Your most poignant and touching writing to date, Sam. It’s as if we share a brain, and maybe, in some way we do. I’ve always been a Benjamin Button in my mind, wise beyond my years, mature for my age, an old soul, as it were. A man out of place in both space and time. Born half a century too late. Or too early. Depending on how you look at it.
I love the associative nature of your mind, like mine, in detecting patterns across history and synthesizing the tasseled fragments into a tapestry uniquely its own.
Life is too short, as many over the ages have inadequately expounded. As a journalism major in college I wrote a column about happiness and the meaning of life in the our daily student newspaper, the Diamondback, at the University of Maryland, College Park.
It was the most well-received article I’ve ever written in my life. Because it struck a chord that resonated with every student on campus and every person who had ever walked this Earth. The eternal human struggle for meaning. I described the meaning of life as “how we spend our time, in what manner and with whom.” A very journalistic answer in its Who, What, Why, When and How” of its simplicity. The inverted pyramid applied to the very essence of life itself. In the style of The Wall Street Journal’s oft-imitated, seldom-repeated opening graph of personal human interest stories first before bridging to the meat of the story.
The longitudinal Harvard Happiness studies all tell us the same thing. About the deepest regrets of the dying. And what it means for a life well lived.
Just what I needed to read this morning. Very well done, Sam.
Thanks for reading Jim.
Your most poignant and touching writing to date, Sam. It’s as if we share a brain, and maybe, in some way we do. I’ve always been a Benjamin Button in my mind, wise beyond my years, mature for my age, an old soul, as it were. A man out of place in both space and time. Born half a century too late. Or too early. Depending on how you look at it.
I love the associative nature of your mind, like mine, in detecting patterns across history and synthesizing the tasseled fragments into a tapestry uniquely its own.
Life is too short, as many over the ages have inadequately expounded. As a journalism major in college I wrote a column about happiness and the meaning of life in the our daily student newspaper, the Diamondback, at the University of Maryland, College Park.
It was the most well-received article I’ve ever written in my life. Because it struck a chord that resonated with every student on campus and every person who had ever walked this Earth. The eternal human struggle for meaning. I described the meaning of life as “how we spend our time, in what manner and with whom.” A very journalistic answer in its Who, What, Why, When and How” of its simplicity. The inverted pyramid applied to the very essence of life itself. In the style of The Wall Street Journal’s oft-imitated, seldom-repeated opening graph of personal human interest stories first before bridging to the meat of the story.
The longitudinal Harvard Happiness studies all tell us the same thing. About the deepest regrets of the dying. And what it means for a life well lived.
Thanks for your thoughts Scott. I too wrote for the paper in college. Good training for both of us it seems.
Beautiful, Sam. ❤️
Thank you Bridget :)