The Power of Storytelling
Published on October 1, 2015In many ways, my father was not an easy man. Something of a martinet, he lived with a huge amount of anxiety that he freely displaced onto others and, while he was enormously smart, his view of the world was, in certain respects, quite circumscribed. A true child of the Depression, he grew up behind his parent’s dress shop in the Bronx and turned to popular cultural icons of the time like Horatio Alger and Dink Stover to figure out how to navigate the world. He lived to be 91 years old, mostly with some real quality of life, and…
Read MoreFrom Rousseau to Karr: How to Share with Craft and Discipline
Published on August 11, 2015“Fried clams for lunch. Aftermath not pretty!!!” Check your Twitter feed these days and you are bound to see such pronouncements, many of which are being criticized widely as manifestations of oversharing. For those who are able to recall a time before Twitter and other social media, there is something self-indulgent and ill-advised about telling the world what you had for lunch and what the gastrointestinal aftereffects were. On the other hand, those who grew up on social media find it utterly natural to tell their followers where they have been, where they are going, what they intend to do…
Read More5 Good Reasons to Write Your Own Obituary
Published on August 11, 2015Why, one might ask, would anyone want to write his or her own obituary? Out of sheer narcissism? Utter morbidity? An insatiable desire to control things? Any or all of those motivations may be at work, but, to put a more positive spin on things, the act of writing one’s own obituary can also be a thought-provoking, rewarding and deeply clarifying experience. Read the rest of the article on NextAvenue
Read More4 Reasons to Have the Last Say
Published on August 11, 2015Susan K Perry Ph.D.’s recent piece on Psychology Today: Days before my father-in-law’s recent memorial service, we gave the celebrant several sheets of paper that Leland had written years ago to be used as his obit. There were few of us at the minimal service, and we asked the celebrant to sit right in front of my mother-in-law (who is very hard of hearing) while reading the pages. The celebrant told us later that this was the first time he’d read something like that, written by the deceased. Read the rest on Psychology Today
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