Why
I am
Doing
This
Chapter 1
On the Miracle of Family – Thoughts on reading Longfellow’s The Children’s Hour.
Chapter 4
The Miracle of Human Photosynthesis. On reading Kilmer’s Trees.
Chapter 2
Nature seems to be designed to let us die once a year and resurrect in spring. Own reading Emerson’s The Snow-Storm.
Chapter 5
When I think of the young men who went to war for a good cause and did not come back, I wonder if I believe in anything enough to do that. On reading Letts’ The Spires of Oxford.
Chapter 3
Life and career coach Shannon O’Brien on changing your life. Interview.
Chapter 6
All empires must die – including the America empire. I sometimes wonder, what will they think of us when we are gone? On reading Kipling’s Recessional.
Chapter 7
The purpose of creation can only be to continue creation by creating yourself. On reading Longfellow’s The Builders.
Chapter 8
Why women are beautiful – On reading Wordsworth’s She was a Phantom of Delight.
Chapter 9
There is something about being human that separates us from everything else.
Chapter 10
We talk a lot about life balance and mindfulness, but life is also chaos. Reading Wordsworth’s The World is Too Much With Us.
Chapter 11
Only in the moment of death can we understand a life. Reading Cooke’s How Did You Die?
Chapter 12
Sam Torode on Ralph Waldo Emerson, Transcendentalism, and the examined life – full interview