You might, but my guess is that you don’t. It’s Russian writer Anton Chekhov, and this photo appeared on my phone yesterday for unknown reasons, and it intrigued me because about 125 years ago, when the photo was taken, you rarely saw a picture of someone with a twinkle in his eye, a subtle smile on his face.

But here it is.

Chekhov, in my opinion, was a genius. If there is a writer that I would like to emulate (and I am not big on emulation), it would probably be Chekhov. There is no drama as compelling as a well acted and directed Chekhov play, and no fiction as appealing as a well done Chekhovian short story. And he did it (1) while maintaining a full time medical practice, and (2) suffering from tuberculosis. And he died at age 44. Just imagine what his output would have been had he lived what we would call a full or a long life. Just like what would Mozart or Schubert have composed if they had lived past 35 and 31, respectively? Or Bizet or Henry Purcell past 36? Or Mendelssohn or Gershwin past 38? Chopin past 39?

Those of us in or near our 80s (and that is a large percentage of the readers of this blog) have lived longer than most people (even contemporaries, not just in the past), yet may not feel done, or even that old. Yet we have been very lucky, and I hope that all of that luck continues for years to come.

But not all are lucky, and some have accomplished so much in lives much shorter than ours. Let’s look just at celebrities: James Dean (24), Marilyn Monroe (36), Bruce Lee (33), Elvis Presley (42), Natalie Wood (43), Grace Kelly (53), Richard Burton (59), Gilda Radner (43), Michael Landon (55), River Phoenix (23), Tommy Rettig (55), Tupac Shakur (25), John Denver (54), Madeline Kahn (57), Ricky Nelson (45), Errol Flynn (50), John Belushi (33), Sid Vicious (21), the Notorious B.I.G. (24), Sharon Tate (26), Jean Harlow (26), Jimi Hendrix (27), Janis Joplin (27), Kurt Cobain (27), Jim Morrison (27), Amy Whitehouse (27), Heath Ledger (28), Edie Sedgwick (28), Hank Williams (29), Carole Lombard (33), Sam Cooke (33), Jayne Mansfield (34), Andy Kaufman (35), Bob Marley (36), Princess Diana (36), Sal Mineo (37), John Lennon (40), Dorothy Dandridge (42), Romy Schneider (43), Judy Holliday (43), Marvin Gaye (44), Freddie Mercury (45), Judy Garland (47), Whitney Houston (48), Alan Ladd (50), Michael Jackson (50), Veronica Lake (50), Diana Dors (52), Vivien Leigh (53), Betty Grable (56), Prince (57), Hattie McDaniel (57), Susan Hayward (57), Humphrey Bogart (57), George Harrison (58), Clark Gable (59).

And writers? Stephen Crane (29), Anne Bronte (29), Emily Bronte (30), Sylvia Plath (30), F. Scott Fitzgerald (44), Robert Louis Stevenson (44), D.H. Lawrence (44), Arthur Rimbaud (37), Lord Byron (36), Percy Shelley (29), John Keats (25), Lorraine Hansberry (34), Nikolai Gogol (42), Guy de Maupassant (42), Jane Austin (41), Franz Kafka (40), Jack London (40), Edgar Allen Poe (40), Flannery O’Connor (39), Alexander Pushkin (37), Charlotte Bronte (38). And these, who I think all died in their 40s or early 50s: George Orwell, O. Henry, Shirley Jackson, Margaret Mitchell, Carson McCullers, Stieg Larsson, Honore de Balzac, Richard Wright, Kate Chopin, and Emily Dickinson. And even Shakespeare at 52.

Artists? Modigliani (36), Beardsley (26), Caravaggio (39), Schiele (28), Eva Hesse (34), Franz Marc (36), George Bellows (43), Seurat (32), Toulouse-Lautrec (37), Van Gogh (37), Basquiat (27).

I am not sure what brought this on, other than appreciation for long life (even when it doesn’t seem long) and sadness for those whose lives were cut off so early, and who did not have the time to express the fullness of their talent.

I know this is an odd blog post. But it does make you think, no?