To everyone who’s read these letters,
I don’t know if they mattered. I don’t know if they’ll change anything. But I feel lighter having written them. Sometimes, the weight of unspoken thoughts is worse than whatever comes from saying them out loud.
I won’t lie—I’m scared. The state of the world is terrifying, and in the short time it’s taken me to write these letters, it feels like things have only gotten worse. Every time I look at the news, I see more suffering, more cruelty, more evidence that the systems meant to protect us are either broken or were never designed to in the first place. It’s hard not to feel hopeless. It’s hard not to feel like we’re too late.
But if there’s one thing I hoped to instill in these letters, it’s that despair is not an excuse to give up. If the world is getting worse, that only means we have to work harder to make it better. And as exhausted as I am, I’m going to keep working.
I’m going to do what I can to bring a voice to those who cannot speak. For those who don’t know the words to say and for those in fear of reprisal. If my words here resonate with your experience, I encourage you to share my letters with those you feel may benefit from hearing my words delivered from someone they care about and not simply a faceless man ranting on the internet.
After I finish sharing these, I don’t expect I’ll be very active online for a while. I’m mentally and emotionally spent, and I need time to rest, to recharge, to remember what it feels like to be a person instead of just a voice on a screen. Robert, my editor and social media manager, will keep an eye on things here—if you leave a comment, he’ll be the one responding. Be kind to him; he works hard and has more patience than I do.
Soon, I’ll return to writing my book. That’s where I can do the most good—telling the stories I need to tell in the way I know best. But before that, I need to go find some addresses and some stamps. Some letters still need to be sent the old-fashioned way.
Take care of each other. And don’t stop fighting.
—Ron