A wonderful posting by Peter on how different people and their stories connect to eachother with some sort of breadcrumb written in his blog that serves as the kernel around which that connection can happen. Like Peter I think that is a very happy and energising effect. Emergence, like here the connections between people and their stories, can happen when conditions are right. When random encounters are encouraged, in this case due to search machines indexing Peter’s words for decades, for instance. When you pay attention to your surroundings, like the weaving of the great variety web of links and connections that are already in his blog, for instance. All of that is underpinned by a simple thing: leaving more and longer traces. Traces others can stumble across and follow if they want. It’s how ant highways come into being. Peter’s blog, as is mine, is likely the single largest public trace he creates. Offering plenty of others opportunity to stumble across it and follow where it leads. When that happens, and you get to hear about it, that is a thing to behold. It’s an opportunity that silos and algorithms actively destroy in social media. It’s what drives the open web.

It’s a web, a very personal one that’s part of a worldwide one: the posts I write are breadcrumbs—public, searchable, hyperlinked—that connect me to you, and bits of my past to bits of your past. I love it when a bit of happenstance web magic happens, and connects me with a tenant of my grandfather’s, the friend of a late friend, or a painter with vivacious laugh.

Peter Rukavina