A to Z Theme Reveal

Please, pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.  What's that he's saying?  "You can't do a theme reveal post if you've already revealed your theme over a month ago!"  Shhhh, Wizard.

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Starting next Wednesday, I'll be doing A-to-Z themed posts on the theme of MANIFESTOS.  I've posted my calendar on the right-hand side of the blog.  Since teaching will still be kicking my butt quite regularly between now and May, I've given myself a bit more slack: 3 posts a week instead of 6.  I hope you all stick around after the challenge month is over to see how it all turns out.

Why manifestos?  They're tiny packages filled to the brim with passion, meaning, and truth!  Or at least some interesting person's view of how best to pursue passion, meaning, and truth.  As I mentioned a few posts ago, I'll broaden it out a bit to also include some manifesto-ish songs, poems, essays, and codes of life.  Some are just pure linkbait lists from the centuries before BuzzFeed.  :-)

Other notes:

Although I'm avoiding the manifestos that make me sick to the stomach -- and I've definitely come across some that do -- I'm not going to the opposite extreme of including only the ones that I agree with completely.  I'm trying to not shy away from some that I'm not quite sure how to feel about.  My goal isn't to endorse the content of every single one, of course.  Take from them what you want.

I'm also not an expert in many of the manifestos that I'll discuss.  Some are long-time faves, but others I just learned about in preparing for the challenge.

It's funny how many of them can be classified as being on one side or the other of a particular tug-of-war that's been going on for all of human history. The two sides in that war are:

Be nice to one another

versus

Do your own thing

By exploring my 26 chosen examples, I'm hoping to see new ways that we can reconcile those two clashing impulses... or maybe even come to understand them as not contradictory opposites after all?  We'll see!