Amid a Crowd of Stars

"But I wanted to play it all back to see what shape it would take once written down. I wanted to play it back, sometimes fast-fowarding, sometimes pausing to explore half-remembered faces, feelings and events, to find out how things crystallized, to unearth what really remained."- Michael Peppiatt, Paris, May 2018 I picked up this book on a whim in Lily Library today because the title was The Existential Englishman, and I was feeling the beginnings of another existential crisis coming on. I had just had lunch with my history professor in what was a wonderful conversation where we talked about his life path, my future plans, bioethics, encountering strange characters in rural Arizona, and Yellowstone National Park. His class has helped me break down and structure large and complex problems in a formulaic way: through the lens of power, politics, property and profits. I feel that many seemingly large and entangled issues can be mapped out on a multi-dimensional plane. A few w...

There are things that drift away like our endless, numbered days ~ Iron & Wine It is ironic that the best lessons about living, about what is most important and who to hold close to your chest, come from the wisdom of those who are dying. But we are all dying, some just feel it more acutely than others. Maybe that is why I have been reading more lately, seeking some trinkets of wisdom about life and how to live in the thoughts of those who had so precious limited time left. In  Unwinding of a Miracle , Julie Yip Williams spends much of her thoughts while living with metastatic colon cancer reflecting on when she was happiest (during her solo travels, witnessing the sublime elegance of nature) and those whom she will miss the most in this world (her partner, children, family and friends). Ultimately Julie realizes that dying is a solitary affair; no one else, no matter how they may want to ease the burden, will understand what she is going through. Living and dying ar...