Back when I was (much) younger, in the days when forever had no end, I never thought about these moments.

The world, as they say, just keeps spinning. And even if it didn’t, do you know what would happen? We wouldn’t fly off into space. We wouldn’t die. The world would go on but with half of us in eternal light and half in eternal darkness. How we kept going, how we survived would depend on which side we were on, the dark or the light. But go on we would, same as always.

So when she was born I didn’t think about her first steps. When she started walking I didn’t think about her first pair of skates or seeing her ride a bike. I didn’t look ahead to her going to high school, didn’t wonder about sports she would play or friends she would make, and lose, and make again.

The college years were fun, but I didn’t dwell on her eventual graduation (and good thing, too, since the grand ceremony never happened thanks to Covid.) This was just how life was, how it was always going to be – visiting her in DC while on work trips, still seeing her as a kid with every passing birthday, and speaking in the secret language of fathers and daughters that I’m sure drove her mother crazy.

And then the walls came down.

THE ROOM WHERE THOSE WALLS ONCE STOOD hadn’t changed since we bought the house in 1996, more than two years before our daughter, now 25, was born. The previous owner was an artist and had hand-painted a Winnie-the-Pooh themed mural with all the characters of the Hundred Acre Wood.

We couldn’t bring ourselves to paint over it – not when she moved out of that nursery room into a proper bedroom down the hall; not when the “Pooh Room” as we came to calling it became a guest bedroom/music room/Pilates studio.

Through high school and college, through moving to Chicago and through her engagement last December, we didn’t touch those walls. We didn’t dare.

But thanks to some much needed foundation work, the time finally came this week. A part of me still didn’t want to believe it, didn’t want to admit it. I didn’t care about the room – I’m glad that it’s now going to be a real office for me to work in – but I cared about what it represented. The room was a moment in time locked in stasis where Winnie-the-Pooh, Christopher Robin, Piglet, Tigger, and Kanga and Roo and all the rest never aged, never got sad, never had their feelings hurt, never got bullied, never got scared or suffered.

A room where no one had to grow up.

The walls are gone now, but that’s okay. The memories are still there. Besides, as I said before, the world keeps spinning, even if it sometimes feels otherwise. We still have a choice – to pick a side, the dark or the light.

I was in the dark for a long time. In glorious denial. I wanted to stay in that place where forever had no end, so I didn’t have to suffer the curse of the inevitable.

But then the walls came down, and the light came rushing in. And while the future is no longer infinite, it is, for the first time in my life, much more clear.

I often wake up in the middle of the night, thirsty.

No, not thirsty – parched to the edge of delirium. So desperate for water I can’t think beyond taking a single precious sip, imagining it may be my last.

This ritual is a psychosomatic reminder of the worst night of my life almost 31 years ago. I was in the ICU recovering from brain surgery, unable to move or speak, my only company the sound of machines and the Filipino nurses chatting in their native tongue.

I couldn’t eat or drink and – you guessed it – I was thirsty beyond belief. My mouth was dry, my throat as coarse as the Sahara. All I wanted was a little water, but all I got was a small spoonful of ice chips once an hour, on the hour.

It was a maddening, sick torture. I didn’t sleep all night – I just stared at the clock, watching each minute pass with the speed of someone walking through knee-deep mud, waiting for a relief so fleeting it might as well not have happened at all.

I’ve never told anyone this before, but that night I wanted to die. I survived a surgery that had no guarantees of success only to wish I’d never woken up. I thought about how I might do it – pull out some tubes, mess around with the buttons on those damn machines. But like I said, I couldn’t move, could barely twitch my fingers. I was trapped, frozen in place for what felt like would be an eternity of ice chips and agony.

At some point I was moved from the ICU to a room, from a room to a nearby hotel, then finally home. I had palsy on one side of my face, but that healed. I couldn’t feed myself for days, but soon I was using a fork and knife on my own. I had to learn to walk again, to manage the dizziness as my brain “reset” from losing a hearing nerve, but within a couple months I attended a friend’s wedding without using my walker (I had to lean on my wife almost the entire time, but I didn’t mind that part.)

And I learned something that has stuck with me for 31 years: we are not our worst days. Not even close.

I wanted release that horrible night; what I got was resolve.

I wanted an end to pain; what I got was patience.

I wanted to regret; what I have now is gratitude.

