Life Lessons

A Reflection on Formative Experiences

A Flashback Friday post. Originally published 1 August 2009.

Ed Newman
3 min readApr 26, 2024

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Florence Italy. Photo by the author, April 2023

Life, in its fundamental essence, is a series of experiences. Fingertips pushing keys on a keyboard. Driving a car to work in the morning. Organizing photos on one’s laptop. Talking to a friend on the telephone. Paying bills. Walking out to the mailbox to get the morning paper. Our days are filled with such ordinary things most of the time.

Then, there are the extraordinary moments, those unforgettable experiences outside the norm.

I was talking with my brother Don about my grandparents this morning. We were sharing memories, and it somehow came up how I used to talk with my grandmother for hours about mystical things like whether the Egyptians had been in contact with alien life (as evidenced by their remarkable understanding in the design of the Great pyramid) or whether psychokinesis is really possible. That is, can people bend metal simply by the power of their minds? Or levitate objects? The Russians were purportedly researching these things during the Cold War.

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Ed Newman
Ed Newman

Written by Ed Newman

An avid reader who writes about arts, culture, literature & other life obsessions. @ennyman3 Look for my books on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/y3l9sfpj

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