“For what is a man profited … ?”

James couldn’t resist looking in his rear-view mirror to see the expression on the face of the girl in the Mercedes. It looked like she was yelling to her dashboard exactly what she thought of fools who cut in a foot ahead of her on the interstate. He smiled and waved at her over his shoulder. Pity he’d taken the “Drive 55” sticker off his bumper a few weeks ago. It might have given her a laugh.

But James was in too much of a hurry for anything near 55. In fact, he usually was these days, but today even more than usual: he had forgotten about his lunch appointment with Eileen until noon, and she had wanted him to meet her at her office in Raleigh by twelve-thirty. He still didn’t even know what this lunch rendezvous was all about. Eileen refused to discuss it over the phone; she had only gone on mysteriously about “an extremely important matter for both of us.” James felt foolish giving in to such a nebulous request, but he admitted to himself that he really had missed talking to her since the night a few weeks ago when she had steamed out of his apartment leaving only the slammed door to hear how little he cared if she never came back. “Missed talking to her?” came the sarcastic mind-echo. Okay, it wasn’t just her conversation he wanted. In fact, that was the old problem that had finally erupted in a fight–he was tired of respecting her beliefs. When would she respect his needs?

James scowled. Why even worry about her? What did one woman matter to him? He needed nothing from her.

Then it hit him. Maybe she wanted something from him. She’d noticed the money coming in recently, even though he’d evaded her questions as well as he could. Blackmail? He wouldn’t have expected it of her, but how could he be sure? After all, she was the only one he’d ever told. Eileen knew his secret.

James remembered well the night he had first found out. He was driving back from a home basketball game during his first year of graduate school at Duke. He hadn’t even planned on going to the game, but one of his classmates had to leave town–death in the family or something–and offered James his ticket for nothing. But James’s analysis class met at nine the next morning, and he still had two proofs to do before class. Well, one proof. The other exercise was supposed to be an easy counterexample, but an answer was eluding him at the moment. … As he crested a long hill, his concentration was shattered by the sight of a car backing out of its driveway into his lane. The other driver saw him at the same moment, and for an instant, James saw his own panic mirrored in the other’s eyes. He stood on his brakes, but even though he was a careful driver (this was still in his “Drive 55” days) he knew he wasn’t going to make it. He had to get out. Wreck the car but save his skin. James heard the crash and saw the impact. He closed his eyes.

And opened them! He was leaning against the rough bole of a pine tree on what had been the right side of the road. Looking down at himself, James saw there wasn’t a scratch on him. Or a stitch of clothing, for that matter. “Forget him!” he heard a voice yelling over the flames. ‘We’ve got to get out of here! He’s dead anyway.” James looked up. Someone was holding the other driver away from James’s car. Finally the two turned and ran. As James stared to see what they had been doing by his car, the flames suddenly showed him a body pinned to the driver’s seat by the steering column, the face wrenched towards him. In the brief instant between that glance and the explosion that followed, James realized that he was looking at … himself.

He shuddered. The memory still brought back the shock and fear. At least his humor had stayed with him, though: his first thought after that chilling recognition had been, “So! Angels don’t wear little white robes after all!” But he immediately knew he was still alive. Angels don’t lean on pine trees.

The apartment was only about a mile down the road, but with James jumping behind trees whenever someone drove by, it took him nearly half an hour to get home. Karl, James’s roommate, answered the door and let him in without so much as raising an eyebrow. Karl had been to some pretty wild parties himself and believed firmly in minding his own business.

Of course the police came to ask if he knew who had been driving his car, but by then James was prepared: two men in masks had stopped him in the parking lot and asked for a ride, he told the officers. One of the thugs had a gun, so James was happy to oblige. They had dropped him off in the middle of Duke Forest and taken his clothes along to make sure he wasn’t in too much of a hurry to report his car missing. Yeah, he had just gotten home a few minutes ago to “change.” No, he didn’t know what had happened to the one with the gun, but as a tax-paying citizen, he hoped the thief would soon be behind bars. And had the police found James’s clothes yet? Sorry he hadn’t been more help, but it’s hard to think clearly when someone has been pointing a gun at you, you know. Oh, and did they think the insurance company would pay for his car?

