Open letter to Seth Godin, Megan Casey, Kimberly Dawn-Wells and the Giant Squid Organizers: bdkz, rms, and GypsyPirate
Dear Friends:
Thank you for taking the time and sending me your birthday wishes. That was very kind of you!
I have to say, I’m still a bit overwhelmed by the incredible out-pour of love. HB greetings are one (very kind) thing, but the sheer number of tributes and notes of appreciation took me completely by surprise.
We know that we never know just how many lives we may touch when we share ourselves. It speaks for the human greatness of our lensmaster community that this gratitude for peer support became a written record for the world to see.
Make no bones about it – I’ve contributed my own few ingredients to our squid stew. But mainly I’ve passed on what was given to me before – so freely.
This reminds me of something I wrote to Megan within my first months on Squidoo: The genius of Squidoo’s design lies in the built-in realization of the universal law of giving AND receiving. Not only shall you receive after giving – you will receive…abundantly – it’s the law. But you need to give first (for-give)!
In a very fundamental way – this principle is the only guideline we need for success on Squidoo.
Thank you for your generous friendship.
Achim (Chef Keem)
Open letter to my dear SquidLog co-authors and beloved friends in our lensmaster community
What am I going to do with you rascals?
You’ve been sneaking up on me with a concerted effort to “blow old Keem’s mind!”…to “make him bawl like a babe!”… Is that what you’ve set out to do? Well, you’ve succeeded.
If you didn’t hear much from me during the last 3 days it’s because you’ve rendered me speechless. I got up on Thursday morning and logged on to Twitter where AJ had just tweeted about her tribute lens and Anne’s RentTheNews website. I clicked on the links and basically fell off of my rocker (cheap office chair, mind you). I couldn’t believe my eyes!
At the same time, email notifications from the Squid Angel basecamp forum and personal email greetings started pouring in, in batches of ten or more. I threw up (no – not that way!)…my hands! What’s going on? What’s happening?
It was like a dream: beautiful, yes – but also confusing and somewhat numbing. I had barely scrolled up and down AJ’s lens for a couple of times, disbelievingly scanned across Anne’s rentthenews page, and suddenly discovered Julie’s tribute posts here and here, with Poddys and Deb chiming in on their blog – when I had to leave for the DPS office to get my drivers license renewed. I was glad to have this distraction in my state of overwhelmed emotions. I needed a breather!
By the time I got back home, my inbox was overflowing with B’Day messages. It was almost too much – I couldn’t figure how the word had gotten out so widely. (You know who you are!)
Thursday through Saturday (today) were extremely busy for me – I had a ton of candy orders to fill. I didn’t really have the time to answer your notes, although I was thinking about you all the time.
Never before have I felt so much gratitude for all the love coming from my friends!
I’m all this: floored, humbled, honored, over-joyed and plumb happy…
But let’s give credit where credit is due!
You are what drives the energy of our remarkable community. You are my inspiration!
I could never find the motivation for giving of myself without your examples of pure friendship and personal integrity.
Paula’s consistent quality content, Alex’s unique personality, MiMi’s devotion to lensmaster success, Bonnie’s and AJ’s personal strength and inspiring insights, Margaret’s no-nonsense judgment and generous support, the blossoming beauty of our new contributors Victoria, Jennifer, Correen, Erica, Charly…
…GhostSquid/Admin/Squidster/Anne’s incredible creativity, inner beauty (and ‘outer’, too!), generosity, kindness and loving friendship…
…Squidoo Grand Dame Julie’s absolute greatness of heart and mind…Bambi, Spirituality, Susan52, Comfortdoc, Joan, Sittonbull, A_Willow, Tipi, NanLT, KarateKatGraphics, Pastiche, Jewelsofawe, lollyj, stargazer, Lizzy, nDee, JJNW, CherylK, jfield, Just-Bon, sandyspider, makingamark, LindaJM, anetteghallowell, ArtSiren, Micky_G, BevsPaper, Brenda, cappucino136, kiwisoutback, kab, Heather426, Janusz, tandemonimom, OhMe, EverythingMouse, lwhitelaw, hlkljgk, Gia, oneskms, hexagon, Rewards4life, inkserotica, mulberry, Rajays, Spook, mukunda22, alteredkat, seegreen, and many more…(I’m sure I forgot to list some names here, but that doesn’t mean I won’t notice your kind presence in my life!)
You all do something that is much bigger than Squidoo or my puny little wrinkled 60th birthday – you share your soul with the world!
And that’s why ‘the good’ will always win in the end, no matter how messed-up things seem to be right now.
You change the world. Yup.
Thank you for including me.
Your Achim.
