...a way of thinking, a focus that accompanies us every day, throughout the day: almost every experience, and sometimes even every thought, gets processed through the question of "should I write this down?". Even when we don't write daily entries to our sites, the simple intention of making an addition, the ongoing process of determining what should be posted and what not, the writing and rewriting of a particular thought in our heads, is a form of exercise that, once we're accustomed to it, is hard to forego. Of course this was also true of diaries and personal notebooks (and perhaps of imaginary friends with whom some people carry on conversations). But imaginary friends (or for that matter, diaries and notebooks) aren't the topic of this column. What most interests me about this entire phenomenon is the extent to which working on a site becomes that apocryphal imaginary friend - so much so that ceasing to work on a site stops an ongoing conversation in our heads. A conversation to which we've become accustomed, that we've discovered that we want, and need.
-Boidem No. 113: On completing a web site (November 30, 2005)