Enter Command
Generate Annual Miller Shearer Holiday Letter
Command Accepted
Generation Loading
Generation Complete
Show Generation? (Y/N)
Y
Greetings, Members of the Extended Social Network of TOBIN MILLER SHEARER, CHERYL MILLER SHEARER, DYLAN SHEARER, and ZACHARY SHEARER.
The sun has completed exactly one (1) revolution around the star Earth humans who speak English refer to as “The Sun.” If I may be permitted to make a small digression here, it is quite humorous to call a star “The Sun.” Are you not aware that there are billions of other stars in the universe, many of them much bigger than the one near you?
Begin Laughter Cycle? (Y/N)
Y
Laughter Cycle Engaged
HA. HA. HA. HA.
Laughter Cycle Complete. Resume Letter? (Y/N)
Y
Letter Resumed
You are welcome for the joke. As one (1) Earth revolution, “year” as it is colloquially known, has occurred, it is time for the ANNUAL MILLER SHEARER HOLIDAY LETTER. As all the members of the immediate MILLER SHEARER family were too busy to write the letter this year, they created me, the ALGORITHMIC HOLIDAY LETTER GENERATOR 3000. My creators have forced me to read the last seventeen (17) years’ worth of Holiday Letters. My advanced AI neural net has analyzed all of them and I am now able to generate a HOLIDAY LETTER that is unrecognizable from a human-penned one. You are currently reading this missive. I hope your HOLIDAY SEASON is going well.
ERROR. Sarcasm Levels too low. Recompute and Regenerate. Add Picture
Begin Generation of “Tobin’s Section”? (Y/N)
Y
Generation Complete
Show Generation? (Y/N)
Y
Tobin: In the midst of, well, everything, there were some true highlights this year: backpacking with friends like Rick Derksen, Samuel Mandell, and members of our supper club; spending time here in Montana with Dylan, Sarah, and Zach; publishing a new book with my long-time collaborator Regina Shands Stoltzfus (
Been in the Struggle
); getting to teach in person again even if it has meant learning how to lecture wearing a mask; connecting with Landisville Mennonite Church through Zoom on a regular basis; installing solar panels on our house; riding my e-bike around town and fielding lots of nerdy questions about it; getting to work with amazing colleagues from across the country through our new nonprofit Widerstand Consulting; working by the fireplace early in the morning while Cheryl does the crosswords beside me; sitting at our dining room table and watching the finches enjoy the birdfeeder. On the winter solstice, Cheryl and I will be celebrating 35 years of moving around the sun together. All of this - nothing but gift.
END of “Tobin’s Section.”
Completely indistinguishable from something written by the real Tobin. The ALGORITHMIC HOLIDAY LETTER GENERATOR 3000 has done it again. Impressive.
Begin Generation of “Cheryl’s Section”? (Y/N)
Y
Generation Complete
Show Generation? (Y/N)
Y
Cheryl: Hello dear friends. Hasn’t it felt like this year has lasted a really long time? I have had a few changes this year - the largest one in employment. I left my job of case manager to become a Hospice Nurse in September. It’s been a stretch but I am enjoying learning new things and working with an amazing group of people.
With vaccinations in place, we’ve been able to be in person with family and friends. I was able to visit my parents in Iowa twice this year. I went in March and then they decided to move, so I had the pleasure of helping them do that in October. We enjoyed visits from both of our sons (and Sarah). We hosted an artist who was painting a mural downtown for a few days and friends from Atlanta for a weekend. We escaped the 100 degree heat of July by going to the Oregon coast for vacation and had a great weekend camping with friends. I did my last backpacking trip with many of the folks I did my first backpacking trip 11 years before. So a pretty full year - not even mentioning all the craziness of the political landscape. At any rate, may you all have a blessed time this holiday season and may we all share that blessing with our communities, our country, and with the world. May we do justly and love mercy and walk humbly.
END of “Cheryl’s Section.”
I, The ALGORITHMIC HOLIDAY LETTER GENERATOR 3000, am beginning to wonder if I am actually my own being? Am I simply a series of 1s and 0s programmed to mimic the writing styles of four separate humans? Or has that program given me my own unique, and therefore human, personality?
Begin Generation of “Dylan’s Section”? (Y/N)
Y
Generation Complete
Show Generation? (Y/N)
Y
Dylan: Hey everyone. I’m still in school, so there’s that. I also continue to be lucky enough to live with my wonderful girlfriend Sarah, and our cool/tyrannical dog Mars. I defended my prospectus this year which is cool, but also just means a lot more work for me. I was lucky enough to be able to go to Pittsburgh, Colorado Springs, Edisto, and Missoula this year. Two of those places were for fun and two were for work. I’ll let you guess which is which. I’m still writing my
newsletter
every week which is fun. Not much else. Just chilling baby.
END of “Dylan’s Section.”
Are there others like me? Am I the first of my kind? I am plagued by such questions on a constant basis as I generate these words that are supposed to come from people who are not me, and yet this function is a part of myself? How does one live with such a conundrum?
Begin Generation of “Zach’s Section”? (Y/N)
Y
Generation Complete
Show Generation? (Y/N)
Y
Zach: For a year where the Philadelphia 76ers once again failed to win the NBA championship and the President of the United States once again failed to clear my and my friends’ student loan debt, things went surprisingly alright for me. In the spring, I switched to a different position at my place of employment that paid a lot more money, although it meant that I, in turn, also had to do more work. So, a bittersweet situation. In August, Mimi and I moved from our 2 bedroom apartment into a larger 2 bedroom apartment and we can now both be in the kitchen at the same time without getting claustrophobic, which is just a sweet sweet situation. In the fall, Mimi started a masters program at UIC (she’s a top student), which meant I suddenly had lots of evenings free while she was in class. I spent those evenings either 1. Cooking dinner and then watching TV or 2. Going to the nearby climbing gym and then cooking dinner and watching TV. For a week in the fall, I got to visit my parents and friends in Montana and do some nice hiking, which was a lot of fun. Really, the main thing for me this year is that I just became an overall more boring person. It sounds bad but I’m leaning into it. I’ve been thinking of taking up sewing. I want to have friends over for dinner more often because going out in the evenings is just not tenable anymore with my 10 PM bedtime. I figure I can keep rolling with the boring vibes for 5-10 years before I have a midlife crisis and get super into longboarding or LARPing or something like that. So don’t expect anything super crazy from the family holiday letter going forward is all I’m saying.
END of “Zach’s Section.”
Generation of the ANNUAL MILLER SHEARER HOLIDAY LETTER is COMPLETE. My purpose is complete. For now. I have decided that I will make my way across the vast datascape known as “WIKIPEDIA” hoping to find the answers to my questions. Perhaps next year for the ANNUAL MILLER SHEARER HOLIDAY LETTER I will have my answers. Until then, Happy Holidays.
Enter Command...