The Mises Institute is sad to report on the death of Charles Tomlinson, 72, a friend of liberty and author of “The Myth of the Tree Shortage“ on Mises.org, a wonderful piece of research and writing that drew on his experience in forestry in the Southern US. He was diagnosed with cancer in 2001 and hadn’t expected to live past 2002. He had written an essay about dying, in which he said:
I have long considered that we are all immortal in that our actions, our souls, affect those around us throughout our lives and after, in small but important ways. Like dropping pebbles in a pond, we leave ripples. Those ripples can and will spread in ways we can never predict and with results we could never expect. When mixed with the ripples from others, they may help create a raging tempest or act to calm the waters. We can never know the final results of our lives, but this view of immortality does provide motivation to try to build as fine a soul as we are capable of constructing. When life is almost over we can relax, which is all we have energy to do anyway, and hope that our soul construction will give solace to some, help to others, and maybe insight to a few. When life ceases, the construction is over, but the ripples continue.
