Talahardin

#outline #seedling

My talahardin is what I use to refer to the collection of contents of the mind, recorded in media or unrecorded, that I have actively and consciously collected, curated, and cultivated. Therefore, it includes my digital notes and documents, analog materials, and photos.

I envision the talahardin as a large forest garden. Thinking of this image allows me to use metaphors like wilderness and walking to refer to thinking and exploring mental spaces. The image of a forest garden also reminds me of a sense of relationship to space, whether geographic or conceptual.

Context of use

The structure of the talahardin is ever-changing because it has to adapt to my context of use for it. Right now, I'm using the talahardin for three goals:

  1. I want to pursue a comprehensive and effective study of my jiyū shūkyō.
  2. I want to publish monthly essays, linear and mostly traditional in form, that arise from my jiyū shūkyō studies. The goal of these essays is to be as helpful as possible to individuals interested in jiyū shūkyō.
  3. I want to publish lyrical philosophy, primarily in book form.

Because of my current context of use, the talahardin is integral in my studying process and my writing process.

Taxonomy

My talahardin is inspired by digital gardening and, therefore, has a variety of species in it. The species here are defined by my context of use. These species are:

All of these species are kept in a single folder in Obsidian and are represented by tags. Tags allow for the emergence of hybrid species of thought (i.e., notes tagged with more than one specie).

Species are further classified depending on their level of development: seeds, seedlings, and evergreens.

Seeds are random ephemeral thoughts that come to me during walks or throughout the day. Seeds are kept as is based on the suggestion of Henry David Thoreau and Henry Bugbee that raw insights have to be cherished and their rawness preserved.

Seedlings are planted seeds that will be revisited and changed in a constant basis, that is, edited intermittently until they reach a more mature form.

Evergreens are matured seedlings. They are writings that won't change that much. They've gained a certain finality and, therefore, are shareable and, in case of thought notes, useful as building blocks for essays and larger projects.

Like specie categories, these development categories are represented by tags in Obsidian.

Containers

I use different inboxes to capture and maintain my notes. Seeds are captured in my journal or in an easily accessible note-taking app on my phone (e.g. Drafts) but are then copied into Obsidian, where majority of my more mature notes reside.

I separate my literature notes from notes that capture my original thinking by putting them in different folders. Likewise, I keep a record of my references in a separate app called Zotero.

Walking and cultivating

Walking (i.e., thinking) in the garden starts by collecting 04 notes/seeds and continues with planting and cultivating them until they become 04 notes/seedlings. Matured seedlings become 04 notes/evergreens. While thinking about walking around the talahardin, I'm reminded of Henry Bugbee's use of the word "tilling" to refer to research (see The Inward Morning, August 26, 1952). Walking leads to the blazing of trails between seedlings, which eventually creates a large topography of thoughts.

Cultivating the talahardin involves walking to explore and cultivate the terrain. Doing so makes me closer to the terrain, makes me relate to it better. I understand the terrain by how I react to it emotionally. I become part of it rather than just being an objective separate observer. Once walked and the forest garden is cultivated, I could open it up to other to walk to and explore. Visitors do their own excursions, creating their own meaning for the talahardin.

Publishing the talahardin

(This section is under construction.)

Digital gardens are intentionally less performative than traditional blogs. They share works that are "under construction" (work with the garage door up).

It is clear to me by now that if my primary goal when writing is understanding, I should follow the tradition of digital gardening rather than blogging.

That said, the problem with digital gardening is that digital gardens, unlike blogs, are not as conducive to sharing. For this problem, here are publishing strategies for digital gardeners.

I see some parallelism between Henry Bugbee's ethic and the values inherent in digital gardening. A work of writing is decisively done at any given moment even if it is unfinished once it is shared. Once you provided the public with a peek of it, it is done.

Inauthenticity happens when you force yourself to declare "finish" what isn't finish, when you declare "sure" what is unsure. Declare. Share me when you are. But don't fake it. I want to know the truth.

Unsorted

The garden exists in cyberspace but also includes text, information. But what is information. This is borderline the platonic realm, a realm beyond mind and matter (?).

References

Caufield, M. (2015, October 17). The Garden and the Stream: A Technopastoral. Hapgood. https://hapgood.us/2015/10/17/the-garden-and-the-stream-a-technopastoral/

"The Garden is the web as topology. The web as space. It’s the integrative web, the iterative web, the web as an arrangement and rearrangement of things to one another."

Matuschak, A. (n.d.). Bridge notes narrowly relate two adjacent terms. Andyʼs Working Notes. Retrieved September 18, 2021, from https://notes.andymatuschak.org/z6eWsRsp4aWrQ8YbyYqsUNLg2g5ZXGcTy9Dpo

Matuschak, A. (n.d.). Taxonomy of note types. Andyʼs Working Notes. Retrieved September 18, 2021, from https://notes.andymatuschak.org/Taxonomy_of_note_types