¶!

"Paragraphs do not occur in nature. Whereas sentences are grammatical units intrinsic to the spoken language, paragraphs are a literary convention designed to divide masses of content into appetizing portions." 

Ellen Lupton, "Thinking with Type," 2nd edition, page 126

Paragraphs lately! Usually I indent as well as space as well as leave a gap, but that's, like, triple redundant and not that great of typography, apparently. And I want to be a great typographer. Because you've got to aim high, but boring.

Either way it'd be best for the first paragraph to be left un-indented, because it's the first paragraph and you're not really separating it from anything. This being the second paragraph now, maybe this could receive some indentation, but I've already got a line break so... it'd be like mixing TOO MANY different formats, it's just too busy.

The way I usually achieve the indentation is just triple-space anyway.

How's this look, anyway? Look good? Leaving the paragraphs without indents? This is the format I already use at A Real Thing anyway, line breaks line spaces no indents, and I did that to distinguish the look of that blog from this one...
   So how about this. Line break, no line space, with the spacebar-spacebar-spacebar indent. This good? This look... good? I suppose I'm going to need a few more paragraphs to get the full effect.
   Alright, onto a new paragraph. Woo. Anyway, doing a little more research, delving into the history and purpose of paragraphing, I discovered this little gem on archive.org: The History of the English Paragraph, by Edwin Herbert Lewis. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1894. It was the dude's dissertation, and, I hope he got that PhD from it, because, who the cuss else is gonna write a 200-page (including bibliography and appendix!) book on paragraphing?  
   It's exactly as commingled between fascinating and boring as you'd expect. The entire first chapter is dedicated solely to an examination of the history of the pilcrow ¶ and other historical marks used to indicate paragraph breaks; the second chapter opens with a concession of the "rather tedious length" of said examination (43 separate symbols dug up from throughout history, that have all at one point or another represented the paragraph break!) before launching into a thorough dissection of the rhetorical usage of the paragraph, quoting all the greatest, paragraph theorists. Or whatever.
   Man, I don't know. Like I said, it's the exact commingling of fascinating and boring that you'd expect.
   In other news, though (and I'm not sure I like this paragraphing style too much; if I'm not going to have any extra space between paragraphs I think I should increase the indent by some,) I've successfully signed up for my art classes now for next semester. Religion class(es), nope, not yet, but those aren't as harrowing to sign up for.
     Five spaces? This better? Eh, we'll see.
     Anyway, what there remains for me to do, is, find some funding somehow for this extra semester which came from nowhere (and it is a pretty darn important semester to have; like I explain here, Advanced Typography has a prereq I haven't taken yet, and is only available Spring Semester... so either get that prereq in before then, or don't take Advanced Typography at all.)
     Five spaces is a bit more comfortable on the eyes, to be sure, but I'm just so used to space-space-space to start a paragraph that it's not that comfortable on the fingers...