My nightly undying thirst isn’t a curse, isn’t a burden, isn’t a hell revisited.

It’s a message that living is worth it. Living is how you get through it.

Living is how you win.

“What is real? How do you define ‘real’? If you’re talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then ‘real’ is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.”

Morpheus (and Immanuel Kant for that matter) didn’t need the Apple Vision Pro to change their views about the “real” world. Our senses serve as the primary interface through which we understand and navigate the world. Yet these sensory inputs undergo a complex process of interpretation and construction by our brains, crafting the reality we experience daily.

I’m hearing impaired, which creates a different reality for me. I can’t tell the direction of sound, can’t hear certain tones, can’t understand conversations at a dinner table (reading lips and “faking it” get me through most of the time.) My reality is different than yours – it’s mediated by my physical limitations.

Are the immersive, digital experiences created with VR any less “real” than those mediated by our natural senses? We might argue that all of our experiences, whether natural or technologically enhanced, are forms of “mediated” reality.

The launch of the Apple Vision Pro may push us closer to fully realizing the concept of mediated experiences. In Casey Neistat’s video below, he says the device “isn’t the future of AR or VR, this is the future interface of all computing.” I don’t disagree. Once the hardware starts looking less like oversized ski goggles and more like Ray-Bans, the potential is staggering.

But don’t be fooled – this isn’t a technology story, it’s a biology story. This is a story about the fundamental aspects of cognition and human perception. As we continue to explore and integrate these technologies into our lives, we are not just changing how we interact with the world; we are also expanding our understanding of what it means to live and perceive within it.

I’ve never dwelled on the notion of success. It’s far too subjective, too egotistical, too personal, and often too random.

For some, winning awards or making a lot of money or being promoted is success; for others it’s getting out of bed and taking a shower. For me, success exists somewhere between ‘didn’t get fired today” and “opened the canned chicken without incident.”

Like I said, subjective. 

Here’s the point: success isn’t about getting it right. Success is about knowing you’re going to get it wrong – and doing it anyway. It’s about living with purpose, not seeking perfection. It’s about finding meaning, not blind ambition. 

The most successful people I know have been ignored, belittled or otherwise dismissed for their ideas. Some of them are financially well-off, some are living paycheck to paycheck. But they are all content with their station because they pursued purpose and meaning, not ambition.

I wish I had this perspective on success a long time ago. I would have accepted my mistakes better, not taken myself so seriously, not have been so worried about what others thought about me.

I wish I knew that success is a decision, not an outcome. You can’t wait for everything to be perfect before you decide to be happy.

Choose to be successful. Don’t let others define success for you. Be what your purpose demands.

I’VE ONLY REALLY FEARED FOR MY LIFE TWICE. 

The first time was when I was 25 years old, right before surgery to remove a tumor from my head. I remember being wheeled into the operating room, looking up at the fluorescent lights and wondering whether that was the last thing I’d ever see.

The second time was in 2020, now 54 and sick with Covid, counting my breaths in a makeshift medical tent and taking silent bets on which would be my last.

I made it (obviously) but the helplessness of those moments lingered. That feeling, the understanding of my own mortality, came in waves – sometimes a small swell, other times a tsunami that sent me reeling. As I reached my 50s it happened more often, the sets coming closer together, the weight and speed of the waves threatening to push me under.

And then it stopped. It stopped today, actually. Not the waves, but the way I chose to look at the water.

An old friend – which is pretty much all my friends now – reminded me that mortality is no longer a concern. There comes a point, he said, when you realize that your kids are doing just fine without you. They love you but they don’t need you anymore. You could now focus on yourself and what lies ahead.

That was it. The truth of all truths. Mortality was in my past, not my future. I would continue to live in my daughter, in her kids someday, in my family and friends. I didn’t have to fear death because I’ve already become immortal.

Now I know that life is something to lean into, not hold on to. If you stand in the water and stare at the oncoming waves, they will pound you and send you reeling. You’ll never get anywhere. But if you turn and flow with them, you’ll move forward. You’ll float. You’ll fly.

Beating mortality isn’t about staying alive, it’s about measuring your life in memories instead of years. It’s about new experiences, not nostalgia. It’s about accepting the fact that life isn’t special if it never ends. Life is special, is worth living, because it ends.

