- Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.
There is no higher privilege. What a wonderful, clear-thinking person.
Ok I was super cynical about this initially, expecting some half-baked notions of... Well I don't know what. But I finished and found my heart drastically softened.
- I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and I have given something in return; I have read and traveled and thought and written.
This bit really touched me. I am no stranger to delusions of grandeur, but this really is in some ways, the most that anyone can hope to say of their life upon it's conclusion. Pretty much everything else I can imagine saying is subsumed under it.
I wonder what it is in me that pulls away from that gentle acceptance of life lived as well as one is capable. I wonder what it is that makes me feel as though that's fine and dandy for other people including my loved ones, but is almost unimaginable torture to me. That pulls away from living and dying like so many millions of others have, contented (To one degree or another) with loving, being loved, and the terribly beautiful experience of just existing as I do, when I do. /ramble
I've read a few of his more recent ones (Musicophilia, Hallucinations, Uncle Tungsten). I think you can just grab any of them. He's a very good author.