You might want to take a look at " How Emotions Are Made" by Lisa Feldman Barrett, or "Being You" by Anil Seth. Philosophical ideas of emotion and self vs the neuroscience of emotion and self. Authenticity is a deep and difficult notion, but generally constructed more than discovered.
Particularly the part about listening to your resistance to your system.
I’m glad you are writing about how to live in the language of the 21st century. Usually it’s either just summarizing thinkers of the past, or some too simple self-help system.
(Funnily enough I’m also listening to How To Live: A Life of Montaigne, who also engages with the Greek philosophers and is interested in observing internal experience.)
It’s a bit of a tangent, but I have a question or two on footnote 3 (your note taking habits):
- do you ever systematically move notes from the analogue (notebook) into Obsidian or do you „strictly“ keep the two as separate systems, and if yes, along which discriminator?
- how much time do you effectively spend on „pruning“, rewriting and reviewing your notes systematically?
From my own experience I feel I would have to do that hours a day to make any progress, which is not viable if writing / researching is not a full-time job, if I want to do serious *new* reading and note taking, if I also want to think about all that, and still have a life (this is actually a gripe I have with a lot of the PKM or whatever you call it: time is finite and time for that kind of work and reflection in a job which is not research-y per se even more so. You either choose to read, and take some notes on and think about a reasonable amount of material in the hope you will later remember enough to find it when you need it, or you spend very little time on digesting any new material, reflections and serious note taking to have more time for the rewriting and pruning, with the result that you never achieve that level of productivity I see around me. Which leaves me puzzled, impressed, and also a bit intimidated by the sheer amount of material a lot of people seem to be digesting in a similar way as you describe, perusing it for their own prolific writing while having a „normal“ job and busy life besides that. (But then I’m probably just a very slow thinker, reader, and writer … 😂😅))
no, I do as little as possible. if sometging from the journal is great i'll riff in obsidian too. and I only rewrite if I return and rewriting helps me think better. as it often does. it is messy and just in time and always in support of whatever I'm working on
I was thinking of Walter Ong's Orality and Literacy but in reading your piece and looking at Foucault, I think Ong is pretty simplistic. I'm going to take a look at 'Self-Writing' now!
As for takes on authenticity, David Chapman provides the canonical Vajrayana Buddhist interpretation: https://meaningness.com/self (I'm half-kidding)
What fun to hear you expressing almost exactly the process I have been going through for the last several years, starting with when I left a long period of focused employment. I test myself against a new experience, evaluate what it feels like (often in writing), then adjust. Again. Again. I have the luxury of allowing that to be very open-ended … indeed, I see no end as yet, but there may come a time when I say, “Ah yes, this is where I will apply myself for a time.” Anyway, I appreciate you putting some structure around this process. I’ll put it in my pipe and smoke it.
It does remind me a little bit of George Saunder’s characterizations of how he polishes his prose, returning to his words again and again while constantly trying to assess whether they work, whether they serve the story. You probably know about this?
What an interesting idea. Oddly enough, Tom and I have been wrestling to understand our true selves through a process we’ve designed to help us buy a new car in about 2 years. I’ve found it fascinating to think through what is meaningful to me and why, and creating a ranking system to judge how well the form of a car “fits.”
You might want to take a look at " How Emotions Are Made" by Lisa Feldman Barrett, or "Being You" by Anil Seth. Philosophical ideas of emotion and self vs the neuroscience of emotion and self. Authenticity is a deep and difficult notion, but generally constructed more than discovered.
Really enjoyed this essay! It really spoke to me.
Particularly the part about listening to your resistance to your system.
I’m glad you are writing about how to live in the language of the 21st century. Usually it’s either just summarizing thinkers of the past, or some too simple self-help system.
(Funnily enough I’m also listening to How To Live: A Life of Montaigne, who also engages with the Greek philosophers and is interested in observing internal experience.)
And thank you for your footnote on how you use Obsidian!
It’s a bit of a tangent, but I have a question or two on footnote 3 (your note taking habits):
- do you ever systematically move notes from the analogue (notebook) into Obsidian or do you „strictly“ keep the two as separate systems, and if yes, along which discriminator?
- how much time do you effectively spend on „pruning“, rewriting and reviewing your notes systematically?
From my own experience I feel I would have to do that hours a day to make any progress, which is not viable if writing / researching is not a full-time job, if I want to do serious *new* reading and note taking, if I also want to think about all that, and still have a life (this is actually a gripe I have with a lot of the PKM or whatever you call it: time is finite and time for that kind of work and reflection in a job which is not research-y per se even more so. You either choose to read, and take some notes on and think about a reasonable amount of material in the hope you will later remember enough to find it when you need it, or you spend very little time on digesting any new material, reflections and serious note taking to have more time for the rewriting and pruning, with the result that you never achieve that level of productivity I see around me. Which leaves me puzzled, impressed, and also a bit intimidated by the sheer amount of material a lot of people seem to be digesting in a similar way as you describe, perusing it for their own prolific writing while having a „normal“ job and busy life besides that. (But then I’m probably just a very slow thinker, reader, and writer … 😂😅))
no, I do as little as possible. if sometging from the journal is great i'll riff in obsidian too. and I only rewrite if I return and rewriting helps me think better. as it often does. it is messy and just in time and always in support of whatever I'm working on
Thank you for the pointers towards Obsidian and Evergreen notes. I've been looking for similar information for a while. This was great timing.
I was thinking of Walter Ong's Orality and Literacy but in reading your piece and looking at Foucault, I think Ong is pretty simplistic. I'm going to take a look at 'Self-Writing' now!
As for takes on authenticity, David Chapman provides the canonical Vajrayana Buddhist interpretation: https://meaningness.com/self (I'm half-kidding)
This was such an interesting read! And thank you for including how you do this in Obsidian/notebook!
Loved this, resonated deeply with my own journey the past three years
👏🏻 This one is top-10 material, thanks for sharing!
What fun to hear you expressing almost exactly the process I have been going through for the last several years, starting with when I left a long period of focused employment. I test myself against a new experience, evaluate what it feels like (often in writing), then adjust. Again. Again. I have the luxury of allowing that to be very open-ended … indeed, I see no end as yet, but there may come a time when I say, “Ah yes, this is where I will apply myself for a time.” Anyway, I appreciate you putting some structure around this process. I’ll put it in my pipe and smoke it.
It does remind me a little bit of George Saunder’s characterizations of how he polishes his prose, returning to his words again and again while constantly trying to assess whether they work, whether they serve the story. You probably know about this?
Oh my gosh, a meta-rational piece on “true selves”? Blessed day.
This is so perfect.
nice henrik, particularly on what to do when a self-system feels dead
What an interesting idea. Oddly enough, Tom and I have been wrestling to understand our true selves through a process we’ve designed to help us buy a new car in about 2 years. I’ve found it fascinating to think through what is meaningful to me and why, and creating a ranking system to judge how well the form of a car “fits.”