Life is full of defining moments. For individuals and societies.

For the rich and the poor; the great and the small.

A baby's first few steps.

Putting a human on the moon.

Saving a life.

Your wedding day.

A child's first piano recital.

All these and more.

Defining.

These are the winds which blow the strongest, that gust like a mad thing in the night, blasting the cliff walls in our path with sand, so much sand, carving a route for all of humanity, trail of the righteous, a twisting canyon, an everlasting gouge scarring the face of time called History.

I often sit and wonder what it is that makes a life worth living. Is there a moment when I'll know I've fulfilled my purpose here? When the reason I was put on this planet is painted across my consciousness in vivid, living color?

I sit and wonder no more.

When I was a boy, I thought my destiny was to be an astronaut. I thought I might be a great surgeon. A philosopher, a teacher, or a wanderer, spreading joy like happy butter on the muffins of existence.

When I was a boy, my imagination was fertile as Priapus. Would that I could have been wise as well.

Wisdom comes with age. It is the consolation prize for incontinence.

"Sorry you can't hold it in, but at least you know why."

My dreams may have been laced with ambition, but it was ambition without limit. Hubris is the disease of overreaching dreams, and one could not have been faulted for thinking that my case was terminal.

Today I scrub the yellow stain of my youth from the hoary carpet of my aspirations.

Today I know.

I know why I was put on this earth and made to toil all these years in the mud, making a home in the shanty town of unrequited human desires.

It was not to navigate the depths of space, nor to cure the diseases which rob humanity of its strength.

Last night, at approximately 11:32 PM Pacific Standard Time, I made it into the top one-hundred high scores recorded on Xbox Live for my favorite song in Boom Boom Rocket.

I was playing on hard.

Yes. Let that sink in.

Easy? Medium?

For the dilettantes.

However, though the glory may be mine, I recognize that I did not achieve this great victory on my own, and I should like to thank those who helped to temper this steel in the heart of the fire along the way:

1. Jesus Christ

The way my hands moved over the controller, I have little doubt that there was an unseen agent at my side throughout the challenges which faced me in Boom Boom Rocket.

I thank You for taking time out of Your schedule to respond to my prayers. It was my understanding that many others before me have attained victory over their enemies in battle, or defeated the battles going on in their diseased bodies thanks to the invocation of Your name.

With this work out of the way, I would ask that you reconsider getting me a raise and then striking down mine enemy.

2. Mrs. Preston - My First Grade Teacher

At the time, all those years ago, I couldn't fathom why Mrs. Preston insisted that the entire class spend every day of an entire week engaged in an exercise involving the tabulation of beans placed in small paper cups.

I understand now that it was to prepare us for the many tedious snowballs that the Life Storm throws at our heads while laughing from safely behind its cloak of Forever Winter.

Thousands of beans.

Tabulated.

3. Ms. Nelson - Seventh Grade Math Teacher

Ms. Nelson, you taught me suffering. Without your gift, I think I might not have the patience to do such great things as that for which I shall be known from today forward, that being the great score I won in Boom Boom Rocket.

Do you remember, Ms. Nelson, the way you used to spend the first few minutes of each class period tallying the number of missing homework assignments for each student in your class on a transparency placed on the overhead projector for all to see?

And do you remember, Ms. Nelson, how long it took you to make fifty-seven marks next to my name before you finally lost your mind and unleashed a terror unmatched upon my innocent ears?

There was a twinkle in your eye - difficult to see amid the vibrations of your body, the YouQuake caused by the gesticulations of your fury - that told me, Ms. Nelson, that you knew - you knew - that I was bound for great things, and that you held me to a higher standard than anyone else in that class.

For years, I thought you were picking on me for not having turned in a single homework assignment for an entire year, but in retrospect I see that you only wanted me to live up to my potential by getting three or four of those assignments in before the year ended.

I ignored your pleas, and now I suffer in the mind a great pain, one which could have been avoided had I not been so irritated with your insistence that we "show [our] work."

I would have shown my work, Ms. Nelson, but the answers in the back of the textbook were curiously devoid of a representation of the steps one would take to arrive at the correct answers (which were in the back of the textbook) for each problem.

Because of my strength of character and maturity, I am able to understand that it was your love that drove me to fail in that class, and not the defective textbooks which did not provide us the full and complete answers you sought (I also understand now that the reason you wanted us to show our work was because it wasn't in the answers section of the text - you were as much in the dark as we were).

4. Roger II

After Roger I escaped from his cage and made his way to freedom by way of the air ducts in our home, mother purchased you - a very differently colored, and even differently gendered hamster - to show that there is no wound of the soul so grave that it can't be mended in an afternoon for six dollars at the local pet store.

The message was clear: Try, and try again. And if you fail in your trying, then change your appearance and get one of those fancy Swedish operations which magically transforms an Adam into an Eve.

5. All the rest

Unfortunately, there is not enough time in one day - or even one life - to properly thank all those who lifted me upon their shoulders and carried my burden to the gates of success.

Without the lessons taught me by those who are wiser, I would never have managed to become a poor student with an inferiority complex, a rat's nest of a hairdo, a talent for rapid bean tabulation, a penchant for tight shirts, and now, thanks to the Swedes, a vagina.

It took twenty-nine long years, but society has finally achieved in the production of mine self the paragon of animals, great and small, and a well earned slot in the high score list for Boom Boom Rocket.

I thank you.

[Rory bows. Leans over to pick up one solitary red rose, tossed on the stage by a child with leprosy, diabetes, nose cancer, and halitosis. Raises the rose to the world, succulates its aroma, thanks the child, and, with his purpose fulfilled, steps on the chariot of fire which shall take him into the wings of the stage of the Grand Play, never to return or be heard from again. At least until he beats his own score in Boom Boom Rocket. Players exeunt. Cries for an encore are ignored.]