Um. Okay. Let’s do this. Dendron, take 1.

I guess it’s sort of fitting that I’m using a tool named after the very part of me that’s screaming at me not to do this. That’s not very profound, is it? Every person who’s ever used this tool has plenty of dendrons, screaming and otherwise.

I’m scatterbrained to hell with the attention span of a sparrow. Or a goldfish. Actually, goldfish have decent attention spans. Maybe a squirrel? Anyways, it’s pretty short. And I’ve been on this weird kick lately about reclaiming the Web, Web 3.0, going offline-online, taking some of the tech out of tech. I’m a rather analogue person, but I find myself looking at screens a lot recently since I’m at home right now after a little COVID scare detained me. And I guess I find my mind darting from here to there, so what better way to sate her than to imbue some semblance of organization at 85 wpm? I do love to write; I can hardly bring myself to use a tablet and pen, because they lack the tactile experience of paper. But in times like these, when my attention cannot rest, it is perhaps better to use two hands instead of one.

Dendron will be — already is — another rabbit hole. From the cookbook to its features, all the way down to relearning Vim bindings, I’m already spending more time thinking about it than engaging with it. Maybe that’s for the best. But also. Gotta just. Use it. No matter how messy it ends up. The advantage over paper being the ease of erasing fucky paragraphs or pages, restructuring links, straight-up deleting this whole folder. But the thinking… is it not kind of nice? ^{(oh shit that markdown syntax highlighting caught me off guard. you can’t see it, or maybe you can, but wow. neat)} It’s like If On A Winter’s Night A Traveler ^(lmao I should make a link to that one day WHAT IF)^, the allure of endless beginnings before you’re all bogged down by STUFF, by the plot and the characters and worrying about who dies. It’s just a fresh book with that glue smell, crisp pages that make your fingers feel a little dusty, and words you know so well in a combination completely alien to you. And it ROCKS. Right off the top of my head I’m trying to think of what the HELL pages I want in this thing:

• articles to read
  • although i have Pocket for that? but maybe having that stuff here will help keep me accountable idk ^{(I’m becoming more unhinged as this goes on. perfect.)}
• Zettelkasten? Although high-key I’ve been on a weird binge of info-organization techniques/systems/paradigms today and I’m so EXHAUSTED of white men manifesto-ing at me with ~minimal webpages~ talmbout how to dump my brains on paper. fuck em.
  • altho i do see the validity in that system. it’s kinda cute bc this is a hierarchical system (i am a hierarchical brain) while also having that slick backlinking capability. we stan dual linearity and nonlinearity. non-euclidean gang
• general study stuff (not languages, I need to write those by HAND for my LANGUAGE PROCESSING CENTER)
  • racialism (sean palmer)
    • who the fuck refuses to self identify as Black? I want to understand
  • mysticism?
    • honestly idek why i’m watchin all these lectures on ibn arabi and stuff — I’m not really into mysticism, i’m literally agnostic. and yet something of it is so fascinating to me, that they take these pantheistic, hellenistic worldviews and philosophies and adapt them to islam? kinda baller
    • also the idea of learning shit for a Purpose and not just because it’s Cool »»»> so I’ll type up stuff if i WANT
    • also also general north african/middle eastern history. i really just want a firm and overly solid foundation on which to build my understanding of tuareg culture lakmlgjlkjf
  • lo-tech life notes (thi is an OFFLINE service it counts as lo-tech fuck! off! ^{(dunno who’s supposed to be fucking off but!!)})
  • probably WON’T follow up on this but fusion and food? identity and food? I just finished Edward Lee’s Buttermilk Graffiti today (for The Box) and parts of his philosophy on food needing to leave its origins to “evolve” and shit didn’t sit well w me. But I dunno if that’s because I’m full of RiGhTeOuS aNgEr or if I’m just smooth-brained when it comes to the fluidity of cuisine as a cultural artifact
  • black radical thought!!!
    • black feminists (bell hooks, davis, ashata shakur)
    • black marxists
    • but also black moderates like I want a diversity of thought ya feel?
    • BLASIANS???
  • zainichi shit
    • lowkey my passion for that area of study has cooled somewhat because of the massive roadblocks when it comes to societal change. but ALSO i think being on the ground there and seeing that community will help me remember what it’s all for.
    • zainichi artists? like visual artists beyond simply literature
    • also documentaries, like the one that lady sent us IT’S OFFLINE SOON GO GO GO
• considering I have my paper journal and Paper is Life, I see the journal function of Dendron serving more as a brain dump when i’m at my laptop, or when I have lots and LOTS of thoughts to vomit in a very little time. pressure cooker lid and all. but that’s still a use!

Uh. So. Ultimately I am still trying to mediate my analogue and digital tendencies. I want to learn more CS stuff so I can build dope shit but I can’t focus atm. Maybe this will help be a repo for my studying?

I say that like thrice a year tho and never actually build anything. Started my Neocities, tho, which is somethign. Installed a CLI today bc I want to be a Real Developer and edit Locally and then Push to the Server using my Command Line chokes

also u know what is hilarious. i just fucked off for about 15 minutes trying to figure out why superscript wasn’t showing up in the preview. html tags are the way. anyways. (side note (within a side note)) these block quotes slap.

And if not for studying, at least it will be something To Do and a record that I did NOT, in fact, simply lie down and take it when my anxiety said girl. i’m coming for u.

X

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