Three Wishes

What if you were granted three wishes, just as if you were in a fairy tale? What would you wish for? In John Crowley’s novel The Solitudes, Pierce has been working on this problem since childhood. It takes some work, because there are many traps and pitfalls, as we learn from all those fairy tales. Too much greed has a way of backfiring. Think of King Midas who wished to turn all that he touched to gold, only to lose the ones he love to gold statues. Too much altruism is also a problem. A wish for an end to war might be granted by making you the only living human on earth. If you wish for someone to fall in love with you, it will never feel like the love is real. Likewise for wishing to become a popular published author. Success can only be enjoyed if you feel that you have really earned it. Better, Pierce decides, to keep the wishes smaller, more predictable.

Pierce decides that his first wish will be for a full life of good health until a natural old age. His second wish is for a steady modest income, achieved without harm to himself or anyone else. He will phrase each wish carefully so that there can be no misunderstandings, no loopholes that could allow bad consequences.

For the third wish, Pierce think it would be good to wish for a complete loss of the memory that these three wishes were ever granted and fulfilled. Even the modest wishes of health and reliable income might have negative affects. Knowing that these wishes were granted would remove any experience of risk. No longer would one sense the fragility of life, or the motivation to healthful choices. Better, Pierce thinks, to have the wishes granted but not to know about it.

Then a new thought occurs to him. Maybe they already have been granted! Maybe he really has been granted three wishes and used them just as he is now planning. How would one ever know? It is a thrilling idea.

And it makes me wonder, what wonderful things have been given to us? Are there things about our lives that we would have wished for before we had them, but which are now too often taken for granted? Would you have wished for the place you live, for your family, your health, your friends? Would you have wished to have just a glimpse of the holy center of all things, the creator of the universe, who loves you as a parent loves a child? What if all of us have been granted wishes?