in the large-hearted, expansive American tradition of Walt Whitman, Allen Ginsberg, and Bob Dylan.

I hear you.

This is what I have just recently taped to my computer monitor, and believe me, I've been reading it aloud several times a day the past week or two especially, and it helps.

Let no one anywhere despise another

Let no one out of anger or resentment

Wish suffering on anyone at all

Just as a mother with her own life

Protects her child, her only child, from harm

So within yourself let grow

A boundless love for all creatures

~ Buddha

and thank you for a wonderful column. Gay may you lie in grace (Dylan Thomas).

Thank you, and a very happy birthday to you.

This was an unexpectedly beautiful, and moving column today!

"If you're going through hell, keep going".

~Winston Churchill

"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: It goes on."

~Robert Frost

And, to those of you who are sneaking by happy, still gruntled in a disgruntled world: Keep on a-sneakin'! Don't start thinking it would be more fun to have big problems, and get attention. Fly under the radar, and when you run out of gas, land in a meadow, and then just keep going.

The only gift I have is praise for your humane and thoughtful advice, your fine way with words, and your great big heart.

You have no idea how much I needed to read this today. Happy Birthday.

but a poem!!!

lovely. makes our hearts big.

My heart is full and I feel less alone in the world when reading your words. On this day of our country's great sorrow, a beacon of light.

Happy Birthday CT!

Glad you wrote that. It resonated with me, especially for today. Gracias, and now I will go dream of meadows instead of news.

You make your own happiness... but you can share some of it too.

Thank you for your writings today and...

Happy Birfday!

Many happy returns. A man should be excused if he jacks off to his own literary brilliance on his birthday. If a man simply jacks off, any day ending in Y will suffice.

And I thought I had it rough being born on the day that Helen Keller died. You have my sympathies.

We remain noble, as always.

...for reminding us all that our problems and questions and weaknesses and uncertainties are real and worthy of compassion, and that everyone has some kind of suffering, and so for the rest of humankind we should also have compassion. It is a beautiful sentiment on a day filled with tragedy and miracles, deaths and births.

Life does indeed go on.

Happy Birthday to you, Cary, and to everyone born on this day.

This is something from the depth of heart and soul.I do not know how to express my appreciation for this piece.In some parts of India among a community called Jains a practice prevails for I don't know how many centuries.This is writing a letter to all the contacts of a person through relationship,friendship,business,socializing and so forth.The letter is to thank them for whatever they did or did not and seek their pardon for any and all wrongs caused intentionally or unkowingly through words,action or thoughts.This might seem like a formality,sending a New Year card etc.The intent is to feel for the community with which one lives and strengthen the bond by first thanking, forgiving and asking for forgiveness.I am so moved by the array of people and the variety of sufferings that needs to be healed. yes,let us move forward with confidence and comfort that thoughts of support and help are hovering from so many quarters with spontaneity.

Thank you cary, for helping us remember that we're not alone. And there's always something for us to look forward to the next day.

Happy birthday, many blessed returns and I look forward to reading your column for years to come :)

Happy Birthday, Cary,

I am in that stream of aforementioned people, I qualify a couple of times actually, so thank you so much for reaching out to me when I am alone, so many times I am touched by your responses to queries on how to get through this life. Your words sometimes echo throughout my daily deliberations.

Because you obviously march to the beat of a different drummer, please do not ever feel there is not an audience of people struggling along that can't relate to your writing. We are here. Thanks for being there.

Sorry, folks.

Narcissistic, overweening, and patronizing.

Pathetic and supercilious theatre of the wannabe savant.

Happy Birthday, Cary. You can be exquisitely inspiring and deeply infuriating, sometimes all in the same column. But you always give us your heart and soul, and your compassion and humanity always shine through. Thanks for all of your hard work on behalf of aching hearts everywhere.

...and just see. Your birthday, yet you gift us with perspective. Thank you.

That was lovely.

Happy Birthday to you. A day late - sorry, I didn't know!

Thank you for all you do, for stepping up to the plate and living in a thoughtful way, for working so hard to figure that out. (I wish another Virgo I know would do the same!)

I hope your year is filled with blessings.

Kim

You are very much appreciated...thank you for the brilliant and moving essay. So beautiful and eloquent.

If you had the talent, why aren't you writing this comment? It's a sad and grumpy person who would so lightly dismiss a kind thought or a prayer for you. Go back to bed and try to wake up happy.

Many thanks, Cary. Believe it or not, your column deserves to be a secular liturgy for 9/11. Having friends and family born the day after 9/11, there's a strange dissonance in celebrating the fact that we are all alive the day after such a calculated explosion of hate.

I heard "Lightning Crashes" by the band Live this morning on the way to work and started crying.

That song always makes me cry, more so as I have gotten older and have given birth and have lost some of those I really loved. More so after I watched the 9/11 video documentary on the History Channel before going to sleep last night.

It has been a rough summer for my family. Too much cancer, I think.

But as my recently deceased Grandmother would say, "But what can you do?"

How fitting that an introspective person like you would celebrate a birthday on a day of national introspection.

You are a good person, one of the true forces for good in the world and I am glad you celebrated a birthday and hope you will celebrate many more.