You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.”
― James Baldwin
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Hi 4woody, Every human has his/her own journey and when we are born we have no choice but to accept the pain, sorrow and unfairness of life, and then ageing and dying. No-one escapes that, and the more we can read, or go out into the world to see, the more we realise that all lives are similar mixtures of happiness and sorrow. And they all interconnect. The more you read and engage, the more you can see the pattern or circle of life.
Agreed. Though it seems so much more significant, almost heroic, when an individual succeeds in walking through life and learning these truths when his/her life starts where this mans life started.
Who Is Your "Partner In Crime"?
Friends and acquaintances 
For all us North Americans out there