Share with us what is happening in your ZK journey this week. October 12, 2024

Will

Swimming with Ideas

This is yet another opportunity to share what you are working on with your friends here on the forum. Add to this discussion by telling us about your zettelkasten journey. Share with us what you're learning. Sharing helps us clarify our goals and visualize our thinking. And sometimes, a conversation sparks a magical moment where we can dive into an idea worth exploring. I'd love to hear more from you. 🫵🏼

Do you want to do a live video chat with me about our adventures in Zettelkasting? Ping me at @Will, and we can schedule a time.

Here is my report on why I'm here and my current ZK work themes and ideas:

• I’m questioning the metaphor "ghost in the box." There is nothing mysterious in how zettelkasting works. It’s all science. There is no homunculus in the head pulling the levers. We do the work and are rewarded with knowledge. We're having a mind-mashing conversation on the forum at On the search for the ghost in the box — Zettelkasten Forum.
• I’m learning the ins and outs of The Archive JavaScript-based plugin system. This aligns with one of my stretch goals, which is to learn a new programming language.
• I’ve been making notes on the creative musical genius of Brian Eno.

Books I'm reading or read this week:

One of @Sascha’s recommendations
One for class
One audio (fiction)
One of @Andy’s recommendations
One ebook

• Adler, Mortimer Jerome and Van Doren, Charles Lincoln. How to read a book. 2014.[[202407311603]]
• Blundell, William E. The Art and Craft of Feature Writing: Based on the Wall Street Journal Guide. New American Library, 1988. [[202408212021]] #JAMM425 Bookshare
• Melucci, Giulia. I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti: A Memoir. 1st ed, Grand Central Pub, 2009.
• Bergman, Ofer, and Steve Whittaker. The Science of Managing Our Digital Stuff. The MIT Press, 2016.
• Each Moment Is the Universe: Zen and the Way of Being Time by Dainin Katagiri

Zettelkasting Soundtrack:

Bill Withers
Best of Hania Rani
Panta Rhei
Brian Eno

★★★★★

The "My rolling fourteen-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 see, discuss, or critique any of these notes.

View my fourteen-day zettel production

I hope my contribution is helpful, and I'm sure you have even better ideas.

Loni

Hi Will!

I am really interested by the books you shared here and on the top three topics, especialy about "How to read a book". Brian Eno's Oblique Strategie is a book or an article?

In the book "Cause and Effect Game Design" by Rick Hall and Matthew Laurence, they wrote a definition of what makes something creative :

"The real keys to creativity are the implications that result from combining them [ideas]. This is the filter through which we should measure our efforts. If combining two ideas has implications we haven’t seen before, then chances are it’s creative"

It rings a bell for me. From my point of view Self-reflextion and honnesty are some of prerequisites of making something creative, a mindset, but not a definition by itself. What do you think about it?

By the way, I am extra happy to share with you my analog Zettelkasten installation!

After testing worflows, I finally make a choice. This spring, I tested working with my computer and this summer, I tested working with smartphone and computer sync. I use methodic test, unlike what I used to do (because of shining object syndrom), but this time, I analyzed what I did, why, what worked and what I disliked.

The fact is… Writting physical cardnotes works better for me. I can use my smartphone while waiting for the bus or in transit. I can bring my bullet journal with me while working or travelling. And I found an app for e-book which exports my underlines text on plain text through a share via Markor, to work with it when I come back home.

So, I installed my workstation at home! Here is my writting desk, tadam!

I have a small cube for my notes and index drawers. I followed @ZettelDistraction and @ctietze advices : I bought a Lamy foutain pen. I am really happy with it. I also have a Waterman one, a gift, for a thinner line.

As you can see, I create my "index" while writing my notes, linking notes to keywords. My reading notes follow the same pattern, I take the index card of the book I am commenting and the keyword cards relates to the note and I create link right away. I don't have to search long for structure notes, I juste have to read the related index.

I order my notes by chronological UID, it is way easier for me to work like that as I don't have to remember which was the sequence of that or this before writing my notes. I juste have to write it, right away, and linking it to the relevant keywords index. The main difficulty is to ask myself "where my futur self is gonna look to search this note?"

My reading notes have their own index with alphabetical dividers. Whatever it is a novel, a film or a video game, I put their index here with : creator name - creation name and I link every notes about them.

