I’ve returned to the comfortable folds of Micro.blog after an eight-week hiatus. I’m calling my time away a sabbatical, and like all such experiences, I learned two important things about myself in the process.
First, I thought I could wean myself from using social media. That was impossible. Spending time on Bluesky taught me why the core values of Micro.blog work so well. On Bluesky, I felt obligated to “follow back” those who followed me, and even without ads or algorithms, memes and inane reposts flooded my timeline.
After two years of mild annoyance at Micro.blog for not showing me my followers, it finally clicked with me on why this is so essential. Here, you follow only those you find interesting. There’s no compunction to do otherwise. Unfollowing someone as your interests change doesn’t represent a moral quandary. My timeline here is much more engaging and relevant.
Second, and more importantly, I learned how special this community is to me. I’ve made friends here. I’ve commiserated and celebrated with so many here. And I’ve watched events unfold that tested our collective mettle.
Recently, I witnessed personal attacks from outside of Micro.blog on Manton Reece for his alleged fascist and exclusionary views. I can think of many politicians who deserve this vitriol, but Manton Reece? Are you kidding me? Manton walks a tightrope of being both the owner of Micro.blog and frequent blogger. In such a divided world, I’ve wondered whether this is wise or even possible. It can’t be easy. Yet, he pulls it off, again and again, with principles and respect.
While you can never win an argument with a troll, you can still make a difference. For me, that was returning and resubscribing to Micro.blog.
I passed the four-year mark of quitting alcohol today. Where I once struggled with days or weeks, now the years are piling up. As I shared on my third anniversary, the key for me was ruling out any thoughts of future moderation. It took many failed attempts before I accepted this simple truth.
We are walking through Central Park on a beautiful May morning, two lovebirds, married these many years. It’s our third day in Manhattan, and it feels as though the city has opened its arms wide and hugged us. Everywhere we look is green and lush. We pass a bakery nestled deep inside the park and decide to return tomorrow for a coffee and treats.
We emerge from the meadows and winding paths to the thrum and bustle of the Upper West Side. We walk up Broadway looking for a stationery store that sells my kind of notebooks and the art supplies she needs for an upcoming drawing class. The store is nearby, and I’m scanning both the businesses along the street and the map on my phone.
Without warning, Lisa stops. She points to a store sign and speaks a series of numbers. A SEPHORA sign comes out as 8-4-3-5. The neon TD Bank sign is another string of numbers. I look at her closely to see if she’s joking. She's not.
My heart begins to thump in my chest. We find a bench on a traffic island in the middle of Broadway. I ask her to read an advertisement on the bus, and she rattles off more numbers. Her tone becomes emphatic, as if it’s me who’s confused. I ask her to tell me her name. She doesn’t know it.
I wrap my arms around her and tell her to take deep breaths. In a few minutes, we hear the siren of a distant ambulance. “That’s for us,” I say. There are people everywhere, but I feel utterly alone. My mind goes quiet. I know what this is.
Twenty days earlier, during a quiet morning at home in Phoenix, Lisa discovers she can no longer read the text on her phone. Moments later, she can’t recall my name or our daughter’s name. We drive to the emergency room, and she is whisked into a triage room where doctors assess her. They say it’s a stroke and administer a powerful blood thinner. In two hours, her memory comes back. CT Scans, MRI Scans, blood tests, and physical evaluations follow. The doctors say we were lucky to have come to the hospital so quickly. The scans reveal no permanent damage. After three days in the hospital, I bring her home, counting blessings.
This is good because in a week, we will drive to New York with a carload of stuff and two dogs to start a big adventure: five months of city life in a furnished Manhattan apartment. We talk about canceling the trip. The odds of a second stroke are high in the first weeks. What if this happens again in New Mexico? Or along the highway in some desolate part of Missouri? She won't hear of it. She feels fine, and we decide to go, but I am nervous.
We follow a northeastern course of freeways over six long days, stopping only for fast food and pet-friendly hotels. Our route changes daily as we dodge weather systems that, a week later, will turn deadly for these midwestern states.
We finally creep through the Lincoln Tunnel and emerge into the chaos of NYC traffic. We feel relieved and lucky to have arrived in one piece, safe and sound, in our Upper East Side apartment.
I move through the following days in a panicked blur. The ambulance ride, the stroke team at Mount Sinai, the urgent questions about medications, allergies, and medical history. The doctors believe it’s a seizure, not a stroke. She has no physical stroke symptoms, and she is healthy. And having such a drastic memory lapse twice in three weeks almost surely rules out a stroke. Yet there is no definitive proof. I begin to understand that modern medicine is still more art than science.
More tests and scans eventually lead to a conclusion. Lisa has a benign brain tumor, a meningioma, pressing on her brain’s language and memory center, which caused the seizures. We’ve known about this tumor for a year, and she had radiation therapy five months ago to treat it, which these doctors say was a grave mistake. An emergency surgery to remove the tumor is scheduled in two days.
