16.

Just like Solomon before him, shortly after Joshua's fifteenth birthday he prayed to be wise. And so in this endeavor to be wise he read many books he comprehended nothing of, and entered into philosophical mysteries he knew little more of once he'd read them. But one thing he did learn from these books on the classic eternal debates, one resolution he came to, is that it is not the philosopher's job to determine whether there were such a thing as a free agency in man's spirit, but rather to explain how such a free agency can exist. For nothing is more clear to a man that he is free completely and absolutely to move the hand up or down as he should choose, or write with the pencil an A or an O, as this freedom is a clear fact indisputable and firm. But just as it is hard to determine the action of some small particle of matter on the atomic level, but easy to determine the path of myriad such particles that make up the pencil when it is released into the air and is certain to travel down, so too are the actions of nations and groups of men subject to laws beyond their control, though these laws determine a single individual not one iota. For it was certain from the time a man first ignited fire that men would one day create the airplane and missile, though any one of those men were free to move their hands or legs about in perfect liberty and indeterminable agency.

And another conclusion that Joshua gleaned from his study was that freedom and justice often sits upon the support of murder and war, and that the result of the most evil intents often, through some random accident, saved billions of men from death and blessed billions of innocents. And he saw in war good men on both sides slaughtering one another--and yet their actions were good and noble, though mutually opposed, the intents of good men contradicting the intents of equally good men. Thus everything became to him ironic, such that a good man's actions hindered good the more he should try to make them yield a crop of blessings, and evil men set good things in motion to flourish. In the same way does some inventor tinker at some invention, and happen upon the answer and solution by virtue of an error he made; that is, by virtue of failing at doing what he intended to do, and thus bring about his intent by virtue of failing in his efforts to bring it about. At the same time war was no more war than peace was peace, but peace under tyranny could be the worst possible state, and war the only thing that good men ought to clamor for. And while a good twin may murder his evil twin in cold blood in peacetime and be called a villain, should an evil brother murder his good brother in war his act is called as noble as it would be had his brother murdered him. In these meditations did Joshua grow bewildered and confused, so that he saw the noble path of man must always be toward what was good and just, no matter the random issue of such acts that could never be determined.

He also grew very disturbed at the very path his mind was set upon, which placed wisdom above justice; for he felt now that wisdom was only the honesty of intellect that called the world a bewildering thing that could not be fixed upon. So he prayed again that he may replace the wish that Solomon had had as well as he, for a nobler wish--the wish to be good. He felt that this was the only noble study there was to which any man could dedicate the energies of life; and so went forth determined to be a standard-bearer not for wisdom and the bewilderment it truly was, but for Good, the only noble thing on earth. And his goodness he knew was called the basest evil--when twice-removed to another perspective--just as wisdom is not wisdom but the more it is plumbed the more confused it became; but he set these meditations aside like a weary man closing a book to go to sleep, and trusted that there was such a thing as Goodness; so he prayed to be good. And his prayer was not ignored, though eventually it would cause him the greatest grief and anguish; for to be good is the worst wish a man could have, since the good are by nature the most tortured and punished of any creature on the face of the earth. A man in prison when guilty does not have the same anguish as a man when put innocent into the chains; for he supposes that he got away with receiving less punishment than he actually deserved, while the bitterness only grows for the imprisoned innocent.

And another thought struck him, equally disturbing, which was that he was not the exception, but the rule; that hardly one in a million men on earth would wish that evil should triumph and good fall out in failure; and yet evil still triumphed, and good in this world was a rare thing. Man became in this way his own greatest vexation; and Man always sought out justice, bringing to fruition always the opposite of what he'd intended, while none were to blame but he himself. Man knows the right act and does it; and the right act once or twice removed turned around and bit him, so that he was made as foolish as a man who cuts off his left hand with his own right hand to heal it, and then slices off his own head as recompense for the crime.

As these thoughts flowed through Joshua, suddenly he leaned back in his reading chair with throaty laugher, and the one thought gripped him, so that he said it aloud again and again: "But why should I care?" And he knew this was the very heart of all the wisdom of the sages, though he understood it little and it mattered to him less: "If all humankind is wiped out and obliterated forever, why in the world should I care at all?" And it seemed to him he was finally dwelling upon the eternal things and the things of God, but he was not disturbed rushing in as he was where angels fear to tread; for the eternal things and the things of God are at once the most silly and meaningless and lightweight notions one can have. And an image came to him of a Face, and the Face was splashing cool heavy water over his ebony complexion; for Jesus of Nazareth, the god-man whose image was the purest dark Negroid, had come near to him and lightly patted his head, though all of this remained incomprehensible to him.