The world is big enough for us.

The last two weeks have been a very interesting period in my Sherlockian life.

Not due to my sudden seeming fondness for the Asylum Sherlock Holmes. That's just having some good old-fashioned fun. A little playtime with the great detective, which has always been Sherlockiana at its best. Working on Sherlock Holmes projects can lead one to expect results of some sort. But playing with Holmes . . . always nice. Yet not the interesting part.

I've hesitated in writing about the interesting part, because I'm still trying to take it all in. The breath-taking expanse of it all. The depth of thought that suddenly comes out of nowhere. The little mysteries that need to be explored. I want to understand it all a little more before I start writing about it. Though that might never quite come.

Sherlockiana used to be a fairly containable thing. There was a day when you could collect a library that pretty well represented the entire hobby. You could actually read all the tales that had been written about him. Yes, that day was starting to slip away even as my days as a young Sherlockian slipped away, but it was there.

And then, eventually, BBC Sherlock came along.

I really shouldn't even say those words. Objectivity suddenly goes out the window, as everyone's opinions on that particular lightning bolt comes into play. To say it reinvigorated a hobby in need of a good charge will bring out denial from some corners. To say it brought a new generation of fans to the hobby will bring out the factionalism in others. To even just say that it's a pretty good show will bring in charges of unfairness from the fans of another show and even examples of how it is not as good as it once was from fans of the show itself.

Ah, yes, BBC Sherlock. And all that came after.

I wonder about how many fans of Holmes my age and older . . . excuse me, enthusiasts, if that particular "f" word offends . . . really grasp how big all that came after has gotten. Most old school Sherlockians seem content to keep on keeping on, and let the new come to them as it will, but not all that many are moving out into the pathways of the new to explore what life is like in the new worlds of Sherlock Holmes fandom.

The Sherlockian world is just so big now. Bigger than anyone, of any age, probably has a full handle on. If I'm sounding a bit spaced-out here, a bit like my mind has been blown, to used old-fashioned hippie-speak, it might be because it pretty much has.

It's been a while since I did a vague-book sort of blog talking about something without actually talking about it. But this time, it felt kind of . . . fitting.

More to come, but probably after a hard return to Earth for that thing that happens every week.