blogging project

What are we trying to achieve?

At some point I've got to force myself to actually show people what I write, because otherwise I'm going to keep feeling like it's a waste of time to fucking do it. My sense of object permanence is not so deranged as to trust in the durability of my hard drive, nor is my sense of causality (mortality?) satisfied with the idea of doing "something for myself alone".

I would like very much to grow past these shackles I've placed on myself where I must believe I will die if the work I care about is ever seen.

What do you mean, work I care about?

Fair question. It's not as though I don't care about my day job: I've learned at this point not to deride the work I do to make money and fill my day because I can't actually do it if I'm sneering at it. So I see through the murk, notice the bones of reality floating in the fleshy uncertain movements of contingencies and justifications, content myself with those, and find some fire in each day to burn through the next portion of whatever seems to be important or interesting; and if it's a little easier each day to drink the kool-aid, to attach my worth to things I didn't decide to value, well; I got through school, I can get through a job. It's not much different.

Writing is different.

Nobody has to pay me to write. It's fun. The mere bare facts of the process, without further context, feel good and clean and somehow powerful. I think it's quite hard to decontextualize writing: words carry their usages into every context. So writing well is like designing a good naturalistic experiment - familiar pieces gently arranged into morally sound yet surprising shapes, making things that might have always been there easier to see.

It's horrifically vulnerable. I lose myself in the work of arrangement, follow the thread of reasoning around the page, impose and refine and transform frames as I get a clearer sense of the impression I'm trying to chase down - and then, well, fuck. I'm done. (And what have I just done? Why does this exist out where people might see? Do you have no sense of shame? I ask myself (something in me asks me?) - beneath the beration, it's just a seizing up of my shoulder blades, a burning in my gut - and impending is the wave of cold fatigue that will come over me, the phantom of a literal-feeling wet blanket, that makes it so I don't get to do the part that comes next. )

I want to get good at the part that comes next.

You haven't answered the question.

It doesn't really unbake further than that. I want to do this. I don't know why.

Okay, so why does it matter that people see?

…just in case.

What if it's useful?

What it it's beautiful?

Nah, all sort of dodging the question. It's more tautological than that. Words are meant to be read. Spoken, sung, written, read. Tool implies function. It was already apparent when I set out using the tool that I wanted, once I was done, that it was for others to see.

how we're doing it

blog

The place where the entire notebook goes. It will get populated slowly, as I edit and curate things.

tags

  • tags are indices

    I already use tags heavily, albeit halfheartedly, to say what a post is about.

    • sometimes an index needs to be an index. how to generate link pages?
      • keywords seems like a cool idea.
      • but in the end, manual is hard to beat.
    • todo implement tag pages
  • tags are control related

    tags (esp those below) represent what to do with a post, programmatically or otherwise.

  • stub tag

    things that could stand some fleshing out. not necessary to do it but if you want writing ideas this is a good place to go.

  • draft tag

    things that are WIP to become "done and good", and in their turn substack posts.

  • "this is done and good" tag (name TBD)

    things that get posted to substack.

  • noexport tag

    To be used on child headings! Can dump WIP stuff there. It's meant to be an inbox to drain into publishing or archiving. So as not to break links, an empty page gets created for noexport headings with the correct org id (and possibly the title also).

    • working implement noexport in uniorg
      • done out of the box for heading-level tags
      • file-level roam tags are comprehensively not picked up by this skeleton.
      • get file-level tags working.
  • citations and references
    • done get citations working
    • done get references to display nicely
  • latex
    • todo get latex equations to render properly

dailies

daily notes don't get exported. if something interesting happens in a daily note, extract it to its own note!

  • todo dailylog functions

archive

Archived headings don't get exported. Links to archived entries get redirected to 404. Some things get archived because they're private, some because I don't want to let them stand.

exporting to web format

  • uniorg

    workflow to get a minimal site up and running: 

    nix-shell -p nodejs_latest
npx create-next-app --example https://github.com/rasendubi/uniorg/tree/master/examples/org-braindump braindump
cd braindump
mv public public.default
ln -s ~/org-notebook ./public
npm run dev

    Optionally, copy the default's index.org to the notebook to make it so the landing page doesn't break. Go to http://localhost:3000/archive and click around!

  • todo create a flake for the deployment
  • todo git hook to publish on commit

blotter and folio

I forgot to migrate over the last version of this blog! It was much smaller and cuter and the org source for it lives in the backup of my last laptop.

  • todo dig up old laptop backup and go.

formatting

  • todo format todos
  • todo format quotes
  • todo format citations

setup process notes

  • now that I have a minimal example running,

    I really would rather clean and publish as I go. Some of this is work I actually wanted to be good!

  • implementing the tagging behaviours

    is going to involve typescipt. urk. okay let's see.

substack

things get posted here on a schedule.

Okay, it appears we've got to argue with ourselves about this for a bit. Does it make sense? Why a schedule? I think simply because it shows seriousness. Who are we showing seriousness to? Ourselves. Why does it makes sense to show ourselves things? Because that's how you solve problems, by looking closely at the clearest versions of them you can. The schedule is a tool to support the relationship I want to have with my writing work.

  • aside: using the phrase writing work feels like brushing my hair the wrong way.

    fascinating that this too can be savoured.

I've got to put something out every two weeks.

It's okay if it's short. it's okay if it's bad (although I suspect it isn't, really; but maybe the injunction will help when I'm next trapped in a bout of perfectionism.) There are no other restrictions. It jsut has to go out once every two weeks.

workflow

I envision capture-refile-archive on steroids. I've decided to call the refile-archive part (which is the part on steroids) Toricelli.

Capture (inbox)

Things have to become stubs somehow. It sure would be nice if this could happen directly from mobile, but it's okay if not - my Telegram saved messages serves just fine.

prior art

Author: Nix build user

Validate