An unavoidable, and constant, change of focus.
Web surfing is, pretty much by definition, something that changes over time. If
all we ever do on the web is visit the same sites over and over, it's not really
surfing - maybe it could be called web bathing. That being the case, although subscribing to feeds is a way of keeping
tabs on items that probably interest us, if that list of feeds isn't growing,
while at the same time also undergoing constant cleaning and weeding, we're probably
doing something wrong. We may be creatures of habit, but our habits have a way
of evolving over time, and it's this process of evolving that is at the essence
of the web surfing experience, whether or not it's aided by feeds. Sometimes we
find ourselves in a highly volatile state of flux, with our interests constantly
changing. At times like this today's clicks seem to bear no resemblance to yesterday's.
But at other times, and probably more often than not, we're in a state of micro-flux,
with minor, perhaps indecipherable, changes in our habits taking place. This change
is taking place constantly, but only over a lengthy period
of time do we actually become aware of it on the macro level, do we notice
any tangible shift in our habits.
Truth be told, I've got my hands in too many projects. Finding a topic that in
some tangential way isn't related to something with which I'm involved or interested
isn't that easy a task. Perhaps that can explain why, when I went to my Bloglines
account to actually count the number of "professional"
blogs I subscribe to (in order to report on that here) I was unable to resist
clicking on a couple of these and viewing the new items that had appeared since
my last visit. And of course, that led to yet a number of additional pages that
called out to me to be read. So, although I thought that I was sitting myself
down to actually accomplish some writing, the reality of being online, of simply
being exposed to an almost endless supply of interesting items worth viewing, got the
best of me. I ultimately ended up finding, and bookmarking, a couple of interesting
pages for a group with which I work - a worthy, perhaps even necessary, task.
But it wasn't the task I had originally intended to attend to.
Go to: Now. Right now!