Share with us what is happening in your ZK this week. January 28, 2024
Swimming In the Deep End with Ideas
This is another installment of the What Are You Working On? thread. Add to this discussion by telling us about your zettelkasten journey. Share with us what you're learning. Sharing helps me and, hopefully, you, too. It helps me clarify my goals and visualize my thinking. And sometimes, a conversation sparks a magical moment where we can dive into an idea worth exploring. We'd love to hear more from you. 🫵🏼
Ideas I'm exploring with my ZK:
- I'm looking at the high switching costs of how I've set up my ZK. It seems I've boxed myself in with some basic decisions about file naming and linking conventions.
- Young Adult Literature as a genre ripe for literary criticism.
- Uni Class has started, so I'm finding most of my thinking is slanted toward Young Adult Literature.
Things I'm reading:
- Gratz, Alan. Refugee. 2017.
- Tucci, Stanley. Taste: my life through food. 2021.
- Gantos, Jack. Dead end in Norvelt. 2013.
- Picard, Max. The world of silence. 1948.
Music I'm listening to:
★★★★★
The "My rolling ten-day zettel production" is produced by a script for attachment to my daily journaling template. I do my journaling in Bear to keep personal journaling separate from my knowledge work.
Let me know if you would like to discuss any of these notes.
My ten day zettel production
Will Simpson
My zettelkasten is for my ideas, not the ideas of others. I will try to remember this. I must keep doing my best even though I'm a failure. My peak cognition is behind me. One day soon, I will read my last book, write my last note, eat my last meal, and kiss my sweetie for the last time.
kestrelcreek.com
Howdy, Stranger!
Comments
Hi, I've just about finished setting up my analog zettelkasten and I'm fascinated by it's possibilities. Any suggestions re tackling the following would be hugely appreciated. 1) Producing a commentary based on pulling together ideas from multiple sources (and hopefully some of my own) on T S Eliot's 4 Quartets. Have wanted to do this for 10+ years but could never work out how to organise the research material until I tumbled across zettelkasten - so mega excited! And 2) newly retired and interested in furthering knowledge/understanding in various aspects of philosophy (aesthetics, phil of religion, Plato ...), mysticism across the major religions, - I'd like to read and reflect more deeply and it looks like the zk method would really help (force!) me to do that. Thanks so much for any suggestions re organising all this. very nice to be part of the forum too.
"We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring shall be to arrive where we started, and know the place for the first time" T S Eliot
Ideas I'm exploring with my ZK:
Things I'm reading:
Music I'm listening to
I am a Zettler
@Sascha said:
You may be interested in the research of psychologist David Moshman on this topic.
As a duly sworn member of Zettelkasten Addicts Anonymous Psychological Support group (ZAAPS), I admit to not taking notes with pen and paper nearly enough. As Leslie Lamport said, "If you think without writing, you only think you're thinking." This week, I am forcing myself to take notes with pen and paper.
GitHub. Erdős #2. Problems worthy of attack / prove their worth by hitting back. -- Piet Hein. Alter ego (1st-order): Erel Dogg. Alter egos of Erel Dogg (2nd-order): Distracteur des Zettel, HueLED PacArt Lovecraft. I have no direct control over the 2nd-order alter egos. CC BY-SA 4.0.
@ZettelDistraction said:
This must be an image of the Bielefeld University chapter of ZAA(PS). I'm too old for that group! I'm the guy standing up partly behind and to the right of the old-fashioned card file in the first image that ZettelDistraction posted in another discussion.
EDIT: By the way, I see that Chris Rock's Zettels are posted on the wall on the right side.
I haven't posted in a while, but lurking ever so frequently. I inventoried my Zettelkasten this week, and I came up with the following numbers.
2019 - 125
2020 - 804
2021 - 744
2022 - 988
2023 - 946
I suspect it's solid evidence of a person deeply addicted to something. Here's to 2024, and beyond.
I continue making weekly contributions to a Storyworth personal history project. I mention it because my Zettelkasten continues to be a source of ideas and memories that can be woven into the weekly posts. It's been a lot of fun. The exercise has "paid back" with several new zettels, so it's a mutually beneficial effort in the sense of both the personal history and the Zettelkasten growing steadily.
Same. Not a single indistinguishable bald guy among them. Still, the group is gathering steam. Or moss.
GitHub. Erdős #2. Problems worthy of attack / prove their worth by hitting back. -- Piet Hein. Alter ego (1st-order): Erel Dogg. Alter egos of Erel Dogg (2nd-order): Distracteur des Zettel, HueLED PacArt Lovecraft. I have no direct control over the 2nd-order alter egos. CC BY-SA 4.0.
Looks like boldphobia. Should we do something about it?
I am a Zettler
I think you mean peladophobia. But maybe you do mean a fear of boldness.
Will Simpson
My zettelkasten is for my ideas, not the ideas of others. I will try to remember this. I must keep doing my best even though I'm a failure. My peak cognition is behind me. One day soon, I will read my last book, write my last note, eat my last meal, and kiss my sweetie for the last time.
kestrelcreek.com
Sascha, @Will, I tried. Here is my latest exchange with ChatGPT4.
ZettelDistraction
ChatGPT
ZettelDistraction
ChatGPT
ZettelDistraction
The casual observer will note that ChatGPT has inadvertently violated its guidelines with this hilarious image.
GitHub. Erdős #2. Problems worthy of attack / prove their worth by hitting back. -- Piet Hein. Alter ego (1st-order): Erel Dogg. Alter egos of Erel Dogg (2nd-order): Distracteur des Zettel, HueLED PacArt Lovecraft. I have no direct control over the 2nd-order alter egos. CC BY-SA 4.0.
Scary stuff. How about asking ChatGPT where are the bald women?
Good point! By the way, I am impressed with your progress.
GitHub. Erdős #2. Problems worthy of attack / prove their worth by hitting back. -- Piet Hein. Alter ego (1st-order): Erel Dogg. Alter egos of Erel Dogg (2nd-order): Distracteur des Zettel, HueLED PacArt Lovecraft. I have no direct control over the 2nd-order alter egos. CC BY-SA 4.0.
Thanks for the kind words. If I had to characterize my work creating zettels, I would place it in the category of holistic as opposed to atomic. I would add that I am driven by observations made by Andrew Abbott, a sociology professor at the University of Chicago who said something like, "Research is messy." For me, the Archive accommodates my messiness quite nicely. If interested, see Abbott (2015), Digital Paper: A Manual for Research and Writing with Library and Internet Materials.
Thank you for reminding me about Digital Paper--I had forgotten I had purchased this. I began rereading it--it's much better than I recall, and it does have a holistic approach, which I also find congenial--and honest. I don't have a workable notion of "atomic note." I prefer my notes to have one focus, which allows them some overlap with other notes and, in my case, digressions.
As for ChatGPT4, it's still flunking diversity. Attributing denseness to it would be a compliment.
ZettelDistraction
ChatGPT
I don't see a diverse population, but I won't press the Large Language Model, lest OpenAI evict me from cyber-paradise.
GitHub. Erdős #2. Problems worthy of attack / prove their worth by hitting back. -- Piet Hein. Alter ego (1st-order): Erel Dogg. Alter egos of Erel Dogg (2nd-order): Distracteur des Zettel, HueLED PacArt Lovecraft. I have no direct control over the 2nd-order alter egos. CC BY-SA 4.0.