I am working on my dummy to submit to literary agents and editors. Today I am thinking about my main characters, the Littlest Goat and the Littlest Sheep. They have no names.

The Littlest Sheep and the Littlest Goat embody the desire to fight the good fight, to seek justice, and to tell the truth. I believe this desire lives within each of us, especially in the young.

The honest quest for greatness always involves placing the herd before one's self. Of all the great men and women of history, the names we remember are only part of the story. The rest of history, the source of greatness, is unnameable. The Littlest Sheep and Goat transcend time, place, and name.

In high school and college I read Plato's Republic a few times. The Republic tries to answer the question “what is justice?" I remember Glaucon and the ring of invisibility. I remember Glaucon's assertion that rules can be broken when no one is watching. Socrates does not endorse this view of justice, nor should we now, in 2019.

I think the Littlest Sheep and the Littlest Goat are part of the answer. Justice, truth and responsibility are irrevocably linked. We, the adults have a responsibility to teach the young truth and virtue.

When I think about trying to sell my dummy, Go Away Herzog I am angry about the crass consumerist society that I live in, and the worship of the dollar. Every literary agent and publisher will look to every A, B and C list celebrity before they will think of publishing my work. I may not have the best words. But some of the best selling words are mean words. In Plato’s Republic Socrates says, “ let us pass a leisure hour in story-telling, and our story shall be the education of our heroes. The Republic asks, “and what shall be their education?”

The Republic is 2,300 years old. Yet the book is still in print. And the Socratic question is one that we should all be asking ourselves right now-”our story shall be the education of our heroes…and what shall be their education?”