Michael

Very glad to hear about the cancer-test results.

My vacation was probably the best I've taken in years. I got to see aunts, uncles and first cousins. Talking with my cousins was particularly interesting; despite the fact we're all pushing 50, none of us seem fundamentally different from when we were 10 years old. Obviously, our life experiences have taken us in all sorts of different directions, but our basic "toolkit" seems indistinguishable from what we had to work with 40 years ago.

The older I get the less I believe in the notion of the "autonomous individual"--it's almost like each of us is a like one hand of cards in a game of poker, but the deck we're dealt from is the more "fundamental" unit. Any biography that doesn't spend as much time on the subject's parents, siblings and children as on the subject is missing the boat, I suspect.

Cheers,

Friedrich