I’ve always liked the idea of a digital garden, even tried to set one up a few times, but never really managed to make one stick. Well, perhaps that’s not strictly true, I do have one in Apple notes, but it’s not a published one.
The appeal comes from my note-taking itself. I write them obsessively, about anything and everything. They evolve all the time. Get overwritten, rewritten and added too as much as new ones sprout up, and that is perhaps what I would like my blog to be.
Blog posts are often seen as rigid things. An unmoving line in the dirt of what we think and the things we believe in. Whereas, much like my note-taking, the thoughts, and motivations for them evolve and change. They age just like the rest of our thoughts. The things we write and publish online should not be thought of as rigid things. Instead of being pushed out to the world at one point, they should be allowed to change over time.
This style of note-taking is typically referred to as Evergreen notes by those that like to tend their online digital gardens. They fluctuate far more than your traditional blog posts, and can offer much more in return. Blog posts, however, are the opposite. Deciduous, if you will. Sure, you can go back and update blog posts or link to new ones, but they are typically just left to stagnate. Left as a reflection of one point in time. Barely revisited. Wilting away. Which kind of makes me sad.
I’m not sure what has caused this feeling. These motivations have existed for a while, but never quite reached this level of motivation, my desire to ditch my phone has reached the levels I have never experienced before, and I’ve gone and done it. For the next 4 weeks, at least, I will be back to using a flip phone, so I figured I might as well get some blog posts (and entertainment) out of it while I navigate this weirdness.
A week or so ago, I was doing the yearly practice of trying to work out when the new iPhone should come out, and when the best time to sell my current version would be. It’s a fine line between having to use a backup phone for a while and getting the most for a device that will drop in price the closer to the iPhone event we get. I usually go back to using my trusty first generation iPhone SE for a week or so, and by the end of it I am ready to throw it in the bin. This year, my SE has not risen from the ashes, and so I’ve opted for something more radical.
Listen, I’ve been banging on about hating my phone but needing to use it for ages, but never done anything drastic before. I’m uncertain if it is because I’m reading Stolen Focus by Johann Hart presently, or I’m just getting my yearly internet annoyance period. Whatever the motivation for it is, my SIM card is now in a Nokia 2660 Flip phone that cost me a whole £25. Well, actually two of them are, my work phone and my personal number because this phone is Dual sim (and that’s about the only useful thing about it).
In the first few hours, I’ve already had a panic because I couldn’t check how much money was in my bank account before I made a purchase. I’ve also been teased relentlessly by my wife and son for daring to take a call in public on it, but I think I am getting there. I will no doubt hit numerous road blocks along the way, and might end up stomping into town to buy a cheap iPhone, but it will be amusing for everyone to watch (or read about) anyway.
As most people will already be aware, I’m running the London Marathon to raise funds for the Epilepsy Society. A charity very close to my heart. Although the run isn’t until April 2024, I need to start ramping up my running in preparation and unfortunately, this is proving more difficult than I thought.
In December 2021, I got my third COVID-19 vaccine, the so-called winter booster. This started one of the biggest issues I’ve had to overcome in my life because it threw my life into chaos. I’d not experienced any side effects to the other two shots, but immediately following this one I didn’t feel myself and still don’t. After a few weeks of suffering, I discovered I had issues with my heart and lungs, leaving me unable to even walk very far without feeling out of breath.
This was devastating to me. I’ve always been active, raising money for charity and running was one of my favourite things to do. The inability to do much affected my mental health and my family, and that still continues to this day. Although I am much better than I have been, running and placing too much stress on my system has been frustrating.
I thought that these issues were starting to wear off, but as soon as I’ve tried to run again, doing anything but a mild pace results in my lungs hating me for days afterwards. So I’m trying to take this really slow and steady, but I think the pace I used to run at is ingrained in my legs.
I’m aiming to run the 26.2 miles in around 4:30, which is slow but a pace achievable for me. This is a little over 10 minute miles or 6:23 kilometres. My plan was to start off at this pace and increase my mileage very slowly over time. Yet, trying to slow myself down for my bodies sake, takes too much concentration at the minute. Any time I try to switch off and enjoy the run, my legs start speeding up again!
Within a few minutes, I realise I’m going too fast because my lungs are telling me off and I have to slow down again. It’s a ridiculous problem to have, and one that results in me running around a minute per km too fast. This has also put some stress on my body that I didn’t want, and my breathing is suffering at the minute. There is no question about me keeping going, but I may have underestimated the effort needed. As well, as its effects on the rest of my life.
Like Cobra Kai, the life cycle of talking about Really Simple Syndication feeds never dies. Since reaching 2.0 thanks to the development group that included Aaron Swartz, RSS has become one of the backbones of the internet. Web silos can try all they like to shut it down and control everything, but it continues to deliver everything from your favourite podcasts to the best websites directly to your proverbial door.
Despite being a massive proponent of RSS, I have been fighting with it for a while. Using other services seemingly built on top of it to suite me better, but nothing beats simply subscribing to your favourite feeds in a simple app of your choice. I am back to doing exactly that because of issues, bugs and perhaps web silos – I simply can’t find anything better.
Listen. Matter has given it a good go and I thoroughly enjoy using it. So much so that I paid for a Patron subscription, including three years of access and priority support. Building several shortcuts and reading workflows to share highlights to my blog and annotate interesting articles. Since before their own 2.0 version, I’ve been using it to subscribe to much of the web through RSS and delivering newsletters to it. However, it just doesn’t cut it any more.
See the screenshots above, I am subscribed to Matt Birchler’s blog feed in both Matter and Reeder 5. These should be the same, yet there’s a stark difference with what is available for me to read. Despite flagging feeds all the time because I know there are posts missing, nothing ever changes. I realise that Matter does numerous fancy things by parsing all the web content etc, but this is more of a realisation that regular old RSS is best.
In a search to find a replacement, I went on a tour of all the services I could find or came recommended. Many built on top of RSS. Some offered seemingly extortionate ‘Pro’ subscriptions for finding new RSS feeds for you (yet only sticking to well-known websites). Even more of them offered me some kind of assistant to summarise the articles for me. Among all the investigation, I discovered something different – like my note-taking, the simplest path is the best.
If you want to build some fancy second brain and map your thoughts, or write notes until your fingers are numb, there’s a service out there for you. Yet, the two decade old idea of just subscribing to the RSS feed is often the way to go.
Typically, I enjoy peace and quiet more than anything else. By far, my favourite time is after everyone is fast asleep, and I can enjoy the dullness of the world. I am not aware of any sensory processing issues with my brain, I just don’t understand why everyday life has to be an assault on my senses, and I’d give anything to quieten it down. Thankfully, it only cost me £249.
I’ve theorised that this might be due to the world needing to constantly try to sell me something. I hate the needless background music in gyms, but it seems to spread everywhere. So much so that I have taken to wearing AirPods a lot of the time just to tune some of it out.
Noisy telephone conversations in coffee shops, dull background rumbling of vending machines, wherever it is, all I need to do is pop in my AirPods, and it all goes away. Despite this feeling like I’m mad at the world, this post is more to express my love of my AirPods and why.
These tiny white bits of genius (obviously other noise-cancelling headphones are available) are my favourite bit of technology I own. Not only do they help with quietening down the world, they also improve me hearing the things that matter. Apple has done a wonderful job of transparency mode when you need to hear the things going on around you, and the upcoming Adaptive Audio is a wonderful improvement.
There’s still the unshakable feeling that I am being rude by wearing my headphones, but I think the world is getting used to it. If teenagers can get away with it, so can I!