You can keep your clever systems; I get my kicks from the mess I make
In praise of unruly note-making
I’ve been seeing a lot of posts about various approaches to taking notes, especially views on the most efficient system for collecting ideas and quotes for the sake of future referencing. I’ve read many articles like these over the years and have adopted a few tips on note-taking along the way, whether to remember or reinspire my own writing practice or for my professional comms/journalistic/essayist work.
But I’m frankly tired of it now – of systems, of order, of too much input of any kind, of being told to do this or that because it’s best, and of feeling like I ought to.
I’m lying next to my partner in bed, getting close to the end of Miranda July’s ‘All Fours’, while he reads a sci-fi book based in Vietnam (we are quite different, he and I, more on the relevance of that later). He peers over as he often does and I tell him it’s the best book I’ve read this year so far, maybe even in recent months, to which he responds, “how many books have you read?” I tell him, “quite a few,” which is an unsatisfactory answer to him – he wants numbers, specifics, quantifiable detail.
I ask him why it matters. We go back and forth like this for a bit, me asking him repeatedly “why does that matter, why, why”, every time he insists on the importance of counting, documenting, logging, knowing. He’s the kind who makes a spreadsheet for absolutely everything, from the names and dates of our adoptee chickens’ arrivals and departures to the height of each shrub and tree as it grows, and I love him for that (we commonly say in our household that I take care of the words and he takes care of the numbers – a division of labour based on our love/s).
We ultimately agree that the reason is the accrual of knowledge, information, cleverness, which I say I see as a largely pointless and meaningless faux-demonstration of our (as in, human) worth. He’s not so emotionally invested or analytical about it, which I largely consider a good thing. He makes the point that some people’s brains need and thrive on that information.
And that’s the point, if you want the digested read of what’s coming: we all seek and find satisfaction in different ways. He enjoys rigor and detail. I crave simplicity and ease. We both get it differently. There is no right or wrong way, only the way that works for you. We each have to know our own mind, know what turns us off and on. And while the end goal is to not fuss too much about either and thus ride along in uncontrived, accepting, effortless happiness (i.e. non-attachment to aversion or disdain as the way to freedom from patterns of thought and behaviour that are the root of our suffering, in Buddhist and Yogic terms), you can’t get there without wrangling.
(Tellingly, I approach the bit in July’s book where, without spoiling it for anyone who hasn’t read it yet, she and her husband realise with relief how different they are.)
Back to the note-taking. I’ve wrangled, applied, enjoyed and rejected, and now returned to where I started in this game (of writing and spirituality): the Daoist sense of simplicity as preferable for peace of mind, with a healthy allowance for the mess we make along the way, and a satisfying release of the internalised need to do/be any other way than this.
As per chapter 71 of the Tao Te Ching (which I don’t profess to be a description of myself, although it is towards what I aspire):
Not-knowing is true knowledge. Presuming to know is a disease. First realise that you are sick; then you can move toward health. The Master is her own physician. She has healed herself of all knowing. Thus she is truly whole.
Be critical and creative, rather than curative
I’ve no issue with the intention of those professing what works for them because for the most part, it seems to come from a place of caring to share the benefits they’ve gleaned and received. I care to share and do the same. And I do enjoy taking notes, catching my own ideas as well as honoring a beautiful turn of phrase from someone else, or some pithily captured wisdom, noting it down so I can pour over it and maybe, if it lingers in my mind and asks to be included, referencing it at a later date. But just how much do we need to know, to document and why?
Basically, I’m advocating critical thinking over accumulation. Or as the historic Buddha put it, “ehipassiko;” see for yourself.
Back to my partner: he keeps his spreadsheets for himself, because he finds it satisfying (which is partly to do with how his brain works differently, again, something he knows and honors), not to show or prove anything to anyone else. My issue with the accumulation of knowledge is why we do it and where, if we’re not careful, it can lead us – down the path of seeking/needing validation rather than discerning what we think for ourselves.
More comes from silence than noise
Yes, inspiration can be helpful; a bit of a prompt to provoke a thought or spurt in our own energy from outside influences can work wonders. Yes, there’s a thrill to learning something new. Then as the late great David Lynch said, the most important thing is to “be true to yourself; have your own voice ring out. Other things can inspire you but find your own voice.”
If we’re always listening and looking for other ideas and references, we risk robbing ourselves of the time and space for the silence from which our own voice can emerge. Added to that is the dulling of creativity and fresh perspective, because if all we ever do is gather from others and go on seeking outside of ourselves, all we’ll ever hear and say is repetition, therefore adding to the chorus of “popular opinion” (more on that in a forthcoming essay) rather than attuning to something fresh, insightful and truly interesting.
Messiness is emergent, unruliness is liberating
I realise I don’t want a system, or half the notes I think I ought to copy down. There was a time that I did, but now, I find it all antithetical to my process. It’s all just matter that clogs the mind. I recently returned to a process of creative journaling – where my notebooks are spaces for drawing, doodling, collaged clippings, gathered poems and teachings, all alongside my own written reflections. It’s a deliberately unruly space, where anything goes, especially messiness.
