Why do song lyrics touch so many hearts? Why do poems speak to our core about an array of emotions? Why are some movies or books so profound to so many?

It is because as human beings we have far more in common than we care to admit. No matter our culture, race, affluence or lack of – we all know what pain feels like, what joy feels like. We have all been loved, we have all been rejected. We have all felt the sting of unfair circumstance or the surreal giddiness of magical serendipity.

We are more one than many on this human path, one we trod together – shoulder to shoulder or connected by some mysterious commonality through the centuries.

This universality of the human experience is one of the reasons I feel so drawn to antiques and why I prefer to be surrounded by the remnants of…