Seen in Passing

Ho, weary town worker, come to the woods and rest! I wish it were possible to compel all to come; not that I am just at this moment seized with a Quixotic fit of philanthropy, for with Thoreau, I am convinced that the profession of doing good is full.

It is hard, however, to see so many of the best of one’s fellow-beings diseased with duties when Nature’s rest-cure is so specific and available. Californians are not lazy; on the contrary, we work too much and rest too little, hoping all the while in a vague way to escape the deplorable results.

‘He talked with an uncommon animation of travelling into distant countries; that the mind was enlarged by it, and that an acquisition of dignity of character was derived from it. He expressed a particular enthusiasm with respect to visiting the wall of China. I catched it for the moment and said that I really believed I should go and see the wall of China, had I not children of whom it was my duty to take care.

‘“Sir, (said he) by doing so, you would do what would be of importance in raising your children to eminence. There would be a luster reflected upon them from your spirit and curiosity. They would be at all times be regarded as the children of a man who has gone to visit the wall of China. I am serious, Sir”.’

I’d like to see better integration of the OS and the “stuff” I remember. Real time of course. and accessible on my different devices.

• folders on my desktop for people, websites, posts, comments, photos and feeds I like? realtime, clickable not static.

• drag and drop so I can use all these in messaging, posting, commenting and tagging?

• why should I ever have to type “a href= ” or use the link-chain-thingy? again drag/grab and drop from desktop to WP, email?

• real time means these are always current, synched (like Plaxo) and the real data is stored who knows where.

I have absolutely no difficulty in discovering weird new shit ALL THE TIME to look at online. In fact, my biggest problems right now *by far* are:

• A super-abundance of weird new shit to discover

• Not enough time to do so, and a resulting daily sense of crushing regret

• Poor attention literacy, manifested by a willingness to be distracted by new stuff discovered by accident through practically every interaction I have online