Nobody's Fool – Why We End Up Just Where We Should by Hillel Lerman
Ted and Jimmy have just completed their studies at the Georgetown University School of Law. They are about to leave the dorm room they have shared and head for home, but they argue. Jimmy claims that in a few short years he will be a U.S. senator. His father is a well-known lawyer and he will get his son elected. Ted says there’s no way; Jimmy’s not the senator type!
Professor Carter, much admired by these two former students, happens to be passing by. They ask him if there is, indeed, such a thing as a "senator type," and if he thinks Jimmy will be able to fulfill his ambition. Carter’s response comes in the form of a highly unusual suggestion: to join him on a tour around the world, with two weeks at different locations across the globe to help further his research. "The question about Jimmy," he says, "is much larger. It concerns extremely important, basic principles that determine the paths people take in their lives." They will learn why George is a bus driver who spends every day making roundtrips between Washington and Baltimore, and why Edward is the British ambassador to Egypt. They are also going to get an answer to the question they posed to begin with.
What Professor Carter doesn’t mention is that he is staking his entire academic career on these two students. The real reason for the invitation is that Carter desperately needs their help in proving a theory he has developed, one that is jeered by his faculty colleagues. "Decide quickly," he tells them. "We’ll be leaving very soon…."
This inspirational novel artfully hammers the notion that there is no real difference between a university professor and a custodial worker; only their professions differ. Period. Unlike what we were programmed to believe, no person is smarter than another, and no person is more foolish, either. People are just people. The Chinese woman bending over in a rice paddy – just like the chief justice of the Supreme Court – has desires, ambitions, and dreams, feels happiness, sadness, and pain.
This seemingly obvious truth has been presented clearly and convincingly in this fascinating tale, which captures the reader's mind and imagination from start to the surprising end. It is a journey of discovery with the human being as its destination, and veers off the beaten track to view familiar concepts like equality and racism from an entirely different perspective.
This challenging quest takes the reader from the slums of Bombay to a soccer field in Buenos Aires, then to Brooklyn’s Borough Park neighborhood, and from there to the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Scene by scene, the thread of the story gradually unravels, revealing the code that leads human beings to the places they are in life. Why indeed is George a bus driver while Edward is a British ambassador? Nobody's Fool provides the answer.
Hillel Lerman is an industrial engineer who has managed a number of startup companies from their onset, some of them reaching a successful exit, and also established three startup ventures of his own initiative. For many years he has been exploring philosophy, particularly in the area of determination and free choice.
The author is married, with four children and a growing gang of grandchildren. He wrote this book while on a business trip, out of a sudden impulse, without financial or other motivation.
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