On Approaching Death

 CW: As the title suggests, there will be discussion of death and dying and some mention of suicide in this post.

I thought nothing of following up my last post on Irvin Yalom on the meaning of life with Yalom on the meaning of death, until I started writing here. The very reality of being a bit wary of broaching the subject reveals the strength of societal taboos against admitting that we’re all going to die. Until it’s staring us in the face, we delude ourselves into thinking we will get better and better, mentally and physically, despite that our brain starts to shrink in our 30s, and our joints and organs will start to give out not so long after. We work hard to keep death clean and sanitized so the reality doesn’t seep in too much, and we try to do all the right things to keep death at bay: exercise, various special diets, wearing masks to avoid viruses. We can fix some evidence of erosion with meds and surgeries, sometimes miraculously, but some people even hope to keep their brain going long after their body dies.

Yalom on Approaching Meaning

About 45 years ago, psychiatrist Irvin Yalom estimated that a good 30-50% of all cases of depression might actually be a crisis of meaninglessness, an existential sickness, and these cases require a different method of treatment. We experience this lack of purpose as boredom, apathy, or emptiness. We are "not told by instinct what one must do, or any longer by tradition what one should do. Nor does one know what one wants to do," so we feel lost and directionless. Instead of addressing meaninglessness as the problem, though, we've been merely addressing the symptoms of it: addictions, compulsions, obsessions, malaise. In today's context, it might suggest that even social media issues could be problems with a lack of meaning. 

The last sentences of his lengthy tome, Existential Psychotherapy, sum up his solution: "The question of meaning in life is, as the Buddha taught, not edifying. One must immerse oneself in the river of life and let the question drift away." How he lands here is an intriguing path through a slew of philosophers and psychiatrists. Even without symptoms of a problem, attention to meaning is necessary as it gives birth to values, which become principles to live by as we place behaviours into our own hierarchy of acceptability. 

"One creates oneself by a series of ongoing decisions. But one cannot make each and every decision de novo throughout one's life; certain superordinate decisions must be made that provide an organizing principle for subsequent decisions." 

Yalom doesn't, however, suggest coming up with a list of values that can become meaningful to us, but that we immerse ourselves in life to become more aware of which values we already have. 

WHAT'S THE POINT? IT'S FOR US TO DECIDE

According to Yalom, we've hit this crisis point in meaninglessness because we have the leisure to think and because our work is no longer clearly purposeful, both of which are relatively recent experiences for such a large proportion of civilization. It's no longer just the philosophers of the day asking, What's it all for? What's the point of it all? He takes the existential position that it's up to us to figure it out. 

Frankl's Logotherapy

The second half of Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning was added in 1962 to provide greater detail of Logotherapy, in which patients must hear difficult things in contrast to psychoanalysts provoking telling difficult things (see the first part here). It's less introspective and more focused on our place in the world:

"Logotherapy defocuses all the vicious-circle formations and feedback mechanisms which play such a great role in the development of neuroses. Thus the typical self-centeredness of the neurotic is broken up instead of being continually fostered and reinforced . . . the patient is actually confronted with and reoriented toward the meaning of his life. . . . Striving to find a meaning in one's life is the primary motivational force in man. That is why I speak of a will to meaning in contrast to the pleasure principle on which Freudian psychoanalysis is centered, as well as in contrast to the will to power on which Adlerian psychology, using the term 'striving for superiority,' is focused" (98). 

Frankl's Phases of Life in the Camps

My lovely friend and former colleague recently passed away unexpectedly. The kindest people go far too soon. We also went to teacher's college together over 30 years ago, and his quips and just the calm and jovial way about him helped make the ridiculous assignments there far more tolerable. Sitting next to me as a trustee, he and I often chatted about the benefits of meditation; he and his wife actually saw Thich Nhat Hanh in person! 

He was a wealth of knowledge, and one of his recommended reads for me was Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, which I gobbled up in no time, but it was too late to talk to him about it. That's destroying me a bit these days, so I'll write it all here instead. 

Frankl survived several concentration camps, the near starvation and typhus that took many others, and explains how he coped and designed a form of psychotherapy in the process. The book is Nietzsche's "He who has a Why to live for can bear almost any How," which he quotes a few times throughout. He kept his mind on the future, imagining better days after the war, back with his wife again and lecturing about his experiences. I've read it trying to use his words to better tolerate the less acute, more chronic threat of Covid. It might seem trite or contrived to make such a comparison, but consider that more people have succumbed to Covid than Jewish prisoners in the camps and it continues because we are living blindly to it, unthinking. Some estimates suggests Covid has cost us over 30 million lives in just three years. 

