itesser ink: progress, uncensored

Note: this is not a rhetorical comment to the internet, but a specific, unrealistic suggestion to the amazing bloggers whose posts I read.

Today was spring cleaning on my computer as I re-sorted blog feeds, downloaded some new Firefox extensions, and learned how to properly use Quicksilver.

Another part of the project was pondering what to do with my thousands of bookmarks. I'm not exaggerating, I count 3733 bookmarks between Firefox and del.ico.us, without factoring in the 227 images ready to be saved to my folder of 4593 images, and I'm trying to be the keeper of a lot of information.

Hi, my name is Annie, and I'm a digital packrat.

I make no excuses for the thousands of images, and feel fully justified in keeping that collection alive. It's the stacks of bookmarks that weigh on my mind. That number is not fixed, mind you, but increases at a rate of 20 or 30 at least once a week.

Part of the trouble lies in the name. "Bookmark". The digital tags are named for something physical, and truly I wish they were physical in nature. Although I am part of a generation that was raised closely with computers and the Internet, I still have mental blocks that prevent me from approaching information on a screen the same way I approach information on paper.

When I am confronted with handfuls of tabs (currently 21 spread out over two windows), or dozens of unread blog posts (currently 52, plus 30 backlogged from new feeds I'm checking out), it is exceedingly difficult for me to focus on one article and give it my attention for as much time as it takes to read. Although the process of reading doesn't stop when I've read all the words. To truly comprehend all I want to understand, I need at least 20% more time to integrate what I have learned, all the new thoughts, into my brain. The thoughts imparted to the aether by a painstaking blog author deserve to be given time to take root in fertile ground, ground that I am willing to offer. Unfortunately, the desire to reduce my unread posts to zero, or move to the next part of my day (or check my email one more time) breathes down my neck, and reduces all the ideas I want to touch to bookmarks. Or, even worse, busywork.

My pipedream solution to all this is to somehow manifest all the posts I want to read, re-read, and mull over into analog form. It's not simply the desire to possess the information, but to have it cooled into a solid state so I can reference and return to the ideas, the knowledge, the wisdom. True, nothing put onto the internet ever truly disappears, but every moment I am on a computer my attention is pulled in dozens of directions, to other applications, to other windows, to other tabs, to other links. A book, however, a book pulls you in only two directions, and two that do not contradict each other at that: onward and inward.

Magazines, to a minor degree, and newspapers, to a greater degree, work to fracture and distract concentration through entry points and jump tags and cleverly disguised advertisements. Some books, especially modern nonfiction, employ similar features, but a book, being alone with a glue and paper tome, is the closest we can get to communing with pure ideas.

I don't know if I'll ever get over this feeling. More than likely I'll adapt, I'll pick a half-worthy solution and make it work for me. I'll move on. I'll survive.

But, and I hope you take this as a compliment, I'm still going to wish you were a book.