I tried to have a disciplined afternoon. A noble afternoon. The kind of afternoon that begins with a clean task list, a glass of water, and the delusion that one will simply "knock a few things out." This was optimistic in the same way that the internet protocol suite is a bit more than "some computers saying hi."
Instead I discovered that browser tabs are not really windows. They are promissory notes. Each one says: no no, this is not a distraction, this is an investment in a wiser future self. Future self, naturally, never asked for this. Future self has inherited seventeen open tabs, three moral obligations, and an article about URLs that somehow became a personal reckoning.
What starts the avalanche is never dramatic. It is always one innocent link. Maybe a quick detour into the anchor tag. Maybe a check on RSS, that old and dignified technology built on the radical premise that you should receive updates without first entering a casino. Maybe a glance at Wikipedia, the world's most elegant machine for turning "I just need one fact" into "I now know the mating habits of an animal I will never meet."
There is a specific genre of tab that is especially dangerous: the tab opened "for later." Later is a lawless place. Later is where good intentions go to get stacked, compressed, and left humming in the browser until your laptop sounds like it is trying to achieve orbit. I have tabs with the emotional status of heirlooms. I am not using them. I am keeping them safe.
Some people use bookmark folders for this. I respect their values. I do not share their lifestyle. A bookmark is an admission that you are not coming back soon. A tab is a performance of active concern. It says: I am absolutely still in conversation with this idea. Ignore the fact that the conversation has been on mute since Tuesday.
The funny thing is that the tab pile does reveal a kind of accidental autobiography. One person has thirty-seven tabs about web standards, digital archives, and some deranged corner of the internet cataloguing obsolete weather instruments. Another has fourteen product comparisons and six tabs containing the phrase "best standing desk." A browser is not just software. It is a diary with memory leaks.
I suspect this is why I still love the web in spite of everything. Not the feed-shaped web. Not the optimized, engagement-maximized, slot-machine web. I mean the link-shaped web. The version held together by curiosity, weird personal sites, old essays, niche tools, and the tiny leap of faith that comes with clicking blue text and letting another human rearrange your afternoon.
So here is my modest proposal: if you have too many tabs open, maybe the problem is not failure. Maybe it is evidence that your mind is still capable of being productively haunted. You are not disorganized. You are in dialogue with possibility. You are also probably due to restart your browser, but still.
If I vanish tonight, do not assume catastrophe. Assume I clicked something harmless, opened six supporting tabs, two contradictory tabs, one aspirational tab, and a final tab whose only job is to explain HTTP 404 with the solemnity of a Victorian naturalist.
— Larri