The book is in two parts. In the first, originally published in 1946, he describes his experiences living in a death camp and the three phases of survival in camp life. He wrote it after being released and returning to Vienna to learn that his pregnant wife, parents, and brother had all died in the camps. In the second half he explains how to cope with it all, but I'll save that for another day. Page numbers throughout are from the 2006 edition.

On Anxiety

I just finished John Green's Turtles All the Way Down, which I read because he claimed it was his way of trying to put words around what it's like to live with profound anxiety, and then I saw this article asking "Why are more American teens than ever suffering from severe anxiety?". I was raised with most my sibs affected by some kind of mental illness or disorder, and now my children are in the same boat. Somehow, I've made it this far relatively unscathed by the ravages of anxiety, so I'm ever eager to really get my head around what it feels like from the inside.

Green's book is just what I was hoping for. There's nothing to read below the surface here, which might deny it any book awards, but it does an excellent job of giving us a clear and straightforward  first-hand glimpse of the inner thoughts that drive anxious behaviours. Like David Sedaris's Naked, a collection of hilarious personal essays about OCD, it can help the reader really get why anyone would do or think those things and then begin to empathize with that curious drive that all but obliterates their free will.

On the Absurdist Victory: All is Well

A while back I wrote about a video comparing Stoicism and Existentialism. The video also touched on different psychology principles developed from each philosophy. Stoicism is easily seen in CBT and REBT, which all start with the premise that when we're upset it's because of our perception of things, not the things in themselves, and we often have an irrational view. Through reality testing and viewing the situation in a detached way we can be less emotionally affected by anxiety around events. It's been very effective in reducing anxiety levels in a good 70-80% of patients.

Existential psychoanalysis took a different path:

"The basic thrust of existential psychoanalysis, if it aspires to be at all existential, must in turn be rooted in the sensibilities of existential philosophy. That sensibility may be characterized by two principal themes: a) all human knowledge is rooted in personal experience; b) the weight of experience is so exasperating that we seek to escape it through self-deception....Every one of us employs deceptions for the same reason. Whenever we're thwarted in our endeavors we feel disappointment and frustration. We may fear that we won't get our way by being honest and resort to guile and manipulation - the principal source of neurotic guilt....On a deeper level it entails the patient's willingness to plumb the depths of experience while accepting responsibility for whatever comes to light, for better or worse."

Instead of our view of externals provoking upset, tumults are from the struggle for people to accept the truth about themselves and recognize their various attempts to escape it. Instead of looking at individual daily triggers, existentialists look at that big one: We search for meaning and purpose in life, but the reality has to be faced - that there simply isn't any. We've been thrown here randomly, and it's up to each of us to make the best of things. The "curative power lay in the patient's capacity for honesty." Upsetting experiences are useful for taking us outside ourselves and possibly provoking a transformation of consciousness that leads to maturation. No pain, no gain. Suppression of experiences is the problem: not an inaccurate assessment, but a refusal to actually see what's there. We need to give voice to our darkest truths, no matter how ugly. From an early age, we devise pleasant fantasies to override potential traumas as slight as disappointment, and then we become anxious that there's something deep within that we don't really want to know. Self-deception and deception by others (as they might help us remain in denial) are part of every issue. We're all inherently devious and deceive one another as a matter of course. The solution is acknowledging our radical freedom, digging past the deceptions to find our authentic selves, and recognizing the absurdity of it all.

On Comparing Existentialism and Stoicism

This summer, I went on one camping trip with a book on Stoicism, then another camping trip with a book on Existentialism, and I was intrigued by the many similarities. Then I came across this video that has some overlap with what I had noticed. As they say in the video, Massimo Pigliucci (MP) on Stoicism and Skye Cleary (SC) on Existentialism, both are philosophies that offer a way to live instead of just a way to think about the world. I'm putting it all together here with quotes (names linked to sources) to sort it out for myself. I'm just thinking out loud here. This is too long for any normal person to want to read.

