The Sum of All Years
Notes on the measure of a human life
In the modern age longevity has become a kind of sacred talisman. The pursuit of extended life commands extraordinary scientific resources and public attention. Reminiscent of explorers who once searched for El Dorado, scientists, entrepreneurs and investors are pursuing a fabled treasure which, hauntingly, lies just beyond their reach. They seek the treasure of more time, rather than gold.
Their ambition is estimable in its way. Longer lives may be richer lives. And avoiding premature death or suffering from curable ailments is an understandable aspiration for many.
Yet the lavishly-funded attention devoted to extending human life, strangely, far outstrips the study of how those additional years should be lived. It is as though the telescope has been turned toward the wrong horizon. What gives meaning to the passage of years? How should a person spend the years allotted to them, whether 40 years or 100? These are ancient questions. Yet modern society seems considerably more preoccupied with measuring the duration and public trappings of a life than assessing its worth.
Consider how human lives are commemorated in the modern obituary. The newspaper obituary is perhaps the most familiar public record of a life deemed noteworthy. Part historical record, part public tribute, it offers a condensed summation of a life — the circumstances of their death, their achievements, and distinctions.
The selection of lives recognized in newspapers of record, such as The New York Times, is revealing. A provisional survey of 852 people commemorated in The New York Times in 2026, through early October, documents a striking imbalance: those whose principal achievements were in entertainment, music and the arts vastly exceed those remembered primarily for humanitarian work, military service, or contributions to their communities.
Perhaps this is unsurprising. Newspapers chronicle the lives of people whose activities have attracted public attention. But then there is the structure of the obituary itself. The subject’s professional accomplishments generally occupy its central passages. Their education, positions, awards, wealth or public influence are recounted at considerable length. In most cases, the obituary’s final sentence lists, almost coldly, a spouse, children or other surviving family members.
What a curious accounting of a life. Are not the relationships sustained over decades — with a spouse, children, friends or neighbors — among the great measures of a life? Put another way, the professional accomplishments and credentials of a woman or man convey something of value. But this may have no bearing on their generosity, loyalty and kindness in their closest and most meaningful human connections. The final sentence of their obituary may embody the most commendable part of their lives.
Or it might illuminate personal shortcomings. Take the example of George Orwell. His literary achievements were formidable. His work was an inspiration to many. But few of his obituaries discussed his relationship with his first wife, Eileen O’Shaughnessy, who proved so vital to him and his work, and who he largely neglected.
The broader insight is not unprecedented. In certain cases, Western cultures have purposely celebrated lives, or at least aspects of lives, that were otherwise overlooked. Within Westminster Abbey, in the heart of London, lies the Memorial to the Unknown Warrior, who in actuality is an unidentified British serviceman killed during the First World War. Across the Atlantic, at Arlington National Cemetery, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier performs a similar function.
The unidentified soldiers honored by these memorials are not remembered for wealth, position, fame or professional accomplishment. Indeed, almost nothing is known of the person being remembered and honored. Instead, their anonymity itself becomes the means by which an entire nation honors the sacrifice of countless otherwise unrecognized individuals, dignifying their lives and acknowledging the importance of their contribution. Implicit in both memorials is the kernel of a powerful idea: the greatest contributions to a society may be made by people whose names will never be known.
In London there is another, much less frequented, memorial that extends this principle beyond martial matters. In Postman’s Park, near St Paul’s Cathedral, a modest, covered wall contains dozens of hand-made ceramic tablets commemorating ordinary people who lost their lives attempting to save others. Conceived by the Victorian artist George Frederic Watts and unveiled in 1900, the Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice recognizes those who would otherwise have passed almost entirely from public memory.
Postman’s Park memorial is a laudable recognition of heroic civilian virtue. Yet it also exposes a limitation: the lives commemorated were identified and honored because their heroism and sacrifice were publicly discernible.
Some 9,559 kilometers distant from Postman’s Park, in Tokyo, lies the Kaizō-ji Temple, which preserves another tradition of remembrance. The temple's memorials are dedicated to those who died without surviving familial or social connections. Lives which would otherwise be lost to public memory are forthrightly honored: prisoners, the impoverished, women who had become social outcasts.
