Don Quixote and Our Job Daily

What if every human life is of infinite value? What if the billions of the billionaire and the cultural accolades of the celebrity add nothing at all to his or her intrinsic worth? What if we're all here for creative love and loving creativity, and the results of each of our actions aren't to enhance our own value at all, which is impossible, but are meant to lift up the lives of those around us and add to the sum total of good in the human and animal earthly adventure? What if the deepest truths are after all spiritual, and that the small things can mean the most?

I'm on page 500 of my second reading of the classic and first modern novel, Don Quixote. It's a comic tale that's all about the deepest human delusions and our desperate efforts to win praise, glory, and honor. It's all about 21st century contemporary politics and business, and the various sicknesses of the heart to which we're vulnerable. Don Quixote was right that the knight errant wandering the world is to right wrongs and save the innocent. He was wrong not to see that this is the job for each of us, but guided not by the heated imagination of grandiose delusions, but rather by the wise imagination tutored by truth and goodness. What if we could all see this? What a difference it could make!

Get the best translation of the book here.