Unprocessed notes on creating

Apr 22, 2023

• Notes
• Seedlings

In my work, I want to create artifacts that help elevate experiences—both mine and those of whom look at my work as a model. I want to elevate subjective experiences and help others value their own long walk.

My life work is both emotional and intellectual. The intellectual work involves Reading, Writing, and thinking (i.e., Philosophy, which is also my main craft). The emotional work involves Walking, poetry, and Photography, which provides a rest to intellectual work or facilitates and even guides the former. All of these cultivates Understanding of the world as it really is. They nurture a deep friendship with Wisdom, a friendship that helps me understand reality, uncover truth, and use these to act appropriately at each moment. Throughout this process, I am hoping to build a personal philosophy of living that is as honest as it is meaningful to me.

I want to use this personal philosophy of living to inform Living itself. I want to act on what I am learning as much as possible. From applying my worldview in real life, I then collect feedback that I can use to iterate on it. My goal is that by living my wisdom, I live a life filled with meaning and happiness.

Whatever I learn from understanding and living my philosophy, I share it to the world primarily through artifacts that could serve as archetypes and models for anyone who is called to live a life of philosophical contemplation or those who just want to enhance their well-being and their life’s meaningfulness. Right now, these artifacts include the following:

1. Notes in My forest garden of the mind: Seeds, Seedlings, and Evergreens
2. Photos
3. Poems
4. Newsletter updates about trying to pursue my calling as a contemplative and philosophically-inclined creative, while supporting myself through independent meaningful work.
5. Occassional essays

All of these creative artifacts would combine to create beautiful books that combine photographs, narratives, and poems.

I want to be surrounded with people who support the life I want to live. I want to have mentors, peers, and an audience. I want to have an intimate circle of support. I want to have a philosophical group. I want to have a writing group I want to be part of a scenius that both challenges me to expand my horizons and grounds me to the ultimate vision: a friendship with wisdom to live a happy and meaningful life.

I want to be able to support myself while pursuing this life work with a source of income that provides enough money, feels good and ideally closer to joy, and does not rob me of the time I need for the core of my life work. I am open to starting a business based on my art, designed in such a way that does not compromise it. However, my ideal sustenance model is the Patronage model.

Whenever I am ready, I want to work on applying my ideas to individuals on a more personal, intimate, and practical level through Facilitating facilitation.

To pursue my purpose and vision, I commit to doing the following:

1. To walk as much of the Philippines as I can.
2. To take photos and videos while walking.
3. To write abou my walks.
4. To publish creative essays (text + photos/images) in a website that will become the most comprehensive collection of information on walking in the Philippines.
5. To send intimate newsletters to readers.
6. To create books out of the above creative artifacts.
7. To establish a sustainance model that helps me continue doing the above.

To fulfill my purpose and vision, I divide actions related to it into Five areas of my life work

Understanding and living are the core of my life work

I divide these five areas into two categories: Inner work vs. outer work (see also Public work vs private work). The inner and private work (i.e., understanding and living) are the core of my life work. They are the fundamentally necessary areas of my work. I could do away with all the others but not them.

• To contribute to the adult self-directed learning community.
• To determine how to study philosophy outside academia.
• To demonstrate how to make the patron model work.
• To build my personal worldview.
• To build my own “way of life” or moral system.
• To write beautiful and effective narratives about my life, work, and beliefs.

• Establish a life work based on my signature strengths
• Is my work to champion truth or to celebrate life?
• Psychological needs in my life work
• Focus on what brings me Ginhawa in life and work

Fame is not my motivation nor is wealth. I am motivated by peace of mind, love, wisdom, and intellectual and emotional growth.

I am also more motivated by ginhawa and Freedom rather than being good at something or doing important work.

My photos shall be philosophical. Capture an abstract concept from macrocosm then use a moment, a subject, an object to represent that.

Same with writing. Macrocosmic concept but use a vignette to represent it.

Write naturally. When something worth saying has arised. Aspire to produce books. Write regular social media updates and monthly updates. But only write essays when they arise.

Fix zettelkasten to support a natural writing process as much as possible.

I write about my thoughts and experiences. Specifically, I write about my life stories, studies, and walks.

I want to write about living intentionally, finding what is true, looking and curating beauty, and striving to be kind and compassionate.

See My main life narrative

I want to intersperse philosophy, personal life, culture, history, place, and walking.

