IV.
Components of a Garden.
I like to equate a Digital Garden to your own personal Wikipedia. If you see a word that you don’t recognize, you can click on it and it’ll open up a new Wikipedia page—that’s also how your notes can look. You can take a note linked under a certain theme, click that link, and it will take you to all of the other thoughts that you’ve had about that theme.
In Digital Gardening, you take notes in two parts: the “Source Material” notes and the “Main Notes.”
In the Source Material notes, you’re just taking notes on the actual material itself.
For example, I recently rewatched the TV show Fleabag, and I took notes with every episode. I pulled quotes, I made note of what I found to be really funny, what I found to be really sad, and I would write down things that I didn’t notice the first time I watched it.
Here’s an excerpt from my Source Material Notes:
I like to equate a Digital Garden to your own personal Wikipedia. If you see a word that you don’t recognize, you can click on it and it’ll open up a new Wikipedia page—that’s also how your notes can look. You can take a note linked under a certain theme, click that link, and it will take you to all of the other thoughts that you’ve had about that theme.
In Digital Gardening, you take notes in two parts: the “Source Material” notes and the “Main Notes.”
In the Source Material notes, you’re just taking notes on the actual material itself.
For example, I recently rewatched the TV show Fleabag, and I took notes with every episode. I pulled quotes, I made note of what I found to be really funny, what I found to be really sad, and I would write down things that I didn’t notice the first time I watched it.
Here’s an excerpt from my Source Material Notes:
Step 1: Source Material Notes—Fleabag
(Spoiler Warning: Fleabag, Season 2, Episode 5)
This note is from after Fleabag’s sister, Claire, got a horrible French haircut and has a breakdown, but then starts to have a breakthrough where she’s finally being honest with Fleabag about the fact that she’s a bit jealous of her:
“We realize Fleabag pursues her desires, but Claire doesn’t. That’s why she’s so bitter. This scene perfectly conveys this. But she’s honest for the first time when she says, ‘you’re a genius, you’re my fucking hero.’ We then immediately see this play out in real time when her crush runs into her at the park, and she refuses to say ‘yes’ to him asking her on, essentially, a date.
“She’s using her family, her shitty husband, and his weird son from another marriage that she hates as an excuse to say ‘no.’ She’s actively, in real time, saying ‘no,’ because her allegiance falls to not letting down the people who are making her feel trapped. Her allegiance does not belong to herself.”
(Spoiler Warning: Fleabag, Season 2, Episode 5)
This note is from after Fleabag’s sister, Claire, got a horrible French haircut and has a breakdown, but then starts to have a breakthrough where she’s finally being honest with Fleabag about the fact that she’s a bit jealous of her:
“We realize Fleabag pursues her desires, but Claire doesn’t. That’s why she’s so bitter. This scene perfectly conveys this. But she’s honest for the first time when she says, ‘you’re a genius, you’re my fucking hero.’ We then immediately see this play out in real time when her crush runs into her at the park, and she refuses to say ‘yes’ to him asking her on, essentially, a date.
“She’s using her family, her shitty husband, and his weird son from another marriage that she hates as an excuse to say ‘no.’ She’s actively, in real time, saying ‘no,’ because her allegiance falls to not letting down the people who are making her feel trapped. Her allegiance does not belong to herself.”
And don’t worry about making this, like, a huge intellectual exercise. Part of making this habitual and enjoyable is getting rid of that professor in your head that’s telling you that your Notes need to be perfect and academic. Your Notes can sound like you’re texting your best friend. I don’t really care!
Like for this Note: one question I had for Season 2 of Nathan Fielder’s TV show The Rehearsal was (not a spoiler), “are pilots scumbags? lmao.”
Like for this Note: one question I had for Season 2 of Nathan Fielder’s TV show The Rehearsal was (not a spoiler), “are pilots scumbags? lmao.”
Then you go to the Main Notes, which are decontextualized from those Source Material Notes. Thoughts from the Source Material are synthesized and pulled into conclusions about thoughts on the greater world around you.
