Bonus

What is good, Socrates?
Can't you make me look inside myself to find the good?
Can't you turn me away from fleeting shadows to embrace what is real?
Just for once,
Or once again,
Make me look inside.

I want. I need.
This is the universal condition of man.
I am born as a crying bundle of wants,
Waking every moment in screaming need,
Depending from a babe upon the willingness of another to Give, to suckle.

Give me! I need!

16,000 dollars is a surety.
A sign-on bonus.
I sign my name to a piece of paper.
A piece of paper is a charter to a future,
A vast, unexplored new land.
I wake up, and find myself serving another.
And through service, I live more.

I become an explorer, an adventurer in the old sense.
And this vast new territory is my life, my own future.

Choices.

What would I even do with such money?
Feed the poor? Feed my starving self?
Pay off some debts?

One thing is certain.
It is a fresh start.
New life.
Bonus life.

Is the good wrapped up in a moment?
How long does it last?
Is it a poem, a couple of words?
Is it a guitar string?
A chord that makes my soul dance?

Every morning I wake up to a gift and an opportunity.
I am still alive.
This morning I am alive, and the future is happening now.
I am a project, a poem, a song.

To Be is greatest of all,
Because it is full of limitless opportunity.

(And in dying, to be with God, all imperfections cast aside)

Yes, I can't go wrong.
Living is good, and dying is gain.

Now, can a man make an experiment of himself?
Can he place a stake in the ground
And claim the future
Through an ambition?

An ambition to be,
To be free,
Not artificially limited by fear,
Free to experience all that life has,
Freedom through service to something greater than himself?

Yes, he can experiment. And he must.
He awakes every morning with the capacity to Choose.

As a man, to be IS to experiment.

Let him, then, in experimenting, place fear aside.
Let him have the courage to look life in the face and say,
"I want more.
I want it all."

This is the good of a bonus.
To want it all.
And (to borrow a summary slogan),
To Be all he can Be.