📝 Blog Post: The Purpose of Paper

This is my entry for the IndieWeb Carnival of August 2026, hosted by Chris . I wanted to try a different angel, and I also wrote this originally on paper. I could write on the purpose of life, as we call it. But I believe in a purposeless life. To each their own. To each a song. To each a book. To each a heartbreak. To each a love story. To each a meaning. To each a purpose. Our own. I could write about my purpose, defeating the purpose of my prose. Having done this countless times before, I wish instead to write of the purpose of “Paper”. Paper, as it is, possesses a historical feast, for history has been itself written upon it. Letters circulated the world, connecting it, transporting thoughts from shore to shore. Books shaped minds. Gave power. Took it away. Before paper, there were other ways of recording thoughts, most primitive and delicate; such as papyrus and animal skin. It was not until — allegedly — Cai Lun around 105 CE invented a new technique for paper[^1], that paper…