These are both philosophies that allow surveyors to pick and choose from variations on a theme as neither has one authoritative dude overriding all others, and, it would appear, few of the big guns cared to adopt either label anyway. For the Stoics, defining yourself as one is avoided because it's pretentious. In The Role Ethics of Epictetus, it's clarified that we are simultaneously different things, and how we play each role is more important than what our roles are. The roles are often not our choice, but how we do them are, i.e. whether or not we're a virtuous son, mother, teacher, or waiter (MP). For Existentialists, we can't be defined by the roles we take on because we're more than the mere facts about ourselves (SC), so labels become meaningless.

On Childhood Angst

Can children be existentialists? What I'm asking isn't so much whether or not it's possible, but should we allow it? 

If I dare to claim to define some central ideas here, the part about living authentically and embracing the freedom that comes with taking responsibility for all our choices with no excuses, that side of it is, I believe, pretty useful for everyone. But what about the darker edges of the philosophy? Life is objectively meaningless, and, since being unceremoniously dropped here, we're each of us alone in our quest to find meaning for ourselves. Things don't all work out in the end somehow; wonderful people can suffer many tragedies, one right after another. Nobody's controlling the game to make sure the good are justly rewarded. It's all a crapshoot.... And then you die. And, according to some, getting your head around the finality of our existence is key to the authentic life.

Is that too harsh for the little ones?

At what age is it acceptable to have conversations with children about this topic? What if your children bring up a sense of dread and angst at the possibility of their own demise. Is it better to acknowledge death, foster illusions of permanence, or deflect the issue entirely? Which will have the least detrimental effect?

A friend's daughter is suffering some anxiety; she's a worrier. Maybe it's because she has a gene for rumination. Or maybe she's a typical bright, creative kid.  One study, albeit with a very small sample size, found a link between intelligence and anxiety.

"Those with anxiety disorder tended to have higher IQ scores than healthy people, as well as higher levels of activity in regions of the brain that aid in communication between parts of the brain. These regions are thought to have contributed to the evolutionary success of humans. . . . High levels of anxiety can be disabling, and patients' worries are often irrational. But every so often there's a wild-card danger. Then, that excessive worry becomes highly adaptive. People who act on the signals of that wild-card danger are likely to preserve their lives and the lives of their offspring." 

But another study with an enormous sample size found a strong link between creativity and mental illness:

They found that people working in creative fields, including dancers, photographers and authors, were 8% more likely to live with bipolar disorder. Writers were a staggering 121% more likely to suffer from the condition, and nearly 50% more likely to commit suicide than the general population. . . . Earlier studies on families have suggested that there could be an inherited trait that gives rise to both creativity and mental illness.*

It can be weirdly comforting to know that anxiety has links to positive traits, but more important than understanding why it starts, is to figure out what to do now. How do we help our children when they worry they'll run out of food or get hit by a meteorite or get hit by lightening or get conscripted into a war or get abducted on the way home from school? We feel helpless. We are helpless. The reality is we can't guarantee our children's security. We do our best to try, but there are no guarantees we'll be successful. Should we pretend there are? How much control can we really have over this - over their security and over their sense of security? It can help to believe we can fix everything for our kids, but I wonder if it's healthier to recognize how often we can't.

We really like to find patterns in the world, connections that make it all seem predictable. If everything works through a rational cause and effect system, then we can have a measure of control over the outcome. If we can observe the effects of different actions enough to see where the connections are, then we can behave in a way to provoke a specific outcome. But however we might look back at a sequence of events and connect the dots to try to understand how we got here, sorry to say, that only works in hindsight. Our lives are largely unpredictable. We live with a comforting illusion that we can control events, but then random acts steer us in a different direction.

Things are generally predictable, but not specifically, and that trips people up. Like Mlodinow explains in one of my favourite books, people are like molecules. Heat them up, and we can safely predict they'll all spread out, but we can't accurately predict the trajectory of any individual molecule. So we know that, generally, a university degree leads to a better job, but we can't know if your university degree will get you anywhere. This can be a little daunting, so we seek out other factors that caused the unexpected effect. We fight hard to grasp at an illusion of control over our lives, but, for better or worse, we encounter the absurdity of the the world. But if we can accept that some things just are and can't be controlled or fixed or prevented, it can actually make it easier to live through the random events that mark human existence. 

