The correct answer to this open question is the following.
Although there is no further reference to a specific question, we assume that you are asking for the main claim of the essay.
If that is the case, then the answer will be this one.
We are talking about the story of "Two Ways of Seeing a River," written by American author Mark Twain.
So the claim of the essay is to ponder what we have and leaves in our lives. What we could call the gains and possessions of life and the losses, all of them with their respective baggage of experiences that make us grow. It is about the different perspectives and changes in life, things that he reflected on when he was young while piloting steamboats in the Mississippi River.
This essay is part of his book "Life on the Mississippi," written in 1883.
