Everyone has their own way of killing time on the Internet. Mine is related to that ’satiable curiosity. It’s absurd. I don’t do games or timewasters and while I’ve done my share of watching laughing babies on YouTube, I don’t find multimedia such a temptation.
What gets me is just..well..have a look. A typical blog-post-writing session. Post is below.
First, there’s all the searches for hyperlinks on the Birmingham Museum of Art website and beyond, looking for information about the artists, suspecting there might be a Catholic sensibility in Viola’s work and wondering what his sense of spirituality might be, and researching that and finding various articles and reviews on that score and so o9n.
That’s just part of the job.
But then there’s this train:
Trying to figure out these Allen sisters.
Which leads to a link to this book on GoogleBooks: The Bryn Mawr College Calendar/Courses 1914 because one of the links led to a mention of a Bryn Mawr student “prepared” and the Margaret Allen School (the book contains not just courses, but students and their courses of study).
Which leads me to peruse the book and marvel at the range and depth of study (I shouldn’t have been surprised. Apologies to any Seven Sisters alumn out there) and ponder about what these women did with their education, which then led me to search for several of the graduate students with distinctive names.
Which led me to read about the lives of a few interesting women, including Mary Gertrude Haseman, who was an expert in Knot Theory
Which led me to read up a bit on Knot Theory because I had no idea such a thing existed and I still don’t understand it, but I can see why someone might want to study it
All of which made me wonder if anyone had ever done a study of, say, one class of these early 20th century women’s colleges to see where they all ended up, and I thought surely with the explosion of women’s studies over the past half-century, someone has, which also led me to think about the Hamilton women (see below) and muse about modern feminism, my own daughter and wondering which kinds of pressures on women were really worse and more fundamentally limiting, and trying not get unrealistic about the past, but still..
All the while occasionally looking up stuff about this new Yellowstone business I’m just hearing about. And recipes for red lentils and French lentils. And poor Jett Travolta and Israel and Hamas and there’s another two hours gone and as I’ve said before…I know more than when I started, but am I any wiser?
Give me a second. I’ll look it up.
that is indeed a great book idea, tracking the class of 1900 (or such)!
So true, so true. Is there a 12 step program for internet junkies/addicts? I do the same thing. Such a gift and quick delay of gratification, this world wide web. It’s hard to resist. Will be happy when my copy of Dorothy Day’s memoirs arrive so I can read a real book for a change.
Forgot to say Happy New Year, Amy. Thank God for your beautiful gift of expression, you know, using words that say pretty much exactly how we feel.
The seven sisters were not the only early women’s colleges. Mississippi has a great jewel in Mississippi University for Women (http://www.muw.edu). Founded in 1884 it was the first and last state-supported institution of higher learning exclusively for women. Today it is a small liberal arts university which still has educating women as part of its state-mandated mission.
Dr. Bridge Piechel, an English professor, has written a book entitled Golden Days in which she interviews “Golden Girls”, meaning alumnae who graduated more than 50 years ago. Her interviews not only discuss the time at the school but also the women’s life after school. It is wonderful reading and goes to show the power of a woman-focused education.
Oh, I meant to leave a link to the book: http://www.amazon.com/Golden-Days-Reminiscences-Alumnae-Mississippi/dp/1604730978/ref=pd_bbs_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231000617&sr=8-2
So true, so true. At least you write about it. I have never heard of Knot Theory either.
I checked out the Yellowstone link (I haven’t seen much in the news about it. I have a daughter who lives in Seattle and I can sometimes, like parents do, worry a little about Mount Rainier.) was pleased to see it quoting, A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. A great writer and a really interesting book. I used sections of it a few years ago for an introductory class in Anthropology I was teaching. I recommend it as a very readable introduction to the history of science.
Good luck to Peg – I have 50 books checked out from my public library, the maximum allowed (I also have 16 requested and 9 ready to pick-up) so having lots of good books to read still doesn’t stop me from allowing time to be sucked up into the ether.