“US 1 TO N RALEIGH ½ MI” broke in on James’s memories. His watch read 12:31. James hated to be late, but if he was right about Eileen’s wanting to blackmail him, she would wait. Then a wave of relief spread over him. He had nothing to fear from her after all. What real threat did she pose? He could picture her walking up to a newspaper with, “I know this guy who, uh, can’t be killed. Well, at least not when he sees it coming and it frightens him into sort of splitting in half and leaving half behind to die while the other half stays alive.” Right. They’d be politely helping her into her overcoat and out the door. Or into a white coat with sleeves that tied in back.

James smiled and leaned back into his seat. This gift, or whatever it was, had changed his whole perspective on life. After the car wreck, he simply counted himself a lucky man. It bothered his sense of science that something so inexplicable had happened to him, but then one doesn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. It never occured to him to think that such a freak incident could repeat itself. But the next summer the papers were full of the story of a parachute that had failed to open at the State Fair–a guy in a small plane had been charging $20 a head for “the thrill of your life.” No one ever found out who the victim was: when the pilot had asked for James’s I.D., he had only checked the birthdate. Eileen had been with him that day; she hadn’t been interested in the jump so she agreed to meet him at the car in an hour. When she got to the car, James was hiding underneath it.

Since then, there had been four or five more episodes. He took a few more chances now–in some ways, that is: he’d never been more assiduously careful about his health. James had the indescribably comfortable assurance that, barring terminal illness or a catastrophe that he never saw coming, he was almost guaranteed his threescore and ten. It had occurred to him that his greater desire for life was almost paradoxical. When someone learns he is about to die–when the commodity life is scarce–he values it much more. Since James had more reason than ever before to expect a long life, shouldn’t the value come down? Well, he had never trusted economics anyway. The point was, he was more in control of his destiny than anyone else. He could take what he wanted from life.

A parking place opened up and shortly James was walking towards the building where Eileen worked. What was it a man wanted from life, anyway? he asked himself as he took the stairs up to her office. (He was still young, but no better time to get in shape.) It was something he had thought about more and more since discovering his gift. How does one spend life when he has it given to him? James found the answer elusive. Graduate school had become hollow. He still found math interesting, and he knew it would provide him a modest but reasonable career, but that was no longer what he wanted. He had years ahead of him. Decades. Why should he spend it teaching somebody else? What was in it for him? Perhaps he would happen upon some remarkable theorem and make somewhat of a name for himself–among a small group of colleagues, anyway. What would it really do for him? Would it really give his life more meaning? Would it make him happier? Anything he got out of it would be short-lived, not the reward one would deserve after years of study and hard work. And a good deal of luck, he reminded himself. He knew he wasn’t a born genius; his talents (excepting the talent) had come not from natural ability but from good, hard work. And he was tired of working so hard. After all, his time was truly his. Why should he waste it on things that would never give him any real benefit?

He was wise enough, he told himself, to realize the futility of accumulating money for money’s sake. After years of hard work, maybe you have a few more digits in your bank account balance. What good is it? He was hardly likely to appreciate a more expensive funeral. Well, planning could come later. For now, he was young, and life was to be enjoyed. He was officially on a year’s leave from school for “personal reasons,” but he doubted he’d be back. He was taking things easy, living off some savings and (more recently) income from a few odd jobs. “Odd jobs!” he thought as he left the stairs and walked towards Eileen’s office. His euphemism wouldn’t soften her reaction if she found out what kind of merchandise he’d been selling lately. Or where he’d gotten it from. He tried to think of something else as he walked into her office.

Eileen was quiet as they took the elevator and were seated in the cafe downstairs. She didn’t say anything about his late arrival. James smiled. That fit in with what he had guessed: she wanted something from him.

“So. What can I do for you?” James asked as they started their lunch.

“If you only meant that, James!”

“What are you talking about?” He had meant it only as a pleasantry, or perhaps to let her know that he was one step ahead of her. But his pride was hurt. He had always had time to help a friend, hadn’t he?

