In “Leaves of Grass,” Walt Whitman writes: “This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone who asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy.” He continues, “Re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem.’’
So there. If you’re looking for a worthwhile resolution, Whitman is not a bad place to start.
The task of improving the world may seem impossible, but it isn’t. All it takes is the proper sequence of correct discrete decisions. Decisions are just resolutions with teeth.
An editor of mine told me a story from his childhood on his grandparents’ farm in Iowa. The little boy, looking out over acres and acres of corn, asked his grandfather, “How are we going to shuck all that corn?” His grandfather mentioned, “One row at a time.”
This, too, is methods to enhance the world. And we will begin small.
Personally, I vow that I’ll often go to a youngsters’s hospital and attempt to distract youngsters with tales, the funnier the higher. I vow that I’ll cellphone each lonely particular person I do know — and there are loads — at the very least twice per week, simply to speak and make them really feel a part of the dwelling world. I vow to present alms to everybody who asks, and to those that don’t, and to face up for the silly and loopy, the stupider and crazier, the higher. I promise to maintain a watch out for strays (cats, canine and other people) and produce them security and luxury. I vow to see each improper as a menace, each wound a chance.
What’s going to you do — proper now, this week, this month — to make a greater world? Stage a protest. Ship a letter to proper a improper, or to proffer friendship. (A considerate, sympathetic letter to a buddy in sorrow or misery is a strong factor.) Help. Provide a phrase of consolation or inspiration or assist or love. Donate cash or, most beneficial of all, time. There are such a lot of methods to maneuver this world, proper inside attain.
