From: oldernow@dev.null
On 2024-04-14, Borax Man wrote:
> It was ORG mode that made me an Emacs user. I used it
> at work (still do) to manage my todo list, tasks, keep
> track of what I was working on. To become proficient,
> I learned Emacs, and then some Lisp in order to write
> some small "programs" to easily record information and
> process bits of data at work. ORG mode was something I
> could mould to my workflows, and use the way I needed it,
> rather than adjust myself to fit a specific template.
I remember ORG mode being quite attractive back when I
felt I needed to go all-in with either emacs or vim. Sure,
in retrospect said need might have been a false dichotomy
I set up for myself. But I'd gotten it in my head there
was no way I was going to remember and become efficient
in either set of keystrokes without giving up on one.
I vaguely recall absent-mindedly doing keystrokes of
the one in the other, having to write keystrokes down,
forgetting or confusing them with that of the other editor
anyway, etc.
So I guess it was more my own mental limitations driving
that need - although, as I mentioned, vim "won" in a few
other ways important to me at the time.
Another factor is I think I'd already given up on computers
being *honestly* useful to me for organization. I mean, I
still tinker with possible note-taking and file/directory
organizational methodologies. But the hard truth is that
none of that works unless one has some base level of inner
ability to stick to such patterns, and I don't. Entropy
is at *least* as real in file/directory spaces as in the
so-called "physical world". I'm forever coming across files
that suffered the fate of "out of sight, out of mind",
so I've been duplicating organizational debris all over
the place for decades. I can forget where I put what
in, oh, less than a week, and wind up doing something
similar elsewhere, of course with different directory
structures, file naming conventions, indenting or other
organizationalisms within files, etc.
In a way, computers are *too* flexible. Whereas a piece
of paper that started out with nicely bulleted items
winds up with cross-outs, other items shove into spaces
between other items, boxes drawn around some things,
arrows, constructs like "<--- THIS IS IMPORTANT", the
thing about that paper/pen/pencil mess is it's ALL VISIBLE
ALL AT ONCE, and I'll be damned if I can get that out of
files. Maybe it's possible with some sort of graphical
approach, except attempting to draw in computer drawing
apps has always seemed too frustrating, and, of course,
then I'm dependent on some drawing app that I can imagine
no longer being supported, or suddenly having advertising,
blah blah sooner than I imagine vim ever will.
Actually, what keeps working best is to nip events/tasks
in the bud by realizing most of them are more driven by
momentary obsession than actual need. Then there's less
to organize to begin with. And that's somehow a more
peaceful situation than looking at some file or piece of
paper and going, "Oh, shit... I still have all that to
do?" In a way the file or piece of paper winds up mocking
my inability to be decisive about what for me is actually
personally possible.
Why regularly incur feelings of inadequacy when staring
at incomplete tasks when some (most? all?) of them were
silly pipe dreams I couldn't let go of not long after
first thinking about them, but should have?
(He says, as he adds "- give emacs ORG mode another try"
to his current morass of ink/lead in a way that starts out
horizontal in a tiny open space in the fourth quadrant of
the sheet, but then bends to finish vertical for running
out of horizontal runway.... :-) )
> vim though, is to me, the better editor.
--
oldernow
xyz001 at nym.hush.com
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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