free from the cloud (why inconvenience is okay with me)
My notion setup seems to be a fan favorite post. Which is surprising considering it does not have the bells and whistles of other notion setups. I do have an update on that today and I think you might actually love it.
I found something even better.
I don’t know about you but I’m a bit paranoid writing down my thoughts. Sure, I have my hobo, but I don’t get too deep there if anything its a progress journal and it’s not that interesting. But on the other hand I don’t feel comfortable opening up on the internet either - because of this little thing called internet connectivity.
I think it’s important to give yourself places to be totally unfiltered and honest. But how on earth am I meant to do that when all of my thoughts are just there… on the internet. synced to multiple devices. Call me crazy I don’t care. I cant write a real and honest diary on any online platform. Sue me! While looking through a few privacy focused switches for various online functions I came across Obsidian. It’s this cool thing that basically turns your notepad into it’s own OS. Honestly I don’t think there is anything obsidian can’t do. Seriously, has someone got this thing running DOOM yet?” I know what you’re thinking, why waste all my previous work, why leave such a large community and a platform you’ve been using for years at this point instead of just moving my personal stuff to obsidian?
Well I’m so glad you asked invisible blog reader. The answer to that is Digital minimalism. I won’t go too in depth on this topic today, if I did this post would take a week to read. But to put it plainly I hate having multiple apps for the same thing. The endless notifications, icons on my phone and desktop, never having a clear picture on a project I’m working on. Drives me up the wall.
As for how I’m using obsidian now, I’m so happy to feel comfortable enough to be ambitious without worrying some stray cloud storage employee is making fun of me on their work break. I have a yearly and monthly page to go wild on alongside some fun challenges for myself where I go into great and unrealistic detail about how to finish said challenges. I also use it as a regular note taking app for appointments and now unit studies for homeschooling, alongside an ever-growing list of recipes that I’ve made and loved. I finally feel like I have the perfect homemaking binder for me. The file system also makes total sense to me and I’ve replicated the Russian doll system of my Notion even more efficiently than before.
I’d also like to touch on the Obsidian community. I have to admit, it’s even a bit cooky and over my head even by my standards sometimes. You’ve got people making videos that might as well be in French they make no sense. But somehow its inspiring to see someone be so passionate about this software. It’s a bit of a meme to call obsidian your second brain at this point. Lurk around in the subreddit and you’ll get what I’m talking about. But beyond all of that is the immense creativity and pure practical features that people love about this application.
As you go even deeper you can start to find peoples digital gardens that they've made public with the controversial but in my opinion amazing graph view. I’m honestly considering making one myself. But for now obsidian is my little project for this year. It’s a great excuse to start learning about things like JavaScript outside of my blog.
Is Obsidian the perfect tool for you? I don’t know. If you’re frustrated with digital clutter and are willing to put in some research and have the time to try something new I’d give it a go. If you’re thinking about it I would start with the subreddit and avoid Youtube videos. Now if you’ll excuse me I am off to manually update my vault. Good riddance cloud storage.