Meditations
“Simplify, simplify!”
In the vocation of writing, poverty is a prerequisite for greatness. At least that’s what I told myself back when I was about nineteen or twenty years old. I had only recently committed myself wholeheartedly to “becoming a writer.” I harbored a zealous admiration for literature’s impoverished, ill-fated greats: John Keats, Stephen Crane, Henry David Thoreau—all were paupers, and all died young.
As I saw it, those literary greats were able to remain intensely focused on the eternal verities because they weren’t after fame or fortune—just beauty, just truth. It was their raw existences, lives close to the bone and suffused with awareness of nature’s riches, that made possible their immortal works. I eventually came to realize I’d romanticized their poverty, but even today I believe my naivete served a powerful purpose, and laid a foundation that has helped me for a decade now … (read entire essay)
A Moment of Fulfillment
For years I struggled to “find” fulfillment. Then one day I read something that knocked me out: “You don’t find meaning in life, you create it … ” (read entire essay)
How Much Is Enough?
What is prosperity? Is it a measure of the personal freedom your finances have won you? Freedom to work when you want, where you want—or to not work at all? And if so, how much money is enough?
Many books on personal finance say you’ve “made it”—achieved financial independence—when income from your assets is sufficient to support you without working. In other words, if interest, stock dividends, rental property income, and other so-called passive income covers all your expenditures each month (plus taxes, remember), you’ve made it … (read entire essay).
A Gift from My Father
One of the best gifts my father ever gave me was a wedding present of $1,000 worth of stock in Puget Sound Energy, a regulated utility in
That was 17 years ago. I followed his example, and after he died in 2006 … (read entire essay).
