Over/Under #76 with Richard Griffiths

This week my guest is a writer from Sydney: Richard Griffiths also known as Writing Slowly.

I discovered his Fediverse account maybe three years ago on a thread about Zettelkasten if I recall correctly.

He wrote also a book called Shu Ha Ri The Japanese Way of Learning, for Artists and Fighters.

Go check his blog and subscribe to his RSS feed.

Today, here are his topics ⤵️

Zettelkasten

Overrated. Don’t get me wrong. I work with my own Zettelkasten daily and it’s transformed how I write. Without my collection of atomic notes I wouldn’t have published my book. But at the end of the day it’s just notes. It won’t organise your life for you or solve all your problems. There was a period around 2021-22 when it seemed that everyone with a blog had to post about how the Zettelkasten will make you crazy productive. Thankfully those days are over and those people have all moved on to writing about how AI will make you crazy productive. Meanwhile, the Zettelkasten is just hanging on in there, doing its modest thing.

POSSE

Very underrated. Post to your Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere ( or Everywhere) is a great idea, and not as hard as it might sound. And yes, you really do need your own site, because otherwise you’ll wake up one day and all your stuff will be gone forever and you’ll never get it back. People don’t seem to care about this though, which goes to show they don’t think their efforts on social media are worth anything at all. Just one caveat though: there’s no point syndicating your posts to sites you don’t ever use. I post to Mastodon and BlueSky, but I also engage with people there. Without the engagement, POSSE risks devolving into spam.

Journaling

Underrated. I have assorted journals that go right back to when I was 13, and reading them is like meeting my old self and picking up right where we left off. A big regret is not journalling more regularly. I recommend it to anyone and you’ll find more of my thoughts on this in the new edition of Stephanie Dowrick’s book, Creative Journal Writing. Meanwhile here’s a public service announcement: Journalling!

Solitude

This is a difficult one. Until recently I would have said solitude is underrated, but since the pandemic I’ve been working a lot at home and frankly I’m getting a bit sick of my own company. “I was taught to feel perhaps too much/ The self-sufficing power of solitude.” – as Wordsworth put it in his poem The Prelude. Wordsworth thought solitude was out ‘better nature’, but I think our better nature is shown by who we are when we’re around other people. That guy who’s rude to hospitality staff? He might be an angel alone in his own living room but he’s still a total schmuck. So yes, solitude is a little overrated.

Pavlova

Underrated. When I moved to Australia it took a while to get used to warm weather at Christmas-time. This meant I didn’t feel like eating the kind of northern hemisphere Christmas food I was used to, like a full roast dinner and warm christmas pudding. What won me over to Australian Christmases was the promise what I could now eat as much Pavlova as I wanted. Heaven. Plus, every year they resurrect the ongoing argument about who invented it, the Australians or Kiwis, which is highly entertaining. Well, the New Zealanders might have made the world’s biggest Pavlova (look it up), but the best one was always made by my Australian mother-in-law.

Imagine that ICE officers are at your door to seize all your books. You have the opportunity to save two. Which two would you pick?

Despicably, ICE steals people and leaves their books behind. But here on the East coast of Australia we often have to think about how bush fires might one day burn all our possessions. The books I’d save from any conflagration would be my journals. Everything else is replaceable. But if I just had to choose two favourite books it would be James Joyce’s Ulysses and Vasily Grossman’s Life and Fate. In their radically different ways they both seem to contain the whole of life.

Question from the previous blogger

I’d ask P.T. Barnum, “what did you do with those three Fijians you ‘bought’ to put in your circus?” Greatest showman eh? https://natlib.govt.nz/records/22829582

What you would like to ask the next blogger?

Before we find our own voice, we usually copy our mentors or heroes. Who was the teacher or model that inspired you when you started blogging, and how did following their example eventually help you find your own style?

And my replies ⤵️

Zettelkasten

Underrated.

I started mine around 2020.

While I agree with Richard that it’s just notes, I’m sad that I never heard of it when I was a teenager. It would be nice to teach it in schools.

Today, I try to raise awareness of it at a time when AI is on everyone’s lips.

Many posts I read about Zettelkasten is always combined with Obsidian. I don’t have anything against it, and I use it on my phone to be able to get my notes. I prefer a simple text editor like Vim/Neovim to an Electron app.

But, everyone is free to use whatever works for them.

POSSE

It so underrated.

Like other things I’m interested in, I try to raise awareness about them. I have people around me starting businesses, and everything they share online is only on big tech platforms. Some of them are open-minded enough to listen to what I have to say. But, unfortunately, that’s not always the case. It’s the same kind of people who don’t care about their privacy.

Journaling

Underrated. I have started with journals in 2019. I would have loved to start that earlier. Like Zettelkasten, it’s a thing that people should start when they are young. I enjoy having discussions with my younger self, and see how my thoughts about some topics have changed over the time.

Solitude

As a kid I remember those moments alone, and, to be honest, it wasn’t always great. Today, as a father, I would love to have more of them 😅. Just me, and my thoughts.

People often miss the point of solitude. It’s not being anti-social, it’s a necessity for any serious thinking. You make decisions without the social noise, you learn what you actually enjoy.

The other missed point is that’s not loneliness. Loneliness is unwanted. Solitude is chosen and temporary.

For all those reasons, solitude is underrated.

Pavlova

Overrated. It’s a good dessert, but I’m not a huge fan of meringue, but fruits help.

I discovered only recently that Pavlova was from Australia… or New Zealand? And the dispute those two countries have about a dessert named after Anna Pavlova’s 1926 tour of Australasia who probably never actually ate it.