“You used to be so kind, James! So sweet. But now … do you know how long it’s been since you really did do something for me? or for anybody? It seems like all you do these days is protect your own interests. Save your own skin.”

“Look, is that all you’ve brought me here for? To tell me off? I could’ve saved the trip.”

“Yes, and spared a few moments of your precious time,” Eileen retorted.

“I don’t need this.” James knew he was talking louder than he needed to, but what kind of treatment was this, anyway? He had been ready to help her out in spite of her plan to blackmail him. He threw his napkin on the table with a melodramatic flourish and started to get up.

“Oh, James, please don’t leave!” She put her hand on his. He was terribly confused: she had just insulted him, but now it seemed she seriously wanted him to stay. He looked at her again. Yes, she was serious, as serious as he had ever seen her before. Except, perhaps, that night nearly a year ago, when she had talked about “their future.” He had felt very close to her then. But things were different now, he reminded himself. James became aware that he was still halfway out of his chair. He settled back uneasily.

“What do you want?” he asked, his voice quieter.

“James, I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to hurt you, just make you aware of how much you’ve changed in the time we’ve known each other. Do you remember what you did when you came to pick me up for that soprano concert?” Eileen added with a little smile, “It was our third date, you know.”

After an introverted moment she went on. “I was feeling miserable. It had been a rotten day and the little cough I’d woken up with had turned into a nasty cold. But I knew you really wanted to go to the concert and I didn’t want to let you down. I liked you already, you know.” Eileen smiled up shyly at him, but, getting no response, bent again to her purpose. “Anyway, when you saw how things were, you told me not to worry about it, asked if I’d had dinner, and went on to not only cook dinner for me but even wash all the dishes I’d left in the sink. You were so sweet to me the whole evening! And I don’t think you did it to try and get something in return. That’s just the kind of man you were.”

She stopped and looked up at James, who was for a change quiet and pensive, his eyes downcast. Her smile faded. … “’Were,’ James. I used the past tense on purpose. When have you done anything so selfless this month? Or last?” She stopped then and looked into his eyes, awaiting a reply.

James felt almost embarrassed. It surprised him: he thought he had outgrown the emotion. Then he realized she was simply trying to manipulate him. What she was calling “selflessness” was really just naivete. Give somebody else a hand up and they’ll step on your fingers for your troubles. The question she asked was a loaded one. What kind of an answer was she looking for?

“You’re still just preaching to me,” he finally managed. “Is that all you wanted?”

“James, that’s not all. I think I know why you’ve changed.” (Great. Now she was a psychoanalyst as well as a preacher.) “I’ve been thinking about your ‘gift.’ I think your idea is right, that somehow the fear and panic you feel when you face imminent death make you capable of focussing mental energy you’re usually not aware of, of somehow dividing yourself in two and getting one half out of danger.”

James looked up sharply at this last comment and glanced about to see if anyone else had heard. Was she trying to blackmail him after all? But her eyes held concern, not cupidity.

“James, I know you might not see any connection between your ‘gift’ and your changing behavior. But I think your increasing egocentrism has come about because of the gift.” She took a breath. The words that followed seemed planned; almost recorded. “I ask a question, James. You know logic better than I do; you tell me if there’s a flaw in what I have to say. You’ve assumed that this division that allows half of you to escape danger is an equal division mentally–with, perhaps, only one half remaining alive–solely because it appears to be equal physically.” She gathered her breath and asked her question. “Have you any basis for that assumption?”

James was listening closely for perhaps the first time. He didn’t, of course, and was somewhat disgruntled that she had been the first to notice it. But then again, she appeared to have been spending a lot of time thinking about it.

“For the moment,” she continued, not willing to lose his attention, “let’s posit a disparate division of mental self. If some portions of your personality are more likely to escape disaster than others, which portions are they? Why, exactly those portions that are more devoted to self-preservation; the ‘look out for Number One’ parts of you. So each time you use your gift, you’re making it easier for the selfish part of you to survive than for the rest of your personality. Remember the section on evolution in our college biology class? If the various aspects of your mind were different individuals in a biological community, you’d say that using your gift created a selection pressure against the altruists. Using your gift is what’s changing you, James.”

