About

As long as I can remember, the power and importance of storytelling placed it at the centre of my interests.

A bookish kid, I grew up devouring every novel, short story collection, and historical work I could lay my hands on. I read these for fun, but they also took me on wondrous journeys to meet people and see places I would never experience in the “real” world. They gave me perspectives on myself that were the beginnings of self-knowledge. And, they took me far from my little town in British Columbia to show the common humanity I shared with people everywhere.

Even my hobbies were forms of storytelling; good photography can tell a story with a single image.

At Simon Fraser University I took a BA in English Literature and History. The former provided the theoretical grounding for understanding story on a deeper level. And the latter surprised me by showing that history, too, is a form of storytelling. How the past evolved into our present may be non-fiction, but it makes a terrific story, nonetheless.

A teaching degree followed, but I quickly realized that being a high school teacher wasn’t for me (teenagers being far too busy with their own stories to take an interest in anyone else’s).

I served a little over twenty years in the Army instead (Royal Canadian Armoured Corps). This scratched the teaching itch (armies are training organizations) while providing a graduate level course in leadership. Interestingly, the leaders I admired most were incredible communicators. They shared their knowledge with their subordinates, making them informed partners in every enterprise. And, they told a compelling story about who their people were and where they were going.

After retirement, this seemed to lead naturally to a second twenty-plus year career in Continuing Studies at Langara College. I worked through every operational role, from Project Coordinator to Dean. And, though the setting was different, the leadership and management challenges were remarkably similar to what I’d faced in the Army. Communication and team building were still key, made — if anything — more difficult by the proliferation of digital communications tools and mobile devices.

Since my second retirement, I’ve continued teaching adults part-time. That experience only reinforces my belief that storytelling is at the centre of almost all we do. The elements of story give shape to our experience and expose its meaning. Well-developed characters capture our empathy and illustrate our lives in relation to others. Plot shows how, far from being random, a chain of consequences leads from one event to another. And setting shows how the society we take for granted is not the default, or even the only, way societies form.

I created The Thumb to share a few of these experiences, thoughts, and — I hope — insights. They’ve been gathered through two careers and a lifetime spent leading, managing, and teaching humans. The Home Page displays all posts, newest first. To narrow the feed by subject, click on the top menu to select:

• Creativity: posts on leadership, management, and personal productivity.
• History: reviews of historical works, along with a few original posts.
• Culture: reviews of novels, movies, and television.
• Travel: travels and travel photography.

To preserve my sanity, I recently eschewed all forms of social media, making this my only presence on the web. So, thank you for visiting, and I hope you find a story or two here worth your time.

Welcome to The Wobbly Thumb!
Daniel Thorpe, 2026

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PS: Why “The Wobbly Thumb”? Back in the day, a friend and I were giant fans of Siskel and Ebert’s movie reviews. But we thought their Thumbs Up / Thumbs Down rating system was too simplistic. The real world isn't binary; you need an in-between rating for all the mediocre stuff in the middle. The majority of what we humans make is neither great nor terrible, after all — it’s wobbly!
DT