Hello 5am
Yeah. Like clockwork. Down our street the wedding music and speeches start. It will go all day and into the night. Today is a good day to go out for coffee. I’m just enough barang to put in my earbuds and get Spotify doing its things. Finding words to write any time is not daunting. The daily note gets started at 5am thanks to an Apple shortcut iA made and I changed a bit. Then it’s ready and I can write there.
I have been thinking on how I do the daily journal or diary or note or whatever. It’s always tempting to use an app. I like everlog. There are problems with it at least for me.
- Limited screen real estate in my iPhone. I have a puny iPhone 13. It works a joy for me and it’s from my daughter here. Writing on it I enjoy. When I add an app and it’s menus and choices and options I feel like there’s only a small window left to do the actual writing. The iA writer app is the reverse. I get a nice little writing area. No menus. No awkwardness.
- Import and exports limit me. I don’t really care to import my markdown files until I do. Then there’s no way. Exporting always means I have to clean up the resulting markdown mess. Photos are inline and I admit to using content blocks on my daily note. I could use markdown syntax. I do for the blog. Call me lazy.
- The writing itself. What I want is no real block or choice or options. I want to just write. The easier I can get to the writing the better. Also if I want to try another markdown editor most I have to do is copy two folders from one to another iCloud Drive folder. I do this every so often. I like One Markdown a lot.
So I am lazy in all the things. I prefer to just get to writing without weather and location and font and mood and whatever. I do this for me. I want my window to my words to be without all the dressing. I admire the app developers creating a personal thing like a journal. They make choices. I don’t care for some of them. Obsidian is particularly noxious to me with this. I don’t need to link notes or want pretty graphics of my little digital world. I want to just write.
So I don’t use the apps that promise some kind of personal experience or one that promises some kind of personal knowledge management system based on PARA or CODE or whatever. I want the files and right there.
So I’m tempted sometimes and I try. I fail. Even consider Day One. See others. Sometimes try. The developer choices are their choices. If people need all that there’s an app for that I guess.
Gonna put this thing down and listen to my music. See you after the break and intermission. I will be back with some thoughts on coffee away downtown and by the river in Siem Reap.
Hello from Time Coffee
So here I am. It’s after 9am and I sit at the coffee shop. Peaceful here. Got about half my iced coffee left. Then a beautiful Siem Reap day to go for some kind of walk.
I still wander around with writing choices. Enjoy trying things. See how I do. The most attractive thing is the files live on regardless of my choices. All the pesky little thoughts and demands. Desires and irritations. Yeah. All the stuff that makes up my journal. Meanwhile a beautiful day by the river.
And I get iced tea from the nice Khmer barista. I’ll consider all the words and likely never make a change to some app. Unless I do make a change.
It seems like a reasonable stance to take. Don’t do it unless I do it. Then all bets are off. But the writing never is.
See ya.
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Sleep was minimal