“So why are you wasting your time with me, Eileen? Obviously self-preservation makes a good survivor but a bad neighbor. If I’m the bad guy in the black hat, why should you care? If I’m gone, I’m gone.” He had been very patient, but this was too much. It was time to go.

“James,” she smiled, “you’re forgetting your math.” The coup had been well prepared and saved for the perfect moment; its effect was no less than she had desired.

“What in the world do you mean?” he snapped. But he was listening.

“I’ve spent a lot of time with you, James, and if I haven’t learned to use a mathematical model when I really want to convince you of something, I’ve been a poor learner.” She pulled a folded piece of paper from her purse. “It’s a reasonable model, James. If we pretend part of you is entirely selfish, and that in each crisis it’s preserved entirely, while the rest of you is saved only in part, this is the ‘altruistic fraction’ left after n crises.” She pointed to an expression circled in red.

He bent over the paper for a moment and then laughed softly. “I’m afraid you’re the one who’s forgetting her math, Eileen. This sequence is bounded above by a geometric progression with ratio less than one. Do you remember what that means? It means it’s going to decrease inexorably towards zero–and quickly. Even if you’re right about my gift making me more selfish, it looks like you’re too late to save me.”

“James, I’ve done my homework. I know what a limit means. Of course this expression approaches zero. But it never gets there! Do you see what that means? No matter how much has been lost, there’s still something generous, something good in there. For example, you did come to see me today, didn’t, you? And even though I know your secret, I can see you’ve never thought of trying to hurt me because of it. Yes, I believe there’s still a lot of good left in you. There’s nothing on this paper but scratches of a pencil. They may just mean that becoming your magnanimous self again will take extra effort on your part. Maybe it means only that most of the time you’re more likely to be selfish, but that some small fraction of the time remains to kindness. And even if somehow there’s more bad to you now than good, there must be a way for the good to overcome.” She had been carefully unfolding a very worn-looking scrap of newsprint. “I’ve looked at this little sentence many times now since the first time I read it, James. Listen: ‘… the Lord never permits the light of faith wholly to be extinguished in any human heart, however faint the light may glow.’1 There must be a way for you to again be the man you were, James. I only wish I knew what it was.”

James was surprised at her intensity. He had to shake himself mentally to escape the nets she was casting around him. “Look, Eileen. People simply don’t do this. I know you never looked at a calculus book once last year. Why did you suddenly take all the time to come up with this elaborate story? What’s really in it for you?”

The tears had been welling up in her eyes and now they overflowed their banks. “What’s in it for me? Don’t you know? I love you, James. Of course I spent a lot of time arriving at the scribble in this red circle, and a lot of time checking it, too. Of course I haven’t done anything like it before. But then, it’s never been a matter of life and death before, either.”

“‘A matter of life and death?’ Come on! A minute ago you were telling me I should have let myself be killed, and now you worry about ‘life and death,” You’ll have to do better than that.”

“James, I said I love you–the way you once were. I’m not just trying to save your life; I’m trying to save your soul.”

It was too much. The last thing he needed was to be saved. “Look, I’m sorry. I thought you had something to say to me, but you don’t. You don’t want me; you want some hero in a white hat.” He got up from the table and before turning away, added, “I wish you luck trying to find one.”

“James?” It was quiet, and only with annoyance did James look back to hear her near-whisper: “James, you wore a white hat once.” He hurried out of the restaurant, unwilling to face her any longer.

He squealed out of his parking apace and stormed down the street toward the freeway entrance. She was dangerous! Not only was she obviously trying to manipulate him to return to her, this rubbish about changing his personality by using his gift could endanger his life.

James charged down the acceleration ramp like a man who had never seen a “Drive 55” bumper sticker. Every one of the times he had used his gift, he had simply done it. It had been instinctive. It had always seemed to him that his gift was nothing more than the survival instinct everyone had. If his instinct was a little more effective than others’, well, he didn’t say life was fair. But if he started worrying about what was best for others–about his soul, for crying out loud–how would there be time for his instinct to take over? Several times before, there had been much less than a second to act; any hesitation would have been fatal. That’s why Eileen’s words were so dangerous.

