As previously mentioned, I have a small home-office (IRS take note!).

As with any anal-retentive 4th grader, my office is literally packed, floor to ceiling, with the various trinkets that I deem valuable; books, music, assorted tchotchkes.  My desk bears various photos; the obligatory pictures of my wife and children.  But there are more.

There are the pictures of my other loves.  There is the photo of my 1991 Harley-Davidson FXRS Low Rider: a reminder that we were young once (...and may never pass that way again).  But there is also a picture of my first love, "...the one who got away."

We knew each other years ago.  We lived together for over a decade.  She was Black.  She was beautiful.  She was lean and athletic and she had brown eyes that could see into my very soul. We would share long walks when I would pour my soul out to her alone. One of my most endearing memories is, often, as I was reading, she would sit down beside me and (silently) put her head on my shoulder, content merely to be in my company.  And when she left me, I was inconsolable; often reaching out to touch her absentmindedly.  To this day, I speak to her in moments of longing.

Her leash and collar still hang from their familiar hook on the back of my office door.

Yet, on a shelf high above the rest, there is another photo.  An older photo.  It is a photo without a date, but it was unmistakably taken in New York circa 1950.  It is the photo of a woman, approximately 40 years old. She is leaning dramatically against a skyscraper, holding her ubiquitous cigarette. In her lapel there is a broach that bears the shape of a dollar sign.  Although her contemporaries describe her as exuding an almost palpable sexuality, her photo shows only a short, hard-faced woman of middle-eastern heritage.  A Russian Jew, she immigrated to America in 1926.  Her name was Alissa Zinovievna Rosenbaum, however that was soon "Americanized."

My children, for years assumed that it was a picture of my mother.  My wife merely mocks my infatuation. She will often taunt me with "...What would Ayn do???"

An author, she would often write about the need for "profit."  It is a concept that I wrestle with to this day.

Put simply: "What constitutes profit?"   Only the shallowest reading of human nature would define "profit" as simply "more money."  Profit is much more than that.  It is taking what you've been given and making the most of it; making it into something more.  In the most elemental sense, greed is (...indeed) good.

I wrestle continuously with this concept; Am I doing all I can to improve myself, my family, ...my world?  What is my duty to the world, given the gifts that I posses?

Pompous, perhaps.  Yet, instructive.

I find myself, more and more, interested in the "big" subjects. Math.  Physics.  Philosophy.  The Classics.   The other day, I was viewing a video on the implications of Quantum Mechanics.  My youngest son (hardly the philosopher) asked me why I bothered.

"Do you have to study that?"

"...no."

"Will it help you with any of your jobs?"

"...no."

"Will it make you more money?"

"...no."

"Then why do you spend your time learning about that stuff?"

Why indeed?  Why should I involve myself in subjects that will certainly never bear any type of dividend?  Wouldn't my time and talents be better spent on other topics?

I think I've finally come to an answer...  It is for my soul.  I have been created (..."by whom" is an issue that I will wrestle with privately) to explore the Cosmos.  There is the joy of merely exploring one of nature's mysteries; either privately, or at the feet of a master from centuries ago.   The joy of simply knowing.

It is why I read.  It is why I write. It is why I listen to music. It is why I struggle to play music (however badly).  In many ways, it is why I laugh ...and cry.  It is why we whistle and sing in the shower.  For ...joy.

Each step toward greater knowledge, to greater ...understanding,  enhances my humanity, ...makes the Cosmos a more ordered place, a more beautiful home.

And when I die, will that knowledge depart with me?  Perhaps.  But, maybe, ...just maybe, the universe will be a tiny bit better.  A tiny bit more cohesive. 

...to touch (however fleetingly) the face of God.