Roger Rosenblatt in The New York Times:
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 said, “One row at a time.”
This, too, is how to improve the world. And we can start small.
More here.