About Us

PearlSoup arose out of our desire to produce something of lasting value. We are creating (with YOUR help!) a web community for the exchange of something we believe is a lot more important than Pez dispensers (no offense, E-Bay fans): the exchange of everyday wisdom. By wisdom, we don't mean wise-man-sitting-on-top-of-a-mountain stuff. We mean the kinds of important insight-producing experiences that every woman and man has.

Our name is a play on the old folk tale Stone Soup. It's about a traveler who comes to a village in times of famine, and apparently no one has any food. The traveler announces that he is going to cook a large cauldron of "stone soup" to feed the hungry village. He obtains a large pot and fills it with water and a few large stones. As the villagers look on and the soup begins to boil, he muses on how good the soup tastes; but how much better it would be if he just had a few carrots to put in it. Eventually someone volunteers a few carrots. The traveler then goes on to mention how good it is, but how much better it would be if there were just a few potatoes. Things go on like this until the villagers have contributed many different ingredients from their private hoards, and the entire village at last sits down to a nourishing meal of very tasty soup!

We like the metaphor because it illustrates a community coming together, perhaps in spite of themselves, by sharing their hoarded valuables. We believe we all have a private hoard (perhaps unrecognized) of wisdom we can share. PearlSoup is a place you can come to nourish yourself by reading about the important experiences of people just like you. And it is also a place where you can learn to tap your own wisdom and share it with others.