"Dr.Papaderos, what is the meaning of life?" The usual laughter followed, and people stirred to go.Dr.Papaderos held up his hands and stilled the room and looked at me for a long time, asking with his eyes if I was serious and seeing from my eyes that I was. "I will answer your question." Taking his wallet out of his hip pocket, he fished into a leather wallet and brought out a very small round mirror, about the size of a quarter.And what he said went like this: "When I was a small child during the war, we were very poor and we lived in a remote village.One day, on the road, I found the broken pieces of a mirror.A German motorcycle had been broken in that place. I tried to find all the pieces and put them together, but it was not possible, so I kept only the largest piece.This one.and, by scratching it on a stone, I made it round.I began to play with it as a toy and became fascinated by the fact that I could reflect light into dark places where the sun would never shine--n deep holes and crevices and dark closets.It became a game for me to get light into the most inaccessible places I could find. I kept the little mirror, and, as I went about my growing up, I would take it out in spare time and continue the challenge of the game.As I became a man, I got to understand that this was not just a child's game but a metaphor for what I might do with my life.I came to understand that I was not the light or the source of light.But light--truth, understanding, knowledge--is there, and it will shine in many dark places only if I reflect it. I am a fragment of a mirror whose whole design and shape I do not know.Nevertheless, with what I have I can reflect light into the dark places of this world--into the black places in the hearts of men--and change some things in some people.Perhaps others may see and do likewise.This is what I am talking about.This is the meaning of my life. How did Dr.Papaderos get the small round mirror when he was a child?
He found it on the road and made it round. A dying German soldier gave him as a present. He bought it by chance on his way home. He put the broken pieces together and made it.