“No, Bwana.”
“Okay. The next day you go out hunting and there’s no deer to be caught. Hasn’t that ever happened?”
“Assuredly, Bwana.”
“Well, there you are. Because you have no control over the deer, you have no deer. So what do you do?”
Ishmael shrugged. “We snare a couple of rabbits.”
“Exactly. You shouldn’t have to settle for rabbits if what you want is deer.”
“And this is why we lead shameful lives, Bwana? This is why we should set aside a life we love and go to work in one of your factories? Because we eat rabbits when it happens that no deer presents itself to us?”
“No. Let me finish. You have no control over the deer—and no control over the rabbits either. Suppose you go out hunting one day, and there are no deer and no rabbits? What do you do then?”
“Then we eat something else, Bwana. The world is full of food.”
“Yes, but look. If you have no control over any of it …” I bared my teeth at him. “Look, there’s no guarantee that the world is always going to be full of food, is there? Haven’t you ever had a drought?”
“Certainly, Bwana.”
“Well, what happens then?”
“The grasses wither, all the plants wither. The trees bear no fruit. The game disappears. The predators dwindle.”
“And what happens to you?”
“If the drought is very bad, then we too dwindle.”
“You mean you die, don’t you?”
“Yes, Bwana.”
“Ha! That’s the point!”
“It’s shameful to die, Bwana?”
“No…. I’ve got it. Look, this is the point. You die because you live at the mercy of the gods. You die because you think the gods are going to look after you. That’s okay for animals, but you should know better.”
“We should not trust the gods with our lives?”
“Definitely not. You should trust yourselves with your lives. That’s the human way to live.”
Ishmael shook his head ponderously. “This is sorry news indeed, Bwana. From time out of mind we’ve lived in the hands of the gods, and it seemed to us we lived well. We left to the gods all the labor of sowing and growing and lived a carefree life, and it seemed there was always enough in the world for us, because—behold!—we are here!”
“Yes,” I
told him sternly. “You are here, and look at you. You have nothing. You’re naked and homeless. You live without security, without comfort, without opportunity.”
“And this is because we live in the hands of the gods?”
“Absolutely. In the hands of the gods you’re no more important than lions or lizards or fleas. In the hands of these gods—these gods who look after lions and lizards and fleas—you’re nothing special. You’re just another animal to be fed. Wait a second,” I said, and closed my eyes for a couple minutes. “Okay, this is important. The gods make no distinction between you and any other creature. No, that’s not quite it. Hold on.” I went back to work, then tried again. “Here it is: What the gods provide is enough for your life as animals—I grant you that. But for your life as humans, you must provide. The gods are not going to do that.”
Ishmael gave me a stunned look. “You mean there is something we need that the gods are not willing to give us, Bwana?”
“That’s the way it seems, yes. They give you what you need to live as animals but not what you need beyond that to live as humans.”
“But how can that be, Bwana? How can it be that the gods are wise enough to shape the universe and the world and the life of the world but lack the wisdom to give humans what they need to be human?”