Britannica Browsing

As a kid,  when I was bored I would look through encyclopedias.  I was lucky enough as a kid that my parents had bought a used set of Britannica encyclopedias - 32 volumes I believe.There was a volume for just about every letter of the alphabet and some volumes for current events by year. Just pick a volume and thumb through it - not really read it - just browse. 

I think browsing creates innovation.  Accidentally happening on an unrelated idea that you connect together with another idea.  Unfortunately my Britannica browsing was limited by relating alphabetic items as I scanned from front to back whatever volume I picked up at the time.

Browsing is sort of like just driving along without a destination - wandering.  A curiosity of just letting the journey happen.  Maybe my blogging is like that too.  Whatever life deals me at the moment is worthy of blogging about.  I find browsing relaxing and enjoyable.  Who knows what interesting subject might appear - and really they are all interesting. 

Maybe that is why I was never interested in diving too deep into one subject area.  It's the old 80/20 rule - I get 80% of my satisfaction about learning something from 20% of the content.  Who cares about the minute details.

Now browsing can be less alphabetical and more chained by wandering.  With hot links to new subjects, you are immediately taken to the inside of another Britannica volume in a single click.  In fact it's difficult to navigate back to the source sometimes (on of my pet peeves about back browsing).  

No wonder we call Mozilla Firefox, Explorer, and others our browsers.  How often do you just sit down and begin to let your curiosity just take over and follow your browsing urge?  Start today - just begin with the letter "A".