I'm still blown away by Steinbeck's East of Eden and I'm not done with it yet, either.

I'm reading before bed when I trip over a particular line. Propping myself up on my elbow, I reread it. Then once more. There's plenty in this book that's somewhat antiquated and that requires a couple seconds of deciphering to parse its modern meaning, but this is not that. With widened eyes, I start to shake my head back and forth. Sheesh. Looking at the book that's sort of just hovering there in my hand, I'm struck by something one of the characters, Samuel, says to his friend, Adam, about going through the motions. After losing his wife, Adam was in a spell of depression (not that Steinbeck called it that, but the description fits).

I read the line again.

"Act out being alive, like a play. And after a while, a long while, it will be true."

Well, I'll be damned.

Lowering the book, I reach my thumb and index finger to the corner of the page and fold it over. It seems like people figured out the operating principles of being human long ago. Sure, maybe not empirically. But experientially?

For sure.

I know I wrote recently about how East of Eden was published in 1952 yet talks about a lot of the same human struggles we experience today. I feel compelled to note that I try not to repeat myself too, too much here; at least with regard to the things I'm reading, watching, or listening to. I figure there's plenty of repetition scattered about this column already. You know, in one form or another.

onward.

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