I blame encyclopaedias

When I was ten years old or so, give or take, my parents fell under the thrall of a door to door salesman and bought a set of World Book Encyclopaedias. For the benefit of those who are younger than the internet, an encyclopaedia was a bunch of books that people looked up stuff in before Google and Wikipedia.

It sat on the bookshelf in my bedroom, heavy volumes from A to the end. Every year a Yearbook was added to update the information, and a Science Year as well updating some of the major advances in science from the past year. I used it often, pulling down the appropriate volume to look up something I needed, or wanted, to know. Then one day I thought, how great would it be to soak up that entire wonderous set of books?

So I turned to "A", pulling down that first book and opening it to the first page and I began reading. Every night I read more, eventually finishing the volume and moving to the next. I didn't read every word in that shelf of books, but I stopped at every entry and took something from it. Not everything stuck, in fact an arguement can be made by those who know me that very little did, but it did something to me. To how I function, or rather how I fail to function.

There were so many fascinating things in those books, and once I read about it I moved on to the next fascinating thing. I admire people get interested in one or only a few things. For they get good at it, they have a stick-to-it-ness that I lack.

You see, I'm easily distracted, there are just too many fascinating things in this world. And I jump from one to another. While an encyclopaedia might be organized alphabetically, the topic immediately after the one you just read can be as different as night and day. Or as different as aardwolves and Aaron Burr.

So I flit from interest to interest, which is good in many ways but I have habit of not following things through to the end, for there is always something shiny to pursue. This then is my apology, or at least an explanation for my lost blogging mojo.  Six years plus is a long time for something to occupy my attention. I know that I hardly post anything any more, and more importantly haven't looked after Nunavut Blogs! or read many of the great blogs I've come to know over the years. That may change, but knowing myself it is unlikely. There is another volume of stuff right behind this one, and I'll likely be pulling it down off the shelf soon.

I wonder what I'll find?