Sometimes I think of textual tradition the way I watch water droplets trace their paths down a pane of glass.

Each droplet starts alone, shaped by gravity, by surface tension, by the smallest imperfections in the glass. Some slide quickly, others hesitate. Some merge, growing larger. Others split apart or veer off, leaving behind faint trails—evidence of their movement, even after they’re gone.

Textual history is like that.

A word, a line, a variant—each begins in a place and time, shaped by a scribe’s hand, a marginal note, a decision. Some readings combine. Others diverge. They drift through centuries, across manuscripts, across languages. Not randomly—but not predictably either.

They bump into each other. They build momentum. They vanish. They reappear.

And what’s left is not a single stream, but a glass marked by many paths—some bold, some barely visible. Each one real. Each one part of the story.