It is a simple workflow, which encourages me to sit down and concentrate, to take some time to correctly keep track of notes and updating keywords index. I feel at ease with it.

chrisaldrich

I’ve been making notes on the creative musical genius of Brian Eno.

@Will @Loni How far have you gotten into Eno's "Oblique Strategies"? It's a creative physical Zettelkasten whose purpose impinges on the idea of serendipity represented by "the ghost in the box." Might help you tie together some of the disparate ideas you've listed.

If it helps to understand it, here's some of my zettels on the topic: https://hypothes.is/users/chrisaldrich?q=tag:"oblique+strategies"

ZettelDistraction

This week, I have abandoned Zettlr for Obsidian. Zettlr was too slow and became an obstacle instead of a tool. Following an online conversation with @Will in which he demonstrated The Archive, my Zettel template has the following form.

---
id: immutable_ID  
title: immutable_ID  The H1 header title
reference-section-title: References
---
# The H1 header title

## SEE ALSO

Now, I have to update numerous Zettels, a discouraging prospect.

The redundancy serves software interoperability. The id: YAML variable is the filename without the markdown .md extension. The title: YAML variable combines the unique, immutable immutable_ID and the H1 header title. The choice enables Obsidian and other programs to display the ID with the title.

The ## References subsection after the ## SEE ALSO subsection is optional since the Pandoc will generate this if Pandoc citations are present. I have updated the Zettel template in GitHub, but I am not looking forward to updating the software configuration notes in the Zettel wiki.

I have two Templater templates for Obsidian: one for creating the Zettel template and one for adding the title of a Wikilink to the right of the Wikilink.

Perhaps I will leave the Zettel GitHub in a shambles, only hinting at the complete configuration.

I'm too embarrassed to say what I am reading.

Loni

@chrisaldrich I just discovered that book while reading Will, so my exploration is at the first discovery stage ^^ As myself I'm making a physical ZK, it could be interesting to reading. Thank you a lot for sharing

So, that's the heart of Oblique Strategies :

Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt

In 1975, Peter Schmidt and Brian Eno created the original pack of Oblique Strategies cards, through thinking about approaches to their own work as artist and musician. The Oblique Strategies constitute a set of over 100 cards, each of which is a suggestion of a course of action or thinking to assist in creative situations. These famous cards have been used by many artists and creative people all over the world since their initial publication. Fifth edition 2001.

I'll take a look and I'll make mine for my fiction writtings and deepen my zettels.

---

I forgot to mention that I'm back listening Einaudi once again, I love "Primavera" et "Divenire". I am reading "Winternight Trilogy" serie of novels, written by Katherine Arden, and I'm having a good time running into the deep russian forrests with folklore creatures.

---

I am happy to see that you are fixing your software problem, @ZettelDistraction, even if you have a lot in your plate right now to update your previous zettels.

I'm too embarrassed to say what I am reading.

It happens to me as well. At least, my intuition tells me that it is not "Mathematics for dumbies" 😁

Will

@Loni, it warms my heart to hear from you.

Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies are playing cards. Thanks to Austin Kleon’s newsletter, I stumbled upon Brian Eno’s creativity hack, and it is something I’ll meld into my daily journaling as a prompt. Joshua Rothman (The New Yorker) made his own cards, and his wife glued random pictures on them. Sounds fun, and who knows?

In 1977, the artist, musician, and producer Brian Eno was in Berlin, working with David Bowie on the album that would become “Heroes.” They’d been collaborating on a song in an unconventional way, using a deck of cards called “Oblique Strategies,” which Eno had developed together with the artist Peter Schmidt. There were more than a hundred cards in the deck, and printed on each was a creative prompt, such as “What to increase? What to reduce?,” “A line has two sides,” or “Honour thy error as a hidden intention.” Eno and Bowie had each taken a card, then slipped it into a pocket. Neither knew what the other had drawn. They were taking turns working on the song, following different hidden ideas. ¹

---

1. How Should We Create Things? | The New Yorker. ~https://www.newyorker.com/culture/open-questions/how-should-we-create-things~. Accessed 12 Oct. 2024. ↩︎

ctietze

@Loni Please keep us posted! I'm really into physical setup photos, and it's so nice to see the actual thing grow over time.

---

This week's focus has been on the plug-in system documentation of The Archive and fixing bugs that testers of this new functionality surfaced.

