Re: second brain
I just read Joan Westenberg’s post, I Deleted My Second Brain, which I found via Steve’s re: Why I gave up my smartwatch. Joan's thoughts hit home. I’ve had a similar journey with my own mess of Markdown.
I was enamored for a while with the whole “second brain” thing. I thought I could collect the world’s wisdom, bit by bit, and absorb its power by paraphrasing, cross-referencing, back-linking. The result, of course, was not great insight, but just a jumblescape of plain text and a fatigued Sal.
I’m still enthusiastically kicking up markdust in Obsidian, but now for humbler purposes: journaling, blogging, daily notes, recipes, personal reference info I’ll want later on, etc. This all feels fun and healthy.
I’m no longer taking notes on books, capturing full-text articles, or worrying about “zettels” or “slip notes” or any sort of PKM framework.
What a load off.