| Solitude
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone;
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air;
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.
Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go;
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all,—
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life’s gall.
Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, and it helps you live,
But no man can help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a large and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.
“Solitude” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Public Domain. (buy now) It's the 20-year anniversary of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, which was launched on this day in 2001. It was co-founded by Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales. Wales was an entrepreneur, Sanger was a philosopher who specialized in epistemology, which is the study of knowledge itself — how it works, how we learn, how knowledge is spread, and why we believe what we do. They were both interested in open-source software, and were excited by the idea of creating an online encyclopedia that anyone could contribute to. They launched Nupedia in March of 2000. Articles would go through a rigorous peer-reviewed process to make sure they were as accurate as those in any other encyclopedia. Unfortunately, writers would get critiqued so intensely by reviewers that they were too afraid to write more articles. After six months, only two articles had made it through the peer-review process. They learned of the wiki concept and pivoted to using wiki software for an encyclopedia, so that anyone could write and anyone could edit, making the encyclopedia truly collaborative. They called their new venture Wikipedia. Now ubiquitous worldwide Wikipedia has more than 55 million articles in 300+ languages. It's the birthday of the Faroe Islands' most famous writer, Andreas William Heinesen, (books by this author) born 110 years ago in Tórshavn (1900), a place he called the "navel of the world." The islands, which belong to Denmark, are in chilly waters halfway between Iceland and Scotland. He spoke Faroese at home, a language descended from Old Norse and now spoken by fewer than 80,000 people in the world. But he wrote his novels and poetry in Danish, which he'd learned at school. Despite critical acclaim as a poet, he was so fretful that his Danish wasn't good enough that he read every single page of his first novel out loud to a native Danish speaker. That novel, published in Denmark in 1934 as Blæsende Gry, was translated into English and published as Windswept Dawn (2009). All of his books written in the Danish he acquired at school have since been translated into the Faroese that he grew up speaking. His novels Den sorte gryde (1949) and De fortabte spillemænd (1950) have recently been translated into English as well, as The Black Cauldron (2000) and The Lost Musicians (2006). It's the birthday of a Scottish writer whom Beatles John Lennon and Paul McCartney adored, who performed regularly on BBC radio, who communicated largely with Post-it notes, and who taught schoolchildren for decades: Ivor Cutler (works by this artist), born in Glasgow (1923). His books include Cock-a-Doodle Don't!!! (1966) and Many Flies Have Feathers (1973). On this day in 1759, the British Museum first opened in the Bloomsbury district of London. The objects first housed in the museum were comprised of the life collection of a doctor named Sir Hans Sloane. The iconic round British Museum Reading Room, with its blue- and gold- and cream-colored dome, wasn't built until nearly a hundred years later. In 1997, the Reading Room underwent a big restoration project, and when it reopened in 2000, it was available — for the first time — to anyone wanting to step inside and take a look. It's the birthday of black civil rights leader, minister, and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, Martin Luther King Jr., (books by this author) born in Atlanta, Georgia (1929). He was chosen to lead a boycott of segregated buses in Montgomery, Alabama when he was only 26. He didn't set out to become a civil rights activist; he said later that if he'd known what the job would entail, he might have turned it down. He wasn't even sure he wanted to become a preacher; as a teenager, the way people shouted and stomped in his Baptist church sometimes embarrassed him. But during the boycott, after he was assaulted and arrested and his house was bombed, he experienced what amounted to a religious conversion. He said later that he realized that the movement had far greater force than his own doubts, and that he had to act like a charismatic figurehead even if he didn't feel like one. Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.® | 