I still can remember how curious and excited I was when surfing the Web for the first time. It dates back to mid 90s, maybe 1995. Back then Google wasn't born yet. No blog existed but personal homepages blossomed. ICQ dominated and chatrooms were crowded all the time. Everything seemed crude but full of fun. I had such a strong feeling that the world is right under my fingers.

Now going online is becoming a routine activity [it was something stimulating ten years ago]. I check emails [I checked emails too]. My MSN messenger is on all the time but seldom I talk with anybody [I used ICQ instead then].I read blogs [I visited home pages]; sometimes I follow those links of interest [I clicked hyperlinks in others' collections]. I log into MT to check new comments and delete junk comments/trackbacks [I edited my webpages and FTPed them]. I read del.icio.us/popular to know what's hot [I followed headlines to know what was going on].

Seems I am still doing what I was doing about ten years ago, simply in different ways. The only difference is I don't surf now. I don't think going online an adventure any more--I am guided to places from which I expect what I will find. Going online was like exploring an endless cave: you don't know what is inside and it's so dark that you have to take every small step, trying to map it yourself. Along your way you might find something useful, or some trash. That's where the joy came from. Now the exploration has been turned into a predefined visit: the cave has been explored by someone else and every place of interest has been marked so. The upsides are obvious that you can have more treasure than trash. The tradeoff is losing the joy of being a daredevil.

Surely the latter way is easier and more efficient since the treasure/trash ratio is getting smaller and smaller. However, one runs the risk of being dependent and indifferent to new things. Now I know what people are talking about but I still feel lost. I got entangled with all the information others think important. But is it really what I need? Following public agenda is one thing; setting up my own agenda is another.