Some communities have developed traditions of remembrance more centered on character than public prominence. Among the Quakers, for example, The Annual Monitor, published during the 19th and 20th centuries, recorded the deaths of members of the Society of Friends. Its biographical accounts often celebrated the conduct of a life, and service to others. The memorials reflected a community’s understanding that a life could be worthy of remembrance because of how it had been lived, rather than how well it had been known.
The historical examples of the Quaker community and Kaizō-ji Temple are suggestive: where are the public memorials celebrating sustained goodness of those who were not publicly known? What of the person who lives for 70 years, caring unendingly for a spouse through illness while sacrificing personal dreams, or a nurse who tends to cancer patients for 30 years while helping neighbors in their lives? No dramatic event defines such a life. There is no single moment of heroism, nor act sufficiently unusual to merit a newspaper account.
One may say the lives of selfless and deeply good people are often treasured and remembered by those closest to them; and it is true that their influence may persist for generations in ways that no obituary or memorial could replicate. Yet compared with the elaborate conventions devoted to the famous and the wealthy, there is scarce public recognition for lives such as these. The difficulty of recording something does not diminish its value.
There is a further consequence to this imbalance, extending beyond the matter of remembrance itself. A society's memorials are a form of instruction. Public honors, obituaries and monuments convey a sense of what is admirable and worthy of emulation. If public recognition overwhelmingly favors fame, wealth, and influence, the implicit lesson is that these are the principal measures of a successful life.
A person’s public achievements and their personal contributions to those closest to them are different dimensions of a life. The former may be visible and even widely celebrated. The latter may be known only to a handful of people. Neither dimension is a substitute for the other. But across a great number of lives, the cumulative effects of quiet decency and quotidian kindness toward one’s close connections constitute the essential moral bedrock of human society.
There is still another distinction, perhaps even more revealing. The lives most publicly celebrated are frequently those lived along well-trod paths to recognition. Professional success, the accumulation of wealth, philanthropy — each is a known route to public esteem. Ambition is not necessarily a vice, nor public achievement evidence of selfishness. But there are recognizable paths to public acclaim, and those who follow them typically understand the rewards they stand to accrue. Recognition may not be the principal motivation, but it may be integral to one’s actions.
Orwell acknowledged this impulse in his essay “Why I Write”. Among the motives for writing, he included the desire to be remembered after death. His admission, which he claimed applied to writers along with lawyers, scientists, artists and others, gives the pursuit of a place in the public record a more personal significance: those whose work secures that place may have spent their lives, in part, seeking it.
In contrast, a person who spends a lifetime teaching in public schools and caring for sickly grandparents is promised no distinction. This is not to suggest that ordinary goodness is without reward. Love, gratitude and the satisfaction of fulfilling a responsibility are powerful recompense. But these rewards are intrinsic to the conduct itself.
Consider the life that has most deeply shaped your own understanding of goodness. That person may never be granted a newspaper obituary. Indeed, the great beauty of humans amidst the failings of so many, even or perhaps most particularly those in public realms, is that millions of people live in this way. The New York Times never chronicles their passing. No public monument preserves their names. Yet their collective contribution is immeasurable, and their moral example may be more consequential than countless celebrated individuals.
The number of years lived is a precise quantity. But the value or meaning of those years is another matter. That meaning must be established through the choices made, the responsibilities accepted, the relationships sustained, and the effects of one’s conduct upon others.
Perhaps in some distant future, newspapers of record will publish obituaries that begin not with an individual's highest job title, or the corporate boards they served on, but with how they loved, supported and uplifted those closest to them, whether in their families, or their particular communities.
Doing so might result in a more honest accounting of a human life. It may also more visibly recognize human goodness, while conveying a useful message to those still choosing whom they will become.
“On that best portion of a good man’s life,
His little, nameless, unremembered, acts
Of kindness and of love.”
— William Wordsworth, “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey” (1798)