One sunny day, I stepped into an outhouse.  When the door slammed shut

behind me, it was so dark that I could not see anything.  As my eyes began to

adjust, I noticed some colors flickering on the wall.  When I leaned forward to

investigate, the colors disappeared.  As I leaned back, they reappeared. 

Turning to the opposite wall, I blinked as a beam of light hit my eye.

      A hole in the wall was letting in a small amount of light, and this was

creating blue, brown and green colors on the opposite wall.  I moved closer to

the colors—while not obstructing the beam—and saw an upside down image of the

forest and sky outside.  The trees were even swaying in the breeze. 

Coincidentally, I had a moment to think about this phenomenon.

      A dark chamber that is penetrated by a small amount of light will cause an

image of the outside to be created on the inside.  It was as if I had stepped

into a camera.  A camera is a dark box that light enters when the button is

pressed.  If I had had a big roll of film with me, I could have made a picture

of the trees for my photo album.

      Also, it was as if I had stepped into an eye.  Your eye is a dark chamber

that can be penetrated by a small amount of light when you raise your eyelid. 

The image that is created in your eye travels to your brain, which gives you

your sight and a memory of what you have seen.

      In a room with two similarly tuned pianos, if you strike a key on one, the

other piano will faintly create the same sound without being touched.  The

vibration of the string that was struck will cause its counterpart in the other

piano to begin to vibrate.  Something else in the room will begin to move

without you touching it—your inner ear.

      Your ear has a similar string-like structure that also begins to vibrate. 

The sound that is created in your ear travels to your brain, which gives you

your hearing and a memory of what you have heard.

      Within a few days after the excitement of his birth, Johnny and his mother

settled into their routine. He would see and hear his mother, and soon was

having memories of her.  One night she came into his room and spoke without

turning on the light, which caused him to recall the image of her face.  His

brain had stored the sounds she made along with her image, and hearing her voice

triggered a memory of her face.  This type of memory is called an emotion.

      Of course the simplest experience can create many memories.  For example,

Johnny would wake up hungry, see his mother's face, hear her voice, touch her

soft and warm skin, smell and taste her milk, and then fall to sleep satisfied. 

When little John experienced any one of these sensations in the future, he

recalled the others emotionally.

      The great benefit of having emotions could be observed when Johnny was

experiencing the pain of hunger and saw his mom.  He faintly felt the pleasure

of being nourished and moved toward his mom for the real thing.  This valuable

emotional process will help John to seize opportunities and avoid dangers

throughout his life.

      Before Johnny had reached his second birthday, he could say the name of

his favorite toy.  When he would make the sound ball, he would emotionally

recall the image of his ball.  One day his mom brought home a bigger toy ball,

and she also called it a ball.  Confusion could be seen on the face of the child

as he wondered why his mom would call both toys by the same name.  This prompted

little John to begin a uniquely human action—he started to think.

      When he looked at the smaller ball in his hand, he emotionally recalled

the sound ball, and the same thing happened when he looked at the bigger ball on

the floor.  The balls were the same shape and color, and at the right distance

from each other, they appeared to be the same size.  Also, with the balls along

side each other, Johnny began to focus on the similar shapes of the two balls as

compared to his other toys.  His mental images of the balls were identical,

except for their sizes. 

      He noticed that if he disregarded the size of each ball, he could

understand why his mother called them both ball.  Now when he made the sound

ball, instead of the image of his favorite toy coming to mind, he recalled this

new mental image that he had created of the basic shape of both balls.  This new

image is called a thought and the sound is called a word. 

      Then his parents began saying big and little.  This prompted our little

thinker to take another mental step.  He used these words to describe the size

difference between the two balls.  This valuable thought process will allow John

to understand and describe anything he experiences in life.

      Johnny had been working hard and had learned hundreds of thoughts like

red, white, coat, beard and man.  One winter day when he was getting into

something that he was not supposed to, his mother said that if he behaved

himself, Santa Claus would bring him some toys.  "Who is Santa Claus?" was his

next question.

      As his mother explained, John took the thoughts that he had learned, and

created an image of a big man with a white beard, wearing a red coat and

carrying a little ball.  This image is called a belief.  This process is the

reverse of thinking.  Instead of John creating a thought from what he had seen,

he used his thoughts to create an image of what he has not seen.

      While this believing process can be valuable, it also can cause John many

problems.  If he accepts that Santa Claus exists, he emotionally will feel the

pleasure of having someone to give him presents like his parents.  But when he

learns that there is no Santa Claus, he not only will feel the pain of losing

Santa Claus, he may lose his confidence in all his mental images.  To avoid this

problem, Johnny needs only to think about what people say, and never just accept

what they believe.

      I am a thinking animal.  I was sitting at the desk in my Upland,

California home around 1980.  I was studying Introduction to Objectivist

Epistemology by Ayn Rand.  Suddenly, I got it.  I got the answer to this

question that I had been asking since I was a small boy.  It is a simple little

question, but it took the first twenty-five years of my life to understand.

      One of my first memories is being alone on a moving bulldozer, yelling at

my father to hurry and close the gate that we had just passed through.  He still

had to run, jump up, push the pedal, and pull the lever to save me from falling

into the ditch.  He always made it just in time with a big laugh at how afraid I

was.

      My dad could do everything.  He went to college on a basketball

scholarship; joined the Army and liberated the prisoners that were being held by

the National Socialists in the Dachau, Germany concentration camp; taught animal

husbandry at the University of Alaska; and built a three stall milking parlor on

our dairy farm.

      My dad also could answer my little question.  He told me that I was

created by God.  When I asked him who created God, I did not understand his

reply.  I felt bad for asking because my father became uncomfortable.  Years

later I realized that my father had created God by believing.  My dad wanted

someone to save him when he became frightened.  While this belief did trigger a

pleasant emotion for my father, it would be up to me to discover the real answer

to my question.

      Charles Darwin, about a century ago, wrote On the Origin of Species.  He

recorded his observations as the naturalist aboard the Beagle, a commercial ship

navigating the waters around South America.  He explained that I am an animal

who has evolved from a more primitive life form through natural selection.  This

process has been occurring on the earth for billions of years.  While this

thought is true based on what I have seen, accepting it also triggers a pleasant

emotion.  I feel that I am part of the universe, and I do not feel bad for

asking questions.

      To discover what makes me different from other animals, I had to turn to

epistemology.  This is the study of how we think.  We share emotions with the

other animals, but the day we form our first thought, we leave all the other

organisms behind.

      Sitting at my desk, I had come to the end of a long journey.  Just like

Johnny grouping his toys, I mentally grouped myself with the other supreme

beings called humans, whose distinguishing characteristic is a mind, this

wonderful brain capable of understanding the world.  A new journey began that

day—deciding what to do with my life.  But before I could know what to do, I had

to answer a simple little question:  What am I?  I am a thinking animal.