Member-only story
As this holiday season slogs into its final act, and as we as a nation face a most uncertain 2023, I’d like to say thanks to all my Medium friends and friends and voices from other social media platforms on which I write for your many kindnesses, thoughtful comments, bird-likes, and genuinely heartfelt support. As I sit in the semi-darkness of the Dungeon, I am blessed with myriad companions on my screen who represent a most fascinating cross-section of skills, nationalities, faiths (or non-faiths), political positions, philosophies, world views, musical and literary tastes, and all manner of interests that have exposed me to new ideas, images, and possibilities. And you do that every day. Wow. Thanks.
I have one wish for 2023
If there is one wish I would wish for all of us — a wish that can be made real no matter how you identify yourself across the broad spectrum of humanity — it is that I wish we will remember, every day, to find the good in something or someone and raise it up so it shines for the rest of us to see.
I believe most of us have a light inside us that burns not on the dull coal of self-interest, but on the white-hot fusion of common interest; we are here to help others more than we are here to help ourselves. All too often, people who have the most to show and give, hide themselves — hold themselves back — because they are fearful of being ridiculed, or dismissed, for what they think, for who or what they love, for what drives their passions, for what they want to give.
I believe most of us have a light inside us that burns not on the dull coal of self-interest, but on the white-hot fusion of common interest; we are here to help others more than we are here to help ourselves.
To my social media friends, who all have so many wonderful gifts you share with me and all who follow you, I’d love to see a 2023 where we each find one of the quiet ones, one of the fearful ones, one of the kind-hearted-but-unheard ones, and help them find their voices and give them the courage to rise beyond their own expectations.
