The Extended Mind's Extension
Most notebook enthusiasts have heard about the "Extended Mind" concept that David Chalmers and his co-author Andy Clark coined in their 1998 paper on the topic. They argued that any tools or devices a person might use to augment their biological memory or consciousness function not as something the mind puts to use, but as an extension of that mind — with the body's skin being only an arbitrary border between the two realms.
The two philosophers put into academic writing what many keepers of journals and users of notebooks can verify from their personal experience: The paper onto which you "download" your ideas and thoughts, your memories and reflections functions like another area of your brain. Thinking and writing become so closely intertwined it becomes hard to tell the two things apart, or to do one thing without the other.
I started my journaling practice in 2019. I am now in Bullet Journal no. 17, filling two A5 hardcover notebooks per year with memories and pictures, plans and intentions, reflections and discussions with myself. For most of that time, it was absolutely clear that my BuJo is the place where I would write down any first and second thoughts about something that bothered me, that grabbed my attention or demanded reflection.
But lately, I've come to realize that this practice, this clear-cut idea of where my reflections and thinking-about-life takes place, is shifting. The reason is that over the course of more than two years of writing my newsletter, I have developed a writing workflow1 that happens mostly in analog notebooks. I use several dedicated notebooks for not only taking the first fleeting notes on a new topic or idea, but also for outlining the text, collecting and commenting on quotes of other writers and thinkers and drafting the first paragraphs of the essay.
Now, whenever some thought or problem or idea becomes impossible not to think about, I have to chose between thinkinh on paper in my regular Bullet Journal or taking notes in preparation for extensively writing about the topic — because that's what I'll end up doing anyway if the topic is complex and intriguing enough. But I'm too lazy to write down exactly the same notes in two separate notebooks.
Therefore, it seems my extended mind has been even more extended — from one central journal that helped me navigate the challenges of life to now several notebooks that I use for making sense of my everyday experiences and questions.
This is not as much a problem as it is a curious observation. But it does require me to make some adjustments to my journaling practice, because I do strive to record my life at least somewhat comprehensively. Almost nothing is as vital to this practice as documenting the topics and questions that grab my attention.
So in a sense, this blog and the other places where my writing ends up being published is something like the outmost layer of my journaling. I hope you appreciate the invitation to have a look around.
Footnotes
A separate post on that is in the works↩