“Which led me to read up a bit on Knot Theory because I had no idea such a thing existed and I still don’t understand it, but I can see why someone might want to study it”
Yes, you deftly avoided my great temptation, which is to reckon something I don’t understand as not worth understanding. Well done.
Help, I’m drowning in things I might want to know more about!
Wiki is my wiki-ness. (Sorry). I’ve once started by looking up a bird that landed in my backyard, ended up looking at neanderthal-cromagnon extinction theories. And it was all somehow linked in 6 degrees of separation.
Amy-
For those, like yourself, who are intellectually curious, the internet is a treasure and curse.
In the old days, the library was, at best, in a nearby building. Now it’s on your kitchen table. That’s the good news. And the bad news.
I empathize.
Mike
Great blog entry!
I tend to get tangled in streams of ideas when I’m on the ‘net, looking at sites from libraries and museums. It’s a bit like the way I’d look for ideas in my parents’ old Britannica encyclopaedia.
To be able to blog, I wind up shutting all the competing browser windows- or- simply use a typewriter!
http://laviegraphite.blogspot.com/
In college the library was the worst place to study–there were distractions on just about every shelf.
I wish I could figure out how to use my laptop without being sucked into the black hole of the internet. It all starts innocently enough. I have to work on a project that requires my accessing the net. Before I know it, I’ve veered off to read all the blogs I’ve marked as “favorites,” (including this one), checked newspapers, read email, checked the weather forecast a few times, etc. You get the idea. I’ve never been addicted to drugs, overeating, smoking, or another of the *other* vices, but the internet has sucked me in.
I would love to try a cold turkey experience like a friend did, but I have to use the ‘net for work. I have a curious mind, yes, but the net is also a time-waster. I guess I need to know how to set boundaries….
Yeah, it is like a library, just at one’s fingertips.
I can remember reading the canon law dissertation of a (then) famous bishop on the details of clerical dress. (Did you know in the ‘fifties that they debated whether Dacron was worthy clerical attire? Did you need to know?)
Needless to say, this was not the project/subject that had sent me to the library that day, but it was an incredible way to waste time!
I think it’s interesting that knot theory ties (sorry!) into the Book of Kells. I thought that 3-D trefoil looked familiar! Trinitarian knots….so Irish!
Someone close….(isn’t that always the way)….. took out and re-entered my Windows XP and not even Comcast now can figure out how to re-connect me with the internet. The loved one could fix it (BS-Masters in IT/Finance… Carnegie Mellon) but I told him not to (and wifey has zero interest in the net). That leaves me with only using the net if I am near a library….and that eliminates one monthly bill for this independent stock trader/marine artist in an awful market for both (shorting stock is not as easy as people think even during a crash….so I hid everything in callable high interest CD’s just before the crash…FDIC insured always folks)….and so… I am getting far more exercise without the net and that is the precise rub for me. The net militates against exercise….or at least it does for me and exercise is critical and an act of love for one’s spouse ….for those of us who are getting older and who like cooking and dessert (I’m a member of the Knights of Malted…..a new and very…very…. secular institute ….involved with chilled and liquid dairy products and food processors).
Sarah Vowell says “the internet is the nerd’s Israel.” Raise your hand if she’s talking to you. (BOTH of my hands are up.)
I was just reading an interesting prayer about this idea somewhere and I can’t remember…of course, I can’t because I read too many different things in one hour, much less one day.
Too many, you ask? How is that possible?
I have to wonder, for myself anyway, if this “insatiable curiosity” and the acting upon it, is not somehow related to the dreaded gluttony? And perhaps lust?
I think, again for myself, it is. That it’s similar to bulemia — the over-stuffing of unnecessary “nutrition.” And so lately, I’ve been trying to think about it more seriously than the Vowell quote alludes to.
What “real” work am I avoiding? What emptiness am I attempting to fill? Which brings up sloth…
I read a great article about that in the Fall 2001 edition of Logos. Thomas D. Kelly wrote it: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/logos/v004/4.4kennedy.html
Basically, the vice of curiosity leads to ‘attending to the wrong things in the wrong way.’
That gives me pause, b/c I find myself tempted to gorge on info too.