Thanks for posting this. I stumbled upon Joan Westenberg via the YouTube algorithm a few weeks ago and have been enjoying the Essays, Podcasts and Videos ever since. Since I've been struggling over the last many years with how to navigate this world, I can say these thoughts and insights have been enlightening and very to the point.

I recently shared the The Unbearable Lightness of Cringe (podcast / essay) with my high school, early college age kids. So many good bits in there that younger folks are wrestling with these days.

Joan Westenberg’s writing is precise, honest, to-the-point and deserves to be read more.

People take themselves and their personal knowledge management systems too seriously :-) myself included :-) I write things down knowing that I'll forget what I wrote down and won't be able to find much of it but the writing down process enables internal reflection and synthesis. Any backup brain is a bonus but no system is perfect and no backup brain truly is a backup!

Interestingly, Joan cites Merlin Donald’s theories of the evolution of the human brain as support for her view that a “second brain” is an absurd and counterproductive metaphor. But Donald’s own writing was extremely supportive of external memory systems, from books and libraries to computers and ultimately the Internet, . See for example his 2001 essay “Memory palaces: The revolutionary function of libraries."

What's missing from this, I think, is a simple system for resurfacing old notes regularly. I use Obsidian as a 'second brain' It's where I put notes on books and articles. Each note is a standalone idea from a book or article, so articles tend to generate 1-3 notes and books can generate anywhere from a few to a few dozen.

Each day, an Obsidian plugin shows me some semi-random notes from my entire log of notes. By reading them again, new ideas and connections form in my head based on a mix of (a) having learned new things and grown as a person since the last time I read the note, and (b) the "random" notes that just happen to be in today's queue.

See also I Spent 90 Days Rebuilding My Brain. Here's What I Learned.

I need to be honest about what happened next. It was brutal.

The first week felt like meditating in a construction zone. My hand cramped after two paragraphs of writing. I'd reach for my phone every few minutes, then remember the rule and feel a genuine mix of shame and anxiety. I'd start reading and find myself skimming, searching for the "good parts" instead of letting the author's argument unfold.

By week two, I was bargaining with myself. "Just a quick Threads / Farcaster check to see if anything important happened." "Maybe I can use voice-to-text instead of handwriting." "Surely one YouTube binge during my walk doesn't count."

I failed constantly. But I kept returning to the rules, and slowly, something shifted.

Week three brought the first breakthrough.