Annie Dillard January 21, 2025

Any culture tells you how to live your one and only life: to wit as everyone else does. Probably most cultures prize, as ours rightly does, making a contribution by working hard at work that you love; being in the know, and intelligent; gathering a surplus; and loving your family above all, and your dog, your boat,... See more

It can be hard to bear, how the cosmos went from hydrogen to the double helix by its own insentient laws, forged from the iron rib of dying stars creatures capable of the Benedictus and the atomic bomb, hurled ice ages and earthquakes at the rocky body of a world we now walk in skins and nervous systems over which have had no say, born into... See more

Emanating from these lives are larger questions about the measure of a good life and what it means to leave a lasting mark of betterment on an imperfect world: Are achievement and acclaim enough for happiness? Is genius? Is love? Weaving through the narrative is a set of peripheral figures — Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charles Darwin, Elizabeth Barrett... See more