaskan cruise this summer, and I monitored cruise prices daily until they finally hit the sweet spot. Unfortunately, once prices hit the sweet spot, I admitted to myself that whether the cruise cost $899 or $1599, it really didn’t matter. The price might be right, but other variables made it next to impossible for me to leave home for the 2+ plus weeks such a trip would require. So naturally I was a little depressed, and I allowed myself to stew for a few days. What good is having time off when I’m still not free to utilize it in the manner I would like? What good is having the money to purchase the tickets when I still cannot “afford” to go? I was locked into a “woe is me” frame of mind. Don’t get me wrong: I wasn’t angry at my situation, but it would be fair to say that I was disappointed. I wanted to go on an Alaskan cruise this summer, and couldn't help feeling that I should be able to go on an Alaskan cruise this summer! I’ve felt this way ...

In some ways, Pawel is your average 10 year old. He likes to race and play. He likes to skate. He’s just starting to become interested in girls. In other ways, Pawel is anything but average. He has his own computer, but he uses it to program, not to play games. He likes story problems. And, he’s interested in finding out the purpose for living. When Pawel discovers one of the neighborhood dogs dead, its fur frozen in the cold, it not surprisingly depresses him. More than that, however, it also causes him to consider whether or not life has a purpose. What satisfaction can he take in solving a word problem? How powerful are computers if he can’t program them to explain why the living must die? Pawel’s dad can explain what death is from a rational point of view, but Pawel craves a deeper explanation. His father tells him that the soul is just a term people have developed to make life easier for the living, but even his aunt, who has a strong Catholic faith, probably wouldn’t d...