On writing
Fractal journaling and random revisit
Steph Ango • Obsidian Vault Template
Ohhhh. Okay.
Fractal journaling and randomization are how I tame the wilderness that a knowledge base can grow into.
Throughout the day I use Obsidian’s unique note hotkey to write individual thoughts as they come up. This shortcut automatically creates a note with the prefix YYYY-MM-DD HHmm to which I may add a title that describes the idea.
Every few days I review these journal fragments and compile the salient thoughts. I then review those reviews monthly, and review the monthly reviews yearly (using this template). The result is a fractal web of my life that I can zoom in and out of at varying degrees of detail. I can trace back where individual thoughts came from, and how they bubbled up into bigger themes.
Every few months I set aside time for a “random revisit”. I use the random note hotkey to quickly travel randomly through my vault. I often use the local graph at shallow depth to see related notes. This helps me revisit old ideas, create missing links, and find inspiration in past thoughts. It’s also an opportunity to do maintenance, like fix formatting based on new rules in my personal style guide.
People have asked me if this could be automated with language models but I do not care to do so. I enjoy this process. Doing this maintenance helps me understand my own patterns. Don’t delegate understanding.
I often see memes about how "everybody has a podcast now." The underlying message seems to be that having a podcast is overdone, or perhaps something only people with big egos pursue. But I believe in small p podcasting.1
I think podcasting, like blogging, will become increasingly mainstream. It will be completely normal to have a podcast intended... See more
I think podcasting, like blogging, will become increasingly mainstream. It will be completely normal to have a podcast intended... See more
Small P Podcasting
Very valid point
A Working Library
aworkinglibrary.com
I like this set up a lot. I think it’ll probably work for the Garden?
One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now.
Dillard, Annie • The Writing Life
It makes me think of the quote by Vladimir Horowitz: "If I skip practice for one day, I notice. If I skip practice for two days, my wife notices. If I skip practice for three days, the world notices."
Who will teach me to write? a reader wanted to know.
The page, the page, that eternal blankness, the blankness of eternity which you cover slowly, affirming time’s scrawl as a right and your daring as necessity; the page, which you cover woodenly, ruining it, but asserting your freedom and power to act, acknowledging that you ruin everything you
... See moreDillard, Annie • The Writing Life
But when Gertrude Stein declined to label her desire as lesbian, she was, as I understand it, saying something like this: thinking in categories would interfere with my ability to freely pattern-match for the particular type of individual I resonate with.
Some people think Stein was lying when she said she wasn’t lesbian. And they are disappointed... See more
Some people think Stein was lying when she said she wasn’t lesbian. And they are disappointed... See more
Looking for Alice
Metalabel Guide - How It Works
metalabel.com