Directory of Lost Causes (By Quentin S. Crisp)

Intersection

First Published on Opera, Wed 24th Mar 2004

Although I have done it many times before, I still feel a little uncomfortable putting my actual diary on the internet, with its description of actual events in my actual life, involving actual people. I wonder why that is? Anyway, there was a very particular reason I chose that diary entry to start my weblog with. Stated simply, the theme of a web of incident and social contact seemed to me very apt for a journal that is being written on the world wide web. The metaphor of the web can be taken in a number of different directions. For instance, it could be the network of neural pathways in my brain, which has created this unique identity. Those pathways, it seems to me, mirror or map the external web mentioned above, of social contact and incident.And on the web of incident, which includes everything, we often notice hanging little dew-drops of CO-incidence.


A weblog is in many ways like the neural pathway, or like the social-incidental web. It is a signpost pointing in many directions. It is a unique intersection. Just look at the links section of most sites. The whole web is made of links. Like this one, for instance. It is knotted with accumulations of name-dropping, allusion, obscure references , quirks, and so on and so forth. Just like a human personality. Where does it go? Well, all over the place and back again. In other words, nowhere in particular. It just says, like my bedroom says, with its posters, postcards, shelves of books, and so on, here's something interesting , have a look. And here's something else interesting. And something else. And this interesting thing links to this one, and this to this one, and this back to the first one.


I've been thinking along these lines because it seems to me that the networks of business and industry are likely to be destroyed by ecological disaster before very long. People often say about how they hate 'networking', and I used to be one of them, but now I am beginning to think that networking is vital. I'm not talking about ambitious networking particularly, but the networking of friendly interest. When the impersonal networks crumble, all we will have left will be the personal ones. They will be our 'safety net'.