Fascinating look in the Atlantic Monthly at George Valliant and The Grant Study, a 70+-year look at the lives of promising young men and what they’ve become. The data is being analysed, as seems fitting, as stories about these men and their lives. The results are remarkable.

One of my favorite quotes from Valliant in the podcast accompanying this article is about “the miserable process of getting from 25 and 35 when you’ve got all this health and all this your and you’re scared stiff that when it’s all said and done you’re not going to amount to a hill of beans…”  I’ve said before that 25 is hands down the worst year ever, in terms of existential angst, and I’m finding that mid-thirties ain’t much better. Now that he mentions it, the whole period had some bursts of “okay, I think I’m going to make it,” but it is a morass of angst and torment and existential malaise.

I hope to heaven the hill of beans can begin now…