The Meaning Of Life

Yes, here it is, faithful readers; the moment that you've doubtless awaited for so very long now!  Today, The Halmanator will explain the meaning of your existence.  You knew, deep down, that it had to be leading up to this, didn't you?  I'm sure that many of you have wondered why this moment has been so long in coming.

I couldn't simply start a blog as an unknown and launch right into the eternal verities, expecting to be taken at all seriously.  No, I first had to establish credibility and trust.  To convince you that I have a true understanding of the Grand Design, I first had to enlighten you by ruminating on such diverse topics as song lyrics, patriotism, problem solving, the work ethic, loss, religion, childhood, healthy eating, communing with nature, poetry, simple pleasures, positive reinforcement, spirituality, interior decorating, the legal system, enjoyment, money, home repair, charity, technology, rationalism, music, time travel, transportation, bio-technology, silence and envy, to name but a few.  Having now undoubtedly convinced you of my keen understanding of the human condition, I can safely expound on its foundations in the secure knowledge that all potential detractors have long since been silenced.

For as long as human beings have been sentient, we have pondered our place in the Cosmos.  From whence did we come?  How did we come to be?  How are we different from the other creatures that inhabit our world?  How are we similar?  Are there others like us out there on other worlds?  And, most significantly, Why?  What is our purpose, both as a species and as individuals?

Most of those who have posited answers to these questions have done so in the context of either religion or philosophy or, sometimes, a mixture of both.  The religious faithful generally believe that we are the creation of a divine being or God, who is much bigger, smarter and more hygienic than we.  This, of course, still leaves the question of why God created us.  What is His purpose for us?  Some suggest a profound love, which is fine now that we're here, but still doesn't explain why He made us in the first place.  Did He love us before He even made us?  Some suggest that our purpose is to serve and worship God in order to increase His glory, like some kind of cosmic cheer-leading squad.  Some simply shrug their shoulders and suggest that the divine Mind of God is beyond our feeble understanding which, quite honestly, seems like a melodramatic way of saying "Who knows?"

Not everyone looks to a divine being to explain our existence, however.  Even atheists have rubbed their chins over the aforementioned questions.  The only difference is that they don't ascribe it to an omnipresent deity.  Such people tend to turn more toward philosophy for the answers.  Let's briefly examine a few:

Idealists suggest that what`s important is what goes on in our own minds.  The physical universe that surrounds us is incidental.  This philosophy doesn`t serve one particularly well when in the path of an on-coming train.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have Realism, which argues that the physical universe is all that we can be sure of and that our minds are prone to playing tricks on us, so we can`t trust them.  This philosophy is best summed up by the premise that reality is that which doesn`t go away after you stop believing in it.

Neo-Thomism is a religion-based philosophy that seeks to understand God through a combination of faith and reason.  This philosophy argues that the complexity of the universe itself and everything in it implies a controlling higher intelligence.  To put forth an analogy, Neo-Thomism argues that, if one walks through a forest and finds a neatly-stacked pile of logs, one doesn`t think `My, what a coincidence!  A bunch of random pieces of wood happened to fall into this neat pile that I see before me!` Rather, one assumes that the pile of wood was placed there by someone.

Switching to the opposite end of the spectrum once more, we have Existentialism, which posits that there is no purpose or meaning to the universe.  This philosophy argues that the only authority that matters to ourselves is ourselves.  Everything is subjective.  "It's all about me".

Pragmatism relies on experiment and experience to explain the universe.  This philosophy holds that truth is not absolute, but determined by consequences.  For example, we see the sun rise in the east and set in the west, day after day, without exception.  For a long time, people concluded, quite reasonably, that the sun moved around the Earth.  That was the accepted truth, until some people began noticing the motions of the planets, which didn't fit the theory.  Further investigation was done and we discovered that the Earth moves around the sun.  The truth changed as our experience and knowledge changed.  (My counter-argument here is that the truth never changed, only our perception of it did).

When examining the aforementioned philosophies, it strikes me that they often concern themselves with answering the "what" and the "how", but not always the "why".  Those who question the meaning of life are often asking "Why?"