I feel pressure in my chest as I work through what this means. We are thousands of miles from home in a new city without friends or family. Our two dogs are alone in the apartment, and I run back through the Park to walk and feed them, then run back to the hospital. Lisa’s amnesia lingers, and I cannot be away from her side for long. When I return, she is confused and crying.
Our daughter, Mallory, flies in from California. I start to get a hold of myself. I make a rough plan to get us back to Arizona, where we have friends and insurance, and Lisa can more easily recover from surgery. We tag-team hospital visits and dog walking.
We meet Lisa’s doctor, one of the country’s best neurosurgeons, who happens to work out of the very hospital the ambulance driver chose out of a half dozen possibilities. The doctor explains that surgery is necessary to prevent her from having more seizures. There are risks, but these are manageable. This cannot wait. He can do it. He will do it. Now.
I sit with Lisa on the morning of the surgery. She is quiet. She knows she might not wake up from this. My vision narrows as I watch a nurse wheel her away to the operating room. I walk slowly back to the apartment to wait.
The surgery is a success. The surgeon removes the tumor without damaging an encroaching blood vessel or causing a seizure. She wakes up in pain, but herself. She loses the ability to read again, which scares her, but she remembers our names. I sit at the foot of her bed in the ICU wing while doctors and nurses poke and prod her. Her head is wrapped in bandages and gauze. The pain is intense, but they can give her nothing but Tylenol. I send Mallory back to the apartment. She shouldn’t see her mom like this. Six hours later, I walk home in darkness and pouring rain.
The next morning, I join the queue of people at the hospital’s entrance as visiting hours begin — the line snakes around the cavernous lobby. The woman ahead of me asks who I am visiting. I tell her in broad strokes what happened.
“Oh my gosh, I have chills” she says. “Imagine if she had the seizure on your road trip? Or if you had been walking in a different part of the city? To wind up here of all places? You have a guardian angel, my friend,” she says.
When I enter Lisa’s room, I see the spark has returned to her eyes. The pain has subsided. She feels better. She shows me how she can read some of the medical notices on the wall. She asks for coffee.
As I enter the bakery across the street from the hospital, the smell of freshly brewed coffee and pastries rouses me. The light of the world grows a little brighter. She’s going to be all right. She is going to be all right. My throat closes up. I study the menu for a long time before I place my order.
Lisa had her surgery six days ago. She was discharged from the hospital the next day. Her memory is intact. She can read. Each day, she is a little stronger, though the recovery from the operation will take weeks or maybe months. We both feel blessed to have come through this, here in the city of new beginnings.
We’re in the middle of a cross-country car trip from Phoenix to New York City. We’re traveling with two dogs, which has put a serious crimp in our sightseeing options. We are living on truck stop coffee, fast food, and DoorDash in dog-friendly hotel rooms.
As we near Louisville, I know we have to visit the final resting place of Muhammad Ali in Cave Hill Cemetery. I met Ali when I was an aspiring teenage boxer and he was the heavyweight champion of the world. I’ll never forget that handshake and that famous smile. Or the courage he had to stand up for what he believed was right, no matter the personal cost.
The cemetery is beautiful. Lush, green, and quiet. The only sound is birdsong and the dripping of water from an earlier rain. It feels peaceful here. There are two benches for visitors to sit and reflect. His tombstone reads:
Service to others is the rent you pay for your room in heaven.
Rest in peace, Muhammad. You really were the Greatest.
We arrive in New York City in less than a week for our five-month adventure. Normally, we would fly from Phoenix, but because of the dogs, we must make the cross-country drive.
The idea behind this trip has been percolating for decades. When I retired, I wanted to travel and see the world, but not in a conventional way. I didn’t want to see ten countries in two weeks. That’s an exhausting vacation, not travel, and definitely not a pilgrimage. No. I wanted to immerse myself in a place as a local. Rent a furnished flat in Madrid for three months with just a Kindle, a traveler’s notebook, and a good pair of walking shoes.
The problem started with the Ford Expedition I rented for the drive. I chose a large vehicle because I wanted room for the dogs and anything we might bring. But now, as I survey the suitcases and eight loaded boxes of clothing and gear, I know I have forgotten my ideal of traveling light.
The boxes include a blender, two gaming consoles, a box of dog food, treats and toys, thirteen pairs of shoes, a super automatic coffee machine, a fancy electronic scale, fifty pounds of dumbbells, heavy coats, makeup, blankets, vitamins, rain shells, and a box of just computer gear.
Yet, I can’t name a single thing we should remove.
There's a psychological term for this. Stuff expands to the space allowed.
Next time, I’ll rent a Ford Fiesta.
