As Samuel Johnson said of second marriages, every new year is a triumph of hope over experience. There is nothing new under the sun.
What remains as constant as the North star is our reason for being: to champion justice, benevolence, kindness, wisdom, and selflessness—even if it means going to hell.
Our highest reverence is owed to the first person, who remains unknown and unappreciated, who reflected, “I could be wrong,” and planted the seeds of due process of law. Equally deserving of veneration is the first person, who remains unknown and unappreciated, who protested servitude in all its ugly moods and tenses, and planted the seeds of emancipation and liberty as the glory of mankind.
Ecclesiastes errantly instructs, “Vanity of vanities; all is vanity,” insinuating the pointlessness of all human activity. The author never heard the tale of the small child who came upon thousands of fish stranded on a beach at high tide and destined for death. The child picked up one fish and threw it back into the water. An old man scoffed that saving one fish out of thousands made no worldly difference. The child retorted, “To that one fish it did.”
I enjoyed that, thank you.