I’ve been more than usually immersed in me, mining my massive missive mountain for refinable ore. Six hundred words a day for a dozen years amounts to more than three million. The Bible’s a third of that; Proust’s endless brilliant novel less than half. For a pokey reader, this project is hell. Much as I love to view, I hate to review. Diagnose my condition as acute curiosity or (less politely) ADD, it’s the self I’m stuck with.
I wondered what I had to say. My purpose was never to preach, teach, or screech, but convivially connect. You and I are taking a stroll. Let’s jaw about… anything, so long as today’s topic isn’t yesterday’s.
My word limit helped keep me from boring and you from snoring. It also made our excursions predictable in extent, so we both knew what we were in for. The Internet, with its ceaseless gush of bits, has shattered concentration. Many the worthy “deep dive” I mean to return to daily, only I never do.
Would four thousand six-hundred-word outings turn monotonous en masse? You bet. Intolerable. But might posies of thirty or fifty be arrayed into thematic chapbooks? It’s an idea, anyhow.
I jotted themes, as they emerged. Now my onerous project was getting interesting. The Roman playwright Terence bragged, “Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto – I’m human, so I think nothing human is alien to me,” only it wasn’t true. The most omnivorous polymath can’t master the tiniest fraction of all there is to be known. Our time is short and our ignorance infinite: we’re lucky if we can learn a little about a little – before we forget.
When I commenced this odd project, I was heading an Internet news company, so my thoughts gravitated to business-building and the complexities of this new medium. Today my mind is a moonshot away from those mysteries, though Daily Voice, led by my genius successor, is doing swimmingly: check it out.
Literature has ever been my lodestar, so encountering words and word-makers has been a constant in our conversation. Among the manifold blessings you’ve bestowed on me is your interest in poems. Post-college I lived in an anti-poetical environment, where an appetite for verse was viewed as brain disease. Now we can frolic together. Glory be.
The hostile takeover of America appalled and enthralled. The Nameless One first appeared in this space May 17, 2015, then wouldn’t leave, like shit on a shoe.
The wrongness of our American direction got me thinking about Morality’s whys and hows. Goodness, I came to see, wasn’t a nice-to-have but the skeleton of a free society, without which we collapse. I became something of a scold on this topic as urgency turned emergency.
I liked taking walks in the woods and seeing what there was to see. Then, for four years, Jane and I walked in Rome, marveling in immensities, getting cozy with Caravaggio, Bernini, Michelangelo, today’s Italians with their joyous ways, so unlike grouchy Americans.
Music is impossible to discuss but that didn’t keep me from trying. Then God popped into my life, an even trickier topic. We traveled to many eye-opening foreign places, then home to America, the most foreign and eye-opening of all.
Our morning strolls improved me. It’s impossible to jaw about Truth, Kindness, Decency, Justice, without giving them a whirl.
On May 10, 2024, dog-pal Henry reminds me, he was born, soon evolving into a regular contributor to this space. It’s not that hard, he shrugs, and please, while your calendar’s handy, mark the date.