A quick orientation to the structure of this site!
Theory & inspiration
I’ve been heavily inspired by hypertext garden / digital garden approach to online media — place-based framing of the internet and its sites that prioritizes agential exploration over passive consumption. In the balance between the Garden & the Stream, I want this site to land solidly in the “Garden”. That’s one of the reasons why I picked up Obsidian and Quartz for this, because the Wikilinks structure allows my notes and thoughts to manifest as a network that readers can meander through at their leisure.
Another inspiration was Jacky Zhao’s approach to networked thought. Seeing this as a rhizomatic / spiralling-out practice of nodes and connections is also closely aligned with my thoughts on plurality and a polytheistic self. If I am a glue-sticked collage, then this digital second brain should take that form as well!
Journalling practice
The image of a collage, too, brings me to materiality, and maintenance over innovation: I’ve been journalling regularly since I was 16, and there’s something really grounding about the physicality of it. I fill the pages with my words and thoughts, yes, but I’ve always taken so much pleasure in collecting little bits and pieces of my life and pasting them in. Movie tickets, receipts, stickers, tea bag packaging, make-up packaging, ang-paos, airplane boarding passes… and that’s not even mentioning the countless handwritten notes and letters from friends and family that are nestled within my books too.
My bullet journalling practice is more than diary-keeping — it’s collective and collectivist, a hoarded pile of sentiment in material form. And I’d like to see this site as an extension of that practice
That’s why I’ve chosen not to draw on the more common metaphors for digital gardens. For example, Jacky Zhao has his notes categorized into seeds > saplings > trees > evergreen, etc. with the implication that seeds might grow into trees. Instead, I’m going for something that doesn’t evoke linear growth, but instead an assembly, archive, collection.
Structure
Moving from smaller pieces, till I assemble them into larger arguments or ideas:
Clipping A little jigsaw piece, could be connected or unconnected to other ideas. Usually drawn from an external source like a book or article.
Collage A constellation of connected ideas surrounding something larger, usually with some sort of argumentation or personal thought attached.
Page A polished argument, in a sort-of blog post format, drawing on clippings and collages! Look here for my most coherent ideas :)
Motif My version of Jacky Zhao’s ‘evergreen’ tag. I’ll put a concept here when I feel like it appears a lot, like a repeated scribble on the margins.
Other tags
Diary Life lessons and reflections based on personal experiences. Honestly a lot of these are inspired from clippings/collages, but I’d consider these to be far more personal and less academic.
Review My experience with putting parts of myself online started with posting film review essays and videos on YouTube and Instagram a long, long time ago. I have a couple unpolished text pieces from then, and I’ve decided to host them here as a commitment to building in public… We’ll see how I feel about that. Will add to the collection as the fancy strikes me. Media, film and TV will always be the original passion I return to regardless.