P.S. - Follow my micro blog for more frequent updates on our adventures!
As we get set to start a new adventure in New York City, we’ve closed the chapter of our short RV life. We bought this Winnebago EKKO new and owned it for just under two years.
We explored some amazing places in the Southwest and beyond in its diminutive 23 feet. We visited many National Parks, including an unbelievable week at the Grand Canyon.
With the sale finalized, I ran the numbers that no boat or RV owner ever wants to see. We spent a total of 102 nights on this coach. Let’s just say we could have spent those nights at the nicest suite in the Seattle Four Seasons and still had money left over for breakfast.
One of the things I love about keeping a journal is how a past entry can transport me so completely back in time to that moment. Here’s a passage from my journal on this day eight years ago:
I try to soak this in - the goldfinches perched on the feeders, fluttering and pestering one another for the best feeding spot, Puget Sound so blue and ruffled, distorted by the heat of the fire, the sight and smell of fresh cut grass, so green and healthy, the sounds of birds in every direction announcing their delight that spring has sprung. Ah yes.
Reading this, I am back on the porch of our old house, basking in the newfound sun after a long Pacific Northwest winter. I hear the birdsong. I see the ruffled waves on the blue water.
My life is so different now. I am worlds away from where I was back then. But in the space of a paragraph, I am transported.
Savor the moments. Write what you feel and see in a journal. Write something every day if you can. Practice time travel.
So much of my work in strategy revolved around the achievement of goals: quarterly goals, annual goals, and five-year goals. All of these were tied to a specific metric, which often produced an unintended counter-result. Focus on the inputs that will make you smarter and stronger. Do the workouts, practice your craft. Be one percent better every day. Play the long game.
One of the easiest ways to get more out of the books you read is to keep a journal. When you take notes, you’re not just passively reading; you’re reshaping the material in your own words, deepening your comprehension and the connections in your brain. These notes become a record you can revisit to refresh your memory and make recall easier.
I’ve used Day One as my journal for years, but I only recently discovered how well it works to keep my notes and favorite passages from my reading.
Day One is a leading journaling app for the Mac, iPad, iPhone, Android, and most recently for Windows. Journals are protected from prying eyes using secure end-to-end encryption. Prompts and suggestions help remove writer’s block about what to share. The app makes it simple to create an entry from a photo, from your Apple Watch, from a location you visited, and many other ways that remove the friction from keeping a journal. I liked Day One so much that I transcribed a dozen old paper journals to have a complete digital record of my life in the app.
Day One requires an annual subscription for its premium-level service, but a free version is available that works for many users.
In this post, I’ll share the benefits of keeping a book journal and a link to an Apple Shortcut that automates a big part of tracking your reading in Day One.
Why a Reading Journal
The practice of keeping a reading journal dates back centuries. Known as commonplace books, scholars filled notebooks with anecdotes, favorite passages, and bits of wisdom from their reading and study. Napoleon and Thomas Jefferson kept one. Marcus Aurelius wrote his Meditations as a quasi-commonplace book. Ralph Waldo Emerson filled over 180 notebooks with his reading notes and reflections.
For modern-day bookworms, Day One is the perfect tool for this, especially if you already use it for personal journaling.
The journal timeline of your reading history serves as a visual reminder of the books you’ve read and makes it simple to scroll through the list and review your notes and favorite quotes.
Intertwining your reading and personal journal provides a unique opportunity to revisit and remember the past. Seeing a book you read three years ago in the “On This Day” view of Day One will remind you not only of the book but also what else you were doing or thinking when you read it. Likewise, a journal is the ideal place to meditate on what you’ve learned and how you might apply it to your life. Reading and journaling are natural bedfellows.
Elements of the Book Journal
The book journal in Day One creates a separate entry for each book using the date you finished the book as the journal entry date.
For each book, it records the title and author, your rating on a five-star scale, the genre and reading format, and whether you owned or borrowed the book from the library. This information is presented as a summary line at the top of the entry that is easy to scan from the sidebar timeline.
I chose not to record the publisher, page count, year written, or other book data points. Instead, I insert a Goodreads link to the book, which has all that information just a click away.
There is space to record your thoughts and a section for highlights you marked in the book. Finally, the entry includes an image of the book cover that shows up nicely in the sidebar.
Here’s a view of this journal in Day One on my iPad:
Day One Reading Journal on iPad
… and examples of book entries on my iPhone:
Book Journal Entries on iPhone
... and two views from Day One on the Mac, showing the journal calendar and media to provide an idea of how book covers are used to remind you of your reading visually:
Book Journal Calendar and Media Views on Mac
A Private Alternative to Goodreads
Many avid readers use Goodreads to track the books they read. Consider this book journal as a private alternative or addition to Goodreads. One that you don’t have to worry about privacy, or how followers or others might react to your reading notes.
