Great Uncle Fred? Why was I born? (Charlie, Summer 2007)

Well, Charlie, I know nothing about you at all, not even if you are a boy or a girl as I`m told there are girl Charlies these days, so I can`t answer your question specifically, you understand? However, it`s a good question. I suppose most people who ask that question - `why was I born?` - are feeling a little bit down-in-the-dumps and perhaps annoyed with their parents for inflicting a miserable existence upon them. I hope you are not feeling like that but, if you are, take it from an old geezer, life is wonderful! And just think how wonderful you are, that miracle of organisation and engineering that is your body, that finest object in all creation between your ears! You`re a flipping marvel, Charlie, regard yourself with awe and gratitude towards whatever it is that you think made you. Look out to sea one day and think about the hugeness and the majesty and the complexity of that great interconnecting ocean, teeming with multifarious life-forms, and then remember - your brain is even more marvellous than the sea! But why were you born? Well, most people - you too in all probability - come into being because two people loved each other. Love is why we exist. Love is why you were born. It might be that your parents do not love each other any more but they almost certainly did when you first came into existence. This is worth remembering, that you are designed as a creature of love. Also, you are the result of a race in which there were at least 100,000 other competitors. You were the winner, over 99,999. You must be some person, eh? This matters, your specialness. However useless and bored and sad we sometimes feel, and however much school and work seem to want us to be all the same, we are all fabulous and unique. That thing about finger-prints, they are all different. Why? Why can`t some of them be the same? Well, they are all different and that`s that. Because we are all different and we all have something different to give. Obviously, I have no idea what you are like, what you do like, what you are good at, but I am quite sure that there is no one just like you, Charlie, no one with the individual spark which makes you Charlie. Just thinking about you, even though I don`t know who you are or what, I am becoming more and more aware of your brilliance and incomparability. It might take you a while to work out how to fit that Charlieness into what is often a ridiculous world, but you can do it. You were born to be Charlie.

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