A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of spending a week backpacking in the remote back country of Newfoundland (see photos). Perhaps it was due to the tranquility of the week or maybe it was the clear thinking sometimes brought on by exhaustion, but on the ferry ride home a spark of a thought came into my head. “The way in which I discuss the nuances of backpacking gear is identical to the way in which Steve discusses the nuances of design, CSS, and HTML”.

For me, the importance of my thought has little to do with CSS or backpacking. It has to do with connoisseursism (this is not a real word). Each activity, technology, object, and thing in this world has an almost bottomless depth of detail. As no one can know everything about everything we each chose our areas of expertise. We become select connoisseurs to some extent.

More often than not we pass off connoisseurs of topics unknown to us as folks who have their heads in the clouds. I used to do that with connoisseurs of art. I think this is a terrible mistake and that if we were to respect, default to, and give credence to those who have gained specific knowledge in areas outside of personal interest all things would be much better.

So what's the moral of the story? Hike with poles, contribute to WikiPEI, and show Peter your Gravatar.