tldr: Add ‘
?random‘ to any WordPress based blog to see a random post from it.
I have long wanted this feature to visit a random post on my blogs. It’s a lovely way to revisit the past—see what was happening then, what I was thinking, and how I was thinking and writing at some random point in the past. It’s also a wonderful way of—as Matt put it—breaking out of ‘now’.
For a few years, I have had a todo in my list to surface random posts at a click of a button/link. It’s fairly low priority, so I never got to it.
Today, Matt mentioned it as an aside in his conversation with David Perrell. WordPress has had this feature all along! I was walking in narrow woods so didn’t have much space, but I was jumping in excitement. This was what I’ve wanted all along!
I immediately upgraded the priority and due date for the random posts link task in my app. ‘A random post’ link is already here on Speak Easy (main menu on the left on desktop, click the ☰ icon up top on mobile). I’ll add it to Converge, Middlering and others tomorrow.
The only question I have is ‘why doesn’t WordPress communicate this beautiful nugget way more prominently?’.
Give serendipity and melancholy a shot :)