Writer's Block: The start of something wonderful

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Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my life, or whether that station will be held by anyone else, these pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe)on a Friday at twelve o'clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry simultaneously.

~
As for why I chose this opening, it was the one that sprung most forcefully to mind when I saw the question, and it does seem like a most apt beginning.

Writer's Block: The start of something wonderful

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Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my life, or whether that station will be held by anyone else, these pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe)on a Friday at twelve o'clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry simultaneously.

~
As for why I chose this opening, it was the one that sprung most forcefully to mind when I saw the question, and it does seem like a most apt beginning.

A Curious Way of Looking at American Inequality

Jan Pen, a Dutch economist who died last year, came up with a striking way to picture inequality. Imagine people’s height being proportional to their income, so that someone with an average income is of average height. Now imagine that the entire adult population of America is walking past you in a single hour, in ascending order of income.

The first passers-by, the owners of loss-making businesses, are invisible: their heads are below ground. Then come the jobless and the working poor, who are midgets. After half an hour the strollers are still only waist-high, since America’s median income is only half the mean. It takes nearly 45 minutes before normal-sized people appear. But then, in the final minutes, giants thunder by. With six minutes to go they are 12 feet tall. When the 400 highest earners walk by, right at the end, each is more than two miles tall.

-- The Economist Magazine

I am doubtlessly one of the ones buried alive.

A Curious Way of Looking at American Inequality

Jan Pen, a Dutch economist who died last year, came up with a striking way to picture inequality. Imagine people’s height being proportional to their income, so that someone with an average income is of average height. Now imagine that the entire adult population of America is walking past you in a single hour, in ascending order of income.

The first passers-by, the owners of loss-making businesses, are invisible: their heads are below ground. Then come the jobless and the working poor, who are midgets. After half an hour the strollers are still only waist-high, since America’s median income is only half the mean. It takes nearly 45 minutes before normal-sized people appear. But then, in the final minutes, giants thunder by. With six minutes to go they are 12 feet tall. When the 400 highest earners walk by, right at the end, each is more than two miles tall.

-- The Economist Magazine

I am doubtlessly one of the ones buried alive.