If one looks at the Big Picture, it's frighteningly tempting to conclude that our lives have no meaning in the grand scheme of things.  Think of the greatest, most powerful, most renowned people that you've ever heard of; Socrates, Tutankhamen, Alexander, Julius Caesar, Attila the Hun, Cleopatra ... you get the idea.  All of them were renowned, not only in their own times but for ages after they died.  Yet all of them died and the world continued to turn without them.  As great as they were, what was the ultimate point to their existence?  They're gone now, as are all of their works.  Even the Pyramids are slowly crumbling.

You may argue that they shaped history and therefore the world that we live in today, but even that world itself must one day come to an end, and then what?  On the scale of eternity, how did they or anything that they did ultimately matter?  And, if one concludes that they didn't, then what are we multitudes who are not as great and as powerful and as renowned as they to think?  What about the vast majority of us who live more ordinary lives and who likely won't be remembered outside of their immediate family or close circle of friends after their deaths, and probably not for more than a generation or two even in those circles?  What is the point of our being here?

Here are my thoughts, and they are only my thoughts.  I'm no authority, I claim no special insight, and I may well be wrong.

With regard to our nature, or what we are, I'm partial to an explanation offered by the late Dr. Carl Sagan who said "We are a way for the Cosmos to know itself".  In other words, we are a part of creation but, significantly, we are a sentient part.  You might say that we're the mind of the Cosmos or, at least, part of the mind.  There may be other sentient beings out there like us, or unlike us.

As for our purpose, I sometimes feel that we attach too much importance to the question.  It's human nature to look for the "why" behind everything.  In fact, as far as any of us knows, this need for explanation is unique to homo sapiens.  All other living organisms on this planet, including those that are at least self-aware, seem to simply exist, doing what they were made to do and being what they were made to be, without worrying too much about the why or the wherefore.  Look at your dog or your cat or your goldfish.  Do they lose a lot of sleep over their purpose here?  Not in my experience.  On the other hand, my cat seems to have a perfect understanding of my purpose; to feed and shelter her, not to mention providing the occasional belly-rub.

But seriously, perhaps there is no "why".  Perhaps things simply are because they are.

Early one recent morning, I stood on the front driveway of my home and looked around.  It was very still and my gaze rested on the magnolia tree that grows on my front lawn.  As I regarded it, standing quiet and motionless, I considered that it had been standing there in that very spot for many years now, day and night, in fair weather and foul, through all four seasons.  It too is a living organism, though not like myself.  Unlike myself, the magnolia isn't concerned with its purpose.  It has no goals or aspirations.  It simply is.  And yet, it does serve a purpose.  Like most plants, it converts sunlight and carbon dioxide into breathable oxygen for us non-plants.  Its leaves fall and decay, adding nutrients to the soil so that it and other plants may grow.  In the springtime, it sprouts attractive pink blossoms which adds beauty to the world and instills a sense of well-being to those who regard them. The magnolia tree doesn't need to strive to achieve its purpose, it just needs to be as it was made to be.

I thought about the well-known line from the Desiderata; "You are a child of the universe.  No less than the trees and the stars, you have the right to be here."  Maybe that simple answer is the best answer of all.

Islam vs. the West

We live in strange times.  Since Al-Qaeada managed to destroy the World Trade Center in New York City back in 2001, tensions between Muslims and non-Muslims have gradually escalated.  Although Al-Qaeada still exists, a seemingly even more radical collection of Islamic fanatics who call themselves ISIL (the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), also known as ISIS (presumably because adopting an acronym that sounds like the Egyptian goddess of health, marriage and wisdom sounds cooler) seems for the time being to have eclipsed even the aforementioned terrorist organization in terms of notoriety.  Though Al-Qaeada doubtless still holds the lead in terms of innocents murdered (after all, roughly 3,000 casualties from the World Trade Center attack alone gave them a good head-start), the broadcast be-headings and live imolations recently carried out by ISIS, while smaller in number, just seem more personal and brutal somehow, though I will grant that this is probably largely a matter of perception.

The danger, in my humble opinion, is in overreaction by the West.  Suddenly every radical nut-case who walks about shooting innocent bystanders, such as Michael Zehaf-Bibeau who shot Canadian Corporal Nathan Cirillo, is seen as a representative of a terrorist organization and an entire religious community is held responsible for his crime.  When western governments then retaliate against Muslim nations or western citizens harass anyone of the Muslim faith, including those who have never harmed anyone, it only makes them look like the aggressors and generates sympathy for the radical jihadists that they profess to oppose.

