What Makes a Life Significant?
In John Markoff's wonderful book, “What the Dormouse Said,” Doug Engelbart runs across an essay by William James that changes his life. The essay is entitled “What Makes a Life Significant,” and I ran right out online and found it. It's well worth reading.
James tells us that a significant life is a life lived in the service of ideals — particularly when those ideals are combined with pluck and will, “dogged endurance and insensibility to danger.” Because we can never know which ideals someone holds dear, without knowing that person well, it is not right to dismiss him or her as a fungible member of a human category. No life lived for an ideal is insignificant.
The Lloyd Cutler memorial service yesterday was captured by the Post here. The article is accompanied by a picture of Justice Breyer laughing with AG Gonzales. They're laughing at a verbal dagger thrown by Sen. Clinton. It was quite an afternoon. It was an extremely long afternoon. Cutler engaged intensely with many many different institutions — the Metropolitan Opera, Yale, the American Law Institute, the Salzburg Seminar, the Presidency, his law firm, the Supreme Court, his family — and it was nearly impossible to fit it all in.
What's the ideal that Mr. Cutler lived for? Louis Cohen captured this in his speech. His was the very last remembrance, at the very end of the day, after many people had hurried out, drawn by the call of cellphones and dinner engagements. Lou said that Lloyd solved problems. He didn't do just what the client said to do (too many lawyers see their jobs this way). Instead, he found the high road, the right answer, and persuaded everyone else to go along. He served the US over and over again, solving problems for Republicans and Democrats alike. He lived a significant life.
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The value of life, like the speed of light, is constant. To assess one life, even one