Dave Evans

We're longing for perfection, but all we get is the particular.

That's actually just the nature of reality.

So rather than like, oh, you see the amazing sunset.

And if you really, really attend to that amazing sunset, just as it's over and the sun hits the horizon and you see the green flash and, whoa, what do you want?

It wasn't quite enough.

That isn't, it fell short.

That is the fundamental nature of reality.

Reality is only expressed in these particularities, all of which are partial.

And it's the fundamental nature of the human person, which is that thing you long for is how you're made.

So if you can befriend the longing, it no longer is the problem of everything's not enough.

It's that, oh, I have a chance to participate in a sincere reflection of that perfection briefly.

Celebrate the heck out of it because this is as good as it gets.

And I'm going to come back tomorrow and try again.

You're a neurosurgeon.

It can be.

Yeah.

So I actually stopped teaching undergrads at Stanford back in 2018.

I now mostly teach in the DCI program, the Distinguished Careers Institute, very fancy name for a gap year for grownups.

anywhere from 45 to 90, mostly 55 to 75 years old, kind of the old folks who used to think about transitioning to what you used to call retirement.

And now what do I do?