And those who hide in a shell, risking nothing, may be losing what’s most beautiful about existence—those moments of utter self-abandoning joyfulness that come despite our ideas and feelings.

Isn’t it also grotesque to fail to recognize the wonder and delights that attend even the most difficult, grueling life?

The day, despite its dark clouds and dull grayness, is full of moments where, suddenly, from a certain vantage, one is filled with love, overcome by beauty. This paragraph is full of rich, syntactically complex sentences, drawn together with the “ands,” where the plenitude of things piles up. Chekhov’s word, here translated as “imbued,” is... See more