It was supposedly the shortest day of the year, today. They say the darkest hour sometimes precedes the dawn but rarely does anyone seem to delve into the reasons why. Is it not because, so far as this saying is understood as metaphor, the dawn happens within?

This morning I got up super early before relishing this afternoon in taking in a long and, for me, relatively fast trail run while pondering these things.

And, know what?

I loved it. Proof that joy can be experienced under any circumstance is invaluable, and feels particularly so amid what can appear to be a dearth of outward signs of individual progress.

As someone who put forward the idea that it may be unconstitutional for any securities-issuing organization to operate in America without centering the idea of equal opportunity as a chief value proposition, I still feel it is important and worthwhile to put forward the question of whether this idea, which appears to have been spread widely and continually over the past several years based on readership of my articles online at least, was part of the reason so many corporations went “woke.” I am, personally, glad that so many of these organizations have begun to center the idea of equal opportunity and hope this continues; but, without an open accounting of how and why this occurred I am concerned that, not only will change not be sustainable, but, particularly in the absence of a functional journalism sector, it may focus too heavily on appearances rather than truth in an environment in which the public is encouraged to place far too much trust on corporations. Just as, for centuries, it has been wrong for corrupt men to take credit for women’s intellectual contributions, it is wrong today for corrupt organizations to take credit for forcibly-anonymized individuals’ ideas and perspectives. If possible, I would also still like to ask whether any honest account of the reasons for Chris Cuomo’s, Jeff Zucker’s, Don Lemon’s, and Tucker Carlson’s firings would be possible.

Recently, I read a PETA account of how an individual corporate lawyer’s moral courage may actually have been a sort of fulcrum on which the tide of many organizations’ posture toward cosmetic animal testing turned; and I take comfort in the idea that God can work through anyone, even, sometimes, within corporations themselves.