ASCENT: alpine slope

Last quarter (April–June), my goal was to make clear nested references to daily notes clear within my Obsidian vault. Each daily note was linked in a weekly note, each weekly note was linked in a monthly, each monthly note was linked in a quarterly note, each quarterly note was linked in a yearly note (of which I only have one so far). The goal was to set up a structure where I can easily find my past work by the use of timestamps in and out of my Obsidian vault. If I want to find something, I only need to navigate through these periodic notes and use the unique timestamp note names to see what I was up to at a particular place and time. 

I more than succeeded in this mission. But the problem is, my metric became my goal. Goodhart’s law, of course! I was not immune. It became more important for me to structure all my notes within my vault and nest them all into each other neatly than it was to *actually use my notes*. This resulted in a lot of writing that linked neither back nor forth, that has no relation to other things I am working on, that amounts to piles of letters that shall likely never see the light of day.

Of course, I am only learning right now. I expected to make many mistakes, just as I made many mistakes to get better at the piano. On that instrument, I had to drop out of music school before I “got it” and finally found my voice as an artist. It takes me a while to get onto the right track. But soon as I do, it feels so obvious that the right way was always right there.

The proper process for writing has come to me. I must write on paper til I am ready to commit to an idea and dig deeper into it. Else, I am stuck typing in circles around random trash or scrolling through my Twitter feed. The importance of my physical media is not lost on me. I realize more than ever the importance of moats, for this is all that prevents a race to the bottom (lowest common denominator) in terms of our attention.

It would be a lot more convenient to think that I work better on a laptop. But all my experiences show me and ultimately convince me that generating paper “screens” makes me write much better and make far more useful connections. The computer is better for distribution, but the notebook is far better for contribution. I give more to the world through the pen than through the scissor switch keyboard.

As I type this in a library, the love of my dreams is teaching at a nearby music school. She works hard every day, and wishes for me to have the space to explore my own creative ideas. Does it not dishonor the husband for his wife to work outside the home so that he may create his own worlds? Yet I shall allow this to be for now, for I am in need of room to grow. I was afraid of writing on paper honestly til she came along. I always thought it was a waste for me to put pen to paper, seeing that I could just type everything up! Seeing the attachment she has to her own physical journaling practice, before and after we met, shows me how deeply personal media is the seed of all that can (or at least *should*) be scaled up and distributed.

I have been much too distracted over the course of my life: first by school, then by politics, and up til recently by the search for the right words. Coming to Christ was a good way for me to cease my former futilities, or at least to detach myself from a life of deep-seated identity in vain pursuits. Knowing that everything I do must be for the Lord, I am guided much better than before on the question of how I should manage my time and resources.

Today, I spent some amount of time moving money between my accounts. I want to manage my accounts better, and part of this is making the savings between me and the love of my dreams work properly for us. (By the way, For any of my Canadian readers: My Wealthsimple referral code is KKKXJG—use it for both of us to get 25.00 CAD upon your deposit of 1.00 CAD! I feel fine with putting this promotion here, because I use their services and have a big chunk of my emergency fund on their platform.) Proper stewardship of resources is necessary. I cannot hide from the truth that I am called to care and provide for my family and friends and church. I must see what my faith can produce for those around me, not only on the front of my writings but also in the monetization of those writings. Why can I not see that the very same process by which my words move through the world is also the one by which money shall flow? They are one and the same. I can think of it like this: If I can pay money to spread the gospel more, and get this money to come back to me, have I not helped God work in people’s lives? Or at least, have I not tuned my heart more toward the Lord who works through all? My heart posture must be adroit, lest I succumb to idolatries of all kinds. A deep love of money and a deep hate of money are but two different sects within Satan’s army.

My wife thinks of me before herself. I too place her needs above my own, though my flesh resists from time to time! When I get into the flow of creating, I lose sight of what matters most. This is the way in which creation can become the worst of idolatries; if we care more about making our own creations come to be rather than stewarding God’s creation (seeing that we ourselves, along with all “our” fruits, ultimately come from above), we cannot be said to love the Lord our God. I must always have Christ in mind. The world makes this hard much of the time! The methods of the world are stated innocuously, as but systems through which we may act. But they each have an ontology that twists divine truth, that if taken literally can make people stray from the way. Remember: be on the straight and narrow. This matters more than petty gains.

In one sense, all that we do is doomed to be consigned to void. For this earth shall pass away with the age! But God has see all in every age, and forever in his story we shall be characters who did exactly as they willed to do at the exact hour when they were meant to. Our very intentions are written into the fabric of spacetime. (I wanted to say “tapestry” so badly, due to having seen it so many times in ChatGPT outputs.) So we must not fear the results that shall come to be! We only need to trust in God that acting with a pure heart and turning to Christ is enough for all to be redeemed, in our lives and in the lives of others. I am not perfect, but my perfect God has more than made up for that.

It is time to focus on the deeper questions, to create with purpose, to participate in the spiritual war going on between the faithful elect in Christ and the army of the deceiver. I have done my share of experimentation over the course of the past quarter, and now it is time for me to bring everything together and create for the sake of bringing glory to the King.

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