I don’t do this often. In fact, I’ve done it only once before, when this blog reached 1,000 subscribers back in the summer of 2014. But at about 5 p.m. Central Standard Time, the 10,000th reader registered as a subscriber to “Home of the Brave.” I want to take a moment to acknowledge that because I never started this blog nearly three years ago envisioning such growth in readership. I admit to being surprised by it all.

Early on, around April 2013, as I was trying to decide why I was launching this blog at all, a moment of liberation arrived. I realized I did not need to establish a clear genre, such as book reviews or political commentary, because any such choice would betray my own hard-earned identity by tapping only a portion of what I had to offer. Instead, I decided, the blog would contain “whatever I damn well pleased to write,” not to be cantankerous, but as the only clear way to maintain the integrity of my own moral and intellectual contributions to the world. We are all many things, but we don’t always express them well. I would make it a point to focus my literary and journalistic talents on expressing the complexity of subject matters that interested me, as I saw them. If they defy easy categorization, so be it. At least I would have fun and perhaps even learn in the process.

What I honestly did not expect was how many of you would join this journey. After a whole year, there were about 270 subscribers. After that, for whatever reasons, the blog entered an upward trajectory that is still underway. There is only one way to respond–with more of the heartfelt, deeply thought essays that I hope are becoming my trademark. Writing this blog is still an adventure, still a challenge. I want to cause people to think, to care more about their fellow human beings, and to deepen their curiosity. If I succeed at that, the numbers presumably will take care of themselves. I intend to pay attention to what matters.

And thanks to all of you for taking the time to read what I have to say. I am very deeply appreciative.

Jim Schwab