Happy New Year. Now what?
Recently departed yesteryear was, I’d say, “the best of times and worst of times” if Dickens hadn’t first. A year ago, gloom seemed its inescapable tenor, shading into panic, but it’s gotten better since. Not good yet – we’ve still got a war to wage, which will be costly, painful, and intermittently murderous – a contest in which both losers and winners will bleed (though losers more) – but hope, not despair, rocks the cradle of our imagination. I’ll have to ask Professor , but I’m guessing the second week of July 1863 felt this way to Northerners, after the Battle of Gettysburg and Siege of Vicksburg seemed to forecast the Union’s eventual success.
Let’s count our blessings:
1) Overwhelming our collective consciousness like a toxic cloud was the second Inauguration of the Nameless One. That we the people made such an inept choice for a second time makes me doubt the sustainability of democracy, but if we can keep the ship of state from sinking this time, we’ll have a chance to overhaul it later. To have elevated to chieftain a person explicitly dedicated to the destruction of our system of government and way of life will always boggle my mind; that a majority gradually but (please heaven) irreversibly woke to their error consoles me slightly.
2) The recklessness of our shipwrecking wakened some to the necessity of MORALITY in our intelligence. Knowing what it means to be good is not a decorative accessory, but the essential first step in reasoning. Getting is not the goal of being; giving is. We are not here for ourselves but for others. Love is the only motive that makes sense. Those who don’t know this know nothing, however lucrative their luck. A member of the live-and-let-live groovy Woodstock baby-boomer generation, this realization astonished me – I’m a slow learner. But having acquired this truth I’ve stitched it onto my banner.
3) For the Good Morning Project, 2025 was our Annus Mirabilis. As of June 2, 480 good souls subscribed to read these words; today that number hovers around 25,000, increasing at a rate of a thousand a week. Almost ten thousand read what I have to say each day. Nonplussed, humbled, grateful, terrified, I accept the responsibility your attention bestows. To repay your gift isn’t possible, but I’ve got to try.
4) Most thrillingly for this scribbler, 2025 was the year I discovered poetry playmates. I’ve loved poetry since boyhood but found few to share it with. Business and country-clubs are allergic to ruminative rhyming (or not rhyming). Your interest nudges me to search out delicacies to sample. “I were but little happy, if I could say how much.” (Shakespeare, Much Ado).
5) Henry’s rollicking company enlivened my 2025. Translating his thoughts into English from Dog insensibly honed my own.
6) I worked hard. I’ve always liked to work – I don’t find relaxing relaxing – but in 2025, with all the news and my audience’s growth, it was non-stop, full tilt. I take childish pride in my diligence. If I’ve made the most of my chance, what more can I ask? The excellence or success of my words are not in my control, but their abundance is.
7) I did all for love. Love of Jane, my family, you, my country, words, beauty, grace, generosity, truth. I trampled none in my urge to ascend, lied to none for my advantage, stole from none. Any enemies I made I wear like medals for they were vile, cruel, despicable. Love must loathe the enemies of love.
8) I recovered hope. Now let’s together.