June 11, 2026

It has always seemed strange to me that in our endless discussions about education so little stress is laid on the pleasure of becoming an educated person, the enormous interest it adds to life.

Wait — that's not the right quote for this theme. Let me use one that actually fits.

"And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good." — John Steinbeck, East of Eden

This line comes near the end of the novel, spoken by Lee to the dying Adam Trask, after a lifetime of characters crushing themselves under impossible expectations. Adam spent decades locked in guilt, paralysis, and the need to control outcomes he could never control. Steinbeck wrote this during the early 1950s, wrestling with his own failures as a father and husband, and the line carries that personal weight. It speaks to trust and surrender because it names the exact thing that blocks both — the belief that we have to earn our way through life rather than live it.