Playground

by Richard Powers

Without the ability to feel sad, a person could not be kind or thoughtful, because you wouldn’t care or know how anybody else feels. Without sadness, you would never learn anything from history. Sadness is the key to loving what you love and to becoming better than you were. A person who never felt sad would be a monster.

Because of my work, my doctors hold me in special regard. Or maybe they’ve just looked up my net worth online. Either way, I’m getting the best attention and treatment a patient could ask for. But as the song goes, money can’t buy me neurons.

Add that to your table of definitions for what it means to be a human being. We make things that we hope will be bigger than us, and then we’re desolate when that’s what they become.