The posts of 2025
I’m much better at writing new stuff than consolidating the old, but it’s time to review what’s been posted here during 2025. Short posts excluded, it’s quite a lot, considering I’m Writing Slowly.
There’s also a contents page for the posts of 2024 and one for the posts of 2023.
And don’t forget to check out my book, Shu Ha Ri: The Japanese Way of Learning, for Artists and Fighters.
To get the latest posts straight to your in-box, subscribe to the weekly Writing Slowly email newsletter.
All the posts, 2025 edition
People
Roland Barthes on the purpose of writing notes
The Dance of Joyful Knowledge: Inside Georges Didi-Huberman’s Monumental Note Archive
Lord Acton took too many notes, but that doesn’t mean you have to
Leibniz created a haystack of notes that wouldn’t fit in his Zettelschrank
What Tim Berners-Lee Has to Teach About Effective Notes
Daniel Wisser’s notecards as art and archive
A search for meaning in the palace of lost memories: Thoughts on Piranesi, a novel by Susanna Clarke
What I Learned from Bob Doto about Making Effective Notes and Writing a Book
I’m unqualified to diagnose the following writers with ADHD but I’ll do it anyway
Mastering Any Skill, the Japanese Way. A review of Analysis of Shu Ha Ri in Karate-Do: When a Martial Art Becomes a Fine Art by Hermann Bayer, Ph.D.
Writing and Making notes
Maybe you can create coherent writing from a pile of notes after all
Semantic line breaks are a feature of Markdown, not a bug
Create a note system that indexes itself
Publishing Slowly. An article about my first book launch of the year.
My writing process oscillates between notes and drafts
Roland Barthes on the purpose of writing notes
The Dance of Joyful Knowledge: Inside Georges Didi-Huberman’s Monumental Note Archive
Lord Acton took too many notes, but that doesn’t mean you have to
Tame the chaos with just foour folders for all your notes
Five solutions to link rot in my personal note collection
Why not publish all your notes online?
From tiny drops of writing, great rivers will flow
I found a way to create order from my jumbled ideas
Leibniz created a haystack of notes that wouldn’t fit in his Zettelschrank
What Tim Berners-Lee Has to Teach About Effective Notes
Daniel Wisser’s notecards as art and archive
What I’ve learned from non-linear narratives
A search for meaning in the palace of lost memories: Thoughts on Piranesi, a novel by Susanna Clarke
What I Learned from Bob Doto about Making Effective Notes and Writing a Book
What to do when you’ve made some notes: Start writing
Don’t throw away your old notes
Don’t let your note-making system infect you with Archive Fever
I’m unqualified to diagnose the following writers with ADHD but I’ll do it anyway
I designed a book in three and a half hours
If there’s more than one way of seeing, there’s more than one way of organising
Watch in awe as a fleeting thought becomes a lasting note
Plenty of ways to write online
Open, free and poetic. The Web is 34 years old!
Is there a Zettelkasten method?
Use case for the Zettelkasten. Why use a Zettelkasten? Why indeed?
Back to the Information City? How knowledge visualisation shapes the journey
Keeping a diary is a way of living
Publishing means no more hiding. Publishing my book, I had the strange feeling of having crossed an invisible but very powerful threshold.
Why niche blogs and Small Rooms still win - even in the age of technofeudalism
Imitating the greats? Imitation can be a very effective form of learning, but it’s worth considering who to imitate, and how.
Trying to write slowly in 2025
The Unity of Pen and Sword: Understanding Bunbu Ichi
Learning
The future of the humanities is wide open
Influence is everything: novelty its flimsy dress. What happens when once fashionable ideas get left behind?
I designed a book in three and a half hours
Mastering Any Skill, the Japanese Way. A review of Analysis of Shu Ha Ri in Karate-Do: When a Martial Art Becomes a Fine Art by Hermann Bayer, Ph.D.
Back to the Information City? How knowledge visualisation shapes the journey
Imitating the greats? Imitation can be a very effective form of learning, but it’s worth considering who to imitate, and how.
What does it mean to transcend the rules?
Keeping a diary is a way of living
Japanese Shu Ha Ri: Is it Better Than Western Learning Methods?
There’s a fundamental flaw in how we learn about expertise
Shu Ha Ri and the philosophy of interior design
The Unity of Pen and Sword: Understanding Bunbu Ichi
AI
It’s a great time to be writing the future
To understand the future of AI, look to the past
Leibniz created a haystack of notes that wouldn’t fit in his Zettelschrank
Hot takes on our future with AI
Provocative words about learning, teaching, AI, and the timely value of history
There’s a fundamental flaw in how we learn about expertise
Other
The Sydney I know isn’t like what they’re showing on the news
Japanese paper films. Yes, in the 1930s the Japanese made a whole bunch of short movies using rolls of paper instead of celluloid.
