Why create a digital garden? Knowledge acquisition isn't a linear process. You start with an intent and a direction and then you cultivate and curate those ideas over time.
I want to feel comfortable sharing what I left unfinished. I want to share raw output from my mind but organise it in a way that makes sense to both myself and my assumed audience.
I have collected a wealth of notes over the years across different mediums. Evernote. Obsidian. Notes.app. nvALT. Dozens of paper notebooks. You know what happens to most of them? They disappear into the void.
C'est la vie.
Thinking is messy. Note taking is messy. Organising the mess is what professional knowledge workers do. Playing in the mess is what we do for fun.
Cultivating your own digital presence brings untold rewards personally and professionally. Having a few guiding principles in place makes for easier decision making:
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Authenticity over Conformity: I struggle with the idea of presenting a persona that would suit some vague idea that I have of the "workplace". I do not belong in rigid environments where I'm expected to fit someone else's idea of what it means to be a professional. For my mental health's sake I must stay true to who I am.
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Act local, think global: I am a global citizen of the world who speaks the universal language of the human experience but I can only tend to my own garden. The idea is to care about cultivating a deep understanding of self and the world I occupy and sharing the discovery process with the world. I can't think of anything more beautiful.
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Let go of ownership of ideas: You are not your thoughts. You are a consciousness observing the universe. You should not take credit for work you didn't do, but ideas need to be internalised as if they came from you. We are natural copy machines, this is how we learn how to speak and everything else. Learn to steal like an artist.
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Assumed audiences: Each post should lead with a description of an assumed audience. This frees the writer from the pressure of writing for everyone and gives the reader the freedom to choose what is and isn't for them.
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Own the curation process: Attention is the most valuable thing in the world. Taking ownership of this narrow corner of the world gives you the motivation to care about what it is you consume and let roam inside your mind. It can't be taken away from you but you also shoulder all of the responsibility. It grows in value over time.
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Curiosity as my guide: The hard part about being human is that life is messy and unpredictable. Every day you face change and the only remedy is curiosity. Enforcing structure is a system that breaks under any kind of pressure. It leaves you fragile. We want to build systems that gain from disorder instead. I encourage you to maintain your own Digital Garden with curiosity as your guide.