Welcome

Thanks for dropping by!!

This site is about stories, ideas and thinking about words and their relationship to our past lives and our future. I will post stories and poems on a variety of topics and if you are inclined feel free to comment. Any comments that are intended toward constructive criticism are welcome. Who knows, I may even be inclined to interact with your comment. I am not particularly technical so if you would like to read more stories click on the Stories category at the top of the page ….. likewise for more poetry!!!!! Hope I am able to entertain or cause some thoughts!!!!!

Background

For tens of thousands of years, the sharing of ideas was done verbally around the campfire and the supper tables. It is not surprising that storytelling remains today a huge form of entertainment and that listening to a story or watching one unfold onscreen or live, is still very popular. For thousands of years creating a way to hold onto ideas required things like petroglyphs or pictographs carved or painted on stone.

Paper was invented starting with papyrus and perfected over the centuries. Information of any kind could be recorded in documents. They were hand recorded on paper or velum (animal skin). Only the very wealthy could afford paper. As you might imagine these mediums were not readily available. They were available to the very rich and to the Catholic Church. These people also had the resources to have men hand scribe ideas. Pen and ink were THE most advanced technologies of the time in SHARING INFORMATION.

That old adage “follow the money” applies very well and as you might imagine the content that was being paid for by the Church had a very “Jesus and Catholic-centric” point of view. Christian thought and ideas began being shared across the church primarily as the Bible – and the Bible ultimately became the word of God. People who questioned these ideas were labeled heretics paid the ultimate price because Church control was threatened by any new ideas …… Dissenters were often burned at the stake. The Church is still threatened to this very day ….. they have recently (April 2021) decreed that being gay is a sin!!!!! oh My!!!!!

In the mid 1450s things changed but everso slowly. Guttenberg created a printing press that for the first time allowed for the mass production of thoughts and ideas. Later documents were “published” using the Gutenberg presses and then illustrated with beautiful pictures and drawings of all kinds such as these.

As you might imagine, the content that was being paid for by the Church had a very Catholic-centric point of view so for centuries those ideas dominated thinking of all kinds. People who questioned these ideas were labeled heretics and often came to pay the ultimate price (being put to death) because the Church was threatened by new ideas. They were often burned at the stake. Sharing one’s ideas these days, the worst that might happen in Canada and much of the Western world is that you might get a nasty comment from someone out there on the internet ….. or Twitter.

So here, I chose to share ideas using words …… some photos ….. maybe a Youtube video. As you are aware, technology has advanced by leaps and bounds over the course of the last few decades. In particular to the point where the cost of sharing ideas has dropped enormously. From whatever they paid a monk back in the Middle Ages up in one of those monasteries to virtually nothing today. It cost so little to use WordPress …. the real cost is my time ….. and I choose to “spend” my time with you. I hope you enjoy!