WHAT IS FORTUNE?

WHAT IS FORTUNE? The quest for enormous fortune in the East Indies--gold, spices--led Christopher Columbus' trio to sail due west, rather than east, like the Portuguese, around the Cape of Good Hope of southern Africa. So, "beyond the pillars of Hercules," seaman myths, onto the shores of an unknown "new world" in Hispaniola, they sailed, based mainly on Moorish sailors' tales of fabled lands to the west of Africa. Could this be a short cut to the riches of the East Indies? The zealous quest for gold, for fortune, drove the royal Spanish sponsors of the Italian, Columbus, to enslave , to exploit, to exterminate Arawak "Indians", whom they deemed them to be. Fortune also drove the expropriation of Africans to the Americas to replace soon-decimated, indigenous people. The zealous quest for fortune yet drives later American ventures and adventures. Fortune is America's heartbeat ; is its reason for being; is its meter , metric, measuring rod. "Fortune" is a necessary thing in context. "Unfortunate" are all they who lack this lapidary, this unction. What, then, is "fortune?" Fortune is variable. To a starving man, fortune is food; to a drowning man, fortune is air; to a thirsty man, fortune is water; to a naked man, fortune is raiment; to a homeless man, it is shelter; to a lonely man, a woman. Fortune is that which completes you; that which satisfies your soul; that which enables, enriches the that life you must lead.