Paul Woodruff, who has been teaching at the University of Texas for decades, is good at having the kind of conversations that make for a full, interesting life.
I heard that his death is close at hand. I heard the news because he wrote about it in The Washington Post. The professor was starting one of those conversations about life and how it can be meaningful.
Woodruff holds that life is worth living when we make it worth living. We engage in projects that take time but that have value to ourselves and to others.
Woodruff spent some time trying to prompt a discussion about a difficult topic. He wrote an essay about how one can look at the end of life. He spent time finding a publisher.
When Woodruff finishes one project, he starts on another. He’s always known that one day one of these projects would be interrupted and left unfinished. But that’s no reason to stop.
Rather than mourn, he’s glad that he has things that are worth doing and that he can do them.
I have talked with Professor Woodruff and exchanged email with him, but I know him through his books. The Ajax Dilemma is awfully good, but my favorite is Reverence.
• Sources: Paul Woodruff, “My death is close at hand. But I do not think of myself as dying”; The Washington Post, April 27, 2023. The Post has a recording of Woodruff reading his essay:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/04/27/death-dying-philosophy-living-illness/
Woodruff’s books are published by Oxford University Press.
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