As I write this letter, a piece of meaning emerges from my action: my daily commitment to strive to produce what I call a Small Good Thing.

A good thing for me is something that neither takes from the reader nor forces anything on them. It doesn't grab the reader and say, “you will give me your time.” It also doesn't cram its beliefs down another person's throat. Instead, it simply seeks to give the person a good time and perhaps some insight that causes a person to say, “you know, I never thought about it that way.”

And a good piece of writing, like a decent writer, artist, or musician, doesn’t force someone to hand over their attention or approval. It merely accepts whatever the person gives it, even if one of the things that they give it is criticism.

In other words, it is not about forcing upon or taking. It is about giving and receiving. As I say, I just want to give the person a good time and the feeling that their mind has gone for a good walk.

That's why the best comment I can get when I aspire to create a small good thing is a smile and the words, “nice, that's really something.”

In fact, I think that I now have a phrase that I can use, along with Small Good Things, to describe what I want to create: a cluster of Really Somethings.

It kind of sounds like a good band name, don’t you think?

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