/blog

Now that I've been using my custom CMS for a couple of years I am building a new body of writing, both on the blog and in the journal.

The blog has had 'On This Day' for a while and I thought it was about time I added the feature to the journal so that I can look back over my thoughts in previous years. 'Random entry' and search links have been there almost from the beginning but OTD helps bring things together in a more structured way.

The journal is a useful aide memoire (as is the blog) which now contains over 800 entries of varying lengths and depths. Being able to quickly and easily review my private thoughts from year to year (as well as my public ones) will be ... illuminating.

Michael mentioned taking pictures of analog writing and adding them to his daily note page in Obsidian so that it can be aligned with his digital journalling.

I've been taking photos of handwritten stuff for years but normally as a precursor to retyping parts of it for blog posts. It doesn't just have to be stuff for posts, just random notes, doodles, sketches, whatever. Handwriting something gets you in a completely different headspace to typing, it's something I have struggled with (and written about on numerous occasions) but something I really want to get back to – not instead of digital but alongside it.

Taking photos of notes etc. on paper and uploading them alongside the digital, without any ulterior motive, is a great idea and something I might start doing. I've added an upload form (just as with blog posts) to the Journal in anticipation.

Michael calls it a compromise but I think it's deeper than that. It's a recognition that the two are as just as valid and important as each other, and one should not be dismissed in favour of the other.