what i've learned

Antony Blinken U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE, 60, WASHINGTON, D. C.

- MICHAEL SEBASTIAN

I WEAR A SLIGHT variation of the same thing every day: a dark-blue suit, a white shirt, and a dark-blue tie. Occasionally I go to the gray suit, and occasionally I go to a patterned tie. I got this from President Obama, who tended to wear something similar every day. When I asked him about it, he said, "It's another five minutes in my day that I get back, because I'm not spending time thinking about What am I going to wear today?"

MY SUIT BRAND is a state secret.

A LOT OF THE STORIES I heard at the dinner table were about America as that last beacon of hope. That wasn't mythology. It was a reality for so many of my family members. My paternal grandfather came here fleeing pogroms in Russia; my stepmother fled communists in Hungary, literally in the dead of night on the train as a young girl with her mother; and my stepfather was a Holocaust survivor.

MY FATHER WENT OFF TO THE ARMY AIR CORPS in World War II at the age of nineteen, left college after his freshman year. He was part of a generation that tended to speak less and do more. He didn't necessarily wear his emotions on his sleeve. What he tried to instill is, given the choice, he takes workhorse over show horse.

AS A KID IN THE SIXTIES, the first music my parents exposed me to was the Beatles. From day one until today, they remain the summit.