One crowded hour of glorious life is worth an age without a name.

Intensity and length are two different ways of measuring a life, and at certain moments intensity seems to win outright. An hour spent fully alive, stretched to the limit of courage or joy, can outweigh years of drifting, both in memory and in meaning. Talk of that kind has often been used to glamorise danger, and those who have seen danger up close know that glory is rarely what it felt like.

A quiet, anonymous life can hold enormous worth too. Still, it can be worth asking whether there are hours in your week that feel truly lived, and whether there could be one more.