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Karena's avatar

I never cease to be challenged by your essays, Latham. They force me to think deeply and engage on topics. Thank you for this structured, evocative conversation into deep territory.

Too much to re-quote. But I love this "I realized I hadn’t wasted my time honing my devotion to an ideal; I had honed myself to seek the right ideals."

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Michelle Elisabeth Varghese's avatar

WOW such a powerful piece Latham, thank you for opening up, putting this down on paper and sharing it with us. I related to so many pieces in this and also found myself wondering about my own pursuits in life. Ok, now here's a series of quotes I couldn't help but pulling because they just hit different!

"So often, what helped us spread our wings starts to feel like a cage, and we feel the bars pressing into us as we keep growing." Gah, I've felt this before and it's a hard thing to realize that the thing that got you to this point isn't the thing that will get you to the next one.

This resonated: "Socrates hadn’t loved obedience or service; he loved truth. He hadn’t said, “Know thy place.” He’d said, “Know thyself.” I hadn’t known myself in a long time, but I was ready to."

I wonder this too: "I love sitting around our family table, laughing for hours at the kids’ jokes while our food gets cold, but I wonder if this is my answer or a distraction from my search." Though, I do always use happiness as a check in metric. But it's always a balance. I loved your example with your daughter and the ice cream!

"Many of us are tired of trying to improve at the margins while the essence eludes us. We’re discarding our Oura health score and our daily running logs, replacing them with the ideals of our ancestors" SO WELL SAID

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