It's a good day for fans of the essay, that thoughtful, exploratory kind of writing that draws insights from experience rather than announcing the doctrines of one profession or academic discipline or another. In today's paper, see how strangers who happen to be nearby in a crisis suddenly find themselves committed to their common humanity. See how two groups of holiday voyagers get themselves in trouble and only one group manages to think its way out. In both cases, the writers foreground experience and the insights of the individual observing its meanings...the independent mind freely at work in the world. That's the essay, not the school paper, not the journalistic report, not the news story, not the academic article, and it's one of the great lesser strands of literature, alive in the Sunday paper. [True, bloggers are often kindred spirits to essayists, as you might have been thinking just now.]