Why a Gazette?
I grew up reading a gazette every morning - nowadays I run into many people who call it a newspaper. In Swahili we used to say “Gazeti”. It made my morning every day when dad would give me two shillings so that I could run to the local ‘kiosk’ and buy the Daily Nation (they weren’t delivered at our door-step as they are today). Growing up in Kenya, we got our news and information from the gazette. You see, there was only one TV station and it didn’t start broadcasting till 4:00 pm on weekdays and 12 Noon on Saturdays. Those were the ’70’s and ’80’s in Kenya. We didn’t have the internet as it is in the developed world. Today in Kenya, there are a couple of TV stations all broadcasting 24 hours a day and hundreds of internet cyber-cafes where wayfarers can make quick stops and get instant connection to the news from all over the world.
My naming of this blog, Better Life Online Gazette, is a symbolic attempt at swinging back into my past so that I can simultaneously use that insight to kick forward into the future. Think of a child on a swing. The more he leans all the way back, the easier it will be for him to swing higher. Through this BLOG I’m hoping to uncover a rich depth of information that could easily be forgotten in my past and develop it into concrete insight that can lift people to a higher plane of existence. This blog will be a magnet - a cynosural meeting point - where past practices will interact with future possibilities in order to unleash present potential.
The Better Life Online Gazette will be a tool of growth and development. A huge chunk of my understanding of the world as a young boy was derived from my daily reading of the Kenyan gazette. My paradigm of life now is that I need to give to the world in appreciation of what I have received from it. My daily musings in the BLOG will hopefully be a marvelous catalyst for growth and development in many other people’s lives.
