s I waited to meet the Director, I thought back over the journey that brought me here.

At breakfast I remembered the first call, the one my parents were hushed hearing, then exploded with explanations as they told me I was one of the chosen. How quickly they got me and my things together and sent to school. Were they glad to get rid of a smart mouth, an endlessly empty stomach and busy fingers or did they dream of this day? I'm not sure. I'll have to find out what happened to them in the last 30 years.

The rush of school sucked most of the before memories away. Food, training, teaching filling each day and much of the night. I loved it. Each evening promised more of tomorrow-- more strength, more knowledge, more experience to make me all I could be. I couldn't believe it when graduation came. I really couldn't believe when they took the top half of my class, let everyone grab a red or white handkerchief, then spun a wheel. When red came up, those of us with red hankies went to college, those with white left to be trained to be supervisors of mechanics, janitors and waiters. It was in college that I came to know the guiding principle of my society: Skill and Luck Succeed.

It was true through history. Julius Caesar could have been a gladiator or an accountant. Churchill could have been dead, a royal or passed by if war had not come. Did society breed Churchill? Or did it make enough of everything so whatever history called for could come to the top? Ours was the first society to harness that social evolution for our own ends, rather than the repetitive randomness of history. Some say it started with selective breeding of dogs and corn. All agree it is a short step from designing computer chips by evolution to designing leaders the same way. Set up the conditions that reward abilities you want, honest, charismatic, intelligent and lucky and let society reap the benefits of not having to go through revolutions or even expensive elections to find the cream de la cream.

Ah, lunch today. Ice cream. One of the benefits of reaching the top. Choose whatever you want since all your choices are good.

My own undergraduate studies first shocked me when every test had questions we had never studied. I had to figure out something new or be lucky guessing. I did some of both to get to graduate school. Even with all that preparation, I still felt it unfair the entrance exams to graduate school had questions "is it true or false?" "Is it red, white or blue?" "What is the winning number in the first one hundred?" whose correct answers were determined by a random number generator. My right answers for these would most likely be different than any other person who took the test. In graduate school you didn't just need to be reasonably lucky, you had to be outright lucky. I was outright lucky.

The post graduate work is the severest, the hardest, the most secret. We at the top keep it secret by making the stories public, but the reality private, very private. Like the roast beef, roasted potatoes and corn on the cob I had for supper, the work is solid, hearty, balanced in public, but only I could taste the sage seared in the dark, red, roast, the buttery fennel glazing the red roasted potatoes or the hint of mint on the bursting yellow corn in my mouth. We solved real problems: How to build dams, how to tear dams down, how to feed a village, how to overthrow a village leaders. I will just say, and this to myself, one test involved live ammunition, a journey through woods and fields and by bodies of those who failed. I knew I was one of the chosen after that test.

It was worth it. Now I meeting the Director-- meeting my soon to be predecessor.

"Good evening sir."

"and to you." he courtesouly replied. "Come, let us begin your education."

"Sir?"

"First you should know that while most children are picked for school based on development scores, 10 per cent are chosen by lot. You were among those 10 percent."

I listen in shocked silence, covered with a look of polite interest.

"I find it interesting that 90 percent of directors come from that 10 percent. I have found it humbling and freeing to know luck played the biggest part in getting me here."

"yes sir." I said, thinking, "I learned this lesson long ago."