Enamored with this line from _Sea of Tranquility_📚, and expect I’ll be mulling on it for a while:
“My personal belief is that we turn to postapocalyptic fiction not because we’re drawn to disaster, per se, but because we’re drawn to what we imagine might come next. We long secretly for a world with less technology in it.”
Finished reading: Self to Lose, Self to Find by Marilyn Vancil 📚
I’ve kind of had my fill of enneagram books after reading quite a few, but this one also hit on the theme of ‘true self’ that I’m trying to explore this year.
Considering How I Journal
I’ve been trying to make some sense of how I journal, and, I suppose, of how I’ve specifically been journaling for the last few years.
Personal Journaling
I have entries going back to 2004 in the Day One app. Yeah, I’m quite certain that predates Day One by several years. I had been journaling digitally already when I started with Day One, and I liked that app enough to migrate all my previous entries. I’m glad I did, because I’m still using it.
I wish I used it even more, but I shouldn’t be too hard on myself since I have over 4000 entires in there. I’ve used it in myriad ways in different seasons, including capturing books I was reading, movies I had seen, coffee I was brewing at home, or even occasional notes about formal meetings or informal lunches with friends.
But there has been one constant across all that time, and it is that I’ve always used day one to capture personal reflections. At times, that’s been morning pages (as described in The Artist’s Way), journaled prayers (both structured or freely written), or particular things I wanted to write about that felt too personal to write elsewhere. But the persistent word here is personal … in Day One I have often tried to put words to what was happening inside me, thoughts to intimate to share in most any other setting beyond perhaps a trusted loved one.
Practical Journaling
In more recent years, since 2018, I’ve been more deliberate about practical journaling as well. This is shaped more by notes about my day, or things I find interesting to track.
This practical journaling began in a Bullet Journal, as I wanted to try my hand at shifting from digital to analog even for tracking my tasks. I kept up with that notebook for about 9 months, and it mostly worked, though I found projects hard to manage. Ultimately I found that tracking tasks still made more sense to me in an app, and I’ve been in Things ever since.
But I also like that piece of bullet journaling that takes time to capture notes or highlights of each day, and started looking for ways to maintain that. That has been through a few different digital settings, but at this point I’m deeply invested in Obsidian, with a template for a daily note that captures both structured themes and random notes every day.
I guess if Day One tracks my personal and internal life, then Obisidan tracks my practical and external life. Sometimes I wonder if it is needless complexity to maintain two different kinds of journals, and that’s why I set out to write this. And the conclusion is…its still working pretty well for me.
Finished reading: The Life We’re Looking For by Andy Crouch 📚
Spent the day pursuing The Solace of Fierce Landscapes
Finished reading: The Drama of the Gifted Child by Alice Miller 📚
I’m on a little side quest to explore the concept of true self this year. I’m been aware of this book for a long time, but when I noted the subtitle mentions the true self, it jumped to the top of the pile.
Growing weary of apps or features being discontinued or no longer supported in hardware that is 2-5 years old. This past month it has been Arlo cams, WD network drive, and Lego Droid Commander.
Finished reading: The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu 📚
Finally got to this one after it sat on my Kindle for a couple of years. I’m not a heavy Sci-fi reader, but enjoyed this one. Still trying to decide if i will continue in the trilogy.
I veered out of my WordPress lane late in 2022 to contract and help build a new NextJS based site for Fleetio. The new site launched today and it’s fun, and satisfying, to see it in the wild.
Finished reading: Surrender by Bono 📚
I was really looking forward to reading this…and now I’m sad to be done.
One of the practices I’ve been returning to so far this year is some kind of daily writing. 📝 It’s not words to publish anywhere… it just one of my favorite ways to think.
I’ve used this iPad Mini for the last year as a ‘focus’ device – it doesn’t have any ‘input’ apps on it like social media or mail. I’ve mostly used it for reading or for taking handwritten notes during meetings.
But it’s also turned out to be a good solution for this writing practice. Anything with the input apps makes it too easy to break away with a quick keystroke and ‘check’ something. But here…it’s just easier to start writing.
Funny thing is, this keyboard dates back to when I had almost this same physical setup about 6 or 7 years ago when an iPad Mini was my primary iPad. It was so darn portable then, and it’s so darn helpful for focus now.
Final call to sign-up for my spring spiritual formation cohorts:
Finished reading: 24/6 by Tiffany Shlain 📚
This is a book that could probably just be an article. But…it counters ideas so ingrained that it might take a book to convince someone to even consider a day a week without screens.
I keep an Intel Mac Mini on my desk because I’ve worked with a few old codebases that couldn’t compile on my M1 laptop. (And it works well for a Channels server.) I just updated to the last Intel Mini – I ordered one on clearance when they were discontinued.
Realizing, though, that it also might work well as a simple setup for focused work with my bigscreen. Just a few key apps, like Obsidian, and I’m good to go.
I’m surprised to see how little Bono has to say about Zooropa 🎵 in Surrender. 📚 I didn’t appreciate it enough when released, and it has become one of my favorite U2 albums.
⚾ Count me among the large, or at least vocal, majority of Angels fans who are disappointed to see that Moreno has decided not to sell.
Years ago, when Micro.blog was still called Snippets, @manton set me up with a beta account. (Thanks Manton!) I’ve mostly been a lurker since, appreciating what was going on while also not engaging much.
I’ve also mostly been a lurker on Twitter for the past few years, keeping up with a few friends, but primarily gleaning baseball and football news. For reasons that likely don’t need explanation, even lurking on Twitter has become…tedious.
I spent some time these past few weeks revisiting a Mastodon account I setup years ago, but also exploring Micro.blog more deeply. I discovered that they are linked, with Micro.blog allowing me to both follow, and be followed by, any Mastodon user. Add to that the way Micro.blog is setup to sustain what was fun about Twitter (and blogs) in the early days, and you have something very appealing to me.
So here I am…I suspect I will mostly use this as, um, a micro blog, with shorter posts of what I’m learning or thinking about. But I suppose, from time to time, there will be some longer posts like I used to toss on my blog(s) years and years ago.
I’d be glad to be in conversation with the likes of you here on Micro.blog, or if you can connect on Mastodon: @john@byjc.co.
But if you too are looking to make a change and considering where to start with Mastodon…I’d encourage you to consider Micro.blog as your first option.