ooh funny enough, i've been reading The Knowledge Gene by Lynne Kelly, she's been an amazing resource for understanding "memory palaces" from a prehistoric and indigenous perspective. found out from her that places like Stonehenge were potentially used in early cultures as an external memory palace!
as for my own personal system, i'd describe it as kinda like a car radio that i have to continually tune into and dial when there's a specific song that i want to hear, which has a confluence of moods and memories associated with them as i go through my day
Visa, the first part of this piece nearly knocked me over. Very clearly articulated something that I’ve felt a lot recently. Thank you for writing and sharing it
wow, thanks for telling me Taylor! turns out i'm really bad at knowing what will resonate with people hahaha. well, i can say after-the-fact "obviously it was simply that you described your experience in honest detail", and yet i keep forgetting to do this when i get swept up in trying to lay out clean, elegant intellectual models
I have a surprisingly hard time writing this kind of thing down because I feel like my emotions move faster than my words, so it stops feeling honest at the pace of writing. Almost as if I am an outside observer reporting on someone else having the experience rather than the person doing the experiencing. Obviously it is still worth the attempt of course, but hard to do sometimes
I was going to write “what if you made your ceilings higher?” and then I saw the footnote!
Although honestly I find ceilings overrated. I think only one or two of my virtual spaces have roofs. The rest are basically made up of minimal outdoor furniture in various gardens/landscapes.
This essay reminds me of an exercise I did a couple years back when I was *very* frustrated with my general approach to organization and *very* committed to finding a solution. I think it’s called the 9 Whys. You pick a project and someone asks you nine times why it’s important (why is A important? Because B. Why is B important? Because C. — etc). What I found myself saying by the end totally surprised me. I have not thought about organization in the same way since.
Reading this in bed I realize that my actual desk is cluttered with items my brain desk has forgotten because it is cluttered with future work that I have organized into piles of now and right now but my kids are old so my kids’ art in both offices is the most important thing.
I am also afflicted by the having learned obsolete things. Graphics coding on PC hardware from 1987 is a fairly niche activity these days. Briefly rationalised and decided not to spend too much time on whether I can learn fewer useless things. Your thinking is a convenient shortcut for building scaffolding for my own thoughts. Current conclusion, as with everything, is that I should enjoy learning things. Then its not useless, even if obsolete in the bigger picture going forward. There was a time I lost the joy and also motivation. It seems to be returning slowly now.
My virtual mental spaces has changed over time, I was first introduced to the idea at about age 19 when I read a memory quick help type book. That space was an abstract list of items to associate with the things one wanted to remember. So not so much a space to spend 'time in' as one spends 'time with' it.
As far as virtual space's I've had: a beautiful island with crystal clear waterfall and pool, used to hang out here when stressed or longing for more connection. Mostly academic stress. I still visit from time to time, but I have everything I longed for when visiting previously, so don't need to visit anymore. I visit these days cause i remember.
Also have a recurring dream that could classify as a space. It strangely changes over time into a bigger and bigger house. Always with some renovation and space for more people. I always discover more space I can improve and build out. Could be family and friends and people we support related :)
My most current space I enjoy inhabiting is more abstract, its my roam graph that I somehow don't visualise. Think I could, after your post I want to. And the best part is we're also moving soon and I can feel the pull of my new office. I could model it after that. The roam graph has become prolific enough that I can start observing it a little more objectively. Been going with that for more than 5 years and adding more and more into it. It has basically grown out of a habit of writing things when I was unhappy or didn't want to work. It was a nice in-between of not slacking off but also not doing the things I was 'supposed' to do. Nowadays I'd phrase those things as the things I'm not 'ready' to do yet. Which is a sample of a core load bearing believe that's been replaced with better supports.
