Every now and then, we here at milk* give some thought to the “bigger picture” and this piece on brainpickings.com peaked our interest. This review of Annie Dillard’s book: The Writing Life, teases us with some juicy open-ended questions. Is today’s age one where the great dream is trading up from money to meaning? Is optimizing creativity and maximizing productivity the key to life or something that might make us miss the point? Brainpickings tosses these notions our way and passes along little gems from Mrs. Dillard’s book. Contrasting the daily routines of a turn of the century Danish aristocrat with the writer Wallace Stevens makes for thought provoking takes on presence and productivity.