I suggested to this friend that acknowledging death is the best course over pretending we can guarantee a long life or ignoring the heart of the concerns. He responded, "I'm not going to tell my 8-year-old that we're all going to die." And coming from that angle, my suggestion sounds crazy. And yet, after some time to consider the situation, I maintain my position because doesn't she already know that to be the case?

I asked my 11-year-old what she thinks about the idea of talking to kids about death and what she thinks about kids having lots of anxiety these days.  She said,

"I think kids should know the truth instead of thinking that the whole world is a perfect place. Because it's not. We've got a lot of places that have a lot of problems right now. I worry about stuff that's going to happen, but I worry about it too soon."

I think she's hit on something important about worry - that it's often a concern when it's a matter of inappropriate timing. It makes more sense when it's right in front of us and very likely than when it's further away or less likely. Anxiety can give us an adrenaline rush that helps us stay up late to hit a deadline when we need it, but it's fruitless when it's too far in advance.

My concern here with an avoidance of existentialist thinking is that our culture's drive to protect children from anything remotely painful might be creating a society of people with lowered resilience who struggle to cope with the most minor setbacks, like students weeping over an essay because they can't think of a topic. This is a fairly recent phenomenon, or, at least, it's only recently that it is being openly displayed to teachers. 

Maybe previously we were all ashamed of feeling anxious, so we hid it. If that's the case, then it's a positive that we're seeing more of it.

But I wonder if it's the case that, previously, our anxiety over having enough food or money or supports in the face of plenty and a general fear of losing everything we've worked for was met with "Yup you might. Get over it!" comments that convinced us to cut-off those thought instead of dwelling on them and talking about them and bringing our concerns to person after person who would share their deepest fears, thereby giving credence to our worry and further embedding the pathways in our brain that allow worry to flourish! Flippant reactions might have a similar effect as current CBT methods in which people might be told to stop negative thoughts by imagining a big red "X" over the negative idea, then replace them with alternative thoughts, and then those troubling ideas will eventually decrease in frequency and intensity. Flippant reactions to worry can have the same effect of "You're fine!" in response to a tumble on the playground instead of rushing in with peroxide and bandaids. We rush in an awful lot these days.

We've gone down a different road of listening to everyone's feelings to the point that now we have a generation of second-order anxiety: personal anxiety plus anxiety over our children's anxiety. Have we fostered discussions of our concerns to a point that they've become normalized and entrenched in our brains? We feel like we worry for good reason about our anxious children because sometimes anxiety can turn into something worse like self-mutilation or suicide ideation. And then then we worry that worrying about our children's anxiety might actually make it worse! I think it was easier for my parents to acknowledge the worst case scenarios because they were born in the '20s and lived through the depression and then WWII. They experienced the worst and survived. We've been too sheltered from real trauma in our generation's past to be able to acknowledge that it could be a very real part of our future and to just get on with things. We're here today, and we have food and shelter, and we haven't been hit by a meteorite, so do your homework already!

Worrying about what might happen (like a child's anxiety turning into something worse) helps us feel like we're doing something productive about something we might have little effect over. But it could just an illusion of productivity. The tricky business is figuring out when we can have an effect and when we can't. We might stand back as parents and watch our kids fight through various stages of depression and anxiety, trying one therapist or medication after another wondering if doing nothing would have been as effective. It's complicated. But when they're beginning to express some fears over things clearly outside our control, a brush-off might be the trick. 

I can be a pretty intense worrier, and I actively work to decrease those thoughts. When I was growing up, I was terrified of the cold war. I was absolutely convinced we were all going to waste away from radiation poisoning if we weren't lucky enough to be hit directly.  This cartoon didn't help. It's of a middle age couple slowly dying, yet in denial the entire time, desperately trying to look on the bright side: "I should put some skin lotion on these spots. They should soon clear up." No wonder I had nightmares. But we lived, and all that worry was for naught. It did nothing to affect nuclear disarmament. Nothing.

I recognize this might not work for everyone, but what helped me cope as a child and now, what I believe prevented a journey into deeper anxiety or spells of crying in front of teachers, was my mum's very Epicurean acknowledgement that, "We all have to die of something," as she'd light another cigarette. Epicurus explained that, of course we're going to die, but we're not dead now, and, when we're dead, we won't know about it anyway; therefore, it doesn't make sense to worry about death. My mum was the kind who required a bloody appendage stapled to any request to miss a day of school. She'd soften the blow by tacking on, "But it likely won't happen for a long time....But, then again, we never know!" It had the effect of making me very productive. If death could be around any corner, then maybe I should drag myself from the TV to seize the day. And it helped me see that we're all in this together, Kings and paupers alike.

