I was twelve years old when I first fell in love with words. The rush I felt seeing "Article by B. E. Shaw" printed in the school paper was unlike anything else. It was as though my name had been stitched into the tapestry of thought itself. That small byline carried the weight of a future I hadn't fully understood yet, but knew I wanted to shape. Over time, I came to understand what Dr. King once exemplified so powerfully in his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail": the pen can be a weapon, a salve, a mirror, a torch. And once you learn how to wield it, you never walk in silence again.
My name is Barry E. Shaw Sr., also known as TASKE...an acronym for Together Acquiring Strength, Knowledge Excellence. What began during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics as a collective of like-minded volunteers from Atlanta, Dallas, and the San Francisco Bay Area...strangers bonded by the shared spirit of service...became a long game of trust, vision, and mutual uplift. From shared sweat to shared investment, we laid the foundation stone by stone. Now, in 2025, TASKELLC.COM is the realization of that vision...a circle of successful investors, still rooted in community, still driven by excellence.
I wear many hats, all of which fit snugly under the crown of curiosity. I am a graduate of National-Louis University with a degree in Behavioral Science. A retired AT&T Communications Technician with twenty-five years of cables, codes, and connection. A horticulturist with over a hundred houseplants that have taught me more about patience, care, and light than many textbooks ever could. I am also the author of five books. And yet, no title suits me more intimately than this: WRITER.
Writing is more than a habit or hobby...it is my oxygen, my ritual, my release. Just as no two fingerprints are identical, no two thoughts mirror each other exactly. The act of writing, particularly in this age of social media and artificial intelligence, is both rebellion and revelation. It allows one to spiral left, arc right, or simply float, and still return with clarity, intention, and impact. My joy is found not only in forming sentences but in the alchemy of shaping emotion into language, watching disparate thoughts coalesce into a powerful, finished work...be it an essay, article, or novel. That moment of completion feels like rain on parched soil. Healing. Nourishing. Alive.
I have always been fascinated by those who wrote not because it was required, but because it was necessary. Anne Frank, that bright spirit eclipsed by unspeakable shadows, left behind a literary legacy from behind walls of fear. Her words transcended space and time, speaking to the ache of captivity and the resilience of the soul. She wrote, "So far you truly have been a great source of comfort to me... now I can hardly wait for those moments when I am able to write in you." In her diary, she found refuge. She found resistance. She found herself. Her story, and her voice, did more than recount the horrors of the Holocaust; they reminded us of the grace that can bloom even in darkness, and of the trembling but unrelenting belief that "people are still good at heart."
I feel deeply tethered to Anne Frank, not in suffering, but in the sacred act of bearing witness. She had her war, I have mine. Though our contexts differ greatly, our pens echo the same yearning...for clarity, for truth, for connection in a fractured world. I pray her spirit rests gently, her soul unbothered by the loud and lingering failures of our species to love and respect each other better. May her next incarnation...should one await her...be met with peace and praise, not prejudice and peril.
Today, I write not just for myself, but for an audience as unexpected as it is global. My Blogger readership spans the globe: Singapore leads with 42%, followed by Mexico and Hong Kong at 12% each, and the United States at just 9%. Brazil, Vietnam, Germany, and others round out the mix. Perhaps they find in my words something familiar, or something daringly different. Either way, I am humbled. Words are travelers, and the best of them know no borders.
Like Hughes' rivers, I have known many currents. Like Gwendolyn Brooks’ children, I have sat by the window with a hunger. Like Margaret Walker’s For My People, I have wrestled with the ironies of progress. And like Maya Angelou, I rise...again and again...on the wings of language.
The seed planted by that school article so many years ago has grown into a tree with many branches: storytelling, investment, community-building, introspection. Some of those branches reach toward sunlight, others bend low to nourish the earth. But all are rooted in something real. Something enduring.
This is my life. This is my legacy in motion. And I will keep writing until my last breath writes itself into the wind.
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