Common Place notebooks, Blogs, Digital Gardens: all soo cool!!

there are literally so many ways to visualize your thoughts its OVERWHELMING and even worse theyre all so apppeaaaaaalllinnngg ( let it be known to the indefinite courts inside my head that whenever i draw out a word, it is almost alwyas a drawling whine )

Common Place Notebooks, Blogs, Digital Gardens

so ive been on the journey of decentralizing everything from my phone right, that means no more notes app dont wanna use youtube unless its for musi, ideally in the future i wouldn't use any music app and instead of an ipod or mp3 player, i think the point has been "gotten" and part of that journey for me has been using a common place notebook

if you don't know what they are, they're pretty cool, a great big messy awesome cool. its basically a notebook that you take with you everywhere and write down literally anything. A thought you had, a reminder, a book you're interested in, notes for a class if you forgot/dont have a notebook fro it, sketches, drawings, journal entries ANYTHING and EVERYTHING! it's great! My mom gave me a few journals quite a ways back and one I was using as a practice sketchbook and repurposed it for my common place notebook.

So far I've used it to tape sketches from miscellaneous post its and note cards, notes on this course im taking called "learning how to learn"(pretty interesting despite the nature of the title sounding like a condescending echo of everything your elementary to high school teachers ever told you to do to retain information) right small thoughts(the bigger more retrospective personal thoughts i have reserved for a separate journal ive been hashing at for three years) notes on shows im watching, quotes, scenes, a few resources to stuff i want to learn its great! I'm loving it. I also have another one that i use just at my desk for writing reminders, planning what assignments/things im going to work on/what i want to do for the day(all things i sometimes do in the other notebook too depending on the topic)

I'm big on personalization and also just sharing my thoughts to the world so blogging has been peaking my interest lately too, hence the spacehey dreamwidth etc blogs. I'm also interested in video blogs or journals etc(totally not because mlanders0n started off as a video diary or anything)

then RECENTLY i watched a video about modern digital gardens, i say modern because their is a history apparently with the term. They called it digital garden, but its also known as a zettlekasten apparently? Anyways, I was introduced to the beast that is known as Obsidian and i fucking love it. I haven't even really used it yet really but EEEEEEKKKK the prospect of it is sooooooo coool, im basically building a wiki of my mind and compiling all my knowledge on the things i have researched to random thoughts on a psych episode and you can see it alllll connect together in a neat web. My only gripe with it is that is I haven't figured out how to sync it with my iPad yet, but honestly it may be for the best so im still encouraged to take notes in my common place notebook etc My plan is to port alllllll of my notes to this things, all of them. My computer science, graphic design, my old AP history notes, my common place notes, ALLLLLL OOOOFFF IT and when im done ill be able to see the giant zeitgeist of my mind in one awesome sprawling web.

I still plan on taking physical notes, obsidian is like a backup/collection of everything in one place. The coolest thing about it is that you can give each entry a tag, this tag allows that note to be linked to all the other notes with the same tag. Seriously, theres no way to explain well in words what this interconnected, interactive, web looks like so id look it up(they have examples of it on their site).

Anyways, I plan on taking physical notes still because it gets me to think more about what im writing, i get to draw my own little diagrams, and in general it helps me retain stuff more. I also like drawing in my notes and organizing them in weird blocky structures which i know i could technically do myself but itd have to be with some HTMLing and I am not creating an obsidian clone for myself. Which, is something i would LIKE to do that way i can customize things more, IE customizing the layout of a page, but that is a big project that i'd like to tackle when I know a heftier language like python or java maybe (especially because making that graph myself, GOD i wouldn't even know where to start)

Even COOLER is that you can publish your brain whenever you want. You can do it through the app itself, at a price, or host it on your own page. Theres even plugins to export your entire vault(the official term for the collection of all your notes etc) to HTML so you can publish wherever you want. And thats a good segue into PLUGINS!! Theres a little over 2000 at the time i checked, you can add better CSS customization(like changing font, colors etc) you can add a banner, you can add support for audio recordings then TRANSCRIPTS of those recordings, theres even some where they add an AI assistant(which i think is awesome! i'll have to talk about AI another time)

another benefit that the video mentioned, which i also think is AWESOME, is that you get to see ideas connect to other ideas from days, weeks, or months ago that you might have forgotten about. Say you're watching a show and you take your time in writing down your thoughts on it, a funny quote, things that stood out to you and why. I'm gonna use some notes i took down on Henry and Shawns relationship i made a few days ago as an example here(though i haven't started porting anything to obsidian yet) and i tag that with maybe #paternalDissappointment #toxicMasculinity #parentExpectations etc. Months later let's say im thinking about the effects of harsh expectations and im looking for some examples in media or something. I tag my writing with #parentExpectations and suddenly its connected to these notes i made about Henrey and Shawn from months ago that i forgot about!(btw if you dont know who im talking about they're characters from a mystery comedy called Psych watch it now or ill get a telapathic ping of everybody who didn't watch when i recommended and slowly, but surely, widdle my way into your brain and take you out from the inside) BOOM

Here's my problem

I love them all. The point of each one is to eliminate the other, but the other is so coooooooooool :((((((!! For example the common place notebook is where you write all your random thoughts analysis etc. But blogs are also like that, but diiiigiitallll (mocking tone) its supposed to be a collection of your thoughts, only a bit more organized. Or not, it can be as organized or messy as you want depending on if you want a journal, diary, an article, an overarching introspection on whether you're the same person after consuming media and letting it go(heh small dreamwidth plug). It's supposed to replace the need for a notebook, have it all online. And thats where obsidian comes in. Obsidian is built to where you can write any random thought etc tag it and have it join the collective. Its supposed to be a central place, do it all and have it all connected at the same time. It supposed to replace digital record keeping and physical.

But i like writing on paper, i like introspecting online, and i ultimately like having it all connected rather than chronological.

So what's my solution when you're only supposed to do one? Do it all anyways. Fuck them!!! fuck the people who tell me you have to do things a certain way.

who cares if i have to keep buying more and more and more and more books to keep up with my notes, who cares if i run out of places to store everything and who cares if it's inefficient to write all your notes then port it to one central hub. Its fun! I can do shit the way i want to theres literally no right way to this.

I get to carry my notebook with me still and write down all the random thoughts i have then i get to come home and port them into my vault and see it how it connects with other ideas and entries ive had in the past. and... the world kept spinning!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Conclusion?

in conclusion im gonna do what i want. the end

Thanks for reading, if you're looking for more rant's shottily disguised as prim and proper blog posts, dont look at me side eye. jk maybe not, i'm not guaranteeing that i'll have a consistent post schedule, if at all, but i do plan to keep up with blogging soooo ill leave it up to you to subscribe to the blog if you like my writing style.

I also have a dreamwidth! which i use less than here but i thought i'd point it out cuz im most likely going to be moving dev logs for my site there.

Finally, im looking into webcam blogs so if you like the way i ramble here i can ASSURE you i ramble ten times more when i talk, and you get the added visual of me waving my hands around, adjusting my glasses every two minutes(which im wearing now sigh sniff sniff kicks rock side eye) and some minor editing because i wouldn't send a video out to the world i wouldn't watch. sometimes its easier for me to explain things and work it out when i say shit outloud, so im planning to talk about shit like games i like why i like em, other analysis theories etc in video form.

Then again, i could forget about all of this in a month SOOO anyways i just appreciate those who read this far, if anybody at all. some of the appeal of this site sometimes is that you're just calling out in the void and sometimes you get a few answers or whatnot. toodles!

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