Directories aren’t surging. There isn’t this nascent directory movement fomenting - ready to take on the world. Directories aren’t trending.
But there is a certainly really sweet little directory community now. From the Marijn-inspired stuff listed in Directory Uprising to the link-sharing ‘yesterweb’ collected around sadgrl.online - or the originals at Indieseek and i.webthings.
Barnsworthburning (by Nick Trombley) is a very formidable addition to this community - a clean, multilayered design and an innovative bidirectional index.
In order that the mind may not be taxed, moreover, by the manifold and confused reading of so many such things, and in order to prevent the escape of something valuable that we have read, heard, or discovered through the process of thinking itself, it will be found very useful to entrust to notebooks...those things which seem noteworthy and striking.
I adore a long, unwieldy sentence from time to time but this bad boy is simply a monster. Why is that though? Well, the writer overwhelms us with smart-sounding nonsense in an attempt to prove how intelligent they are. Yet if you keep your wits about you and look closely you’ll notice how imprecise and waffling the writing truly is. There’s just so much opportunity for revision!
Although most writing is like this, the problem is often hard to spot. That’s because sentences like those above make us feel dumb. We tend to think “yikes I don’t understand any of this so this chap must be smarter than me!” And that’s just what this obfuscatory language is designed to do.
I think this is perhaps the hardest part of writing—of “generously imagining her”—continuously, unendingly. And this is the only difference between good and bad writing in the end. That doesn’t mean it’s easy (being kind is often the hardest thing to do) and of course I mention this not to lecture anyone but only as a keepsake and as a reminder for myself.