This digital garden tracks my footprints both in my mental wilderness and the geographical wilderness. I adopted the word “footprints” here as used by Herbert Fingarette:
“These studies are outcomes rather than realised objectives. In making the journey, I have no aims. These studies are intellectual footprints, not blueprints.”
While I recognize my tendency to be allured to blueprints I do my best to resist them and maintain an openness to knowledge and the larger world where knowledge arise. This commitment necessitates that I give myself the permission to change my beliefs as the long walk unravels.
As common among digital gardeners, I use botanical language in organizing my work. My forest garden of the mind is what I refer to the this collection of writings. This is what I walk and tend to every day.
The forest garden is made up of different “species” of thought:
These species will grow in number as I see fit.
Species are further classified depending on level of development: seeds, seedlings, and evergreens.
Seeds are random ephemeral thoughts that come to me during walks or throughout the day. Seeds are kept as is based on the perspective of Henry David Thoreau and Henry Bugbee that insights as pure as they are have relevance and their purity needs to be maintained.
Seedlings are planted seeds that will be revisited and changed in a constant basis and edited intermittently until they reach a more permanent form: evergreens.
Evergreens are works that don’t change that much. They are finished products, shareable and, in case of thought notes, useful as building blocks for essays and bigger projects.
A walk in the forest garden of the mind refers to my daily visits to this collection. My walks involve planting, replanting, pruning, or nurturing of existing species in the garden. Therefore, different species form interconnections that you could access through the mind trails and the topography of thoughts present under each note.
My purpose is to live deliberately. Therefore, my main motivation for walking in the world and in this digital garden is to transform seeds of thoughts and experiences into decisive actions leading to intentional living. Thus, I recognize that my work is religious in nature.
For some context, see: my quest.
For a longer narrative of how I got here, see my essay A Never-ending Walk.
You can start exploring the digital garden by clicking on the following points of entry. These are my current interests and some themes I would like to pursue indefinitely: