Thank you for the kind birthday wishes!

To all who wished me a happy birthday on our beloved social media, and in particular to those well wishers I couldn’t reply personally: Thank you very much for all your kind words, they inspire me to celebrate my 38th birthday with 365 days of inspiration.

I am determined to keep up my writing in 2017. A lot of it will be shared here, as I garner the temerity to call these words – “Words! they said, mere words! What good are they if the world is ill? Without us, their worth is nil” – my gift to the world.

The upcoming year will be one of political turmoil and unprecedented climatic and environmental hazard, or one in which we finally ‘get it right’ organizing as a species – depending on your perspective, or filter bubble. What we need now is a healthy culture of political debate, in the face of ever more destructive and self-reinforcing events. The era of popular politicians who were able to balance and appeal to majorities (the Obamas, Merkel, and in my little country of birth, Rutte), seems to come to a close.

Anyway, in this bizarre depoliticized era of ours I have to suppress the ‘correctness’ to apologize for bringing up politics in a birthday thank you note, along with the temptation to add a smiley to this very sentence.

Let intelligent, empathetic, constructive, collaborative conversations reign supreme in 2017.

Thank you all!