Lair of thought

One of the more dramatic moments in "When Breath Becomes Air" is when the author, Paul Kalanithi, laments that he always thought he had Twenty years to be a neurosurgeon and another Twenty to pursue his dream of being an author. But after he was confronted with a life that had only but a few sunrises left, he was torn between the choice of becoming an accomplished doctor and an author. This quandary encapsulates what most of us are chronically aware of but unwilling to confront. Time is fleeting and we, for the most part, sacrifice a great deal of our passion in the quest for the more commonly sought out goals such as career, fame and fortune. When my father retired he was a man restless with his new found freedom from the corporate lifestyle that he had grown accustomed to over the preceding 35 years. A freshly minted Engineer who found his way from a rural town in Kerala to a jet setter traveling around the globe as a corporate executive, he had become all too comfortab