# What Is a Digital Garden? If you search for "digital garden", you'll find plenty of results telling you what it should be. Like [this one](https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/09/03/1007716/digital-gardens-let-you-cultivate-your-own-little-bit-of-the-internet/), [this one](https://www.genei.io/blog/a-beginners-guide-to-digital-gardens), or [this one](https://nesslabs.com/digital-garden-set-up). My definition is based on a simple anecdote: If I said to you "I just don't know how to keep all the information in my head organised and useful", I get the feeling you'd agree, or at least understand. "That's okay, there's an app for that." Well, that's something else you have to manage and learn to use. Most importantly, perhaps, it's _prescriptive_. You have to organise your life into their boxes. "You could just write a blog." True. However, blogs are usually about a single topic or category of topics, and are often trying to make a point rather than just... _being_. So, this isn't a blog. No SEO. No keywords. No tracking. Enter this _digital garden_. It's not selling you anything (including ideas), making a point, or confining to one particular category. It's really just a public diary, and because the world sees it, it stays tidy. Much like an _actual_ garden that passersby see. # Guiding Principles These principles explain how this site/digital garden is kept "alive", and shows how the analogy of a real garden fits wonderfully into the digital realm. Perhaps there's an analog to draw about how knowledge, gardens, and digital information are all really the same... ## Regular, Measured Attention If you spend forever sitting in your garden, you possibly won't earn enough money to live, you won't have time to eat anything, and you'll get sunburnt! Not fun. Equally, if you never pull weeds, prune hedges, and water plants, that poor garden will die. What did it ever do to you, hmm? So much like life itself, everything in measured quantities. A digital garden works best when it integrates into normal life, rather than becoming a "project". We all know how those go. ## Variety Having a garden full of thyme isn't "wrong", but it's not particularly interesting, is it? More importantly, there's no [biodiversity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiversity), which by converse is bad for the soil and surrounding ecosystems. Oh noes! Equally, you likely don't want to plant an oak tree in your small flower bed. I don't think it belongs there. Suffice to say that the analogy fits into the digital realm in that a mixture of relevant (to the author's interests), engaging (somewhat), and unique information makes for the healthiest of gardens. You also get to learn more about me, and I also get to learn more about myself by writing it down! ## Accountability If you're a completely private person, you don't have a bank account, you've never applied for a passport, and you probably jump at the sound of an iMessage arriving. And you live under [some sand dunes in NT.](https://northernterritory.com/alice-springs-and-surrounds/destinations/simpson-desert). Don't ask me how that's possible. You wouldn't believe me if I told you. Likewise, if you're always under the spotlight and everyone watches your every move (thinking about high-stress jobs such as lawyers and the police), it's easy for some to become overwhelmed. That sweet middle-ground ensures that there's just enough visibility from the outside world that things stay tidy and accounted for. That's why this digital garden is public: not because it's all correct and I'll some day charge for it (because I won't, and probably couldn't). Instead, it's twofold: It'll probably help someone somewhere in the world, and it avoids messy, incoherent, and outdated information that eventually gets forgotten about in folders somewhere arbitrary on some disk. ### Side-Effect: Knowledge Means Something Often, when I come across something new, come up with a "brilliant idea", or find inspiration to sharpen a newfound skill, it can diminish (either immediately or over time) because it lacks _connections to the real world_. A pessimistic way this might materialise in one's head would be "It doesn't matter because no one's going to see it". While it might be possible to fight and reason about that, this digital garden presents an alternative solution: Make it the world's business! That way, everything you learn (and document accordingly) means something both to you and them (whoever "them" is... oh wait, that's *you*). # Website Notes Privacy Policy: I respect your privacy and make every effort to ensure that no system used by this website tracks or collects personal information. [Obsidian Publish](https://help.obsidian.md/Obsidian+Publish/Security+and+privacy#Visitor%20data) **does not** collect visitor data, store cookies, or process personal information. I do not claim ownership of all information on this site. Where possible, I have attributed information copied from external sources using the original link in which it was discovered. If your work has been copied or referenced inappropriately, please accept my apologies. I regularly review my notes and make every attempt to fix missing or incorrect information, including references.