Provoking Islamic enmity by mocking their Prophet is likewise counter-productive.  While I certainly don't agree that the cartoons poking fun at the Prophet merited the recent deadly attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine, I do agree with Pope Francis, when he proclaimed that freedom of speech does not include the right to insult the deeply-held beliefs of others.  Those Christians who have trouble understanding the rage that certain Muslims felt over the affair should ask themselves how they might feel if other faiths were to publicly mock Jesus.  The western media's incensed response after Sinéad O'Connor tore up Pope John Paul II's picture on Saturday Night Live back in 1992 shows that Muslims aren't alone in being sensitive about their faith.

I exchange "joke" e-mails on a regular basis with a group of friends and acquaintances.  Sometimes, I receive jokes that stereotype Muslims as terrorists or make fun of their faith.  I usually make it a point not to forward joke e-mails of this type, not because I believe in political correctness but because I choose not to perpetuate these stereotypes nor to contribute to the deepening of the rift between Muslims and other faiths.  Still, I did receive a joke e-mail once that presented the following picture of a talking Muslim doll:

It went on to say that nobody knew what she says, because nobody had ever had the guts to pull her cord.

I chuckled in spite of myself.  I admit it.  I'm prone to human foibles, just like everybody else, and the essence of humor is that it provokes a gut reaction over which we have little control.  But wouldn't it be ironic if someone finally did get up the courage to pull the doll's cord and all she said was "The peace of Allah be with you, my brother"?

The Luckiest(?) Man Ever

In the course of my random reading, I recently came upon the story of one Tsutomu Yamaguchi, a Japanese citizen who found himself visiting the city of Hiroshima on the morning of August 6th, 1945, just in time to admire the spectacle of the world's first atomic detonation up-close and personal.

Mr. Yamaguchi was one of the fortunate ones who survived that particular holocaust so, on the morning of August 9, 1945, he returned to his home town of Nagasaki, only to have a second atomic bomb dropped on him, which he also survived.

In fact, he lived on for many years after the war, finally passing away on January 4, 2010, at the age of 93.

The Halmanator salutes Tsutomu Yamaguchi, simultaneously the unluckiest and the luckiest man ever to have lived.

You Are So Loved

I wasn't going to blog about the shooting of corporal Nathan Cirillo, who was gunned down as he guarded the cenotaph at the National War Memorial, not far from the Parliament Hill, on October 22, because I don't see the point in writing about something that everybody else is already writing about, unless I feel that I have something unique to contribute.  But I was especially touched by a story that I read about an Ottawa lawyer who stopped to help the dying soldier, particularly by the words that she spoke to him.

As originally reported by the Canadian Press, Ottawa Lawyer Barbara Winters was on her way to a meeting when she heard the gunshots and she ran to help. A small group of people were already gathered around the dying soldier when she got there.

Winters could see that Cirillo was still alive, though badly wounded, and she began to talk to him, telling him "You're a good man, you're a brave man."  As Winters continued working with the group of people trying to save Cirillo, she continued talking to him, saying "You are loved.  You're family loves you.  You're a good man ... Your family loves you.  Your parents are so proud of you.  All the people here, we're working so hard for you.  Everybody loves you ... We're all trying to help you."

As I thought about these words, I realized that they had a two-fold purpose.  For one thing, they gave the dying soldier a reason to hold on and try to resist death.  It is commonly believed that those who want to live have a much better chance of surviving critical injury or illness than those who give up and resign themselves to the inevitability of death.  Winters' words reassured Cirillo that he was loved and cared for, and they reminded him that there were people who needed him and depended on him.

Sadly, neither Winters' words of encouragement nor the medical assistance provided by those who tried to save Cirillo prevailed, and he ultimately succumbed to death.  And yet, the words were not spoken in vain.  If I must die (as we all eventually must, some day) the end of my life would certainly be made immeasurably easier to bear, if the last words I hear could be such as these; "You are a good man.  We all want to help you.  You are loved."

Wealth vs. Happiness

A friend once e-mailed me the following joke:

An investment banker was taking a much-needed vacation in cottage country when he noticed a fisherman, sitting at the end of a pier, his legs stretched out, smiling contentedly.

"Here on vacation, I presume?" asked the investment banker.

"Nope, I live here most of the year round," replied the fisherman.

"Ah, so you own the place?" asked the investment banker.

"Just my cottage, my boat and my fishing gear," replied the fisherman.

"You look awfully young to be retired," observed the investment banker.  How do you spend your time?

