I spent my childhood trying to figure out the right way to live. It certainly seemed that nothing was fair or the way it should be. Both my parents worked to end hunger in Third World countries, with a group called RESULTS. I once asked them, childishly, why they called it that when they weren't getting any results. They were, they told me, even if I couldn't see them, and told me about them. But of course there were still people starving in those other countries; nothing was ever enough for them.

Often I would think of a solution to a problem: a new rule, law, program, or technique. Sometimes they were quite elegant solutions, I thought, but my parents, probably hoping to show me that the world isn't all black and white, always picked some hole in them, and I was too young to effectively argue my case. By the time I was ten or so, I realized I was in the habit of picking the holes myself. My mother pointed out to me our neighborhood's method of keeping phone lines out of the treetops: they buried them in underground pipes instead of mounting them on poles. It scarcely took a moment's thought for me to say, "Yes, but someone has to dig those holes."

When I was no older than six, I remember being terribly disturbed by the state of the environment. I don't think I knew humanity was in danger as a species; I envisioned, rather, our homes and cities buried in plastic wrappers and styrofoam cups and aluminum cans -- useless, hideous, depressing rubbish of the kind we were surrounded with already -- forever and ever. When I was eight or so, I realized that if I really cared about animals, I couldn't eat them. Over a few weeks or months, I eased into vegetarianism. Later I joined the World Wildlife Fund and sent them five or ten dollars at a time when I had enough allowance money.

I remember rather strikingly how as a child I once drew up a constitution of sorts for some imagined utopia -- the world I wanted to live in. I pencilled it on looseleaf during after school daycare, and showed it to the daycare person, who raised her eyebrows and said it was very thorough. I didn't know the word "intentionally", so I used the word "purposefully" and actually defined it, in a footnote, as "on purpose". I believe I wrote that people couldn't steal, or kill anyone, or hurt people, or hurt animals. I also wrote that they couldn't harm certain plants that I liked, and was irritated by the inelegance of the inclusion of the plants and my flimsy justification for including them -- that I admired them and held them apart from other plants. The problem was that it was too personal, too much like a cultural preference and not like a legal distinction.

When I was a little older I imagined small utopias. A bunch of people living on an island together, with a neatly organized political system that worked very well. They had a president, and some elected people under him (or her -- whyever not?), and people in charge of many different things. They were all happy to do their jobs well, of course.

And the children in this society were happy, too, because the school they went to was much more fun than mine -- more time outside, better books, fewer years of review, and a more interesting teacher. (Of course, some of it was boring drudgery, because I couldn't think of a way to make math fun, or staring at textbooks fun.) I thought of a system whereby, if the children did enough serious work and made enough serious accomplishments, and if the council deemed them mature enough, they could take on the rights of adults -- something I wanted simply because I was tired of living with my parents and being so dependent on them. (I became a tightwad at thirteen, squirreling away money specifically with the idea of becoming financially independent five years later.)

This utopia of mine had elements of communism, because my father had explained to me a bit about it and shown me an article or two about it. I felt myself to be a communist at heart. From each according to her abilities; to each according to his needs. (Edited for political correctness.) I came up with some more guidelines for a perfect world. I definitely thought money was a bad idea, because with money, some people might come to have less and some more. I thought food and water and even medical care ought to be rights rather than commodities. I thought it might work better for people to live in small groups, because then they could all know each other and manage to get along without so much government interference.

I collected information as I went along about what worked well. Breast-feeding was better than formula because it was the natural way of doing things and because I'd heard of studies that showed it was better. Spanking or hitting your children wasn't good, because my parents never did it to me and I was certain it wasn't necessary. Sometimes pieces of information seemed to contradict each other, and I struggled to reconcile them.

From creating my imaginary worlds, I soon realized that they would work best if the people in them all belonged to a culture that compelled them to do things a certain way. It's difficult to force people to live in a utopia, but it's easy to let people practice a way of life they all believe in.

After reading Pirsig's fascinating books Lila and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance in that order, and thinking carefully about many different things in them, I was contented that the world would evolve into a better state of being, and that the evils and unfairnesses were just part of the balance, things that allowed us to appreciate goodness and justice and to make things interesting. Everyone says what a boring place a perfect world would be. I was also influenced by some stuff by Douglas Hofstadter, who imbues pattern and mind with almost religious meaning; by many new agey writers (for lack of a better term) who were exploring the ideas of "supernatural" states of mind; and by Jane Jacobs' book Systems of Survival, about two conflicting but internally consistent moral codes.

A friend of mine kept talking about this book Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn, and making reference to ideas in it, and arguing with me about it. I thought that we would be able to prevent environmental disaster by changing what we do -- a long, slow process, perhaps, but inevitable. She disagreed completely, and either she didn't understand the ideas well enough or I wasn't open-minded enough to make the reason for this clear. Eventually she plopped the book in my lap and told me to read it. I read the gimmicky quote on the back cover -- "TEACHER seeks pupil. Must have earnest desire to save the world. Apply in person," -- and knew it would be an interesting book. I could tell from experience.

I was a constant, habitual reader, and a very fast one. I finished the book quickly without analyzing it much, and I almost deliberately chose not to be astonished or moved by its contents. When I was done, I closed the book and thought, "Okay. Now what?" It was very clear to me that I could not go on thinking in the same way I had before, and I didn't know how to begin to reconcile this new set of ideas with my old one.

I read Quinn's other books as quickly as the first, and discovered his website, Ishmael.com (I think I did a search for "Ishmael") and its question and answer database. In a little time I came to know Quinn's standard answers by heart. I had almost entirely become the message.

So here's what Quinn has to say about my longed-for one right way to live: there is no such thing. But there are ways that make people happier than others, and there are ways that make survival more possible than others. Is this a satisfactory answer? No. But it's something to begin with as we grope for a way -- and something to comfort ourselves with: we don't have to find the one right way for everyone. We just have to find a right way for each of us. And I have confidence we can do that, somehow.

-- anonymous