I think one of the mixed blessings about trying to do something a little bit good in our world is that there are so many awesome organizations and people who need help, that we could give all of our time and money to different recipients we deem worthy and still not overlap with each other all that much. There’s a lid for every pot?

I’ll admit, my interest in prisoners doesn’t relate so much to mistreatment in prisons so much as the intense alienation of prison life and how that might affect prisoners’ ability to reintegrate into society once (or if, depending on the prisoner) they’re ever released. I think prisoners are low on a lot of people’s lists. And, y’know, fair enough. We all have things we care about more than others. (Like, personally? Whales? Fuck ‘em.)

I’m not saying this is the most important thing in the world to do (for the record: literacy tutoring has my vote in that category), but it’s a very easy thing. Letter-writing is something you can do in a few minutes a week. It’s probably not going to save someone’s life, but it might change a few days for the better.

Like, just on a personal level, I know I’ve had some kind of dark times, and I think when people are going through that, we have a universal impulse to feel … reached out to? Not to sound like a huge douchebag, but literature has literally saved my life — like, more than once — because I’ve read a passage and known that, maybe he didn’t know it, but CS Lewis or Joseph Heller or, yes, PG Wodehouse was talking to me.

I think that words have the power to change the world. I mean, I kind of have to believe that, or I’d have no reason to keep living my life as I’ve been living it. And since you can’t going to know what’s going to strike someone or how or what’s the exact right time, all you can do is keep putting earnest words out there.

And it seems to me that writing for people who hunger for communication, and who are routinely ignored by an awful lot of the population, is a pretty good place to start.

(I also have lots of thoughts about donations to arts non-profits that I don’t want to get even more off-topic with here, but would love to discuss over a thimbleful of port next time I visit you guys.)

I agree, there are a lot of other things that can be done with our money. My uncle is in jail for doing terrible things, and I imagine that tons of other people in jail are also there for doing things that are equally bad or worse. But somehow, this still appeals to me. Not necessarily in a “my letter will change someone’s life” kind of way, but more in a “Maybe this will be interesting for both of us and it probably won’t make things worse” sort of way.

Aren’t prisoners fairly low on the list? What with Justice being in law school and all, I get that prisoners are often mistreated, but are they worse off than your Save the Children child? Would you be better off saving two children with those dollars?

Obviously I don’t claim to speak for anyone but myself, but I just wouldn’t put inmates on the top of my “giving list.” We do pay taxes for them already, after all…