Over the holidays I met up with one of my cousins that I haven't seen in close to ten years.  He's actually my father's cousin so that makes him my second cousin. 

We got to talking and he too has been writing as a hobby for quite some time.  We were comparing notes and I think we both realized that we were marching to a similar drum beat.

Much of his writing has focused on poetry and most of mine has focused on blog writing, especially comedy, tech writing and editorials.  It seems though that we will be able to probably help each other along.  I have learned a great deal about how to earn money from your creative writing and he has developed several writing clubs to work locally with writers to help and encourage each other along.

it seems a little ironic that after so much time, we would connect up with similar interests, but I guess it goes to show that we each do have a purpose in life and when those purposes interconnect with those around us, its important to notice and act on it, which is what we are doing.

Several of the comments that he made in our discussion covered some themes that seem to be constantly recurring in my life lately.  There are a lot of people out there that I keep running into that have a story and a good one at that to tell.  It amazes me how easy it is to communicate these days, and I think the internet is playing a vital role in spreading a great deal of ideas and knowledge rapidly.

We often think of the formal knowledge like corporate documents, and training programs, even the development of Wikipedia topics, but what about all those communal family stories or word of mouth events that get handed down.  We have the means to keep those in circulation and spread them further than ever before.  Does this mean that as a society, more people will be able to learn the lessons of these stories faster? 

Regardless, I think we are still very much on the cusp of just how much we can learn from each other and in many more ways than we ever imagined.