In Steven Conrad’s 2006 drama, The Pursuit of Happyness, Chris Gardner (the protagonist played by Will Smith) lays the thesis of the film at the feet of the viewers when he says, “It was right then that I started thinking about Thomas Jefferson on the Declaration of Independence and the part about our right to life, […]
Life & Culture
Enrich the Well From Which You Draw Your Inspiration
Last week I began a discussion around the idea that if we want people to read and follow our work, it has to be interesting. I don’t mean interesting in the sense of cool, hip, or flashy. I mean intriguing and meaningful in a human sort of way. It concerns me that so many writers are […]
An Existential Evaluation
If you have ever wondered why you exist, or if you had a purpose in the world—if there was a place in this complex universe designed specifically for you—congratulations! You’re human. Wondering about the meaning of life, and about your place in the universe is sometimes referred to as an existential crisis. But since it’s a […]
No Reason for Christmas
Celebrations don’t generally need justification, as most of us find plenty of reasons for celebrating. Friday night, for example, is when lots of people let their hair down after a long week at work. In our modern industrialized culture that values work and production above most everything else, a Friday night “out on the town” is […]
A Lesson From a Tombstone: Part Six
{If you missed it you can read Part One here, read Part Two here, read Part Three here, read Part Four here, and read Part Five here.} Lastly, the nameless dead man died foolishly. His epitaph will forever be: died eating library paste. What could be more absurd, more ridiculous, than a man eating library paste and […]
A Lesson From a Tombstone: Part Five
{If you missed it you can read Part One here, read Part Two here, read Part Three here, and read Part Four here.} The nameless man was dead. And strangely, it wasn’t his dying that got to me. We will all die one day. As the fellow said, “No one gets off this planet alive.” Dying is […]
A Lesson from a Tombstone: Part Four
{If you missed it you can read Part One here, read Part Two here, and read Part Three here.} The dead man was nameless. From antiquity to modernity, a person’s name has typically been symbolic of his or her identity. For example, Solomon, the name of the King of Israel who famously wrote, there is a time to […]
A Lesson From a Tombstone: Part Three
{If you missed it you can read Part One here, and you can read Part Two here.} Finally, the more serious questions—the human questions—made their way up the levee and displaced the silty ones, distilling truths in my mind like the clear waters of Lake Tahoe. Who was this unknown man? Was he a prospector, a cowboy, or […]
A Lesson From a Tombstone: Part Two
{If you missed it you can read Part One here.} Wandering among the dated memorials trying to decipher the stories of shades who walked the dusty streets a hundred years before, we came across the most unusual and intriguing tombstone. In one sense, it was very much like the others around it. It was made of […]
A Lesson From a Tombstone: Part One
Midway along our journey from Las Vegas to Reno, my family and I wandered off the highway into a savage and stubborn wilderness to find a rest stop to let the kids take care of business. What we discovered though was a strange piece of history that compelled us to explore and photograph an old […]