I wrote this after the first Notes from Fleabag:
I wrote this after the first Notes from Fleabag:
Step 2: Main Notes—Fleabag
General observations based on themes from Step 1. They can be as long as a few sentences to a mini-essay.
“When we deny ourselves of everything we want, it creates great discomfort and steals our peace. We often blame things like love for our discontent, but that’s not the source. The source is looking our desires in the eyes and saying, ‘I can’t’—even when we know it’s the only thing in the world that we want. We cling and grasp that things like haircuts, because they feel like control, they’re not.
“Illusions of control are constantly pulling us under and away from the actual desire we’re too afraid to run towards. Sometimes, an unfailing devotion to family can translate to an absolutely abysmal relationship to self, and the family relations suffer disproportionately every time we try to prioritize shit we don’t care about. We think we’re being martyrs. We’re not. We’re being selfish. Every time we choose the thing we truly, at our core, do not want. Because the more severed we are from ourselves, the more havoc we wreak on those we love. We hate the people that dare to follow their desires. They become the scapegoat to our misery. They’re irresponsible. They are reckless. They’re attention-seeking.
“That, or they’re free. And that really pisses off the people in a cage.”
General observations based on themes from Step 1. They can be as long as a few sentences to a mini-essay.
“When we deny ourselves of everything we want, it creates great discomfort and steals our peace. We often blame things like love for our discontent, but that’s not the source. The source is looking our desires in the eyes and saying, ‘I can’t’—even when we know it’s the only thing in the world that we want. We cling and grasp that things like haircuts, because they feel like control, they’re not.
“Illusions of control are constantly pulling us under and away from the actual desire we’re too afraid to run towards. Sometimes, an unfailing devotion to family can translate to an absolutely abysmal relationship to self, and the family relations suffer disproportionately every time we try to prioritize shit we don’t care about. We think we’re being martyrs. We’re not. We’re being selfish. Every time we choose the thing we truly, at our core, do not want. Because the more severed we are from ourselves, the more havoc we wreak on those we love. We hate the people that dare to follow their desires. They become the scapegoat to our misery. They’re irresponsible. They are reckless. They’re attention-seeking.
“That, or they’re free. And that really pisses off the people in a cage.”
Okay, very dramatic, but those are my thoughts. It is about what I just watched in Fleabag, but also what I’m thinking about the world. So suddenly, you’ve invited yourself into the conversation instead of passively watching the show.
Now you have the decontextualized Notes where you can create “tags” to organize them. Tags are like themes—you want them to be pretty general, but specific enough. You’re going to use those tags as the link between other Notes.
Step 3: Source Material Tags—Fleabag
Words and phrases to categorize Notes from Step 2 to look back on for future reference.
#desires
#saviorcomplex
#suppression
#romanticlove
Words and phrases to categorize Notes from Step 2 to look back on for future reference.
#desires
#saviorcomplex
#suppression
#romanticlove
With that episode of Fleabag, everybody who watches it will cling onto different parts and go deeper with different realms than me. I’ve been super interested in concepts of women’s rage, women’s desire, suppression, and martyrdom. It’s clear in this Note, but it will also become clear in the amount of Notes that build up over time in that tag. Revisiting and digging into tags shows themes that pique your curiosity but come from different sources; you’re visualizing how things you consume can be in conversation with each other and make unexpected connections.
Then, it’s totally up to you what you want to do with those interests—how you want to dive deeper with them.
Maybe you want to start a Substack or a podcast. You write a film or you want to create a song. I don’t know what kind of artist you are, but the point is that we never sit down to create something with a full understanding of what it is that we want to create. We have to go through the long, laborious, sometimes boring, sometimes embarrassing process of creating it and of finding our own interests and curiosities and questions along the way. This note-taking process can be your friend in that.
Then, it’s totally up to you what you want to do with those interests—how you want to dive deeper with them.
Maybe you want to start a Substack or a podcast. You write a film or you want to create a song. I don’t know what kind of artist you are, but the point is that we never sit down to create something with a full understanding of what it is that we want to create. We have to go through the long, laborious, sometimes boring, sometimes embarrassing process of creating it and of finding our own interests and curiosities and questions along the way. This note-taking process can be your friend in that.
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