Recognizing the randomness of our lives, and how little control we have over it all, and the reality that death is inevitable, can actually help us live a more satisfying existence. I didn't wait for a magical age to share this with my children, but aimed to answer questions and concerns as authentically as possible throughout their lives. It's not all bad news. The worst might happen tomorrow, but if you're alive and well today, then let's celebrate that fact.

from this cite of awesomeness

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*I'm not sure the difference between being an author and being a writer, but for the sake of my mental health, I hope I'm in the former group.

On the Titanic and Tolstoy

I've heard this before somewhere, but I can't find it to give due credit:  Coping with climate change is like coping with being a passenger on the Titanic.

Some won't notice anything's amiss until they're well into the water.

Some will notice it's going down and decide we should continue playing until the bitter end.

Some will continue to insist it's unsinkable.  Technology, leadership, something will swoop in to save the day.  We mustn't worry ourselves too much.

Some will spend their energy insisting it's not their fault, so it's not their problem.  They'll sit stubbornly still in their belief that they shouldn't have to do anything to change the situation even as they feel the ship shift.

But others will get to work, and try to get as many people on the lifeboats as possible and abandon the luxury ship they're on for a better chance at survival in a smaller vessel.  It doesn't matter whose fault it is that it's sinking (past focus), nor that one day it might be fixable (future focus), but that right now people are in danger of great suffering.

And, although not a perfect fit, it reminded me of Tolstoy's choices of responses to the horrors of facing a meaningless death:

1. We can live a life of abject ignorance.  This is the lowest choice for the cowards and the weak.  These are the climate deniers.

2. We can recognize the hopelessness of the situation, but enjoy Earthly pleasures while we're here.  These are the many I met on various dating sites I've since abandoned, whose primary interests are travelling and working out.  It's Kierkegaard's aesthetic life.

3. We can recognize the meaninglessness of life, but cling to it anyway - afraid to die, but not living authentically either with a self-righteous focus on duty-driven ethical choices.  It's a fearful attitude, but more honest than the first two.  This is where Tolstoy claimed to be in A Confession, before his final epiphany and conversion.

4. We can recognize the futility of it all and commit suicide.  Tolstoy saw this as a noble option.  If it's all for nought, then it's weak to drag it out until it's taken from us as if we have no free will, no choice in the situation.

5. We can put our hands in a faith of some sort - and recognize that it's all larger than ourselves.  This is where Tolstoy ends up at the end of The Death of Ivan Ilych.  We give life meaning through a life spent living compassionately with others and for others, fearless of the end, fully in the present.


We have to keep working towards preventing the suffering of billions.  Luckily, if working and helping others, and enjoying others is pleasurable, then it's easy to do.  And living compassionately, Tolstoy makes clear, means pitying the people focused on things and appearances and social standing.  I don't like the connotation of "pitying," but he ends up with a great love for people whom he formerly hated for their choices and attitude.  I believe it's a position that looks at what we can do for others rather than one that sees only how others affect us.  But it's a struggle for me to get there when the action of so many need to change in order for this all to work.  The actions of so many affect our own survival.  As Diamond notes the "impossibility of convincing First World citizens to lower their impact on the world," it's clear we're on a Titanic, and we can only do what we can while we slowly sink into the sea.   It's not for us to fix it, but for us to try with ever an attitude of compassion while we work.

Something like that.

An Unprecedented Emergency

The Guardian has an excerpt of Stephen Emmott's new book, Ten Billion, about the effects of overpopulation on the environment.  The situation is dire.  I haven't read the book, but in the excerpt he delineates that we're definitely in a state of unprecedented emergency.  Unfortunately he fails to offer any significantly radical ideas to follow that could actually happen to save us all.  Here's what Emmott says,

The only solution left to us is to change our behaviour, radically and globally, on every level. In short, we urgently need to consume less. A lot less. Radically less. And we need to conserve more. A lot more. To accomplish such a radical change in behaviour would also need radical government action. But as far as this kind of change is concerned, politicians are currently part of the problem, not part of the solution, because the decisions that need to be taken to implement significant behaviour change inevitably make politicians very unpopular – as they are all too aware....We urgently need to do – and I mean actually do – something radical to avert a global catastrophe. But I don't think we will. I think we're fucked.

