Eragon

I read Eragon yesterday.

Okay, so I started it yesterday afternoon and I finished it this morning. I did sleep, but only for about 6 hours (not my fault, purely circumstantial, I only stayed up to wake John up so he could grade his exams by early this morning because he had fallen asleep...). I read the last 75 pages or so this morning.

In the beginning of the book, the boy Eragon, angry about his life, converses with his dragon Saphira, "What is the worth of anything we do?" And she replies, "The worth is in the act. Your worth halts when you surrender the will to change and experience life. But options are before you; choose one and dedicate yourself to it. The deeds will give you new hope and purpose."

Even though life is transient, ever changing, hard at times and near impossible at others, the worth of what we do, who we are, is "in the act." When we choose to act out our lives instead of having our life decided for us by seemingly unseen forces, when we truly live and are dedicated to the responsibilities we have undertaken, it is then that we have true hope and purpose in our lives. And until we can truly live for ourselves, with that resolution, we can't truly live at all, but are in a state of ungrowth, like summer vacation when everything we've learned in the school year threatens to fade away into nothingness. It is when we choose to act on our environment that we can grow, that we can change the course of lives--both our individual lives and of the lives touching ours or brushing past.

"The worth is in the act."