“Whatchu’ think ‘bout life, man?” he asked me. “Is it good or bad?”
“It depends on your perspective,” I said. His eyes widened. “If anything’s certain,” he said, “it’s that it’s uncertain.”
I laughed.
“What you talkin’ about, man?” I asked. He let out a deep breath. “Many of us understand life to be either generous or vengeful. That it rewards you for one thing and punishes you for another."
“Doesn’t it?”
“Nah, man. Life ain’t like that, it don’t work that way. Life don’t punish and it don’t reward neither. It works around you.”
I could not figure out what he meant, and he spoke with a conviction that made me not want to ask.
-Excerpt from Man on the Bench by Nathanael Cox