The Web and its Wanderers

According to the essayist and memoirist Rebecca Solnit, to be lost is 'to be fully present, and to be fully present is to be capable of being in uncertainty and mystery.' Solnit considers being lost 'a psychic state achievable through geography'. The flip-side is that geography can also prevent one from getting lost. It is easier to find one's way in the grid-like cities of the new world than in the swerving cobblestone streets of the old. A similar evolution of efficiency is happening on the web. The new world, in this analogy, is Web 2.0, and its shape is neither grid- nor weblike. Increasingly, it's a point of convergence.