I am thinking about one of my--many--problems with Everything.

It can be seen with the velocity new nodes and writeups pass through the New Writeups nodelet. During slow times, it can be many minutes before the list changes; at other times, it can change with every new link.

Sometimes the flow can be slowed with Everything New Nodes, or E2N, or even ENN--but everytime a single node is linked, there are those damn new writeups.

This is the sense of urgency when online: that I will miss something important. I don’t think I will ever lose this. Yes, often there is just drek. (And sometimes it seems to go on for days at a time.) But within the flow there will most times be something good--and more times than I can count, there is something great, or luminescent.

When I node online, responding to a writeup that has to be responded to I work very fast. So fast, and hard, that I have whacked the space-bar on my keyboard so it cants to the right, and often doesn't space. (I’m going out to get a new one as soon as I post this.)

But this urgency often makes for greater clarity, as well as brevity--two qualities valued on E2. And I am more likely to post something I write this way, than when I compose it off-line, as I am composing this.

It is this constant energy, the constant inflow from all over the world that makes the river that is E. I am reminded of the Heraclitian aphorism:

You can’t step into the same river twice.

The river flow eddies around, through my legs as I am walking here; my presence altering the meander, reforming the shores, reaching new landmarks. It is infuriating, enlightening, interesting, energizing, amusing, disgusting--always changing, always everything.

Some might say like life. But it is more intense than life because it relies so much upon imagination just to work.

I guess this isn't a problem at all. (I think I’ll stay.)

Language is like a river
themusic’s Several Elucidations of Everything

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