Third Things on Dark Days

At the time of this writing, we are less then a month into 2026. If January is anything to go by, than 2026 may well equal 1968 in terms of violence, death, and a lack of human compassion. Never before have I seen such brazen cruelty, inflicted with such little care, outside of an active war zone.

In response to this I have felt sad, angry, frustrated, heartbroken, and betrayed.

I’m a writer—and I find myself asking “why should I write now?” What good is art, and fiction, in the face of such cruelty? Surely there are more important things…

And then I remember Donald Hall.

Hall was a poet, writer, and critic, and served as the U.S. Poet Laureate from 2006-2007. In 2005 he wrote the essay “Third Things” upon the death of his wife, the poet Jane Kenyon. Below is an excerpt:

“We did not spend our days gazing into each other’s eyes. We did that gazing when we made love or when one of us was in trouble, but most of the time our gazes met and entwined as they looked at a third thing. Third things are essential to marriages, objects or practices or habits or arts or institutions or games or human beings that provide a site of joint rapture or contentment. Each member of a couple is separate; the two come together in double attention.” (See the full essay here)

“The two come together in double attention…”

I’ve seen dark days before. The fall of Afghanistan in 2021. The death of a friend and a surge of my illness in 2018. The deaths I witnessed in the Air Force in 2014. And in each, I also remember a single piece of art which helped me through.

As I watched the fall of Afghanistan, I prayed and played Zelda: Breath of the Wild with a friend. In 2018, I read the Throne of Glass series and later ACOTAR with my wife (IYKYK). In 2014, I would come home from the office, where I’d watched countless deaths, to snuggle with my wife as I was inducted into the cult of Gilmore Girls (team Jess).

Each time, the art didn’t make the pain lighter or the tragedy less real. It did something more important: it reminded me I was alive. A person. A friend. A personality with likes and dislikes and avid loves I shared with other people. Third Things.

That is what art does. It forges connections. Dreams. It crafts and heightens relationships. It imbues them with love and tears and humor. And that is why, on dark days, I find myself learning to neither subdue nor suppress moments of beauty, love, art, and joy.

I have heard several people, watching the news and feeling helpless, ask recently, “what can I do?” I’ve asked this question many times myself. Of course, there are some things: give to the organizations doing good works. Call our representatives. Advocate. These are essential and important things. But what else?

I need more to do, and yet seemingly lack the power to do anything.

Then I think of the art in my other dark days, and I remember: making art and sharing it, calling and holding a friend as they talk or cry, doing each thing, every thing, with love and spiritual devotion—from writing a novel to taking out the trash: each thing, done with love, is a Third Thing, a piece of beauty in a violent world. Yesterday I found joy and connection. How? I cleaned up my puppy’s shit with my wife. We did it together. Anything can be a Third Thing.

So as the dark days continue, I hope and pray for the coming of light. But in the meantime—I will write and love. And pray. And listen. And work with every ounce of my presence to do and be the one thing cruelty can never take away: someone who loves, no matter what.

God bless,

James