On top, I've been creating a couple of notes about family members. Not a true history or genealogy, but I've always added an insight I had into their interplay in my Zettelkasten. I hope that, by the time my daughter is interested in her heritage, I'll have some fun hypertext "stories" to tell

ZettelDistraction

One book I'm reading is Rachel Kushner's Creation Lake, a spy novel with expensive implants. The cynical protagonist gets away with everything and, like James Bond, never pays for it. Unlike the rugged, devil-may-care Bond, she is preoccupied and immensely pleased with her self-presentation, frequently reminding the reader and herself about this, perhaps to maintain the facade, except at rare moments to wonder about living differently. Crisp writing and the intercepted emails of the mystical, cave-dwelling leader of the anarchist, anticapitalist group the spy infiltrates kept this reader's interest—mostly.

As for Absurdian:

From Zettlr to Obsidian

Over time, the software I needed to install for work on my Wacom Cintiq Engine compute module overwhelmed the machine. The registry had to be modified directly to allow the upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11. Network analysis revealed software services repeatedly phoning home, checking on software licenses, tracking my purchasing habits, and recording my whereabouts on the web. Blocking them slowed the machine to a crawl. Whatever the cause, Zettlr had become unusably slow. I tried the Zettelkasten editor logseq, but its idiosyncratic take on markdown required rewriting every one of my notes as outlines, and its use of so-called properties violated the YAML standard.

After a few unsuccessful efforts to warm up to logseq, my second-order alter ego, The Honorable Judge ZettelDistraction, ordered the removal of Zettlr from my machines when I found that Obsidian 1.6.7 was a suitable replacement for Zettlr, from which I saved the Pandoc export default files I modified. But first, I needed to revamp Obsidian's claustrophobic aesthetic--logseq suffered from the same defect. It was time to molt my exoskeleton.

Obsidian's default Solarized color scheme was lifeless, washed out, and sickening. It reminded me of the rank, slippery seaweed and moss clinging to the rocks of the Long Island Sound jetty. If Solarized Dark weren't so corporate, bland, humorless, and uninspiring, I would have expected to see a large, red-eyed water rat peer out from the edges of the screen—but no rat would stifle its intellect and dull its senses.

Fortunately, Obsidian's adaptability made the color scheme easy to change. With Obsidian, I needed to revise the YAML headers of my notes and install suitable plugins to support my workflow. Since I had already installed and configured several plugins from previous efforts to use Obsidian, adapting and refining them to replace my Zettlr workflow was less of a chore than otherwise.

Now that I’ve poked fun at the expansive stylistic indulgence in NY Times bestsellers, designed to distract readers from their material conditions, here are the plugins. (This isn’t a blanket materialist critique of literature, just the NY Times bestseller list.)

The list of plugins

1. Citations, version 0.4.5.
2. Enhancing Export, version 1.10.8. It's an odd name for a flexible Pandoc export facility.
3. Find orphaned files and broken links, version 1.10.1. Useful while changing Zettel formats.
4. Front Matter Title, version 3.10.0. This plugin uses the YAML title: variable to display the filename for explorer, graph, search, etc." However, the title is missing from Wikilink lookups.
5. Luhman, version 1.2.0. I'm unsure if it's compatible with my current Zettelkasten configuration. The developer has misspelled Luhmann's surname. I have turned off this plugin.
6. Pandoc Reference List, version 2.0.25.
7. Strange New Worlds, version 2.1.4. Useful to find related notes.
8. Templater, version 2.8.0. An essential plugin for defining the Zettel template and adding annotations to Wikilinks. Beware: updating Templater erases your template key shortcuts.
9. TikzJax, version 0.52. It seems promising, but it hasn't worked for me yet.

ZettelDistraction

Software overhaul notes continued. I didn't want to write these, but forces unknown compelled me. That's how it works: I cannot stop myself from writing.

The rest of the software configuration notes are online at Zettel Wiki -- software components. You must configure the Obsidian plugins above to find your Zotero library and the Pandoc defaults files for the PDF and LaTeX export files, which should refer to the Pandoc LaTeX template. The software components guide will show you how to set up a local TEXMF directory structure to locate the template if you don't have this set up and wish to export the markdown to PDF or LaTeX. Incidentally, the Enhancing Exports plugin settings.json file has an extraneous argument for the HTML export. There is only so much I can document.

