More from Letters of Note
The following letter was written exactly 100 years ago. It’s a remarkable piece of writing that never fails to move me. And because you deserve it, above the transcript I’ve included audio of the letter being read by the lovely Juliet Stevenson, taken from the Letters of Note: Music audiobook. Born in Alabama in 1880, Helen Keller
On this day in 1876, shortly after making history, Alexander Graham Bell wrote the following letter to his father. To read his diary entry from that same day, visit Diaries of Note. And don’t forget to sign up for the Letters of Note newsletter. Born in Scotland in 1847, Alexander Graham Bell hailed from a
Dear all, On 1st January of this year, after what feels like centuries of preparation, I launched Diaries of Note, and though incredibly difficult to plan, the premise is simple: every single day, on the Diaries of Note website, I am featuring a single diary entry from history, published on the same day and month
Born in Cambridge in 1952, Douglas Adams was best known for creating The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a wildly successful project that began in 1978 as a science-fiction comedy radio series and eventually evolved to become something much larger, in many formats and in many languages, adored by many millions of people around the world.
More in life
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One of the great lessons of nature: Randomness is the most beautiful thing. Every forest, every field, every place untouched by humans is full of randomness. Nothing lines up, a million different shapes, sprouting seeds burst where the winds — or birds — randomly drop them. Stones strewn by water, ice, gravity, and wind, all acting on their own in their own ways. Things that just stop and stay. Until they move somehow, another day. The way the light falls, the dapples that hit the dirt. The shades of shades of shades of green and gold that work no matter what's behind it. The way the wind carries whatever's light enough for liftoff. The negative space between the leaves. Colliding clouds. The random wave that catches light from the predictable sun. The water's surface like a shuffled blanket. Collect the undergrowth in your hand. Lift it up. Drop it on the ground. It's always beautiful. However it comes together, or however it stays apart, you never look at it and say that doesn't line up or those colors don't work or there's simply too much stuff or I don't know where to look. Nature's out of line. Just right. You too. -Jason
Some naive people make the mistake of thinking you can only do big things while you’re young. But these “late bloomers” showed me this is untrue.