Tx for sharing your inner mental space. I'm one of the coffee shop inhabitants living in the twitter/x disaster zone.
the core concept here of exploring your virtual/spiritual space is gold, Visa. I'm going to be having a lot of conversations with my friends about this.
ooh funny enough, i've been reading The Knowledge Gene by Lynne Kelly, she's been an amazing resource for understanding "memory palaces" from a prehistoric and indigenous perspective. found out from her that places like Stonehenge were potentially used in early cultures as an external memory palace!
as for my own personal system, i'd describe it as kinda like a car radio that i have to continually tune into and dial when there's a specific song that i want to hear, which has a confluence of moods and memories associated with them as i go through my day
Visa, the first part of this piece nearly knocked me over. Very clearly articulated something that I’ve felt a lot recently. Thank you for writing and sharing it
wow, thanks for telling me Taylor! turns out i'm really bad at knowing what will resonate with people hahaha. well, i can say after-the-fact "obviously it was simply that you described your experience in honest detail", and yet i keep forgetting to do this when i get swept up in trying to lay out clean, elegant intellectual models
I have a surprisingly hard time writing this kind of thing down because I feel like my emotions move faster than my words, so it stops feeling honest at the pace of writing. Almost as if I am an outside observer reporting on someone else having the experience rather than the person doing the experiencing. Obviously it is still worth the attempt of course, but hard to do sometimes
I was going to write “what if you made your ceilings higher?” and then I saw the footnote!
Although honestly I find ceilings overrated. I think only one or two of my virtual spaces have roofs. The rest are basically made up of minimal outdoor furniture in various gardens/landscapes.
This essay reminds me of an exercise I did a couple years back when I was *very* frustrated with my general approach to organization and *very* committed to finding a solution. I think it’s called the 9 Whys. You pick a project and someone asks you nine times why it’s important (why is A important? Because B. Why is B important? Because C. — etc). What I found myself saying by the end totally surprised me. I have not thought about organization in the same way since.
Reading this in bed I realize that my actual desk is cluttered with items my brain desk has forgotten because it is cluttered with future work that I have organized into piles of now and right now but my kids are old so my kids’ art in both offices is the most important thing.
I am also afflicted by the having learned obsolete things. Graphics coding on PC hardware from 1987 is a fairly niche activity these days. Briefly rationalised and decided not to spend too much time on whether I can learn fewer useless things. Your thinking is a convenient shortcut for building scaffolding for my own thoughts. Current conclusion, as with everything, is that I should enjoy learning things. Then its not useless, even if obsolete in the bigger picture going forward. There was a time I lost the joy and also motivation. It seems to be returning slowly now.
My virtual mental spaces has changed over time, I was first introduced to the idea at about age 19 when I read a memory quick help type book. That space was an abstract list of items to associate with the things one wanted to remember. So not so much a space to spend 'time in' as one spends 'time with' it.
As far as virtual space's I've had: a beautiful island with crystal clear waterfall and pool, used to hang out here when stressed or longing for more connection. Mostly academic stress. I still visit from time to time, but I have everything I longed for when visiting previously, so don't need to visit anymore. I visit these days cause i remember.
Also have a recurring dream that could classify as a space. It strangely changes over time into a bigger and bigger house. Always with some renovation and space for more people. I always discover more space I can improve and build out. Could be family and friends and people we support related :)
My most current space I enjoy inhabiting is more abstract, its my roam graph that I somehow don't visualise. Think I could, after your post I want to. And the best part is we're also moving soon and I can feel the pull of my new office. I could model it after that. The roam graph has become prolific enough that I can start observing it a little more objectively. Been going with that for more than 5 years and adding more and more into it. It has basically grown out of a habit of writing things when I was unhappy or didn't want to work. It was a nice in-between of not slacking off but also not doing the things I was 'supposed' to do. Nowadays I'd phrase those things as the things I'm not 'ready' to do yet. Which is a sample of a core load bearing believe that's been replaced with better supports.
Tx for sharing your inner mental space. I'm one of the coffee shop inhabitants living in the twitter/x disaster zone.
the core concept here of exploring your virtual/spiritual space is gold, Visa. I'm going to be having a lot of conversations with my friends about this.
wow love to hear it!!