There I am, wandering the world, and it happens: “I want to be like that.” Someone crossed my path who does something lovely and that feels feasible or maybe adequately adjacent to what I sense my capabilities are. I feel a magnetic pull not just to them, but to a sense of possibility.

A couple months ago I was introduced to a fellow I’d already met – he’s the chef at a facility I work with that’s for now formerly homeless people. His name is Joe George. When I first met him, I was passing through the building, our interaction about how he teaches the folks who live there to cook as he does the cooking. When I was introduced to him a second time, it was in the context of his artistic endeavors – he is an interfaith minister and he does a photography blog called “Urban Simplicity” where he takes photos around the Buffalo area and writes reflections on life. He shares most of his work on Patreon.

He tells stories and he posts the pictures he takes as he goes around Buffalo. I have absolutely loved reading it. The sights are familiar, the words feel like getting into someone else’s head. Something I do love about living in Buffalo is that the people doing interesting things aren’t faraway figures but people you can meet and talk to. The city exists on a very human scale.

There are facets of his life that feel very familiar. He and I both work in homeless services; his impact is more direct than my career as an Excel jockey/policy wonk. We’re both getting around Buffalo on bicycles; me often and him exclusively so. Our religious beliefs factor heavily into both of our thinking. Yes, there is a different between interfaith folks and Unitarian Universalists… but we can pass for each other in a lineup. The topics he tackles are similar to the ones that interest me and that I explore in my writing. He is far more consistent, and dare I say his reflections are a bit wiser (and in fairness, there are extra decades of life experience going into his work that you will not find in mine. Yet? Hopefully yet.)

He has a much, much larger audience than I do. 14,000 people follow him on Facebook to my lack of presence on Facebook. His Patreon has twice the subscribers my WordPress does.

There was a time I’d see someone more successful in adjacent pursuits and I’d feel jealous; now I’m reading his and feeling encouraged. I genuinely enjoy his work. If you like mine, I bet you would too. But there’s a proof-of-concept that feels particularly hopeful: There is a market for this after all. Not one that makes anyone wildly rich, but one that demonstrates that people are still craving connection through the written word and photography. With all the chaos of the world and the creep of machine-created prose, sharing our life experiences through arts and letters continues to have a purpose.