Mark and Mike, this one's for you.

I recently had the chance to go on the Pen Addict podcast and it was a truly awesome experience. The hour and half whipped by so fast I didn't even remember to take off my winter jacket (I had been outside just a few minutes before recording) and I walked out of my "recording studio" with a cherry red face. That experience left me deeply impressed not only with the Hurley/Dowdy duo and their amazing podcast, but also with the pen community in general. The parallels between the pen community and the gear community are both staggering in number and deep.

This brought me to a point I think is worth reiterating: enthusiasts of almost any sort can appreciate other enthusiasts even if they don't necessarily get it. Myke isn't a knife guy and that's fine. But he gets the passion and zeal folks have when they speak about blades because he feels that way about pens. I have also discovered the same sort of fire for watches when Andrew from 555 Gear was on GGL recently. Enthusiasts get it, even if they don't understand. Its about a mindset and way of looking at the world. You get the benefit of reveling in amazingly small details. I loved the San Ren Mu 605 because it was a damn good knife.

The fact that it was $7 is beside the point. Similarly Brad still loves a good gel pen, even though he has enough kimonos to start his own kabuki theater with all of the Nakayas that have been coming his way recently.

The cross over or compatibility of interests is something that I think is very rare. It is also something that, in the right place, is pared with a deep sense of honor and forthrightness. I read a bunch of forums. But again and again the one that surprises me the most is the Usual Suspects Network. I recently had a transaction that I was not pleased with and the seller, without hesitation reversed the transaction and even waited while I thought about what to do. He wasn't just a good seller, he was an honorable person. The Internet does not promote that sort of behavior often, but it is par for the course over at the USN. Eric, the proprietor, handles matters with swiftness and integrity. Things never spiral out of control and wolf pack/pigpiling I see elsewhere is a true rarity on the USN. The way Eric and the community handled the Tim Britton controversy (where Tim copied Shane Sibert's designs and sold them as his own--he was banned by Eric and shamed by USN folks) was admirable. I wish major corporations and politicians acted with as much propriety.

All of this stands in stark contrast to another place where knowledge and enthusiasm are a hallmark--academics, specifically the humanities. I was a philosophy graduate student for many years and the bickering and in-fighting among supposedly intelligent people was shocking. I have no real experience outside of the humanities and generally true scientists (not social scientists) seem to be devoid of these petty duels. But the absurd turf wars and walled off demeanor of some of the philosophy folks I met was shocking. Unlike the enthusiast, they saw devotion to a subject matter other than their own as a failing, either of intellect or taste or both. There was little sense of honor and fights became meandering bores that settled nothing. The welcome I received in the pen community and the integrity I see in the USN is nowhere to be found. Our intellectual pursuits are significantly worse off because of this behavior.

That's why stuff like the Partially Examined Life is such a joy (and, think back, did Lucy Lawless ever show up to one of your philosophy classes?). Here are folks DOING philosophy, not preening for purposes of tenure or squabbling to justify their existence. There is little concern with schools of thought or camps. They read good stuff. They welcome new stuff. And they argue and debate with integrity. And as the Internet grows this ability to gather like minded people and raise the level of discourse is a good thing. Right now, enthusiasts are doing better work in philosophy than professionals. And this is not unusual. Dave at Cool Fall makes better lights than anyone on Earth, especially the large companies--Surefire, Mag Light, Streamlight--any of them.

Long live the enthusiast. Long live welcoming groups. Long live honor and integrity. Its time for others to take notice--for all its warts the Internet has raised the level of discourse for thousands of different niche interests from gear to wisdom.