I don't know. I remember reading this by Marjorie Williams, one of the most inspiring and thought provoking op-eds I ever read, very explicitly anticipating her death. I think there's value in it.
That's a beautiful piece, all right, but I see it as being right in tune with what Tom Ricks wrote in asking us to notice the here and now rather than focusing on the far and away. For Marjorie, death was all too near, but few of us know how many days we have left. In a very real sense the here and now is all we actually have -- the rest is just a dream. Ricks argues against succumbing to the "bucket list" entreaties of those who make money by transporting paying customers to exotic locations, because the true price of those trips is not measured in dollars but in adding yet another stick to the overburdened back of the camel that is our shared planet. There's certainly value in anticipating one's death -- it puts things in perspective -- but traveling great distances at an enormous expenditure of fossil-fuel energy simply to check boxes off a list might be a luxury we can't afford for the sake of future generations.
I don't know. I remember reading this by Marjorie Williams, one of the most inspiring and thought provoking op-eds I ever read, very explicitly anticipating her death. I think there's value in it.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-halloween-of-my-dreams/2012/10/31/80d281c0-2372-11e2-ac85-e669876c6a24_story.html
That's a beautiful piece, all right, but I see it as being right in tune with what Tom Ricks wrote in asking us to notice the here and now rather than focusing on the far and away. For Marjorie, death was all too near, but few of us know how many days we have left. In a very real sense the here and now is all we actually have -- the rest is just a dream. Ricks argues against succumbing to the "bucket list" entreaties of those who make money by transporting paying customers to exotic locations, because the true price of those trips is not measured in dollars but in adding yet another stick to the overburdened back of the camel that is our shared planet. There's certainly value in anticipating one's death -- it puts things in perspective -- but traveling great distances at an enormous expenditure of fossil-fuel energy simply to check boxes off a list might be a luxury we can't afford for the sake of future generations.