But had her words been so entirely wrong? It seemed absurd, of course, to imagine that he had left parts of his mind behind. But his memory, at least, was intact, and he did recall the many things he had done for Eileen. The motive just seemed beyond him at the moment. Why had he spent so much of his time and energy on her? Perhaps he really had changed. But it was for the better, he angrily reminded himself. She had mentioned evolution; well, that concept worked against her argument, too. “Survival of the fittest” was the phrase people usually recalled, and the whole question was one of survival. It was the essence of his gift. There had been times in his life when, under the right circumstances, he would have considered giving up his survival for others to live. He must have had reasons then, but he could think of none now.

A school bus up ahead caught his attention. Great. A bunch of kids on a field trip clogging up the interstate. It was dangerous, you know, letting them putter along at the minimum speed limit. James moved over to pass. As he approached, an explosion reached his ear and the bus started to sway back and forth. Shreds of tire spewed from its left front wheel. James was too close and moving too fast to try to stay behind the bus. He had to keep up his plan to pass them and stay ahead of the disaster. Poor kids. Must be scared half to death.

Suddenly, just before James caught up with the bus, the left side of the bus went down completely onto the front axle and the bus spun around into his lane. James did what he had to. He followed his instincts.

---

They had told Eileen not to hope for his recovery, and they had been right. A car smashing into a guard rail didn’t leave much room inside for its driver. He must have been going 70, they said. But at least he’d saved the school kids. It was heroic, driving into a guard rail so as to miss the bus. What they didn’t tell her was that he probably hadn’t meant to be quite so heroic: the guard rail had most likely been out of sight behind the bus.

She didn’t know whether to feel sorry for him or not. He would probably show up again in a few days, and the very fact of his existence would make up for even the most unlikely alibi. Maybe the guy in his car would be called a black sheep twin or something. She told them she hadn’t seen him for weeks: she knew he’d want his alibi covered. She could at least give him that. A voice broke in on her reverie. “Eileen?” She turned. It was a paramedic.

“Yes?” she queried tentatively. “How do you know me?”

“Well, I saw you ask about … um, James, you know, and I thought you might be the one he meant.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I was one of the guys that brought him in. He was gone before we could get him out of the car, you know. But when I first got to him, he knew I was there. He must have been holding out just for someone to come along. Anyway,” he continued, plainly embarrassed, “he said to give Eileen a message. Said to tell you he’d ‘made the right decision.’ That was all. I suppose you’d know what he meant.”

Eileen wasn’t sure what to make of it all. The paramedic seemed to be engaged in an internal argument. Finally a decision was reached and he added, “Ma’am, I don’t think he suffered much. At least, after he said that, he smiled, closed his eyes, and relaxed. That was the end. I thought you might want to know.” He was gone.

And then, finally, she understood. Tears burst upon her once more as she made her way out of the emergency room into the cool evening air, but now her face held hope. He was gone, but he was James again.2

---

Eileen’s figuring:3

Initial “altruistic fraction”: \(a\)

Fraction of altruistic part that survives each crisis: \(f\)

Fraction of selfish part that survives each crisis: \(1\)

# of crises	altruistic fraction	selfish fraction
\(0\)	\(a\)	\(1-a\)
\(1\)	\(af/(1-a+af)\)	\((1-a)/(1-a+af)\)
\(2\)	\(af^2/(1-a+af^2)\)	\((1-a)/(1-a+af^2)\)
\(\vdots\)	\(\vdots\)	\(\vdots\)
\(n\)	\(af^n/(1-a+af^n)\)	\((1-a)/(1-a+af^n)\)

James’s reasoning:

\[ \frac{af^n}{1-a+af^n} < \frac{af^n}{1-a} = \frac{a}{1-a} \cdot f^n \longrightarrow 0 \]

---

1

J. Reuben Clark, Jr., in Conference Report, Oct. 1936, p. 114.

2

© 1987, Kevin J. Black. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

3

The formulas can be shown to work by induction using \(n=0\) and \(n \rightarrow n+1\).