More times than I'd like to count I've been asked why I write to the web (not only in this format) when my readership is, at best, minimal. Pretty consistently my answer has been that I derive immense pleasure from stumbling onto a site that seems to be "out there" for no other reason than that the person whose site it is seems to be a fascinating person who succeeds in bringing together seemingly unrelated items and is able to make thought provoking observations about them. That's undoubtedly very (but VERY) old-school, but it's still what I love about the web, and I can perhaps hope that someone out there may stumble onto my sites and (dare I write it?) derive pleasure as well. I want to give back to the web what I take from it.

This stumbling can perhaps best be described as a wonderful waste of time. After all, shouldn't we be busy "accomplishing" something rather than clicking from link to link and suddenly finding ourselves lost in someone else's ramblings, feeling that we're getting to know someone whom only a few more clicks down the line we'll lose contact with and perhaps forget? Perhaps. But this particular sort of riding a wave seems to me almost diametrically opposed to today's (or is that "yesterday's"?) going with the stream, and that's precisely because what I've stumbled upon is clearly a labor of love by the person who's posted it, rather than a quickie link sent out to whomever may see it that seems to say "take a few seconds, view this, and move on".