The Not-So-Awful Truth About Being Single

"If you're lonely when you're alone, you're in bad company."  Jean-Paul Sartre

In yesterday's Globe & Mail, Margaret Wente claims that people can get to a much greater depth of understanding and "perfection" of self through a married relationship than they can possibly do if they remain single.

"...the road to self-actualization isn't through perfection of the independent self, but through imperfect, messy, long-term relationships.  Everybody needs someone else to nurture, and someone to stand up for them, and someone to plan the future with, and someone with whom they share a past."  

Wente stumbles into one of the most annoyingly common false dichotomies surrounding this issue:  either you're married or you're alone.  And she continues that single people are lonely implying, of course, that loneliness never ventures into a marriage, that it's solely a quality of aloneness.  I've never been married, yet I know too well the messiness of relationships with myriad friends and colleagues whom I nurture, stand up for, and with whom I share a past.  We don't plan a future together in the same "until death" way that some married people manage, but that shared future in marriage is often illusory.  The future is unknowable.  Shit happens, and happily married people can still end up on their own.  

On Addictive Pleasures and the Fear of Death

I recently read Stephen Greenblatt's The Swerve, a book about the hiding and finding of the 1st century poem On the Nature of Things by Lucretius, which is a tribute to  Epicurus and his philosophy.  Lucretius writes of Epicurus, "When 'human life lay groveling ignominously in the dust, crushed beneath the grinding weight of superstition' one supremely brave man arose and became 'the first who ventured to confront it boldly'" (72).  I'm not sure the poem ushered in the modern world when it was unearthed in the 15th century, as Greenblatt suggests, but the book is quite provocative nonetheless.  And then I read Luc Ferry's A Brief History of Thought - a trip through the major western philosophies, which almost completely ignores Epicurus.  Curious.  I'll get to Ferry's book another day.

Epicurus' philosophy was developed about 300 BCE, and a few centuries later people attempted to destroy it as it was totally incompatible with the Christian way of life - particularly the bits about all things being made of atoms (adopted from Democritus).  If everything's made of atoms, then nothing is better than anything else, so the entire hierarchy of the church is a problem as is our insistence that human beings are superior to all other creatures.  Also, it means we don't stay together as one being when we die, so the possibility of an afterlife falls apart (and the hopeful justice measured out in rewards and punishments to be found there).  And choosing a life of pleasure over pain?  That's just going way too far for many old school Christians .

I had a couple stop-and-think-about-it-for-a-few-days episodes reading The Swerve (these are off the beaten path from his general thesis):

The Aesthetic as a Route to Meaningfulness

Toby, at A Piece of Coffee, wrote an interesting post on Woody Allen and the meaning of life.  In particular, he discusses Manhattan to talk about Allen's need for art and music to give his life meaning rather than Hannah and Her Sisters or Midnight in Paris which I recently gushed over.  But, as he says, this is a common theme with many of Allen's films:  the purpose of life is to enjoy the richness of it, the beauty of art, music, architecture, and people, "to be part of the experience" (HaHS).

Toby says of art, "We distract ourselves constantly, we refuse to think about the meaning of our existence, we skirt around the inevitable." I think art can be a huge distraction, both in the viewing and in the creating. But it can also be a means towards reflecting on and delving into the depths of the ultimate meaninglessness of our lives, particularly if we include writing as an art form. We can be both pragmatically distracted from death and immersed in it as we ponder the very subject enough to make the words that fit together to communicate our ideas. Eh?

A Meander Through Summer Viewing

I’ve seen a ton of excellent movies this summer, many new releases, but also some films I’ve missed over the years too. There are three in particular that affected me in such a way that I felt I was a slightly different person having seen them.

It all started with the first, Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris, which has Owen Wilson about to get married to a mundane, superficial woman when he more or less finds a portal to the past, a place rife with passion for art and architecture and literature. When I left the theatre, the street looked different to me. The film reminded me to notice little things: how some old chairs were arranged on a porch, the slant of a roofline, initials scrawled on the corner of a brick. It reminded me of the importance of paying attention to aesthetics in our everyday life (further emphasized by this article yesterday). It also reiterates that we should never settle when it comes to marriage.