Too many days ago, I wrote, “Advice for myself: “Share your work.”

So did I share my work? Not much.

That’s ok. One day, Future Me, you’ll listen to the wise advice of Past Me.

In the meantime, let me share another bit of advice with you.

This is one that may be easier. "Share your gifts.”

Summary

Each of us has been given gifts that have made us rich beyond measure.

The foundation of all the many gifts I’ve been given is this one: the gift of life.

I’ll write about that, and the many other gifts I’ve been given. But let’s start with this one.

A gift that I shared

I wrote a post called “How I got my Substack to be Google searchable” in another substack I write. It was a gift I gave, made using gifts I’d been given, and it’s continued to produce gifts for others and for me.

The blog where I wrote it is called “Random S*&%$ I learned today.”

I write stuff there that doesn’t belong here and not all that often. But I did write that one post.

The gift of the post

That post began its life as a gift to the best friend I never met. He writes the Franklin Faraday Insights newsletter. I’d spent hours figuring out how to get this substack indexed and when I found that his was not being indexed I retraced my steps and posted them in a chat channel we share.

It was a gift to him, you might say. Or might say. Becuase I said it. And it was.

Later went back and consolidated it in a post to remind him—and me—how to do it.

It was a all-too-rare instance of sharing such gifts publicly.

Please, Future Me, do more of it.

The gifts that led to that gift

I was able to figure it out how to index my substack because of gifts I’ve been given:

First, the gift of life. I’ve written about my gratitude that gift before.

Also the gift of consciousness.

The gift of intelligence.

The gifts of knowledge and of reasoning ability and persistence.

The gift of the internet and the the Google search engine, which makes me more knowledgeable and intelligent than I would otherwise be.

These are all gifts.

I did nothing to deserve any of them.

So the post was a gift, the result of sharing my gifts. And that gift keeps on giving,

What happened after I shared my gift

People have read that post. Some have clicked the like icon. A few have written messages thanking me. I’m grateful to each. I’m going to make an effort to “like” and comment on others’ posts.

A very few, including the person who writes the substack Moviewise, signed up for that substack. And the Moviewise author and a few saw this publication listed in my profile and signed up for this one as well. That took some work! I’m grateful.

So here’s a small gift in return to one of them.

Moviewise is a worthwhile substack. I’m a subscriber.

You might want to subscribe as well.

Or subscribe to this substack, where I’ll share some more of my gifts. And encourage you to share yours.