Memex

Welcome to my Obsidian-based personal knowledge management (PKM) digital garden... thing! Or whatever you want to call this kind of non-linear, link-based wiki notes ...thing? Some might call it a second brain, a Zettelkasten, or simply a knowledge base similar to a personal Wikipedia. But, I have tended to name my various personal note systems "Memex" based on Vannevar Bush's ahead-of-its-time memex concept. So, that's what I've been calling my Obsidian-based system too.

[Vannevar Bush's "memex" concept]

This kind of note system (PKM/zettelkasten/wiki) relies heavily on links - not only traditional forward links like in webpages, but also "backlinks," which are links to notes that themselves link to that current note. These backlinks are listed at the bottom of each note and are crucial because they provide structure and basic organization with minimal effort. The usefulness of the links grow exponentially as you add notes and links because of the sometimes surprising relationships you discover among your own thoughts that you may not have otherwise recognized.

Both kinds of links are also represented visually in the local graph in the right sidebar. And you can view all of my published notes together in a graph view by clicking on the 'Global Graph' button in the upper right graph. Here is what my Global Graph looks like in my local Obsidian app on my Mac:

[Only some of these notes I make public on this website.]

I use a type system where most notes are given a type and have default fields and colors. E.g, light green = general concepts/terms, turquoise = technology, purple = personal projects/responsibilities, red = sources/books/bookmarks, beige = people/organizations, dark green = places, blue = my notes/writing/thoughts, yellow = folders/organizational/MOCs/mind maps.

I am still experimenting with the idea of publishing any of these notes. I don't really have a specific goal in mind other than I like the potential of non-linear and in-progress sharing of notes and thoughts as in the idea of digital gardens.

I am sporadically sharing notes in two main areas:

Here are some notes that could serve as an entry point and that branch off into related areas.