"Mostly fishing," replied the fisherman, "and sometimes taking walks or boating on the lake with my wife, or playing with my niece and nephew and teaching them to fish when they come visit."

"But what do you do for money?" asked the investment banker incredulously.

"I have all I need," replied the fisherman, "or, when I don't, I do odd jobs here and there and sometimes rent my boat out to vacationers like yourself," explained the fisherman.

"But don't you want to earn more than just enough money to get by?" pursued the investment banker.

"Why would I want to do that?" asked the fisherman.

"To become financially secure," explained the investment banker.

“And what would I do once I became financially secure?" asked the fisherman.

"Why, whatever you wanted to!" answered the investment banker.

“But I`m already doing that,” answered the fisherman with a wink and a smile.

I also found a related post on Quora.com.  It had to do with people who earned a Ph.D. degree and wound up being janitors or doing similar menial work.  The question was asked why this happens. One answer, posted by Joseph Wang, who boasts a Ph.D. in computational astrophysics and, ironically, is also an ex-V.P. of an investment bank, proved quite surprising.  Mr. Wang aspires to be a janitor,  He calls it the "perfect job" and goes on to elaborate:

He talks about an "F.U. Number", which he defines as the amount of savings you need in order to be able to tell your boss "F.U.".  The more alternate sources of income you have, the smaller this number becomes. If being an investment banker or an astrophysicist or whatever is your full-time occupation and therefore your only source of income, the "F.U. Number" is fairly high. However, even a modest alternate income source reduces it drastically.  Note that the implication is that you don't much like either your current job, or at least your current boss.

Secondly, Mr. Wang points out that you don't need as much of an income to pay down any student debt that you might have accrued in getting a Ph.D. in astrophysics, since it costs a lot less to achieve that degree compared with getting through medical school or law school.  Being a doctor or lawyer may pay more than being a janitor or an astrophysicist, but you generally need that income just to pay down your student debt, unless you have very rich and generous parents.

Janitorial work is low-stress.  You generally work during off-hours so you tend to be left alone, which is great if you're an introvert, and you don't normally have a supervisor or boss looking over your shoulder.  There are no deadlines or quotas or time limitations.  As long as the facilities you look after are presentable and everything works, everyone is happy.  You're not ruled by the clock.  If you're efficient and can get your work done in four hours, you can go home and still be paid for eight. Nobody knows or cares whether you actually put in your time.

You can do janitorial work and theoretical physics at the same time.  There's nothing to stop you from pondering quantum field theory while pushing a broom or mop or floor buffer, unlike other jobs which demand much more of your attention and thus keep your mind from wandering.

Of course, what the joke about the fisherman and the investment banker and the post about the would-be janitor with the Ph.D. have in common is they make us think about what really gives us satisfaction and makes us happy.  Too many people think that it's about accumulating wealth, but it isn't.  I don't entirely subscribe to the old adage that money can't buy happiness.  I believe that it's much easier to achieve happiness with money than without, The reality is that you need money in order to access the basic necessities in today's world, and if you're not content with just the basic necessities, then you need more money.  However, we need to remember to treat money as a means to an end, rather than as the goal itself.

The Book Of Austria

My wife and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary this month.  To mark the occasion, we treated ourselves to a weekend getaway in picturesque Niagara On The Lake, Ontario where we stayed in a charming bed and breakfast called Cecile's House.  Our accommodations were both comfortable and elegant.  The large house was built circa 1840 and decorated in a stylish French Provincial style. Our host was a former chef, complete with a charming "Pepé LePew" French accent, who had a particular gift for attention to detail.

In our room, on the night table next to my side of the bed, was a musty-looking hard-cover book, probably meant more as a decoration than a remedy for guest boredom, entitled "The Book of Austria".  The book captured my attention for two reasons; firstly because of the seeming incongruity of its subject matter amidst otherwise French surroundings, and secondly because I happen to be a native-born Austrian.  It was almost as if our host had some sort of sixth sense where his guests were concerned and placed it there specifically for my benefit.

Intrigued, I picked up the book and began leafing through it.  It was published in 1948, shortly after the war, by the "Österreichische Staatsdruckerei" (Austrian State Printing and Publication House) in Vienna.  After only a brief perusal, I was so taken by the book that I immediately set about Googling it on my return home, and I quickly found an on-line vendor that offered a copy, in very good condition, at a reasonable price.  I wasted no time in ordering it.

