Happy Birthday, Splimm: One Year into the Experiment

One year ago today, we published our first piece on Splimm.com. This was an idea years in development and rushed into existence by a new sense of urgency – the realization that we had to DO SOMETHING, even if it wasn’t fully formed. We needed to put something good into the world at that moment.

Since then Splimm has been an experiment in relentlessly envisioning the world as other than it is. As better than it is, more gentle, more truthful, more compassionate, more capable of holding us in all our beautiful diversity. Experiments are tricky because they’re unpredictable – maybe you have a hypothesis but you don’t know the outcome when you start. In large part you operate on faith, and on hope.

It is hope that keeps us going when we’re out of words, out of energy, and out of money – hope that we’re giving people something they need, hope that together we can overcome our limited perspectives and resources. Hope that if we keep showing up and doing the work, we’ll make a mark. Hope that what we can imagine, we can create.

We have deep gratitude for everyone who has lifted us up and prodded us along down this path for the past twelve months as this project has taken shape, and for all the days and weeks before that when it was a gestating concept. Your strength, wisdom, and support have been invaluable.

This anniversary feels not so much like an accomplishment achieved, but a record of our endurance. Which is EXACTLY like parenting. Happy 1st Birthday, Splimm. Please don’t turn into an asshole like the other toddlers.