Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Inaugurations and the search for good (ness)

No matter what your political leanings are, there is no denying that today is a day of historic proportions. Beginning this morning at 5:00 am, when I switched on the television and the first news reports had people streaming into Washington, DC before dawn, to midday, when a crowd estimated at 2 million packed DC to capacity, today revealed itself as a day that Americans, particularly African-Americans won't soon forget.

I lack the capacity to truly capture today's events. Better writers, like Justin Ellis, of the Press Herald are parked at the event's epicenter. They are better able and qualified to convey what's transpired and continues into the night.

After reading various politically-oriented posts, Gretchen Rubin's blog post, at HuffPo really captured what I'm feeling tonight. She nailed the story of my own personal transformation (and I'm sure the metamorphosis of many others).

I'm not a great writer, but I've written enough to be a good writer, developing right here in front of you at Words Matter. If nothing else, persevering as a blogger through 692 blog posts wills you to get better.

Because I didn't wait around for the muse of perfection to sit on my shoulder, I now have two books that I can call my own. A third one is in the gestation phase and we'll have more to share about that one at a later date.

Since I'm on a history kick, I dug Rubin's Voltaire quote: "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good." It's really not much more complex than that.

Happy America!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can't believe we elected one of them to the presidency. I think they should have equal rights and all that, but let them lead a country? It ain't right. They should be kept in their place.
Yup. I can't believe our president is a White Sox fan.
But seriously, an amazing day. The clouds have parted.

Jim said...

I'm definitely not a fan of “those people” (White Sox fans), but our new White Sox-fan-in-chief has arrived with a boatload of goodwill and capital to spend. He’ll need it, as we’re in a world of hurt as a country.

I didn’t vote for the man, and I’ve certainly been critical of Mr. Obama during the campaign, but I don’t think we’ve ever had a national buzz like was palpable during yesterday’s festivities. It was everywhere—places of business (my wife watched the swearing in and speech at Dunkin’ Donuts,big city street corners jammed with people watching on big screens—the closest I can recall in my own lifetime was Reagan’s first inaugural.

If anyone thought community and the possibility of the country coming together was a thing of the past, yesterday brought back some hope for the possibilities.