If you’d told me more than ten years ago I’d be dispatching to friends a daily six-hundred-word message without fail until Lord knows when, I’d have laughed. Who’d do such a thing? Why? What about? For the money, maybe, but this was not about the money – too few would pay for such a spew to justify the time. Who would read it? Many writers had been loquacious, not to say palaverous, but they had reasons for their prolixity, either economic or psychological. Montaigne, who invented the essay, had felt lonely, bereft of his best bud, so he retreated to his solitary tower to muse. Addison and Steele and Dr. Johnson filed periodic pieces to further their literary careers but quit when the money did. Jane at full throttle published many times weekly – in newspapers, magazines, books, and on TV screens – but she was advising folks on managing their money, not gassing about whatever. Some prodigious sports columnists commented daily for decades. Influential citizens delivered daily briefings for a while. As a newspaper and magazine publisher, I’d contribute columns to my publications, but that was to differentiate our products, I’d have said, to “brand.” Whom was I branding with a free daily discourse about nothing in particular? I was schmoozing, not selling, not preaching (for preachers are salespersons); I had nothing to sell, not even a creed.

Best I knew, nobody had done such a weird thing – for good reason. If the printed word were my medium, it would have cost money – for paper, printing, delivery – which would have begged a profit in return. All expenditures are investments – in something. Technology had reduced the “cost of goods sold,” in business-speak, to virtually nothing, pennies a day, so why not, if I felt like charging nothing for my time?

I assumed, in the early days, I would run out of things to say, maybe turn windy Nestor in retirement, hardly the first. If so I promised myself I’d quit, a mercy killing. It may be that’s occurred without my knowing, but the stats suggest otherwise. More smart folks read me more regularly each month – and topics seem to multiply, like the hydra’s heads, when lopped. I’m convinced practice has made me a better writer, which tickles me. And the intimacies I’ve formed with readers make me glow like a lottery winner.

And is this enterprise so weird? Unprecedented perhaps, but that’s the Internet’s doing, with its instantaneous, free distribution. Many humans have felt the need to express themselves constantly – in prayer, say, or contemplation, or painting, or keeping journals, or running, or any devotion to which they’ve clung like drowners to flotsam. Reliable repetition seems to impose an order on existence and impart worth to our lives. We are what we do – and if we do a certain thing always that becomes “who we are.”

My words not only defined, they endeared me – to a handful of souls who liked what I liked, thought pretty much as I did, enjoyed sporting with language and ideas. I had inadvertently founded a cozy club where fellow spirits congregated briefly each day. It felt good here – we knew the place – we were greeted at the door.

The more I noticed, the more there was, so my world, instead of dwindling, grew. Retirement proved commencement, not conclusion. I got happier, gladder, quieter, humbler. In reaction to the evil of our time, my soul improved. I’ve always been purposive, but now my purpose warmed me to a tingle. I live to tell you about it. Please don’t let me die!