Matt Fowler: Personal Thoughts from Durham, NC

Thoreau’s life was about integrity, and consciousness. Sitting still at the edge of the pond, so still he pet the fish, he contemplated the human condition. Thoreau understood that ancient truths are undeniable, like the inevitability of all tyrants to fail under the weight of their injustices.

Raising two daughters taught me this: They were never mine to keep—only to prepare. One is a doctor now, dedicating her life to helping people. The other, a business leader and mother to Lyla the Wondergirl, an already empowered young lady of three. The harbor did its job.

Rumi wrote this eight hundred years ago, and it still stops me. What I love is that it doesn’t ask you to be perfect — it asks you to be elemental. Be like the sun. Be like water. Be like the earth. These aren’t impossible standards; they’re invitations to lean into what’s already natural when we’re at our best. And that last line — either appear as you are, or be as you appear — that’s the whole job, whether we’re building something together as a team or sitting across the table from the people we love most. Show up as yourself. Mean what you say. Let the rest take care of itself.

It is said that no man is an island, and that humans are essentially social animals. But Americans love their independence and sure, there is value in self-reliance to a point. But only real a**holes avoid doing things that are good for all because there’s nothing in it for them.

Sir Thomas More -often attributed to Shakespeare- wrote this 400 years ago, excoriating a London crowd for shouting at refugees. Different century. Same very human scene.

Continuity is an illusion, no moment is the same as the one just before. So what you decide to drag with you into tomorrow is what you will keep. And the people around help you keep the good one, the ones that bring you a fullness of spirit, and they help you burn down the rest.

Some of the most important lessons come from failure, loss, and broken things seemingly beyond repair.

Valentine’s week. Love isn’t just romance—it’s shared purpose. The best partnerships, in marriage or work, are built on facing the same horizon together. Almost forty years of marriage has taught me that much.

Self-knowledge is harder than it sounds. This quote from twenty-four hundred years old and something like it is written at the temple of Delphi: Γνῶθι σεαυτόν. Know thyself. But how? It usually takes a shock to pull someone out of their narrowness into a wider reality, like when a fish is caught. For a moment, it is yanked out of its reality and forced to acknowledge a new undeniable reality. That’s a leap in perspective, most things that were important before the epiphany are simply not after.

Cancer taught me this. You can’t force outcomes—only how you respond to the challenge. Changes happens when enough people do the quiet work of becoming better versions of themselves. Make that appointment, book that trip, make the first move. Buddha said “your problem is that you think you have time”.

Ron Chernow on NPR “Mark Twain had very valuable things to say on patriotism. It drove him crazy when people would say, my country, right or wrong. He […]