what he said

"...The freedom to be lords of our own tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the centre of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talked about in the great outside world of winning and achieving and displaying. The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the "rat race" - the constant gnawing sense of having had and lost some infinite thing."

This, and much more wisdom, belongs in a speech given by David Foster Wallace to a graduating class. That someone with so much to say, and that so many of us need to hear, is gone, is a tragedy for us all...

Call an old friend and tell them every tiny thing you remember about a day you spent together. Go on, dare you.