Tellingly, in the early days of my most recent journal, I drew something I wasn’t pleased with – the colours merged in ways and tones I didn’t like, it looked “wrong”, which speaks more to the limiting idea I had at the outset of what might be “right”. As I sat with the desire to rip out that page, to hide its apparent ugliness from myself, to impose the pretence of perfection in my notebook, I remembered a simple and important truth – that this is part of the practice of freeing myself from the “likes and dislikes that are the mind’s disease and sure to drown me in samsara’s seas” (to mash up a key Dharma teaching on the danger of succumbing to the mind’s nature to grasp and resist). So, I’ve left that page there, a bit like some kind of aversion therapy – a form of endurance that will eventually lead to equanimity. In other words, if I care less for neatness, prettiness and perfection, those things cease to matter, and my mind is less bothered by such limiting ideas that clutch after pretence and in doing so, risk and resist the liberation of accepting the reality that the process, the practice – life – is messy. So what?
Seek and you won’t always find
I often wonder why we go looking for yet more information, another book, another teaching. How much do we go seeking other sources and references because of fear? A fear of rooted in the lie of not enoughness rooted in white supremacy, and the mainstream scientific and publishing model whose profiteering and mechanistic interests these fears serve when we believe that we won’t be considered credible or believable? Are we somehow trying to impress, persuade, and if so, why do we feel the need to do that? Is it an internalised need to prove ourselves (which is related to the fear that we are not worthy unless we are well read and well versed in all the clever ideas)?
Something I find myself doing a lot with writers that I mentor is challenging them on their use of source material and references to other teachers/authors. If you know what you know based on experience and practice (which is often the case with mentees I work with in the area of yoga/wellness/mindfulness) that counts for more than if you are parroting the wisdom and teachings of others – because in this sphere, there’s way too much of that masquerading. We need more substance, less shallow mimicry. And certainly, in the case of marginalised writers, we need to stand in the truth and wisdom of our own experience without bowing to the lie that we need to prove ourselves.
Systems can deaden the creative spirit
The very thought of having multiple notebooks and systems on the go, of continually revisiting, indexing and categorising, brings up a visceral reaction of stubborn resistance and repulsion. I’m sure it works for many folks, but for me, it immediately causes my physical and energetic heart to deflate, my posture and aspiration to sag, and my spirit to feel dampened. In my own writing process, whether writing personal essays or ghost writing books or articles for others, or indeed any form of communications output, the ideas come first and the structure comes along to lend a hand. But I can never have an overly imposing structure because of the inherent idea that it requires obedience and the related idea that the output will be rendered good as a result.
I should confess that I do have multiple notebooks on the go, not for specific things or categories of thought or research. In fact, I’ll often start a new notebook with one purpose, or to take on retreat, and it merges into being used for some other purpose – generally just the fundamental practice of note-taking. I find what I need when I need it. And if I don’t, then I don’t get hung up on that. If I need to remember it, I will. If I don’t, how much does it matter, who really cares? If it’s vital for a citation or credit, I’ll be able to find the source, the internet being the beast that is always ready to give (sometimes too much).
What remains when all the knowledge is gone?
I often think about how I’ll respond when the moment of death arrives. We’re encouraged to contemplate the fleeting nature of our existence in Buddhist practice – to remember that this life is both precious and fleeting, precious because it is fleeting, and to ensure we release ourselves of all the baggage and the afflictions we invariably accrue, in the interests of healing rather than heaping on more hurt to the world and people in our wake. Ultimately, when the time comes, we want to pass freely onwards, without hope or fear about what we’re leaving behind or where we’re going next.
There are ceremonies and rituals in which people recite wonderful poems or play epic songs, thought-arresting words, heart-opening lyrics and gut-wrenching tunes. For the living and the dead. I love that. It’s a beautiful thing to do.
I wonder if I myself when it comes to the time will recall a clever word or two from some poet or musician. I hope my mind doesn’t desperately reach for something, that it will be spacious and free of worry, hope or fear. Who knows.
As I embrace more and more heartily the simple and quiet life, I am increasingly glad to let go of old ways of being, doing, writing, existing, thinking and expressing (which all roll into one, really). Having enjoyed and sometimes endured those, having received the benefits and the insights, they no longer serve me. With my random note taking system, my post it notes and my scribbles, my marginalia that 90% of the time nobody sees and I don’t always revisit, I feel free.
If all the clever words are lost to my mind at the point of death, I’d like to think I’ll be able to slip into it unburdened by the weight of the things I thought throughout my life that I needed to (but didn’t need to) know.
How about you - what brings you satisfaction; what’s your preferred creative process, and how have you come to know it, such as it works for you right now? Share your thoughts, I do care to know them!