Train of thought

Ok, I'll stand up and say it infront of you all. "My name's Andrew and I'm an addict".

'Oh my God' you're all thinking...he's coming out online and admitting to being an alcohol or having a drug problem. No don't worry, I like a beer (or ten..lol) but I'm a social drinker and I have never smoked. I love clubbing but you'll never find my pupils dilating to the size of a no.8 pool ball. Instead I now know I'm addicted to Wikipedia. Well actually, maybe not so addicted, I can go without - no fears of Cold Turkey. But once I'm in, it's hard to get out.

And I bet I'm not the only one out there - come on, stand up and say it with me. Like they say with heroine, all it takes is one fix. Well once I go and look up something in Wikipedia and see a word in blue amongst all the black type...that one link, like just one fix, pulls me in. Lost, deep in there. I am drugged, travelling on my own from link to link, trying to find my way back to the link before, which in turn finds me another link of interest. The damn thing is like weaving a intricate web of information through each word in blue, feeding you like a drip straight in to your bloodstream, or at least filling the filing cabinets of knowledge in your brain. The other night it was after three a.m. by the time I got to bed because of my fix.

But there is no government health warning on this, and to be honest, the geek in me loves it. Like a smoker who just loves sparking up and doesn't see the huge SMOKING KILLS written on the side of the packet. Come and get hooked too - at least there's no risk of harm; well apart from losing a few hours sleep here and there. When I went to bed the other night, as my weary eyes were closing I struggled to remember what I had originally gone there for. I had been watching the film Enemy at the Gates, the film about the battle of Stalingrad in WWII and the story of the sniper Vassili Zaitsev. So afterwards I went to find out more facts about the Russian hero. And then I found myself browsing through pages about Hitler, then Hermann Goring and then I was reading about the German Economy. It must of been a couple of hours later and one final huge yawn and rub of the eyes when I ended up reading about the demographics of Sweden and the Oresund bridge between Sweden and Denmark. There is a bit of a blur of links in the middle. What has that bridge got to do with a Russian WWII sniper??

See what I mean? And that is nothing compared to some other bizzare Wikipedia journeys I go on. I could write non-stop all the way to next Sunday if I could remember them all. it seems like travelling down and endless network of motorways, never getting to your destination but having a hell of a ride on the way. As if you don't want to stop, you want to keep driving and riding and soaking up everything you can.

And then I realised that it is not just when I am online with my head buried in Wikipedia. It is an extension of myself. Of when I think of something, that makes me think of something else and then something else. One thought leading to another. I lose my way travelling on my train of thought. And I keep moving, often forgetting what I originally had in my mind. I have to admit this bugs the shit out of me when I can't remember that - I then rack my brains searching for the way back. But I can't help myself. My train of thought moves along its rails, sometimes chugging like an old steam locomotive stopping at every station, other times like a high speed Japanese Shinkansen bullet train, leaving Tokyo and arriving in Osaka in what seems like a flash.

I am sometimes guilty of procrastination; no way can this be the case here though. Please don't put me off, my brain is getting things done.