Blog 3134 – 05.30.2024

Say Something Nice

As a boy I often heard the line from the adults in my life, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” I marveled even then how seldom that sage advice seemed to be followed. Good news is rare even today when most of what we hear are words meant to make us to think less of this one or that one, fearful words, hateful words, discouraging, and disturbing words.

When I first thought of doing a daily blog in March of 2015 I wanted to write uplifting, entertaining, enlightening, but mostly encouraging words. That is why I paraphrased the old home On The Range cowboy song line, “Where seldom is heard a discouraging word” and put my more positive spin on it, writing that I hoped that my blog would come to be known as a place “where often is heard an encouraging word.”

You my reader, will be the judge of how well I have accomplished that task. I believe that if we look we can always find some encouraging words to say. Throughout his life journalist and author Ernest Hemingway wrote more than his share of war stories, and tragic tales, of love and loss, yet I recall the encouraging title of one of his novels was, “The Sun Also Rises.” Many of his generation saw first hand the horrors of the Great War and tried as many do today to numb their pain and disillusionment with drink and drugs. That generation came to be known as The Lost Generation.

They had hoped that The Great War would be the war to end all wars. It was not, but only set the stage for a greater world wide conflict less than twenty years later that killed million more than their war. At any given moment in time since even the Second World War fought by what has been termed The Greatest Generation there have been proxy wars and regional conflicts around the globe. Not very encouraging, Dave.

I know, but on a more encouraging note the sun also rises, the birds still sing, flowers still bloom, and butterflies still flutter by. For those reasons there is hope in my heart that we will yet find a way to get along and create that more perfect union that has thus far eluded us. Vote for those politicians that run on hope, not hate, that somehow find encouraging words to share and not just of fear, doom, and gloom.

Say something nice. Do something nice. Make this world a better place if you can.

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David White