- Sep 2021
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finiteeyes.net finiteeyes.net
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Offloading can be far more complex, however, and doesn’t necessarily involve language. For example, “when we use our hands to move objects around, we offload the task of visualizing new configurations onto the world itself, where those configurations take tangible shape before our eyes” (243-244).
This is one of the key benefits over the use of index cards in moving toward a zettelkasten from the traditional commonplace book tradition. Rearranging one's ideas in a separate space.
Raymond Llull attempted to do this within his memory in the 12th century, but there are easier ways of doing this now.
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To use your brain well, get out of your brain. Paul calls this offloading. To think well, she says, “we should offload information, externalize it, move it out of our heads and into the world” (243).
This is certainly what is happening in the commonplace book tradition and even more explicitly in the zettelkasten tradition.
What other methods of offloading exist besides writing and speaking? Hand gestures? Dance? What hidden modalities of offloading might indigenous societies use that Western culture might not be cognizant of?
Often journaling or writing in a diary is a often a means of offloading the psychological cruft of one's day to be able to start afresh.
This is some of the philosophy behind creating so-called "morning pages".
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