Bruce Fraser

Daring Fireball pointed out that Bruce Fraser, an author and lecturer on digital imaging, is seriously ill. To be honest, I'm not familar with Bruce's work, but it sounds like he really knows his stuff. One of the comments on the page caught my eye:

You've made my life better. I've thoroughly enjoyed several of your books and speaking events. (Jaddie Dodd)

I think that's one of the most significant compliments a person can give or receive. It's not even easy to understand why it means so much. There's no tangible benefit to making somebody else's life better, but when you hear that, you know you've done something right. Somehow we just instinctively know helping other people makes sense.

I read Daniel Jalkut's entry on James Kim and almost posted a response but just couldn't quite find the right words. The one thing that really stands out about Kim is all of the interviews of friends and relatives emphasize how much respect he gave everyone, and how his family always came first.

I think where I'm going with this is when someone passes away or encounters some real challenges as Bruce Fraser is, the burden falls on the rest of us to live up to the highest standards we can imagine, and then find some way to go beyond even that. James Kim went beyond what many of us would think of as possible in order to help his family.

I heard a quote once that basically said you can't take anything with you when you go — no possessions, no achievements, no pride. In other words, your life is on loan. So what can you do with your life? You can give it away. You find some way to be of service to other people.

If you help a person in some way — any way — the potential for that act is absolutely unlimited because you enable them to help another person in the future, and so on into infinity. It's addictive, too. Once you make an impact on somebody, you become driven to do it again and again. So what should you do with your day? Figure out a way to make somebody else's life better. Start small.

My thoughts go out to Bruce Fraser and James Kim's family.

(Thanks to Daniel Jalkut for correcting the major name typo on my part. I hope no one was offended.)

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