Notes
This is my spooky-themed version of a digital garden. The gist of it is that it’s about constantly (re)edited "evergreen" notes sorted by topic instead of fully polished blog posts sorted by date.
My aim is to take something complex, pull it apart until I can explain it clearly to someone who has never even heard of the concept (potentially you, stranger), connect it to other ideas, and show at least one way the knowledge could be applied. Keeping each note short is less important to me, but I do want them to be on topic.
The posts are categorized by what stage of progress they’re in:
- First Blood (Braindump): Topics barely jotted down. Might just be a list of scattered thoughts.
- Stitched Flesh (Draft): The parts work together, though the seams still show. A beginning, some development, perhaps even a thematic through-line. Paragraphs stand on their own, though transitions may be loosely stitched.
- Resting Place (Reasonably complete): Occasionally revisited for preservation or augmentation, but the writing has been edited and exorcised of clumsy phrasing. This is more of an essay or an article than a note.
- Rotten (Outdated): Notes expressing outdated views (totally or partially) but kept for the historical documentation of past thoughts. For partially outdated notes, the symbol for Rotten will be placed wherever appropriate.
- Mass Grave (Screenshots of posts from around the internet): Functions like a commonplace book or a junk drawer. I aim to have as few of these as possible because the purpose of digital gardens is to write my own thoughts not collecting other people's.
Other inspirations for the system:
The general idea of informal self-studying and personal curriculums: specifically figuring out how to create output from the learning input.
Elizabeth Filips: Actionable Takeaways
Rachelle in Theory:Forget Your Reading Journal, Do This Instead
Thought couture: Self Education, Your Best Defense Against Brain Rot.
Each note will have a Preface with an Epistemic Status explaining how I know what I claim to know, how much experience I have in the topic, what kind of blind-spots/biases I might have, and how strongly I hold my beliefs. Always reserving the right to be wrong and/or change my mind later.
By definition we learn things we don’t know, not things we have already mastered; we learn from being confused. So at the end of each note there will be an Afterthoughts section where I write at least one thing that confused me or that I’m wondering about and want to explore next.