I wasn’t ready for immortality at 25. I wasn’t ready in 2020. But I’m ready now. As I sat with old friends, watching the waves roll in under my beloved Southern California sun, I knew that my mortality was behind me and an ocean of living awaited.

Time to dive in.

I’ve had two “Marys” in my life. Both aunts by marriage, both gregarious, outgoing, caring and considerate. Straight-shooters short on bullshit and long on listening. They could be lighthearted or they could be lightning, but they were always family first, family always.

I lost one Mary years ago. I lost the other this week. Both losses were too soon, both hurt and hit hard. But this more recent Mary, this Missouri Mary, this Mary who I saw infrequently and knew less about than I should have after 32 years – this Mary’s loss also made me smile.

Let me explain. You know that person at family gatherings who others tend to gravitate toward? The one you seek out as a safe harbor of sanity in a storm of nattering nonsense?

That was Mary for me. She was the one relative I most wanted to see every Christmas, the one who wore calm like a warm winter coat. Just being in her presence was enough to make you forget whatever was bothering you, because chances were whatever was bothering you wasn’t important.

So yes, I think about Mary and I smile. That’s what she would do, what she did do all those years with all that cancer. She went to St. Louis Cardinals games, she traveled the world, she went to concerts and participated in community events.

She lived, despite all protestations to the contrary.

Even in the end you couldn’t really see the sickness. That smile and those big, deep, piercing eyes with their “I’m gonna go ahead and keep on living for a while longer if that’s cool” attitude blinded us all.

The cancer took over but it didn’t win. Mary was above the disease, beyond it. That’s how you beat cancer – by continuing to live with gratitude and grace.

The holidays won’t be the same this year. They won’t ever be the same. And that’s okay, too. The rest of us, the ones left to mourn, also need to live with gratitude and grace.

My Marys would want nothing less.

Whenever someone asks me to explain the meaning of a Jewish holiday – any Jewish holiday – my answer is always the same:

“They tried to kill us. We survived. Let’s eat.”

I usually just get a courtesy laugh, but for an attention-starved comedy hack like me, courtesy laughs are tantamount to a standing ovation at Radio City. The point is taken nevertheless: Jewish history is a time-worn tale of perseverance in the face of tragedy.

Sometimes I wonder how we survived (and many times we almost didn’t.) But when there is no light, you learn how to see in the dark. Jews are very good at finding their way out of darkness, at clinging to hope despite the odds.

And yet.

There are times when the darkness consumes you. When it blinds you. When the only light you see is from bombs exploding and fire raging and guns blazing.

When the darkness grips you with the force of 5,000 years of despair.

No one knows what will happen in the days and weeks ahead, save for the predictable political posturing, the protests and rallies, the discrimination and hate crimes. Some American Jews will be extremely vocal and passionate, and I respect that. Others, like me, will revert to our original assimilation programming and keep our heads down, avoid the topic and try to fit in.

You watching the playoffs? Crazy about the Dodgers. Oh yeah, saw that, totally agree – enough Taylor Swift already! Keep the cameras pointed at the field, right? No yeah I want that windbreaker too.

But first, I just want to say this.

I support the Jewish people and Israelis, but that doesn’t mean I support Netanyahu and his authoritarian policies. I’m hardly alone on that front.  

I support the Palestinian people and their right to live in peace, but unequivocally denounce Hamas and all terrorist organizations. They need to be erased from existence so that Palestinians and everyone throughout the region can thrive.  

This is going to get worse, a lot worse. I’m praying for all the families, for my family and friends living in Israel, for the planet not to devolve into World War III. I’m trying to cling to hope, but it’s getting harder to see a way forward.

I’m trying to find the light. I really am. But for the first time, the darkness is winning.

We see the rockets shooting across the sky, white streaks of light like so many falling stars.

We hear the sirens wail and watch the reporters scramble for cover. We see the streets explode and the buildings crumble. We absorb the chaos and say the prayers and promise to keep those who are suffering in our collective thoughts.

But we don’t feel anything, not really. Not from those images or experiences. They are abstractions – made for TV moments put on a loop.

Rockets and explosions are death in aggregate. They are anonymized data points on a chart, raw statistics to be compiled. They are the eye candy of the macabre.

