I had yet to plan on creating another Obsidian update; however, I wanted to review my thinking process behind using keywords inside a Zettelkasten. [^1] But, first things first. I currently have transferred 4,307 thoughts from TheBrain to Obsidian. Although that might not seem like much, compared to the 30,000 [^2] notes I had on TheBrain, I am pleased with my progress.
I've made two significant adjustments to my transfer process since my last update, allowing the transfer process to proceed at an increased rate. First, I am no longer batching journal entries by the year. Instead of moving an entire year from TheBrain to Obsidian in one transfer, I am carrying a month at a time when I find a link to a specific date. For example, yesterday's blog, a backlog trip report from May 9, 2014. Rather than wait until I transferred the entire year 2014, I repositioned all of May 2014 and completed the link. Moving a whole month when only one day is needed allows a more significant chunk of data to be moved regularly.
The second is Keywords. I have approximately 1,400 keywords listed alphabetically within my brain's research reference folder. My original intent for this listing was to "define selected ideas, principles, doctrines, people, and places found in my life. It also provides key references to study for each topic and can help in the individual study of ideas. The reference can help answer questions about my life, my beliefs, and my current and past study topics in scriptures, science, art, and business that can be helpful in understanding who I am as an individual." [^3]
Of course, I intended to create a journal entry for family and posterity who might want to read about my life. [^4] The more notes I connected to a keyword, the less valuable the word became, and soon utilizing the backlink provided by the software was no more effective than performing a search. I wanted keywords to be an effective tool, not merely a search word.
According to author Michael M. Gelb, Leonardo da Vinci captured and defined over 9,000 words. [^5] Gelb recommended building a lexicon as a " marvelous way to practice continuous learning." I agreed and began to look up definitions for words I didn't understand and began to accumulate those words under a separate lexicon folder. It took a little while to realize that I was duplicating words without knowing the folder to which they belonged. Were they common keywords or lexicon thoughts? I didn't want to "use a big word when a singularly unloquacious and diminutive linguistic expression will satisfactorily accomplish the contemporary necessity," [^6] so I combined my lexicon with my Keywords.
I still have not worked out all of the kinks yet of exactly what I hope to achieve with my dictionary, keyword, and lexicon page; however, I have decided to transfer the 1,400 existing keywords from TheBrain to Obsidian. Each page will contain the main word, a tag, marking it as a keyword, the definition for the term (if I have looked it up), and an index of sorts.
The index will serve as a storage area for links to chains of thoughts for the Zettelkasten method. For example, Ayn Rand provides a definition of informative and inspiring thinking. I know it is within her book The Virtue of Selfishness; however, finding the exact quote among the dozens of thoughts I have captured can sometimes mean searching for a significant amount of time. I know the thought is about thinking, so I have listed the thought under the index for thinking and under the index of think.
The beauty of the index section of my keywords is it provides me with a space to capture notes, thoughts, quotes, and memes that I enjoy. I want to find posts easily in the web of ideas I follow. I also don't need to capture every thought in this manner; the critical reviews can serve as an entry gate to the web structure provided for the series of notes which capture the topic. I want to finally settle my question of whether to create a dictionary, a lexicon, or a page of keyword notations. Why do one when all three can be available on the same page?
Written November 23, 2022
Footnotes:
[^1]: If you are unfamiliar with the term Zettelkasten and want to learn more, Sascha Fast has written an excellent Introduction to the Zettelkasten Method on Zettelkasten.de
[^2]: TheBrain Statistics generated November 23, 2022, 3:40 p.m. Thoughts: 31,329
[^3]: Taken from my main journal reference page and probably written around 2004, shortly after reading Michael Gelb's How to think like Leonardo da Vinci, who had a similar quote on one of his front page manuscripts.
[^4]: Eons in the future, I suspect.
[^5]: Gelb, M. (2004). How to think like Leonardo da Vinci: Seven steps to genius every day. New York, NY: Delta Trade Paperbacks. pp.73-74.
[^6]: The quote is from a meme. The meme creator is unknown.