I always liked the idea of having some kind of online, creative project. I’ve considered and even tried my hand at a few things: generative (code) art, a simple personal website with a cool theme, a personal website for more career-oriented stuff like a little coding project portfolio, or figuring out where I can post photos I take (not necessarily to share, but to at least curate and display my photos somewhere).
I think the underlying idea here is that I don’t know what to do. I have this motivation to take on my own creative projects, and I satisfy it with bouts of fun songwriting and recording, or photography and the editing process. But in the digital age and being a software developer, I’ve always felt like I could take advantage of my skill and consider more digital, artistic projects.
When I decided to start using Obsidian for note-taking, I wrote this about my intention for using it:
I want to
- Learn more by writing notes when I’m consuming things for education (work, hobbies, etc.)
- Capture learnings, ideas, snippets, etc.
- Encourage myself to write more — thoughts, journals, film reviews, whatever.
I even like the idea of writing; more evidence that I crave creative outlets. It’s mixed with a craving for productivity too, though. I want the creative things I do to be out of habit. Additionally, hobbies can have a learning curve, so taking notes or writing about it might help too.
The idea of a digital garden was interesting to me. It seems like the term popularly refers to a digital nook (i.e. a website) where you publicly write anything you want from notes to original ideas, finished or unfinished. An online notebook or scratchpad, but with less rigor and formalities than an encyclopedia or study notes for an exam.
That’s not necessarily what I want, but I like the idea. A lot of what I want to do is in the form of writing, and that includes notes, so the idea of connecting the stuff I write in Obsidian to this “creative website” makes sense to me.
But the “garden” part speaks to me the most, it doesn’t only have to be what I write (e.g. song lyrics, notes, ideas), but I imagine that maybe there’s a way I can dedicate a section of this site to photos too, and I can write about what it is about the photo I like or try to analyze it.
My key words are:
- Curate; the creative outlet of making the thing look like what I want it to look like. Similar to curating my home.
- Display; putting things I like (e.g. photos I took, things I wrote) on display. It doesn’t mean that I want eyeballs to point at it, but I do like the idea of having a place anybody can stumble on (or I can direct them to, if I want to show them).
- Habit; I believe that making things easy and enjoyable encourages the thing to happen again. That doesn’t mean only easy and enjoyable things can become a habit or that difficult things can’t become a habit. But I don’t think my creative endeavors are something I need to stress myself to make happen, and if I can minimize obstacles then I might enjoy it more and therefore more likely make a habit of it.
- Create; I have a craving to create. It’s not an existential need (yet), but I know that I enjoy creating things and I enjoy the process of it too.
A garden can have flowers for displaying and vegetables for growing. I can curate where the flowers go and choose what vegetables I plant, and it doesn’t have to be perfect. A garden encourages a habit of watering and taking care of. Maybe I enjoy tending a garden.