This is the sad truth of our 21^st Century. Bombs and body parts are instantly streamed to the same devices we use to order a pizza or call an Uber. This inures us to violence and mutes our capacity to care, truly care, as much as any human with a beating heart should. There’s no mobile app for empathy.

But all that changes when you see a face.

What makes the current Israel-Gaza conflict different, at least in these early days, are the videos of civilians being dragged into vehicles and taken hostage. Dead bodies don’t scream; captured soldiers signed up knowing the risks.

But a mother with two crying babies? A grandma shoved in the back of a pickup truck? A family pulled from their home after watching their teenage daughter get murdered?

Yeah, that hits different.

Taking civilian hostages is the ultimate in cowardice, and also nothing new for Hamas. They already use Palestinian civilians as both shields and cannon fodder, so maybe Hamas figured that Israel wouldn’t risk killing its own people.

However, Israel has taken that risk before, notably during the Raid on Entebbe where three Israeli hostages died but the other 102 were rescued. I’m not saying that Israel is going to purposely jeopardize the safety of its citizens, but it’s not going to just let this one slide, either. Israel has a long memory.

How the Israeli government responds is nevertheless a discussion for another day. In this moment of shock and uncertainty, we need to focus on people and not politics. We need to remind ourselves, and the world, what war is.

A young couple abducted from a dance party.

A brother crying for his sister.

A woman bound and gagged and pulled by the hair.

It’s not easy to think about, but that’s the point. War is a person – if we let it become anything less, we lose.

AFTER ALL THESE YEARS OF APOLOGIZING AND ATONING FOR MY SINS ON YOM KIPPUR, I FINALLY GET IT.

Apologizing is easy. Being sorry is hard.

Apology requires little effort. An apology is almost always just words, and saying something is a lot easier than doing something.

We like apologies because they make us feel better. But they aren’t supposed to make us feel better, they are supposed to make the other person feel better – and make us all better as a result.

So I’ve been doing Yom Kippur wrong (my apologies.) From now on, I’m going to stop apologizing for forgetting to check in with friends and family, or for not paying more attention to others. I won’t apologize for working too much, for avoiding conflict, or for not getting enough exercise.

From now on, I’m just going to be sorry:

That I’m often too self-absorbed to look beyond my own “to do” list and ego…

That I drift off when I should be present; joke when I should be serious; turn away when I should step forward…

That I too often use work as an excuse to avoid companionship, and my deafness to avoid almost everything else…

That I can’t accept my body for what it is, and make excuses for not doing more to change it…

That I gave up on my dreams long before they gave up on me.

Being sorry will take a lot more effort. Breaking out of those behaviors and mindsets will be even harder.

I’m still going to try. I may succeed and I may not. Probably a little of both. But there’s one thing I absolutely won’t do.

I’m not going to apologize.

WE ARE HERE FOR A REASON.

The boy from the countryside didn’t know this yet when he and his mother, a fighter for the French resistance, were stopped near their village and warned about the German soldiers who were looking for a woman and her young son. A six-year-old boy with long hair.

HIs mother turned her bike around and rode away from the Nazis. She took her son to a barber for a haircut that saved their lives and allowed her to continue fighting against the Nazi occupation. This simple act, this impulsive decision, almost certainly allowed the boy’s father to continue his work as a spy for the Allies. It was a haircut that may have helped win the war.

I only know about these events, and many others, because that boy from the countryside told me while sitting around his dining table, after all of us ate too much French cheese and meats and bread. He told me while we drank Oban and looked across his property into Germany, free people enjoying a cool summer evening because of sacrifices known and unknown.

I listened because he was part of my wife’s family, a proud Frenchman and enlightened historian. I listened because I loved his deep voice, his expressive cheeks, and his hearty laugh that shook the foundations of his home.

We are here for a reason — some of us to be the story, some of us to be the storytellers. And for some, like the boy from the countryside, to be both.

I’m sharing this now because that boy from the countryside, the one who became the man from Blies-Ébersing, died last week. So now it’s our job to make sure he and his stories aren’t forgotten. And if I might add a postscript, to call out those who would erase the past and replace it with something aberrant.

History isn’t supposed to make us feel better about what we’ve done; it’s supposed to make us better despite what we’ve done. We must keep the past alive and intact, tell the stories, bear witness, and hold ourselves and the future accountable.

We are here for a reason — not to change history, but to see that it changes us.