Tamim Ansary

“Where can one live, then, if not in the past, present, or future? I’m saying, live in the story of your life…

What lifts any story to greatness, is not the particular events that constitute its plot but how the plot unfolds toward meaning, whether it becomes, finally, a unique expression of some universal theme of human existence. Yours could be an airport novel full of glitter and cliffhangers, quickly read and quickly forgotten; or it could be a deep lyrical meditation on love; or an epic testament to the capacity of the human spirit to rise above suffering; or some rollicking picaresque—who knows? And the story’s never over till it’s over: there’s always another level of understanding to reach so long as you’re alive and kicking. Only death releases you from the present moment to become your whole life. At every other moment, we’re contributing to what that whole life will have been.”

- Tamim Ansary,
Commencement address at Reed College