Why a Digital Garden
A blog is a stream — chronologically ordered posts that flow past and disappear into the archive. A garden is a landscape — ideas that grow, connect, and deepen over time.
The problem with blogs
Blogs encourage a mindset of finished, polished pieces. You write a post, hit publish, and move on. The post sits there, frozen in time, slowly becoming outdated. The pressure to be “done” before publishing is enormous.
What a garden does differently
In a garden, notes are living documents. A seedling might grow into an evergreen over months or years. Rough ideas can be planted early and tended publicly. Connections between notes create topography — a landscape of thought you can wander through.
The ethos
Maggie Appleton writes about this beautifully in A Brief History & Ethos of the Digital Garden. The key principles that resonate with me:
- Topography over timelines — organize by relationship, not by date
- Continuous growth — nothing is ever truly finished
- Imperfection in public — publish half-baked thoughts without shame
- Independent ownership — own your space on the web
This site is my garden. It will always be a work in progress — and that’s the point.