Content

 

Content is in a state of peaceful happiness.

Content is information or experience provided to audience or end-users by publishers or media producers

After we arrive, one of the first tricks we learn, after peeing and pooping and walking and talking is reading. We start making shapes called letters (cursive writing) and then we put the letters together to make words. The words could be nouns or verbs or adjustives or adverbs. Put your finger on each word and sound it out. Keep speaking the words together to make a sentence.

In school, we were given books to read that were necessary to the lesson plans and a requirement for the test. Then, you found the library. A quiet place to read whatever books were available for free. We had choices of fiction and fantasy and documented history and science and travel and mathematics. Some have long complicated words that must be looked up to understand and others have pictures. You are starting to form ideas, bias, beliefs and personality.

At the same time, you are observing what others are doing. Who are the cool kids? What do they read? How do they dress? How do they stand? How do they talk?

We start to form our peer groups with what we read. The content and our interpretations and discussions with others. We expand our content reading and change our thoughts with whatever was presented to us. Elders told us what to where, what to eat, when to bath and rest and what spiritual tradition to follow. Wherever you went, you could read the St. James version in every hotel under the phone next to the room service menu. Where is the Koran? Where is the Torah? If you have disabled sight, you have to learn a new language of bumps or listen to audio books.

Established and trusted publication houses and printers make new presentations every year that are read by critics who then publish their analysis of the content to persuade the potential reader to search the local book shop in an attempt to further their knowledge on the subject. Newspaper journalist wrote information on politics, cultural events, sports that were brief enough with inverted pyramid technique. Quick enough to get the jest of the story without letting the morning coffee getting cold. There were plenty of details of who was there and what they wore and what flowers were decorated, if you want to delve down that deep. Magazines specialized in subjects like sports, fashion, automotive, architecture, food and celebrity give more defined aspects of subject’s newspaper pages could not cover. The bylines were written by professional writers who had editors and copywriters’ vet and verify their subjects before publication and distribution.

Today, content can come from anyone for everyone has something to say and the Internet has allowed a forum on any subject to be posted and commented on. We get to make the decision on what to read and what to believe.

The other night, with springtime in the air and the first rocking on the porch, I turned off all the links to content, shutdown the iPad and placed it on the table beside me as the sun declined from a beautiful day before the rain came. Everyone in the neighborhood had arrived for delivered dinner and had settled in to be recluse. I was alone with my tree.

I was content.