Bonus: The June 2025 Photo Challenge
Jun 30, 2025: 📷Photo challenge day 30: solitude. 💬"I am the Cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me." - Rudyard Kipling.
Jun 28, 2025: 📷 Photo challenge day 26: bridge. I’ve used this as a metaphor for writing, but it’s also a real bridge, of which #Sydney has many.
Jun 28, 2025: 📷 Photo challenge day 29: winding. It’s well worth taking a look inside White Bay Power Station in #Sydney - as previously seen on day 7 and day …
Jun 27, 2025: 📷 Photo challenge day 28: ephemeral. A reminder that our leaders don’t last forever, or even for as long as they’d like to.
Jun 26, 2025: 📷 Photo challenge day 27: collective. Rainbow lorikeets are among the most commonly seen #birds in #Sydney. #mbjune
Jun 25, 2025: 📷 Photo challenge day 25: decay. My worm farm is amazing! By turning waste into compost these little wrigglers perfom a kind of magic.
Jun 24, 2025: 📷 Photo challenge day 24: bloom. The bougainvillea does get a bit unruly, but it’s probably worth it. #mbjune
Jun 23, 2025: 📷 Photo challenge day 23: fracture. A crack in reality at the Edogawa Japanese Garden, north of #Sydney #mbjune
Jun 22, 2025: 📷 Photo challenge day 22: hometown. The view from Yerroulbine (Balls Head) on our mid-winter walk in #Sydney yesterday. From this angle Me-mel (Goat …
Jun 21, 2025: 📷 Photo challenge day 21: silhouette. Black swans in #Sydney. #mbjune
Jun 20, 2025: 📷 Photo challenge day 20: gather. Six seagulls gather on a sandstone rock at La Perouse, #Sydney. #mbjune
Jun 19, 2025: 📷 Photo challenge day 19: equal. 💬 “I exist in a fractally connected, self-organized universe where everything relates dynamically to …
Jun 18, 2025: 📷 Photo challenge day 18: texture. Furry or spiky? Spotted on a boardwalk in the Royal National Park near #Sydney - as featured in day 2. #mbjune
Jun 18, 2025: 📷 Photo challenge day 17: warmth. We saw a curious warning at this year’s Vivid, the big winter festival of light in #Sydney. #mbjune
Jun 16, 2025: 📷 Photo challenge day 16: blur. A smoking ceremony at Prince Alfred Park, #Sydney. #mbjune
Jun 15, 2025: 📷 Photo challenge day 15: tie. This is how the tugboat from day 9 was secured to the wharf at Pyrmont, #Sydney. #mbjune
Jun 14, 2025: Photo challenge, day 14: twilight at the mouth of Deerubbin, the Hawkesbury River. #mbjune #Sydney
Jun 13, 2025: 📷 Photo challenge day 13: pathway. Calna Creek, just north of #Sydney. #mbjune
Jun 12, 2025: 📷 Photo challenge day 12: hidden. It’s easy to watch the annual ‘humpback highway’ whale migration at Malabar Headland in #Sydney.
Jun 11, 2025: 📷 Photo challenge day 11: brick. #Sydney has more than one Japanese garden, but only one is owned by geese. #mbjune
Jun 10, 2025: 📷 Photo challenge, day 10: rail. Of the many wonderful exhibits at the NSW Rail Museum, this little railbus is one of my favourites.
Jun 9, 2025: 📷 Day 9: wood. There’s a truly massive amount of timber in the old wharves around Sydney Harbour. #mbjune #Sydney.
Jun 9, 2025: 📷 Photo challenge day 8: travel. Most of the photos this month are of Sydney, but given today’s theme, this was taken as far from Sydney as possible.
Jun 7, 2025: 📷 micro.blog photo challenge day 7: switch. #mbjune
Jun 6, 2025: 📷 Day 6: contrast #mbjune #Sydney.
Jun 5, 2025: 📷 Day 5: reflection #mbjune #Sydney.
Jun 4, 2025: 📷 photo challenge day 4: nostalgia. Can you tell what these are? #mbjune
Jun 3, 2025: 📷 Day 3: shadow #mbjune. 💬 “My work grows from the duel between the isolated individual and the shared awareness of the group.” - Louise Bourgeois.
Jun 2, 2025: 📷 Day 2: curve #mbjune
Jun 1, 2025: 📷 Day 1. A large tree in a small park is adorned with fairy lights. Can you tell why? #mbjune
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Check out my book, Shu Ha Ri: The Japanese Way of Learning, for Artists and Fighters.
And you can also subscribe to the weekly Writing Slowly email newsletter.