No. 118 Scenes and subcultures can be so tiring
No. 118 • 10/08/2025
Dear readers,
Thanks to everyone who's already signed up for COMPOSITION. We've got an active readership developing (lots of follow-up questions and positive comments in the inbox), and the weekly lessons are starting to take shape. Next issue I'll be showing what my reference notes look like (they've changed quite a bit), how I use them, and for what reasons. If I have space, I'll talk about how reference notes can be leveraged as a compliment to writing in the margins of books (which I do very very often). Although, if not this week, the following week for sure.
On a separate note.... Noise vs Signal
Over the past few months, I've asked and heard back from dozens of you in the pkm/zettelkasten world on your feelings about and participation levels in those worlds. Many of you shared some version of the same story: You're burned out on the noise, but still really want the signal. Basically, this:
- Too much hype / not enough humility
- Too many low-quality takes / not enough curation of the good stuff
- Too many debates and arguments / not enough meaningful discourse
- Too many comments in the forums / not a good way to weed through it all
I one zillion percent understand.
Part of my job in this world is to isolate the good from the bad; the radical insights and inspirations from the silly scene politics. It's something I love doing, and have been doing for decades.
With religion / spirituality, my goal has been to help people reclaim their familial traditions, through courses, books, articles, and zines. With yoga, I started a small Ashtanga space, paring the practice back to its core essentials (morning practice in a remodeled garage, like the 80s). Most recently, I've been trying to demystify the reading → writing → note-taking → publishing pipeline, because so many people who should be doing all the above, don't (but really want to).
Let me mind the gap between you and what's lame.
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What I’m up to writing / teaching / speaking….
- Working on three book manuscripts. The most active deals with how to skillfully (and meaningfully) make connections between ideas.
- COMPOSITION 006 (10/3/25) spoke to the benefits of interpreting ideas as information, which set up this week's edition on reference notes, where I show how I structure reference notes, why I use them, and how they can be seen as a compliment to writing in the margins of books (which I do very very often). To stay in the loop, sign up here. It's super cheap, and high yield.
What my book, A System for Writing, is up to....
- A System for Writing continues to pull in the posi-vibes.
"One of the best, clearest treatments of the 'Zettelkasten' system that I've come across. Provides just enough theory and practical exercises to get you started, without getting bogged down in minutiae. Really makes a case for the zettelkasten as a bottom-up, nonhierarchically organized system and clearly explains why that matters. I highly recommend this book to anyone hoping to learn how linked note-making can improve their thinking and writing."
"The only book on 'smart notes' or zettelkasten that is a coherent description of how to use them. Priceless"
- Came across a fun video from a reader breaking down the key points of the book. And, he gets most of it right! Loved this.
- Also, fun.... ASFW is in the process of being translated into Thai, along with being shopped around Chinese markets.
FROM LAST WEEK'S COMPOSITION...
You don't need to copy the entire book into your zettelkasten
Click-baity posts like this one—Atomic notes are a trap—are not really my vibe, but this one (as many click-baity posts do) got 120 likes and 90 comments, soooo....
Ostensibly, the post is a humble rant on the OP's eventual distain for so-called "atomic notes," or what I call, "single-idea notes," (cuz "atomicity" is heckin' confusing for people [see below], and who needs another "quippy" name). But, for my money, the real lead is buried here:
"The problem is that every time I went to review my highlights, I wanted to create a permanent note for each highlighted paragraph. And this, obviously, became impossible. /// In this attempt to keep notes atomic, I ended up having, literally, 600 permanent notes for a single book. And I spent even more time connecting them."
I hear this a lot: "I took hundreds of main notes on a single book." To which my inner self is always like, "Really? Whyyyyy???"
Your job as a reader / zettelkasten user is not to copy the entirety of a book into your notes. Your job is to take information and insight from what you read and apply it to what you're thinking and working on. The author has already tied all the ideas together in a way that best suited them. The results of which you are literally holding in your hand (the book). Your job is to excise from that weaving what serves your book, your writing, your thinking. If all you're doing is copying what an author said in the order they said it, then you're not working on your book. You're rewriting their's.
As for whether or not so-called "atomic notes" are something you need to do, u/Alarmed_Ad7726 wins comment of the day:
"The stuff that's supposed to work for everyone is best when you mess with it so it only works for you. It's awesome you found a better way that suits you. We've all been there, done that."
u/Alarmed_Ad7726's short 'n sweet response does two things I like:
- The response recognizes the importance of engaging with the practices others have proposed ("stuff that's supposed to work for everyone") as a basis for branching out ("best when you mess with it so it only works for you"). This reminds me of a new book written by zettelkasten's very own, Richard Griffiths, Shu Ha Ri: The Japanese Way of Learning, for Artists and Fighters, which details the Japanese student-teacher tradition of imitation, exploration, and innovation.
- The response alludes to a common trajectory many will walk: iteration. Applying things you've learned and tweaking them to fit your use-case. When you're starting out, it's hard to know things will evolve. So, you hold fast to the little you know, often feeling desperate to "get it right." But, elders will always tell you, things change, things evolve. What you harped on in the early days, will probably be the thing you need to let go of later.
To read the rest (there's six other takes on the week's discourse), sign up here.
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