Zetttelkasten as memoir

You could dedicate a zettelkasten as a sort of non-linear memoir.  Most of our memories are about an event or a scene.  You could use a zettelkasten to record one scene or memory from your life for each “slip” or card.  These could later be assembled for publication if needs be, or left as vignettes for retrieval via cross indexing.

This is different from journaling, diaries or blogs which are all linear time-wise.

Example:  My father, a child of the Great Depression, taught me, as a lad, to always check the coin returns on payphones for change left behind.  I later did this when walking through a restaurant lobby and my mother and grandmother were appalled my grandfather was amused.  Note: I made quite a bit of money in change over the years.

Eliminated the blog page.

I changed the front page of this site from being a standard blog front page with 5 descending posts, to a page with an index of all categories and tags.  That blog page is now hidden.

Linear posting really isn’t a part of a zettelkasten.  There should be many different points of entry and time, date and posting order are not very important.

Adding a Chronological Sort order Journal by Category

I found two WordPress plugins that change the sort order of a category (not the whole installation) to a chronological sort order.  These will also work with ClassicPress.

 

It appears these will both do about the same thing.

What I like:

  1. By enabling chronological post order this emulates a paper journal, diary, book, log book (think ship’s log).  This is the reverse of and distinct from a blog.
  2. You can do just a category not the whole CMS installation.  So a blog or a digital zettelkasten  and a journal can exist on the same ClassicPress or WP instance.
  3. One is not limited to a journal.  One could web publish a book.
  4. The thought of doing something fictional comes to mind.  A. a Lovecraftian type journal wherein the narrator starts investigating strange eldrich events and ends up a gibbering madman, or  B.  some sort of serial hard boiled noir story.

I’m thinking about how this would fit in here on the cyberzettel.  A Zettelkasten is non-linear by design but there is also a use for linear note keeping (ie. reacting to news events of the day,  organizing ones short term plans for the next day or something like that.)

It could turn just a zettelkasten into more of a digital garden model.  It certainly adds options.

There is also something to be said for an end of the day personal log which can act as a daily debriefing session.