Hello, gentle noder. I haven't written a daylog in nine years, but today's a special day! Over the past two decades, I've made an occasional habit of posting reflective missives about Everything2 on my noderversary, and it's been twenty-three years since I created my account. I've been largely absent for the past fifteen or so, which is (does math) twice as long as I was active, so rather long as sabbaticals go. The recent quest really got me back into the habit of writing, which was my objective when I reconnected back in December. I wasn't sure what kind of reception to expect upon returning to the site after such an extended absence, but I recently asked the boss for my laurels back, and was graciously provided with basic accommodations. I'm still in the process of figuring out what important events I missed out on while I was busy with other things. It may take some time for everything to be revealed, but I'm in no hurry.
Walking slowly down these hallowed halls and observing all the scratchings and scribblings that emerge from the shadows, I am reminded again of the person I was back in E2's heyday and what this place and its people meant to me (and vice versa). I've also been wondering about what my legacy will be, or perhaps at this point I should say has become. I worry that much of it hangs from an Editor Log I wrote nineteen years ago that expressed a widespread perception that users were being driven away from E2 by an assortment of things, and that unless the prevailing trends contributing to this were reversed, our pirate ship would some day become a museum. That hurt some feelings at the time, and I still feel somewhat badly about that reaction. Having had many years to mull it over, I thought I'd share some recent reflections I've had about that rather harsh and foreboding prognostication.
Though I'm reluctant to say it, I do kinda think E2 has become a museum by some measures, though considering the site's almost a quarter-century old, how could it not? Even so, it's hardly cold and quiet. It may not be crowded with warm bodies or filled with as much laughter and conversation as it once was, but it appears to enjoy a slow but steady procession of loyal and committed patrons and artists that keep it alive and actively accessioning new works to exhibit. True, A Year Ago Today isn't typically encouraging, but you take what you can get. Various former regulars continue to drop in like guest stars from time to time. There are some (relatively) "new" great writers here that I'm in the process of discovering. Some of the old greats are still around and swinging for the fences, and that gives me warm fuzzies. Though to be honest, I'm a wee bit amazed at how a few of you have managed to stayed devoted to this project for as long as you have — not that that's a bad thing, my hat's off to you. And in fairness, I know some of you have taken breaks to deal with more pressing matters in life, only to return again when the weather improved. Maybe if I hadn't provoked controversy and reaped the whirlwind for it, I would have stayed committed myself, but who knows. E2 has been extremely capricious and unsure of what to do with itself since the day it began, and as lovers go, I've found that relationship hard to maintain when I've committed myself to it as intensely as I have in the past. I burned out several times even before things got contentious. But breaking up is hard to do.
One thing I know for certain: this place is more haunted than a ghost ship. Around every corner, and with every click, the past lives of its former inhabitants are reanimated for me in their own words. The fact that numerous folks who considered this esoteric website a community, some of whom even considered one another a kind of family, are now committed to their eternal rest only amplifies the feeling. I've noticed the staff try to keep track internally of notable noders who have passed away, as I've stumbled upon a few sad surprises recently. I once knew a good many of these people in real life. I have memories in my head of them, the conversations we had face-to-face, and the times we spent together. It can be a bit unsettling, reading the words they wrote and remembering how they made me feel and what they made me think when I first read them. And remembering all of them, and how we all used to be, once upon a time before I got to be so old. It engenders melancholy, but I'm trying my best not to dwell on that. I didn't come back here to be sad, I came back to indulge in happy nostalgia and re-experience some of the dopamine hits that come with being a noder. And as ever, E2 tries to give back to you what you give to it.
Still, in other ways, it's hard to come back and be reminded of all that's changed simply from the ordinary passage of time. Back in January I wrote an essay in which I chronicled a return visit to the town in California where I used to live after fourteen years of being away, and the thoughts and feelings that it inspired. There are many parallels between that experience and my return to E2, though I do at least expect to stick around here for a while. Everything looks more or less the same, but there are things now in the places where there used to be nothing, and nothing in the places where there used to be something. I can feel it as much as see it. A few things even work differently than they used to. Not that I had any expectations for it to be otherwise — it just takes some getting used to. Regardless, getting lost in the stacks at the library has always been one of my favorite diversions, and there is such an enormous backlog of writeups I haven't read yet, I almost don't know where to begin, but I start again every day from anywhere. The strong emotions I recorded in this database can still be felt but are just echoes for me, distant and fading. In contrast, the strong feelings of others, committed to words for what none of us probably imagined would be this long, often seem as vivid and impassioned as the moments in which they were written. But even the people who wrote them whom we can still count among the living are not the same people they were any more than I'm the man I used to be. I'm reminded by wertperch of the words of Heraclitus: "No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man." Life is change. It's a constant cycle of magic and loss. And so it goes.
So I'm not quite sure yet just what to make of Everything2 as I've found her of late, but that's okay. I'm enjoying myself and trying to find my groove. The museum metaphor doesn't really appeal to me as much as the old pirate ship one, and returning to E2 with that lens inspires other imaginings. From a distance, she seems to be drifting in the water of a hidden and mostly forgotten cove of the internet, far from the high seas she once sailed. All the old pirates and their foul-mouthed parrots may be gone, but she's hardly the Mary Celeste. There's still some crew down in the hold keeping the bilge pumps running, and a very small band of literary mariners still go about the meticulous and endless task of shipbuilding. From a view standing on the foredeck, watching the last rays of the sun setting over the bay and listening to the bugler play, I glance up at the emerging stars, and I wonder what tomorrow will bring. No matter... my sea legs feel ready for anything. I'm back on board, and it feels good to be home.
But it also feels kinda lonely.