Three things from DAH. 

DAH is me, David Anthony Hance. Yes, still. 

First up this week, Facebook …  
Happy Birthday, FB! The Facebook was launched on this day 18 years ago: February 4, 2004 (at Harvard … no general public until September 2006). I joined in 2008. Over its brief existence, Facebook (now part of Meta Platforms!) has made quite an impact. Nobody I know would say they "love" Facebook, but plenty use it. Some of my friends never partook, and some have chosen to go FB-teetotal. "My friends can call, text, or email," say a few. Of course they can. But few do. We send out holiday cards each year and, before Facebook, that was our only contact with scores of old and valued friends. For all its bad-influence warts and my compromised personal information, Facebook serves a real purpose for me, someone who craves ready connection but is denied it because of geography, pandemic, and the lonely grind of daily life. 
2022 will be a tense year for Facebook and social apps. Here are 4 reasons why

Second up this week, Flexibility …  
I've long found comfort in mental flexibility. But I've noticed that my physical flexibility could use some attention. A belated resolution for the new year: Work on flexibility. Stretching and bending and breathing are essential to my well-being, truly. And I'm confident that the physical will support and enhance the mental. But, my goodness, it's such a challenge to embrace new habits! When we've developed well-worn and deep tracks in our lives, it's not so easy to will ourselves out of those track-ruts. And once out, we have to avoid slipping right back in. I must train myself not to behave like a train, able to run only on the tracks built sometime in the past, heading for some distant destination that doesn't serve me today. 
6 Reasons Flexibility Is Important To Your Health, According To Experts + Research

Third up this week, Fecundity …  
I just read the (short) 174th installment of a free e-newsletter to which I subscribe. It's the source of the poem below. Laura Olin is struggling with keeping up with her e-newsletter. As she wrote this week: "what's the point of any of this at all?" And don't we all feel that way, sometimes, or much of the time? Oh, the the current state of the world! Since I'm connected and flexible, I'm prepared to work on personal fecundity. But rather than thinking I might spawn many offspring, I'm focused on producing and cultivating many new ideas and inspirations. I've identified a couple of favorite suggestions for creative fecundity (from the below-linked post) …

Love and absurdity are quite key for me. That can't be a surprise for those who know me, even if they're currently connected principally through Facebook. 
Creativity: 14 Ways To Find Inspiration And Originality

A Book I Am Reading: Holy Sh!t We're Alive (Now What?), by Doug Cartwright.
This book moves quickly. Partly the memoir of an unfulfilled seeker who's tried almost every potentially enlightening path. And mostly an expression of wonder at the miracle that any of us is here at all. Life is "… a beautiful experience to be had, not a problem to solve." 

And a bit more:

For My Young Friends Who Are Afraid
by William Stafford

There is a country to cross you will
find in the corner of your eye, in
the quick slip of your foot--air far
down, a snap that might have caught.
And maybe for you, for me, a high, passing
voice that finds its way by being
afraid. That country is there, for us,
carried as it is crossed. What you fear
will not go away: it will take you into
yourself and bless you and keep you.
That's the world, and we all live there.


And that's all for this week.
From Mary Oliver’s poem Sometimes ... 

Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it. 

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