Thanks readers for the opportunity

For the last 14 years, in every week that I have been in Taiwan (except for a very few), I have published this column. Now I have come to see not how much I may have taught, but what this column and the writing of it have taught me.

Writing a weekly column has taught me I must say a firm “no” to some activities if I am to write. Discipline and control of focus and time are necessities to get the job done.

Publishing some 630 columns over a span of years has taught me about independence and self-confidence. I've learned, as even writers of common talent must learn, that writers cannot depend on others to keep the words flowing. Writers must fight day by day for faith in themselves. Writers tend to be lone rangers and spiritual cowboys to the core. If they are to write, they must do it alone. They must encourage themselves.

Being a columnist has taught me that I ought to be a better person. I should reach out more often to people around me who might benefit from a warm word or an extra touch of support. I would like to do for others what in some moments a few special people (Grace my editor, Joe my coach, Aunt B and Uncle D, Rick, and brothers Pat, Yoy, and Frank) have done for me here.

Finally, writing this column has taught me the value of words and the never ending excitement of putting them down in a way that may appeal to the minds and hearts of people I have never met, but people who may be out there reading me. For whatever modest gifts may have grown in this place since September 28, 1995, for The China Post, and for my readers, I am today a very grateful man.

Father Daniel J. Bauer SVD is a priest and associate professor in the English Department at Fu Jen Catholic University.

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