Writing of Profundity - Posnanski, Kruse, Brooks and Simpson

While most of the individual posts on this blog have story links pulled from either one writer or website, lately there's been a few pieces I've come across from different writers and sources that both share a leaning towards the profound and are really darn good.

With this idea of profundity as the common thread (why the heck not?), the first piece to note here was the Joe Posnanski blog post I Hope You're Happy With Your Husband. Very cool and heart warming story about his youngest child... and which brought to mind this equally cool and heart warming piece about Posnanski's oldest.

Other three pieces pieces to link to here all have a retrospective on life slant to them... beginning with Born to race, Dan Wheldon found happiness in town's slower pace. Written by Michael Kruse for the St. Petersburg Times, it looks at the Indy car driver who died as a result of injuries suffered during a Las Vegas race. The story is well told here in part through vignettes and anecdotes of people who interacted with Wheldon (with this story approach being something I've previously seen employed successfully by Kruse).

Given that Kruse's subject in the link immediately above was Steve Jobs, it seems fitting to also highlight A Sister’s Eulogy for Steve Jobs by Mona Simpson. Extremely poignant and well written piece (Simpson is a novelist and English professor) for the New York Times on the brother she didn't meet until in her twenties.

Also in the New York Times, I also found noteworthy The Life Report by David Brooks. It was written about a month ago and asks readers over 70 to provide Brooks with written evaluation of their lives and what they've learned. It's an interesting request that Brooks wrote of making to then post some reader responses online. There may well be more coming, but as of today, Brooks has posted to his Times blog ten of these reader Life Reports.

Steve Jobs Writing... On & By Him

There's been some extremely solid writing on Steve Jobs published or brought back up with his passing last week. I'm sure more great content out there I haven't seen, but below is the best from what I have...

The cover story from the latest issue of Time was American Icon by Walter Isaacson. Formerly Managing Editor of Time, Isaacson's short piece on Jobs gets at the man as well as what he accomplished... and is a good indicator that the upcoming authorized biography Steve Jobs from Isaacson could be excellent.

From Michael Kruse for the St. Petersburg Times came As Apple grew, so did an entire generation. Kruse seems to do very good human impact writing (another example being this on the Tampa Bay Rays a couple weeks back) and he writes of Job's death through the story of someone that's grown up using the devices conceived of and supplied by Jobs and Apple.

Another piece of writing on Jobs that stood out to me wasn't even directly about him, but rather the concept of forward-thinking entrepreneurship best exemplified by him. The Steve Jobs MBA Unit 101: Don’t think about the present was published in June 2011 and part of a series for Wired Magazine. What got me to read the piece (and truth be told, what also influenced my enjoyment of it) was it being written by Alain De Botton... author of the fascinating book The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work (which I linked to and posted on here).

Finally, it's been referenced over and over since Jobs passed away, but his June 2005 Stanford Commencement address really is deserving of the all the attention as a testament to the guy and his ideas.