52 Letters

Happy new year! It's so much fun to see time fly while remembering that every second counts for something. I am a resolution guy. I love to make new years resolutions. I know they are targets for cynics, but I try to go about them a little differently. I like making resolutions that influence the future of other people, not ones to improve my abs or stop drinking so much Diet Coke. I am about 50 pages away from finishing the epic John Adams biography by David McCullough. As a huge player in America's fight for independence, John Adam's wrote letters to everyone. He used his pen to effect change in American leadership. He also exchanged a famously romantic lifetime of letters with his wife Abigail. Writing letters was one way he expressed his greatest passions. I love the idea of the old fashioned letter. Pens, paper, stamps and feelings are one of the best ways to connect intangible emotions with our senses. Not to mention, letters have ways of preserving sentiment and truth unlike any other communication (see The New Testament). So, inspired by John Adams and others like him, I declare 2009 the year of the letter. I'll write one a week for 52 weeks. Check the mail, you might be on the list.