I've lost track of how many times I've purchased that little book and then gave it away. I've lost track of how many times I've searched for the full text online, found it, shared the link with someone else whom I thought would benefit.

JLS is a book about a lifetime of teaching, of learning. It's a book about humility. I find it amusing it is viewed as such a religious book when I see a distinct counter-religious tone to it.

Perhaps that's the appeal of the book, that it is so many things to many people. (I wonder who said that most famously? :)

JLS is a book about teaching. It venerates teaching and teachers in the best possible way, to show their patience bearing fruit. It humanizes teachers as well, showing their own discovery, self-doubt, frustrations, and fears, for themselves, their students, and the abstract whole of their chosen field.

JLS is a book about legacy, about working change in a peaceful manner. It is not a book about total success, where one life is able to save all of his kind. He does save some, but they had to be in the right place.

On this topic, I had two conversations today that moved me and taught me. One was about legacy, about how I seek not to immortalize my name, but my meme. I feel I have a different outlook on life, and I want it to propagate, to live on beyond my span. I think it beneficial to humanity, and wish to somehow know it persists.

Vain men want fame, and the transient immortality it confers. Conquerers want statutes and monuments, oversized talismans that testify to their egos. Scientists want knowledge. Not to be named after them, but to contribute anonymously to the collection of our understanding of ourselves, our worlds and how the two intersect.

JLS ends not in fame. His ending admonishment to his most advanced student is simply, "Don't let them make me into a god." And then he faded. In the real, and I suspect he did not mind if he had faded in the verbal history of his race.

So long as the love of flight, his gift to his kind, persisted.

To all who mentored me and whom I have had privilege and honour to mentor, thank you for allowing me to learn from you. Yes, in both cases, I learned from you. In talking to the first friend today, I came to see my feelings of legacy and life coalesce into words, words of beauty and joy.

With my second friend, I saw my doubts gently erased. Not painted over, not moved from sight to shadow. Erased. In our talks, I came to see the peace inside myself I always lacked and yet was able to guide others to their own. I came to a deeper understanding of my want, my hope.

It's good to have a guiding star again.