I recently spent what feels like an extraordinary amount of time cobbling together something that is going to replace Pocket after it gets discontinued. If you’re not familiar with it (skip this sentence if you are), Pocket allows you to hoard articles and pages you’ve found online to read later. Mine is a heap of stuff I’ve wanted to read later but never really got around to it, unless it was in a moment of despair when I couldn’t find anything else to do and decided to go through my saved articles. I’m usually surprised at what I find there, with an expression that looks something like this:
Sometimes it’s a pleasant surprise, a lot of the times I’m just lost for the reason as to why I might have wanted to save that particular bit of writing.
There is an enormous variety of topics that I’m interested in, ranging from astronomy and anthropology to zoology and Zettelkasten1 (interconnecting ideas in a note taking or documenting system) and that makes it difficult to stay focused on what ever I happen to be currently working on, especially if it’s a chore. So, I take notes. On paper, on sticky notes, in a solo Discord server, on the computer; there are nearly endless bookmarks in my favourite browser that I’ve saved for later, just in case. There were oodles of bookmarks and files I saved back when I was teaching to use in class, share with students or repurpose for my own work.
I like to say that I have a rainforest mind2, the more objective might say that it’s a byproduct of having some exceptionalities in the way my mind functions – neither perspective is too far from the truth here. Nevertheless, the copious amount of note taking serves as a personal idea hoard that I do occasionally come back to when I’m trying to cast my mind back to an idea that tickled my imagination in the past. It’s not like I have a problem or anything. It’s not like I occasionally, only occasionally mind you, struggle to find that one particular piece of paper where a note got jotted down in blue pen alongside some unrelated things, but it’s super crucial that I find it right this instant because I really need it!
No, no problems here.
Admitting to myself that I collect ideas and understanding the way some people collect coins or trading cards was the first step to realizing that this is the way I deal with the anxiety that comes with forgetting to do really important things that matter to me but that are boring in and of themselves so they get shoved under the rug. If I save the shiny for later, there’s a hope that I’ll be able to come back to it later and recapture that feeling of a thrill at finding something new and interesting or realizing a previously unseen (to me) connection between disparate ideas that would be cool to share or reflect on later. It also helps me to write down examples of things I think about because I struggle to remember specific examples in the moment, when they matter. Sorry.
Then, if I can come back to the cool new thing later when I’m bored and in need of a project (like all of my issues of Make magazine – there’s at least 3 projects I want to do but can’t, yet) or when I really need that particular reference on how to replace internal mouse switches for when I finally decide to replace the worn out switches in my dear old G200 gaming mouse.
All behavour serves a beautiful need. My idea hoarding and note taking makes me feel safer with the mind I was issued, helps me to feel like I won’t forget to do the important thing or be able to find that cool idea I wanted to learn more about.
What do you do that serves some deeper need?
And the Pocket replacement project? I managed to get an instance of Wallabag running on a home server and link it through Tailscale to my phone. First time I did anything remotely related to running a server, working with php, MySQL, first time I had come across Tailscale. I’m impressed at my own tenacity and realize I might have even gotten a little obsessed with making the thing work. It was something like 6-8 hours of work, learning about networking, troubleshooting the installation, dealing with a MySQL refusal to cooperate that necessitated a complete reinstall.
And now I find that Tailscale and my VPN don’t want to run at the same time, so it’s either keep the VPN off to tailnet to the home mesh network to save articles or keep the VPN on to preserve privacy while out and about.
Clearly I didn’t think this through and leapt before I planned. #worth #2deviceSysadmin
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