Tuesday 24 January 2012

A life well lived

"What will you do now 
with the gift 
of your left life?"

As a reader and a writer, I'm interested in personal histories, the decisions and non-decisions, the hard work and chance that brought us to where we are today.  The 'eeny, meeny, miney mo' with which one schoolgirl chose her Forces penfriend.  The stray letter that prompted one university choice over another.

Carol Ann Duffy's question interests me too.  Where do we go from here? How much choice do we have?  What does it mean to have a 'life well lived?' It's a problem Levin examines in one of my favourite books, Anna Karenina. It's many years now since I read it, and I can't even remember whether he ever found an answer.

It struck me then, as it still does now, as an important question.

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