So if you find yourself tsk-tsking at the foolish escapades of Ms. Hilton in between checking your Ecosystem ranking and polling your SiteMeter stats --- pause for a moment. And ask yourself whether, perhaps, you might suffer from the same need for notice that drove that young lady to conclude that making a home movie while getting boffed was a splendid idea. Again: it's a matter of degree, not kind.

Ms. Hilton has the celebrity press corps to do her dirty work for her: here in the blog world, we do it differently. In the blogosphere we are all each other's paparazzi. Stalker and stalkee; celebrity and gossip --- we each play both parts in our turn, and in the end we are all attention-addicts and enablers both. And sometimes, I fear, we need to stage our own interventions and stop our own madness.

The question to ask is whether the attention is a goal in itself, or a means to an end.

Attention for its own sake is a hollow victory; if that is what you seek then you are indeed no better than poor foolish Paris. But if that desire for attention drives you to do great work; to inspire others with a turn of the phrase or a clever remark; to create something --- then embrace that desire. Let it fuel your work and drive your writing; let that yearning for the Big Link push you to scour the web just one more time to find that missing story that nobody else is noticing, but everyone should be.

Accept your inner Paris Hilton, and let her have her fun.

But please: try to keep your clothes on.