Recent quotes:

systems strengthen... or weaken?

By developing systems that help us make sense of our past, we strengthen the same cognitive muscles that help us interpret complex signals in our professional work. A recent personal example made this especially clear to me. When I needed to create documentation for a medication I'm taking, my doctor simply told me to keep track of intake and effects - without providing much structure for how to do this effectively. Rather than improvising a haphazard approach or avoiding the task entirely, I developed a structured template in collaboration with Claude. I created a project in Obsidian to house this template and the resulting data.

The Shape of Memory to Come – Experiments on holding the unrecorded

I've been experimenting with transforming my Obsidian vault into a personal retrieval-augmented generation system (RAG)—a searchable database of my thoughts I can query and connect with new ideas. Remarkably, Markdown, a format I've used for over a decade, is now central to modern AI systems. The same simple text format powering tools like iA Writer is foundational to sophisticated memory systems.

The Shape of Memory to Come – Experiments on holding the unrecorded

The convenience of digital documentation thus paradoxically increases the difficulty of recalling undocumented moments, reinforcing the feeling that "if it's not archived digitally, it didn't happen."

The Shape of Memory to Come – Experiments on holding the unrecorded

in an age dominated by automation and algorithmic curation, memory isn't merely about recalling past events—it's a matter of existential importance. Digital platforms increasingly externalize aspects of our identities, and consciously shaping how we preserve and recall experiences becomes vital. Controlling memory means controlling our narratives, which directly shapes the meanings we derive from our lives.