Obsidian Templater templates

I now use two Templater templates, one to create a skeletal note with the requisite YAML header and markdown subsections and one to append a title to a Wikilink while preserving the line containing the Wikilink.

The New File Template is available at NewFileTemplate.md.

• New File Template (bound to Alt+n): This template creates a new Zettel with a unique identifier and a YAML header, ensuring a consistent structure for all notes. It prompts the user to enter an alpha keyword and a title for the note, generating a unique ID based on the current timestamp combined with the alpha keyword. The generated note includes metadata such as id, title, and reference-section-title. It also provides a basic structure with sections like "SEE ALSO" and "References" for further organization. Finally, the template renames the file to match the unique ID, helping maintain a well-structured Zettelkasten.

The Wikilink Title template is available at WikilinkTitle.md.

• Wikilink Title Template (bound to Alt+w): This template appends the title of a note to an existing Wikilink without altering the rest of the line. It ensures that each Wikilink includes its corresponding note title, providing better context directly in the referencing line. This template automates the process, preserving existing text and formatting while enriching the link with descriptive information.

ZettelDistraction

This Zettel details my well-considered, even-handed, and fair sneering animadversion for Logseq. The image is from Obsidian. The Zettel shown is almost compatible with Logseq markdown, except for the YAML header and variables, which Logseq cannot handle.

Loni

@Will said:
@Loni, it warms my heart to hear from you.

Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies are playing cards. Thanks to Austin Kleon’s newsletter, I stumbled upon Brian Eno’s creativity hack, and it is something I’ll meld into my daily journaling as a prompt. Joshua Rothman (The New Yorker) made his own cards, and his wife glued random pictures on them. Sounds fun, and who knows?

In 1977, the artist, musician, and producer Brian Eno was in Berlin, working with David Bowie on the album that would become “Heroes.” They’d been collaborating on a song in an unconventional way, using a deck of cards called “Oblique Strategies,” which Eno had developed together with the artist Peter Schmidt. There were more than a hundred cards in the deck, and printed on each was a creative prompt, such as “What to increase? What to reduce?,” “A line has two sides,” or “Honour thy error as a hidden intention.” Eno and Bowie had each taken a card, then slipped it into a pocket. Neither knew what the other had drawn. They were taking turns working on the song, following different hidden ideas. [^1]

I love the idea of different hidden cards with creative inputs. A kind of "cadavre exquis" like creative game. I would love to use it with an other writer for a short fiction.

@ZettelDistraction said :
This Zettel details why I have nothing but sneering animadversion for Logseq, though this is well-considered, thoughtful, even-handed, and fair. The image is from Obsidian. The Zettel shown is almost compatible with Logseq markdown, except for the YAML header and variables, which Logseq cannot handle.

Logseq does'nt work with YAML at the top of the file, indeed. While the smallest unity is the file for a majority of "zettelkastenish markdown editor", for Logseq, it was the block. So, the matadates apply to a block rather than a document. It asks to comply to an other workflow.

I worked with it, some days. I stopped, because it has some strange behaviours and bugs with Syncthing, but it was kind of interesting. I had a note like that :

Title of the document - theme - categorie 

- Title of the first note inside the document 
    key:: value  
    - Note itself  
- Title of the second note inside the document 
    key:: value
    - Note itself 

Every "key" in every metadatas of a vault would have its own page with linked document on the backlinks sections. Tracking things was easier.

But I totaly understand that you don't like it. It enforces you into a workflow you never agreed with. You already have your methods and you want to stick to it. And you like the idea of interoperabilité with a standard flavoured markdown.

@ctietze said:
@Loni Please keep us posted! I'm really into physical setup photos, and it's so nice to see the actual thing grow over time.

With pleasure! I did'nt forget that you were interested about the digging I did into my old notes and previous Zettelkästen. I'm preparing a post about the archeological researchs I've done and the conclusions I made. Science! 🔬

And by the way, the family notes is a lovely idea. My son is eight years old, and he really loves to know how the family reacted to his birth, how was uncles when they were young, how I was as a child, how I met his father, how his grand parents were. I tend to consider myself as the gardian of his childhood memories. Time passes, he is more and more able to handle his own memories himself, but he still needs adult eyes to keep track of some things for him.