Defining Moments

Defining Moments 59

Another basic feature of a defining moment is that it reveals as

much about a person’s past as it does about a present choice. People

can reveal who they are and what they care about only if they are

already someone. Stevens did not come to his defining moment as

what one philosopher has called an ‘‘unencumbered self.’’

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He was

not a blank slate on which he could sketch whatever portrait of

himself he pleased. Each of us is, like Stevens, largely what we

have been. In this respect, the warning on passenger-side rear-view

mirrors—‘‘Objects in mirror are closer than they appear’’—reads as

a statement about life and its defining moments.

Finally, Stevens’s decision is also a reminder that defining mo-

ments, though deeply personal, are also ...