In the 19th century, the businessman Alfred Nobel invented dynamite, opened several explosives factories and made a lot of buck for his bangs. He was mooching along happily until a life-transforming error was made. When his brother Ludvig died, a French newspaper printed an obituary about the wrong brother. Thus Alfred — very much alive — was able to read his own obit.
It was ugly. “The merchant of death”, he was dubbed, a man enriched by developing new ways to “mutilate and kill”. Horrified to think he would be remembered this way, Alfred left his vast fortune to create a different legacy: the Nobel prizes. A name once linked with war is now synonymous with peace.
A mid-life obituary can be a gift, a
