Taking Notes
I’m not a consistent note-taker, in the sense that some people are very good about jotting down insights and quotes as they read or go about their day.
For the way I learn, personally, I find that unloading new knowledge onto a page as soon as I’m exposed to it keeps me from ruminating on and parsing it, so it doesn’t stick as well. I know other people operate differently, though, and at times with great success.
I do, however, tend to keep notes on internal learnings and lived experiences—especially when my attention is occupied and there are things happening beyond my current focus that I want to revisit and reflect upon later.
When I was on tour in 2018 and 2019, most of my attention was reserved for planning and implementing the tour, setting up events and giving talks, engaging with the folks who came out to the events, and in between making sure I could safely make it from place to place on time.
There was seldom a moment when I wasn’t exhausted or near-exhausted during that tour, which lasted about a year.
Fortunately, I realized this would be the case early on, and habitualized jotting down bits of information about things that happened along the way: data I didn’t have the bandwidth to think about overmuch in the moment, but which seemed worthy of reassessment at some point.
The notes from that period are wild, and I can see patterns in my own thinking, actions, and priorities that I wouldn’t have noticed viewing them in the moment or individually.
I’ve enjoyed discovering, over the years, that note-taking—or journaling, as it’s probably more properly called, in some cases—can serve purposes beyond the mere documentation of things that happened.
I can sit down and write about my day, and along the way discover that something small led to something notable, or that I’m actually okay with something I thought I wasn’t okay with.
Part of what makes this work, I think, is the knowledge that these notes are for me, not for anyone else to read. That frees me up to get painfully honest with myself, in a way that goes beyond other sorts of also-honest-but-in-a-different-way writing I might produce for publication.
This habit provides a distinct perspective from which I can observe my own behaviors, and at times that of others, and it allows me to concretely render thoughts that might otherwise remain fuzzy with greater clarity, as ink on a page or pixels on a screen.
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Projects
This week on Brain Lenses I published an essay about Dissociation, and a podcast episode about Mental Models.
This week’s episode of Let’s Know Things is about Worldscraping.
Interesting & Useful
Some neat things:
Reddit Thread About Industry Secrets(from people who work in those industries)
What Did the Earth Look Like 240 Million Years Ago?(3D ancient earth globe)
It’s Rain In Games(supercut video of characters in video games in the rain)
The Lighthouse Directory(I have so many lighthouses to visit now)
For more interesting things of this kind, pop on over to Curiosity Gadget.
Outro
Apologies for the somewhat shorter-than-usual newsletter this week!
I had to get things ready and scheduled to publish Tuesday night, as I’m going in to get some surgery (nothing serious) done on Wednesday morning. So there’s a chance that when you receive this I’ll still be in there.
Thanks for all the well-wishes this past week: I’m sure it’ll go fine, and I’m looking forward to the chilled-out recovery stage.
How’s your September been, now that we’re mid-month? Been thinking about anything in particular? Learn anything interesting, recently?
How’re you and yours faring amidst all this *gestures at the world in general*?
Drop me a line and tell me what’s been up—I’d love to hear from you :)
You can reach me by responding to this newsletter, or at colin@exilelifestyle.com.
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If you’re finding some value in what I’m doing here, consider supporting my work by becoming a patron of my writing or my news analysis podcast, buying one of my books, or subscribing to Brain Lenses. You can also buy me a coffee if you’re keen to.