What Are My Notes For?
Some comments on my reddit post (where I shared my notes) took me by surprise the other day, “You are taking notes for the sake of taking notes,” “What are you working on?” “What did you produce with it?” [1]
Writing has to address problems, and going through life—it’s full of problems. So, naturally, when you write something you can end up addressing your life’s problems.
But that’s not it—writing also makes your unconscious problems conscious. Writing works both ways—it helps you with your problems, including the problem of what problems to solve.
And taking these notes did help me with my real life decisions—both professional and personal. I thought about them clearly because I wrote about them: where to work, what to invest in, to get married. These were problems to be solved—and I solved them with writing. You can’t read them, but those decisions were my products.
I write primarily for myself—for my own problems, and to find the next problems to work on. Does that mean my notes are useless to everyone else? I don’t think so. They can help you too—if the timing is right. [2]
Life happens with pen and paper, but it happens outside of it.
Notes
[1] Is doing anything for its own sake a problem? Isn’t that the definition of art?
[2] But in writing this essay, I realized that I did put my notes in public for the sake of going public. My next problem is figuring out what to learn in public.