The book is full of interesting facts about Austria; its history, its geography, its culture and its people.  The very first chapter begins thus:

"He who would find Austria on the globe must turn the round ball of the Earth slowly on its slanting axis, otherwise he might easily overlook the Austria of the 20th century."

In truth, Austria today is a fairly small country.  Its entire geographical area would fit neatly into Lake Superior.  Politically, its global influence is negligible today.  Yet, in not-so-distant historical times, during the era of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, its geographical boundaries were considerably larger, and both its political and cultural influences notably stronger.  Even after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire seemingly unimposing Austria had a role to play in the outbreak of yet a second world war.  Adolf Hitler, who forced the world to go to war for a second time was, in fact, Austrian by birth.

The Book of Austria pays homage to what the country was and what it is today (or, at least, to what it was in 1948), including:

The Geography of Austria:  Small as it is, Austria is further divided into nine provinces.  From the cosmopolitan Vienna, which is considered both a city and a province simultaneously, to mountainous Tyrol, home of Innsbruck, one of the world's skiing Meccas, Austria exhibits an astonishing diversity for so small a geographic region.  Styria, the province in which I was born, is poetically described in a word-palette that illustrates something akin to a merger of J.R.R. Tolkien's woodland elves and mountain dwarves:

The Music of Austria:  During the 19th century, Vienna was, for a time, considered the music capital of the world.  Some of the world's most renowned classical composers, including Haydn, Mozart, Schubert and Strauss were Austrian.  Several other classical composers, while not native-born Austrians, were nonetheless strongly influenced by Austrian music, such as Ludwig Van Beethoven, who studied under Mozart.  The Christmas Hymn "Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht" (Silent Night, Holy Night) was written by Franz Gruber and Joseph Mohr, both Austrian.  According to The Book of Austria, "Vienna in the Biedermeier Age," the period during which art and music were enjoyed by the middle class as opposed to being the sole purview of the aristocracy, "had found its most perfect form of expression" in its music.  Today, musical societies and organizations remain in Austria which were established for the purpose of encouraging music in all its branches, including the "Gesellschaft der Muiskfreunde" (Society of the Friends of Music), the world-famous "Wiener Sängerknaben" (Vienna Boys' Choir) and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

The Karlskirche, Vienna

Austrian Culture:  One chapter in The Book of Austria discusses Austrian Baroque.  In the words of the author: "If you wish truly to understand and to appreciate this curious country, to unravel the living mystery which is Austria, you must learn how to experience the most intimate and most glorious manifestation of her spirit, as it exists in legend and song, in literature and painting, in architecture and in the great festivals of the country.  It is in our Baroque that you must seek it."  I've visited Vienna twice in my lifetime, and both times I was struck by the gothic architecture, the ancient churches and buildings, festooned with gargoyles and friezes.  Everything in Vienna seems to be presented with a certain flourish.  North American architecture, by comparison, seems bland and soulless.

Austrian People:  The Book of Austria describes Austria as being, in a sense, "the first attempt to create a European citizen - a world-citizen.  What is elsewhere so often but a vague longing, an illusion, or the unrealised dream of isolated individuals, has long been anchored in Austria among a wide circle of people."  The "typical" Austrian is described an an "everyman" who feels "mysteriously at home in another world which lies beyond their fellow citizens ... We may consider this will and this ability to live humanly among other human beings as the call of Austria to the whole world."  The typical Austrian, declares the book, "has a passion for 'wandern' - for hiking - deeply engrained within him. His mouth demands to breathe in the air of the great mountains, his foot the soft carpet of mossy slopes and his eye continual change, now drinking in the green of near-by forests, now reaching out to the distant lines which the silent horizon has etched against the bright sunshine."  I can personally attest to this.  Some years ago, I visited the beautiful Banff national park in my adopted homeland of Canada. Even though I had left Austria at the tender age of three and consider myself to be fully Canadian, yet as I hiked along a mountain trail overlooking Lake Louise, I felt a profound sense of well-being, like I had come home.  Perhaps this is why so many Austrians who have immigrated to Canada have settled in British Columbia.  With its towering mountains and its lush woodland, British Columbia is extremely reminiscent of Austria's Styria province.

In the book's forward, the author states "In contrast to other books, the Book of Austria does not wait until you encounter it by chance.  It comes to you, approaches you in word and picture - and in many another way."  I must admit, it certainly found me.

