What a Piece of Work Is Man!

With days and months so swiftly moving, with life so short, so little time, so much to do, it seems sad that we should spend so much time in tedium and trivia and insignificant pursuits, when our capacity for accomplishment is so far beyond our present selves. “Each of us is limitless,

. . . “¹ as Walt Whitman said. It is unfortunate when we underestimate ourselves. “Man’s capacities have never been measured;” said Thoreau, “nor are we to judge of what he can do by any precedents, so little has been tried.”² For example, we often speak in awe of computers that have taken over so many tasks and seem to do so much, but we should not forget the mind of man that makes the computer, using laws that are God-given. “The [human] brain . . . contains some 10 billion nerve cells, each of which has some 25,000 possible interconnections, . . .”³ it has been said. “To build an electronic computer large enough to have that range of choice would require an area equal to the entire surface of the earth.”³ Or, as a group of researchers recently concluded: “The ultimate creative capacity of the brain may be . . . infinite.”⁴ “Man is the miracle in nature.”⁵ For ultimate expression we often go to Shakespeare: “What a piece of work is man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action, how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god!”⁶ And to the question of the Psalmist: “What is man, that thou art mindful of him?”⁷ We ourselves, can give an answer: Man is immortal, limitless, everlasting, made in the image of his Maker, with infinite possibilities. And instead of giving way to boredom, frustration, and turning to trivial pleasures and time-wasting ways, well would we look within ourselves and reach out also, and read and think and listen and learn, and add to our lives new depths and dimensions.