Hi There,
Welcome to my digital garden.
I started writing on the Internet in 2015, and managed a blog until 2022, when I created a new blog. In 2015, I was primarily interested in sharing poems, what I was learning or everyday tech tools I was using. The decision to create a new blog was a step toward self-hosting and managing all my writing. As a result of sharing thoughts and essays there, I have gained a diverse set of subscribers. It has, however, come with a natural desire to please, or rather to perform for this audience. I find that what I want to share becomes restricted to my mental image of who might read it and how they might perceive it. Naturally, this restricts my freedom in what I share and how I write it.
I’ve always faced a bit of internal conflict about what is worthy of being a blog post. I like to think that readers value their time, and I don’t want to spam them with every single thought I think is “interesting.” Outside of academia, most of what I write can either be classified as one of the following: journal entry, idea, thought/observation, documentation, technical article, essay, or letter.
I’ve been looking for a place to organize a collection of random notes, unfinished essays, thoughts, or curated lists on the internet. I wanted to achieve this with the “Thoughts” category on my blog, but that itself now has its formality. I recently stumbled upon this concept of a “digital garden”. It’s a term that Jacky Zhao carefully described in this article.
A digital garden is not a file cabinet, nor is it fully an index. A digital garden is less so a well-kempt plot for farming and more a mess of entangled growth. It is a network of interconnected ideas and thoughts, clustered by how they are associated with each other.
I realized that this term accurately captures what I want, which is why I’ve decided to borrow it and start my garden. This digital garden will serve as a repository that will grow and self-organize itself with time. There will be no subscription forms, so I don’t feel pressured to cater to an audience. I’m excited to see how this will grow and evolve.
You can find writings and personal curations in this garden here:
Kelvin