I Wrote A Book

& today is my birthday

Dear Fellow,

By the time of men, I have expended two decades and two years in my becoming.

I wrote a book. This is my first. This is a commitment to authorship.

Last Sunday, 14th August 2022, this newsletter expended a year in existence.

A book and a year-old newsletter feel like—or, better still, are—significant markers of this milestone. Perhaps my history reads at a point: “At the twilight of his twenty-second year, his first book was published, a week after a newsletter he called RANDOM DESPATCHES, which he also tagged a public commitment to becoming better at the craft (writing) turned a year-old.”

Dear Fellow, I may seem over-excited about these things. Well, it is one way I have found to be far from ingratitude; that a definite goal and milestone helps to keep away ingratitude and little fulfilment when it is reached; that in spite of the unpleasantness of this broken world, there is beauty radiating even from unlikely places.

A letter was addressed to RANDOM DESPATCHES from a dedicated patron of this newsletter. Beyond merely regarding it as a child (brainchild), the words in that letter made it more like a tender child in need of as much care as a baby. What does it imply? It implies I must be responsible for the content here.

A portion of the letter reads:

I pray we see you (RANDOM DESPATCHES) at a million subscribers soon; those who cherish the words you dish out, not just adding to your numbers. What use is having a lot of numbers 'following' if they don’t even read and appreciate these words, if it doesn’t tighten a screw or two in them? "Quality over quantity", right? 

Yes! Of what use are the numbers if YOU don’t read and appreciate these words?

(I am thankful that you have journeyed so far on this train, not just as a number, but as a fellow human like myself traversing scapes and time along this lifetime pilgrimage. Yes, on pilgrimage. One of my big brothers will often say that he doesn’t know as much as you think he does—that is who a pilgrim is; as we all are if you concede.)

All I have written thus far in this letter, especially with regards to my book, is that I am entrusting this little world of mine into your hands based on trust; that you will value it, appreciate it, and not be shot out of experiencing the many little wonders around your space by reading the book.

I resolved to offer this debut for FREE: this is my commitment to this long journey which has just commenced. For, I believe, there are countless stories in our everyday lives which can be told. Only that we are the ones who decide which should be immortalised and which should be re-created.

The time this mail dropped in your inbox—12:30 a.m.—is just when I am about thirty minutes into a new chapter of this book, my life, which is a single part of a Grand Composition, authored by the Master Creator (God). Yonder, I desire to be a reflection of His glory; and that, by my shine, you will also find reasons to not seize being light in your own little corner of the universe.

Onwards, live to fulfil the purpose, dear Fellow.

I remain your Letter Man,

Tongjal, W. N.

(Permit me to call you Dear Fellow, henceforth.)

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