The Medium Keeps Changing

Let me give you some vignettes.

In elementary school, our library had the full Encyclopedia Britannica — 32 volumes, ugly maroon or dark navy blue, gold lettering on the spine. I remember standing in front of that shelf thinking it contained all of human knowledge. It felt immense. Like something you could never fully reach.

In middle school, I discovered that if you opened Notepad, typed some HTML, and saved it as a .html file, you had a website. Just like that. I was hooked. I started spending afternoons at Barnes & Noble flipping through thick HTML and CSS books — technical, dense, but somehow digestible. Nobody told me to. I just wanted to know more.

In high school, the internet was full throttle and Wikipedia was everywhere. Teachers hated it. You couldn't cite it. It wasn't a real source. But we were all using it anyway.

I've experienced a lot of different chapters of self-learning. The medium keeps changing — encyclopedia shelf, Barnes & Noble aisle, Wikipedia rabbit hole, chat window. But looking back, I was always just a curious kid trying to figure something out.

I wonder what that looks like for my kids. Different medium, probably faster. But I'm guessing the curiosity looks the same.