journaling sideways

I spend time writing here and there most days. From my morning walk comes thoughts on how beautiful the days are now. This dirt road leads to that paved street. Temperature wanders around 20. Khmer people are out working. Most people here work 7 days a week. My son in law in Sihanoukville gets almost zero time off. But he feels fortunate to have a job.

So I walk and think on mornings. Down to some coffee shop or other. I mostly go to regular places now. The stop for coffee means an iced Americano with slow sips to lengthen my time.

Then I can write. Not just these things but these journals or notes or whatever I feel like calling them. They can be anything. Often they come from somewhere else. Like some stray thought that seems like a likely place. Stray thoughts lead to stray words. I can sit for a few hours in the coffee shop and just read and write and find things that then seem like connections. So I connect them.

I mean why not. Why not start writing on a thing. That then leads to other things which then circle back. Thank heavens for bidirectional links in my apps. They are like little arrows. All saying,

They went that way

I like just following along and maybe changing out the arrow pointing to another thing. A new thing born reading. Or writing. Finding some complementary or random connection. Making sure the little arrows point to or away.

I’m sure this creates a muddled up mess in my writing hub. Everything does go in there. No folders. No tags. Just links to and from. I don’t do so-called maps of content. Links and explanations. This is sideways writing at it’s best. Words that tumble around making the hub folder more organic and confusing. Except for me. And you see. This writing is only for me.

So whether I add more things. Link them. Find new little things I just write sideways. Turn left. Go south. Find a memory. Relive a moment.

there’s no purpose

And that makes it all better. I believe we do too many things where we need purpose and goals. We should practice ¹.

Things should be done and we should find joy or sorrow in them. Both are okay in it all. We cannot just live in one orbit. We need to find how all the arrows point or not. And either is good when you have no real end point.