The format is a personal narrative.

Contents are:

• philosophical inquiries
• landscape descriptions
• poems
• quotations
• translations
• photos
• research
• general narratives and stories

Schedule

How often should you share a publishable artifact?

And yet again, I realize that the most optimal essay writing schedule for me is biweekly. It has the regularity and challenge of producing more writing. But it does not compromise quality and forces me to produce. It allows for editing. I know this already. I just resisted.

TLW newsletters will be prose

• essays
• Vignettes

Write naturally. When something worth saying has arised. Aspire to produce books. Write regular social media updates and monthly updates. But only write essays when they arise.

Fix zettelkasten to support a natural writing process as much as possible.

How to write organically? Follow Andy’s processand sched but apply to your own purposes. A short monthly newsletter to share some highlights. Pop-up newsletters when they happen. Essays when they happen.

See my diary entry 2023-01-18

My writing work should combine cosmic, local, and personal perspectives in one, moving from one to the other in a dance.

# What creative artifacts do I want to create?

I need a note-writing system that supports what I want to create.

I will modify PARA to this way:

Projects will contain the following:

• Books I am working on
• One-time writing projects outside the blog or newsletter
• Time-bound writing projects

Areas will contain the following:

• Blog articles
• Active newsletters

Resources will contain the following:

• Photos
• Videos
• Audios
• References
• Talahardin
• Quotes
• Poems
• Translations
• Narratives

My workflow

My work strategy? — Small documented personal development projects

• My ideal persona
• My audience and community
• My criteria for choosing mentors and peers
• People who inspire me
• What do I want my audience to feel?
• Should I engage a local or international audience?

• My criteria for choosing a field
• My field is practical philosophy

• Minimum viable brand
• What title will I use?

Right now, I use the day job model to sustain my work. But I am hoping to transition into a Patronage model. See My sustainability model.

However, the patronage model is difficult to pull off at this stage. So here are Business ideas adjacent to my interests

Process over product

• I am unable to maintain composure when under pressure, particularly in the midst of criticism. I hide behind my works. But this is because my strength lies in the written word, in publishing creations I can let speak by themselves.
• I like piecing together a story like a puzzle. This is what I do in zettelkasten, history, philosophy, and even Lilim.

I try to articulate my purpose. Right now, my purpose is to achieve self-actualization and eventually transcend. To do this, I am dedicated to understanding the truth about reality (people and nature). I do this by cultivating a rich intellectual life, which involves daily studying (journaling, reading, Talahardin, philosophical walks). Through this intellectual life, I allow myself to change course and explore whenever I want to (curiosity) or dive deep into a specific subject (love of learning). The ultimate goal of such an intellectual life is to build wisdom and perspective on things. I share this perspective through the blog and through conversations whenever they are available.

Alongside this intellectual work is a different but related practice, which could also facilitate and enrich my intellectual tasks: I cultivate appreciation of beauty and excellence and their continued freshness—the small things as well as the big ones. This practice is mainly facilitated by walking and what I do when walking (savoring the environment, photography, and taking notes). This intentional exposure to beauty and excellence generates gratitude.

Being in nature not only makes me feel better but also reminds me of what man is when bare of all the things he is now—of what is truly important. Perhaps I want to reflect on specific philosophical questions, but I answer them through reflection on nature, our place, our personal narratives, history, and culture.

My calling, my gift, is to remind people and to call them towards their state of depth. I am called to be a pastor of free religion—a religion that starts within me first. My vision is to work with people one on one—a life of retreat and communion, of going back to my well but going out to help others.

Build a purely naturalistic belief system then from there, get out and have an adventure into the wilderness of compassion.

1. Create a platform for the voice of the things I am persuaded to believe could be nurtured or be found useful to others.
2. Continue to research my position and beliefs and to strengthen my metaphysical and epistemological base.
3. To connect and build relationships with individuals who might be persuaded to my beliefs but also to those who don’t.

I work at the intersection of art, contemplation, philosophy, and walking.

• Should I write in one language or multiple languages?
• Should I have one or multiple websites?

• Establish a life work based on my signature strengths.
• My life areas support my life work
• The thread that binds my interests
• Experiments to try on my life work
• See diary dated 2023-01-13.

Patreon Inc. (2020, April 17). Take 2: How to cultivate an audience ready to pay for your creativity. https://www.crowdcast.io/e/zfl5u669