Reform or Punishment?

I recently came across one of those news articles that's simultaneously funny and thought-provoking.  It's about a man by the name of Cornealious Anderson who was convicted of armed robbery in St. Louis, Missouri back in 2000 and sentenced to 13 years in jail.  Well, it's now 2014, so my keen mathematical skills tell me that he should be out by now, right?  Half-right.  He's out alright.  In fact, he never went in.

It seems that, at his sentencing, Mr. Anderson was sent home and told to await instructions as to where and when to report for his incarceration.  So he went home, undoubtedly in a bit of a funk, said his good-byes to whatever friends and family he had, called the boss and told him that he wouldn't be in to work for the next 13 years or so, and waited...

A day passed.  A week.  Two weeks.  A month...  and no police officer ever appeared at Anderson's doorstep nor did anyone ever call him on the phone to tell him when and where to report for prison.

Eventually, Anderson got tired of sitting around watching daytime soaps and Opra, waiting for the phone to ring, so he learned a new trade, started a business, met a nice girl, got married and fathered a daughter.  He did not make any attempt to leave the county, change his name or otherwise conceal his identity and he definitely did not return to his former criminal ways.  His brush with the law had scared him straight.  He paid his taxes, registered a small business, renewed his driver's licence as needed and, when he was pulled over for a couple of minor traffic violations, gave the officer his correct name and address.  Nothing in the system ever flagged him as being a convict who was somewhat overdue for incarceration.

Until last year.  Ironically, at just about the time that Anderson would have been released from prison (not taking good behavior into account), the Missouri Department of Corrections discovered the clerical error that had kept Anderson out of jail all these years.  The news article that I read doesn't explain how they discovered the error, but I have to suspect it probably had something to do with some computer read-out announcing that it was time to let Cornealious Anderson go, and only then did the law discover that he had never been locked up anywhere to be let go from.

In any case, when they discovered the error, the Missouri law enforcement community, no doubt somewhat embarrassed by the oversight, decided that "better late than never" is a valid policy where incarceration is concerned, and belatedly sent Anderson his instructions as to when and where to report for prison.  In fact, just to ensure he received the message, they sent a SWAT team to deliver it.

As Anderson tells it, there he was one fine Wednesday morning in July of 2013, feeding his three-year-old daughter breakfast and otherwise minding his own business, when a number of very stern-looking men sporting automatic weapons knocked rather insistently on his door.

It should be pointed out here that Cornealious Anderson never committed any acts of violence.  To be sure, he threatened to when he held up a Burger King restaurant with a BB gun in August of 1999, but the assistant manager there wisely decided to hand over the cash without a struggle and no-one was hurt.  In any case, over the 13 years that ensued, it appears that Anderson has clearly demonstrated that he has mended his ways and has become a law-abiding, tax-paying citizen.  As such, he and his lawyer, Patrick Megaro, argue that incarceration at this point serves no purpose.  Unfortunately, the American Statute of Limitations wasn't quite designed to handle this particular situation.

Asked why he didn't turn himself in, Anderson explains that he just figured that the law didn't care about him any more.  Besides, I have to wonder what, exactly, the law expects a man in this situation to do.  Can you imagine the phone call?  "Hello, Missouri Department of Corrections?  Yeah, my name is Cornealious Anderson.  I was convicted of armed robbery about a month ago and someone was supposed to tell me where to report for jail, but I... what?  Sure, I'll hold..."

The Missouri Attorney General argues that the state is justified in requiring Anderson to serve his full sentence after all this time, and I have no doubt that there are those who would agree.  He committed a crime, he was duly convicted and he has not yet paid the penalty.  But here we have to ask ourselves what is the purpose of prison?  Is it to reform or to punish, or is it both?  If the purpose of prison is to reform, then incarceration is completely unnecessary in this case.  The former criminal has clearly been reformed.  In fact, it might be argued that locking the man up now, taking him from his family and his job and throwing him in amongst a community of hardened criminals only creates the risk of turning him back into a criminal.

If, on the other hand, the purpose of prison is to punish, then I suppose it can be argued that Anderson has not been duly punished for his crime.  I'm not sure exactly what purpose punishing him serves at this point.  Perhaps someone should find the assistant manager of that Burger King that Anderson held up and ask him what he thinks should be done.