This inability is made worse by the fact that, as discussed, our motivation to solve each other’s problems drops when their numbers grow too big. And yet, the dilemma, in this case, is not the babies. Babies are wonderful. The problem is that there is a scale differential between the number of people on Earth and our ability (and desire) to solve their problems.
Think about it like this: When two parents give birth to a third child, they start using sports analogies. They say, Now we have to play zone defense, by which they mean they’re outnumbered and can no longer maintain a one-on-one approach to their children.
So what if a family had ten children, or thirty children, or a hundred children? At a certain point, their ability to solve their problems would break down. The best they could hope for would be survival.
Which, as we know, is the lowest standard of living.
*
How is the book going to end? my daughter asked me again yesterday. It’s important to her that everything turns out okay. It’s important to me, too.
I still don’t know, I told her.
Later that night I lay in bed, worrying.
Are they going to make it? I wondered. Simon and Duane, Paul and Louise.
Her wounds were healing, I decided—our Louise—she ate the soup they heated for her in the plane’s galley, but in the aftermath of her attack, Louise had yet to speak.
This too is a form of healing.
Look what they’ve survived so far, I told myself that night, trying to be reassuring.
If they made it through a war, they can make it through this—starting their own community, surviving the harsh winters, the soaring summer temperatures.
Bear attacks.
Other people.
But I’m worried.
I’m worried because, for these children—like my own children—the future is unclear. What will they do to feed themselves? What if they get sick? What if there’s a natural disaster or bad men visit in the night with hate in their hearts? What happens when the oceans rise and the ice caps melt? Will they be able to fix what we have broken? Will they be able to save the world?
*
Here’s another question.
What if empathy doesn’t lead to anything?
What if—like happiness or misery—feelings of empathy hit you intensely in the moment but then wane over time? For example, when we see a homeless child, we feel a swell of empathy. The feeling brings with it a bloom of moral righteousness—I feel empathy, therefore I am a moral being. This, in turn, increases our conviction that we are good people. We carry that feeling of moral goodness with us through the rest of our day, and yet the child is still homeless. What have we done to help her, other than feel her pain?
*
How’s it going to end? she asks.
You tell me, I say.
*
Once upon a time there was a boy who would only say no and a boy who would only say yes. And they fought the endless war, leading their endless armies.
No! screamed one side.
Yes! screamed the other.
On and on it went, year after year.
And then one day a new generation was born. And they saw the world for what it was. The beautiful things were beautiful. The problems could be fixed. But not with no and not with yes.
Look, they said, the solution is simple.
Those with more should share with those with less.
Those who are sick should be made well.
Those who pollute the air and the sea, the forests and plains should stop.
Give, they told the world, don’t take.
They knew what we didn’t.
That it is impossible to be useful and sad.
How lucky we are, they said, to have so much wealth in the world, for all that wealth can be used to end the endless war and create an endless peace.
We can stop fighting.
We can clean up this mess.
We can forgive each other.
We don’t have to die.
Don’t you see? they cried. All we have to do is change.
*
That’s it.
My story is finished. The rest is up to you.
Boo phooey.
Acknowledgments
This is my sixth published novel. The first three ended up in a drawer, then a box, and finally a wastepaper basket. I can’t look at this book without seeing all of them, sentence after sentence, word after word, without seeing my mother and my grandmother, both writers, without seeing my father, who taught me not to say all my words out loud, without seeing New York City, where I learned how to be tough and funny and how to read and snake through a crowd, without seeing Sarah Lawrence College, where I studied to be a philosopher-king because I thought that was a real job, without seeing the Juvenile Rights Division of the Legal Aid Society, which was a real job, maybe the most important one, without seeing the Writers Grotto in San Francisco, where I found a community of artistic friends, without seeing Bob DeLaurentis or Warren Littlefield, my Hollywood mentors, who taught me that you can succeed beyond your wildest dreams and still be your best self. I can’t look at this book without seeing my agent, Susan Golomb, who—after three novels—judged me by my work and not my sales history, without seeing Michael Pietsch, my editor and publisher, who still believes that literature should be a meritocracy, where you publish the books you love. I write books because I read books. Because books can save us. I would not be a writer without those early inspirations, without Don DeLillo or Milan Kundera or Toni Morrison or Kurt Vonnegut or Gabriel García Márquez or Haruki Murakami. I want to acknowledge them and all the other writers who continue to inspire and challenge me. And to my Kyle, my daily inspiration—don’t worry, these kids are going to grow up and they’re going to thrive, even though it might not seem like it all the time. I’ll be honest. I never liked the acknowledgments page of a novel. It always felt too personal to me, authors sharing their earnest intimacies, but now that I’m older I feel like it matters. We must say our gratitude out loud. Résumés should have an acknowledgments page, where job applicants thank everyone in their lives who helped them. A little humility never hurt anyone. So I encourage you all to sit down and make a list, like the one above, of everyone and everything that made you who you are. I promise, it will be the most rewarding thing you do today. That’s it. Thanks for reading my book.
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