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Nobel Prize Sperm Banks (Part 2)

Continuing George Wald’s response to a woman who said that, with regard to ‘producing’ Nobel Prize laureates, there should be egg banks in addition to sperm banks…

“But I hope you weren’t seriously proposing an egg bank. Nobel laureates aside, there isn’t much in the way of starting one technically. There are some problems, but nothing as hard as involved in the other kinds of breeder reactors…”

“But think of a man so vain as to insist on getting a superior egg from an egg bank. Then he has to fertilize it. When it’s fertilized where does he go with it? To his wife? ‘Here dear,’ you can hear him saying, ‘I just got this superior egg from an egg bank and just fertilized it myself. Will you take care of it?’ ‘I’ve got eggs of my own to worry about,’ she answers. ‘You know what you can do with your superior. Go rent a womb. While you’re at it, you’d better rent a room too.’

“You see, it just won’t work. The truth is what one really needs is not Nobel laureates, but love. How do you think one gets to be a Nobel laureate? Wanting love, that’s how. Wanting it so bad one works all the time and ends up a Nobel laureate. It’s a consolation prize.

“What matters is love. Forget sperm banks and egg banks. Banks and love are incompatible. If you don’t know that, you haven’t been to your bank lately.

“So just practice loving. Love a Russian. You be surprised how easy it is and how it will brighten your morning. Love an Iranian, a Vietnamese, people not just here but everywhere. Then when you’ve gotten really good at it, try something hard like loving the politicians in our nation’s capital.”

Jack Kornfield
from A Path with Heart; A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life