Around the turn of the year, I asked myself: If my circumstances were to change dramatically—if I suddenly lived somewhere else and did something else—what would I regret not having done with my time here in Lander, Wyoming? The first thing that came to me was:
Not having spent time with irreplaceable friends.
So it was that yesterday I had lunch with Joseph Susanka. We were roommates in college for four years, we talked each other through the ups and downs of courtship, and we have now worked at the same place for seven or eight years, and yet we hardly ever see each other. How dumb is that? Shortly after the new year, we agreed to get together every second Thursday for lunch and a conversation.
Topics are all over the place. Combining a classical education at Thomas Aquinas College with two years of film school in Los Angeles, Joseph loves movies and all the fundamental elements of film: photography, music, and story—and when you think about it, that’s a huge umbrella. His online movie reviews have acquired something of a following.
Last year, Joseph was invited to give a talk in Gallup, New Mexico about movies, and in a single, tightly-structured lecture he covered:
- Flannery O’Connor
- Thomas Aquinas
- Joan of Arc
- The Batman trilogy
- “No Country for Old Men”
It’s a penetrating piece with many implications. I highly encourage both of my readers to to check out www.josephsusanka.com in general and “The Brutality of Grace” in particular.
I think you are too pessimistic about the number of readers. I don’t know how yours works, but wordpress seems to give me consistently low values in comparison with reality. For example, just the other day I received a like on a post that still was listed as having zero views. That seems rather improbable to me.
Sure, I was joking. According to Google Analytics, I get 6 or 7 users per day when I’m not maintaining the blog, but that spikes up when I have a good post. I typically get 300 or so visitors in a month.