A reader writes:

This is a post that I'm sure many others like me read going, "Yep... Yep... Uh Huh... That's right..."

I have work and a wife and kids to distract me from time to time, but I know I have to consciously pull myself away from the screen, sit down on the floor and join in with the Lego-ing.  I LOVE my family, and still it's hard.

I grew up seeing my Dad seated, legs protruding out from under a newspaper, so maybe it's all just an evolution.  But I know there's a compulsive element to all this.

I know sometimes at night I'll find myself cycling through my regular blog stops, looking for a new post (and I'm quite aware that out here on the Left coast late nights get pretty thin).  But what am I really looking for?  What is the chemical that's released when some intriguing piece of information or point of view enters my brain?

I think it's party that if I look up from the screen, the room is basically the same, but as I scroll from page to page in here, it's a constantly unique kaleidoscope of information,  We have a small place out in the desert that has no phone, no satellite, no DSL, nothing. It's an oasis of peace that I crave, so I know something in me wants to step off this conveyor belt of information.

Still, as I drink my tea, sun beginning to rise, the kids starting to stir in their rooms, here I am.  Tapping into the great, world-wide nervous system of information...