One of These Days I'm Gonna Sit Down and Write a Long Letter

I love learning about words, and recently I read something wonderful: the Greek root of "nostalgia" means "pain from the past."

It's funny, as I always thought of nostalgia as a positive -- as a guy blessed with a mostly happy past. But I guess the deeper meaning is that avoiding pain means looking to the future, which is so difficult.

I mentor a young lawyer at the firm, Vince. He's a great guy -- just turned 40, is from LA. Like me, he lost his beloved father when he was young. But he comes from a big Irish family -- he's the  youngest - and his holiday trips are to the Mid Atlantic states where his family have all moved now.  He loves to hear tales of the olden days (80s and early 90s), about cases Paul and I took to creative heights.  He loves looking back to learn how to handle the present. He's a wise young fellow.

When I was 25, Bruce warned me about nostalgia with his song "Glory Days," which warns that time passes and "leaves you nothing, mister, but boring stories of (your past)."

But that's the nature of our species -- the older tell tales to the younger. How else will they learn?

In the cool loaming of this December morning, I listened to Neil Young sing about writing letters to all his old friends to tell them how much they meant to him.

I've done that -- it typically falls flat. I started a project -- probably 20 years ago, where I wrote letters to people who have taught me important life lessons. I was inspired to do it after the premature death of my friend Roger Howard.

Roger was a partner at my second law firm, a Dick Cavett look-alike, who had had several careers before becoming a lawyer. All his degrees were from Harvard, and he was Midwestern nice. He left being a partner at a defense firm to open a little plaintiff's practice -- he'd handle small cases and co-counsel the more complex ones -- with the firm I had joined.

He died in his 40s, from cancer, before I got to tell him how many wonderful life lessons he taught me -- including the fact that the most interesting people are those who have had a variety of careers.

So I wrote to Bill and Larry -- two consultants to our law firm who I admired. I recall the effort sort of fell flat -- they thanked me, but the efforts seemed to make them more uncomfortable than anything else. I also wrote to Frank, a former boss, to tell him how he was a role model as a husband and father. It turned out he left his wife for his long time secretary, and his wife ended up with a woman lover. So much for my keen insight into the human condition.

Though there may be pain in looking back, we're in the high season for it -- the waning days of a year. Hell -- in a few weeks we'll be singing a Scottish song talking about "auld acquaintances..."

Years ago I was at a seminar, and asked if I knew how to battle anxiety. It occurred to me that so much of it comes from a failure to live in the moment. My anxious mind is always a few steps ahead -- what negative things await my beloved family and friends around the next corner. If I could live in the moment -- savor it -- and leave the past behind as well.

One of these days...