Damek.

Actually, I think this attitude, on both sides, is entirely appropriate.

Since the rise of the social sciences, and the elevation of universities to special status, is something of a strangely Western statist/classist/imperialist phenomenon in general, anyway, the whole notion of intellectualism vs. idiocy is questionable anyway.

In fact, for me it’s been rather liberating recently to realize more and more that smart people are dumb, too. Or, intellectuals are human, too. When you publish the good stuff and ignore the rest, it’s easy to think someone can do no wrong. Then, once celebrated, it’s easy to think the bad stuff is good.

I will say one thing: practicing good note-taking, record-keeping, and writing skills, is definitely a benefit to good thought and expression. But not necessary. How many good poets do?

This dovetails with thoughts on Neil Gaiman, who I was reading about in the New Yorker this morning. In response to the old question of “where do you get your ideas,” he points out that everyone imagines, everyone has ideas. The unspoken addition there is, “but I write mine down, constantly.”

I’m increasingly convinced that’s all there is. And then you get noticed, respected, acknowledged, etc. …or you don’t.

Universities are just structured social systems for nurturing certain forms of knowledge-production and acknowledgment.

I’m not sure I’m going to keep writing here. OK, I’m sure I will, I always come back and I’m prone to changing my mind a lot.

I’m just feeling more and more I need another writing outlet. To more freely ply uncharted waters, or spend more time in familiar eddies without inviting family and the public. To write personal studies and summaries of books I’m reading. To discover new reasons for writing as I write.

However, there’s a question of venue. I vastly prefer typing to writing by hand, and as often as I judge myself harshly for that, the preference persists, so a paper journal is out, for all but the sketching of ideas when away from a keyboard.

Then this leaves me with the difficulty of organizing digital information. Should I write in plain text? A word processor? Should I save files in folders, sorted by date, or use some sort of tagging system to index my thoughts? A combination? Some people use complicated “brain organizer” software. Some just use Google Docs so they can write anywhere, and trust Google to safeguard their valuables. I feel paranoid

I can write locked posts here that only I can read, using this blog software as a sort of personal document storage system, but I don’t really trust myself to maintain it, and the writings aren’t easily transferable to other document formats for backup purposes, or simple flexibility. It’s open source and I control it all, but that’s its own peculiar form of prison.

Then there’s the aspect of how many memoirs and diaries are discovered after their author has passed on. Who will possess my passwords to any online service? So, should I write with keyboards, but print the words that give me pride? Store them in a binder? Do I really have that ego?

No, this is for me, and if I do feel the need to self-publish, I can do so any time I want. OK, so digital is fine. It’ll save valuable apartment storage space as well.

But then, it doesn’t matter if it’s files on my hard drive, stream-of-consciousness posts on a private blog, or files on Google’s servers; the problem of organization remains, and it’s my problem as I’ve never trained or practiced in academic or creative efforts enough to have developed a personal system I can trust and immerse myself in.

Ultimately I’m leaning towards Google Docs within my Google Apps domain, as I can write from any terminal and not feel trapped by the physicality of hard drives and memory chips; I generally feel Google isn’t going to suddenly disappear; I can download or backup my files periodically for distributed storage security; I can jump quickly from my calendar or email to make notes or write; and I can organize writings with folders by categories and dates just flexibly enough to allow a system to develop naturally.

What’s most important is that I write more, and do less thinking about things I could be writing but ultimately don’t. I think having a non-public, non-blog venue will enable me better. We shall see. And if anything worth sharing (without a pseudonym!) comes from it, you’ll read about it here.