Three things from DAH. 

DAH is me, David Anthony Hance. "I like good strong words that mean something" (Jo March in Louisa May Alcott's Little Women)

First up this week, Haecceity …  
Here's where I explain The There There: It's haecceity. Merriam Webster defines haecceity as "what makes something to be an ultimate reality different from any other." When I think authenticity, I seek haecceity. Haecceity is a much less diminished concept (because few use the word). And "the there there" -- I'm referencing a remark made by Gertrude Stein, discovering that her childhood home in Oakland, California was gone, so that "there was no there there." That particular haecceity was gone. That's what I mean, and what I seek, with the there there: haecceity. In things and places and people. Yes, we have haecceity, too. 
The Iceberg—Visible and Hidden Identity

Second up this week, Hearkening …  
Words are important to me and I sometimes overshare. You may feel that hearkening and harkening are the same damn thing. Mostly, they are. But today I choose hearkening, because its sense is more ancient, formal, respectful, and heartful. If I hearken well I'm on the path to uncovering haecceity. If I merely harken, I may be too shallow in my delve, too shallow to understand and appreciate the there there. When my mind drifts this way, I recall graduate school, where a philosophy of history seminar really knocked me off balance. For the first time in my life, I realized how shallowly I understood everything. I wish I could say that enlightenment was always with me thereafter, but I'm afraid it's a lesson I keep relearning: Everything is more complex than it appears. So, I try to hearken. 
Harken vs Hearken - What's the difference?

Third up this week, Heritage …  
"Young vines, like young people, are often vigorous to a fault" (Esther Mobley, in the San Francisco Chronicle column linked below). Back around to wine, sort of. Depending upon the style of wine sought, younger vines may be best suited. There's more vigor in the young, and likely larger yields. Youthful vigor requires training and management to achieve desired outcomes. But the flexibility, the opportunity to redirect energy, is quite wonderful. Older usually means more established, settled, and dependable: lower vigor and yields. You get what you get, and that can be remarkable, or disappointing. There's deeper story in heritage. Why I studied history, I know: Because I hearken to heritage. While I appreciate younger, I prefer older.
Do old vines really produce better wine?

And a bit more:

The Lesson, by Maya Angelou

I keep on dying again.

Veins collapse, opening like the
Small fists of sleeping
Children.

Memory of old tombs,
Rotting flesh and worms do
Not convince me against
The challenge.
The years
And cold defeat live deep in
Lines along my face.

They dull my eyes, yet
I keep on dying,
Because I love to live.

And that's all for this week.
From Mary Oliver’s poem Sometimes …  

Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it. 

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