I am by overwhelming inclination, a man of words and ideas. Or so I thought until a relatively short time ago. Now, however, I realize how much my embrace of the world and its ideas also hinges quite heavily on the hunt for arresting visual images and the illumination that, in the end, makes them visible to us. Indeed, I now see myself—even as I write more and in more varied ways than ever— as someone primarily concerned with chasing light, the light that manages to sneak through the thickets of verbal obfuscation within which in which we seem increasingly condemned to exist, the dying light at the end of the day, and at the latter end of life, but most of all the fulgurant and unceasing light of children, courage in the face of fear, and unhurried hours shared at table with friends of trust and good will.