The sudden death of David Foster Wallace prompted me to check out the commencement speech he delivered. The whole thing is absolutely worth reading; it's a wonderfully Dutch Uncle-esque talk about the value of being the master of your own mind.

Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. ... [But] [t]he really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.

That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.

I hate only starting to truly treasure someone after they're already gone.