Goodreads is Amazon-owned, and while you can export basic reading data, it’s harder to get detailed notes or highlights out in a structured way. In contrast, Day One entries can easily be exported elsewhere. The Bear app has a built-in Day One importer; Bear can also export to many formats, including plain text. This Obsidian plug-in converts Day One entries into Markdown text that Obsidian can read or any app that supports plain text. This portability gives me peace of mind that the contents of my journal in Day One are truly future-proof.
Using free online services always brings a risk of continuity and profit motives. I still use Goodreads, but I like having a place where I can write with complete privacy about what I’m reading.
The Book Journal Shortcut
When I understood how great it would be to have my book journal in Day One, I wrote a program with Keyboard Maestro to copy over the 400 book notes I kept in Bear. It took a couple of hours to write the macro and copy the book notes, but when I finished, I had eight years of reading history in Day One.
Keyboard Maestro isn’t available on the iPad, where I do most of my writing, so if I wanted to create new Book Journal entries on the iPad, I would have to figure out how to do it in Apple Shortcuts, the only automation tool that works on all Apple devices.
It took much more time to accomplish this in Shortcuts, partly because I have less experience with it and also because it’s not nearly as powerful. The trickiest part was pinging the Google Books database for book covers, but I eventually figured it out.
Here’s the link to the Book Journal Apple Shortcut:
Clicking the link will prompt you to download and install the shortcut on your system. You should only need to do this once, so long as your devices are all on the same iCloud account.
In the shortcut setup, you’ll need to specify which journal in Day One you want to use for your book entries. It defaults to Journal, but I recommend you create a new journal for your books and update the shortcut to save your entries there.
When you run the shortcut the first time, you’ll be prompted for permission to access Google’s API service, Google Books, and to save entries to Day One.
You’ll be asked for the book’s title and author for each book. Enter these carefully, as whatever you type will be used to search Google and Goodreads and will become the basis for your book note. Next, you’ll click through standardized prompts for book genre, reading format, ownership, rating, and a calendar to select the date you finished the book. Finally, you’ll be presented with a selection of book covers from the Google Books API service. From there, the shortcut finalizes the book note and creates it in Day One.
You’ll need to revise the genre categories to fit your reading preferences. You won’t need any shortcut programming knowledge to edit these. Right-click the shortcut on Mac or tap the three dots in the upper right corner of the shortcut on your iPhone or iPad, and look for this list:
Editing Book Genres in the Shortcut
The Shortcut applies a reading and rating tag to each book in Day One. This lets you quickly filter your entries to books you loved (or hated). You can change or eliminate this tagging system by editing the final action in the shortcut.
Shortcut Limitations
There are a few limitations with the shortcut. First, Goodreads discontinued its API access to their books database, so the link takes you to a search page where your book should be near the top of the list. It’s a two-click process to access the Goodreads page for your book note entry. You can edit the Goodreads link with the actual website URL after the fact if desired.
I did not include links to StoryGraph or Readwise as these are less common reading applications. If you use these or others, you can follow the logic in the shortcut to add these services.
Covers aren’t available for every book using the Google Books API. If the shortcut doesn’t provide the correct cover, you can add it manually by dragging it into Day One from Goodreads. Further, Day One doesn’t support image resizing, so the book cover can’t be reduced to the typical thumbnail size you’d expect. I’ve inserted the book cover at the end of the note to avoid overwhelming the entry. This approach yields a nice thumbnail view in the timeline and media views.
This shortcut creates a book journal in Day One. If you use a different journaling or notes app that supports Apple Shortcuts (like Apple Notes or Bear), you could replace the last action in the shortcut with the destination app of your choice.
Feel free to customize the shortcut as needed. If something isn’t working as you expected, leave me a note in the comment section, and I’ll have a look.
Final Thoughts
I’ve been a reader all my life, but it’s only been the last eight years that I’ve taken the time to track the books I’ve read. This started as a simple list in a notebook to track my reading against a goal. Eventually, it grew to a full-on reading system in Bear, which involves linking and back-linking my notes and quotes to central themes and other related books.
Taking these extra steps to process what I’ve read has dramatically impacted my reading retention. The books I read before this feel shadowy, almost non-existent; the books since feel alive and connected. Could simply writing stuff down make such a difference? Oh yes.
I wish I could go back in time and tell my 20-something self to take those 20 minutes after finishing a book to capture my thoughts. Fancy note-taking technology didn’t exist then, but it wouldn’t have mattered. I’ve always kept a journal, and it would have been a simple thing to write a paragraph or two about each book.
When I look critically at how elaborate my reading system has become, I know I’m overdoing things. There’s Readwise for highlights, Obsidian to download those highlights, Bear for my linked and tagged reading notes, and Day One for my reading journal. I spend a fair amount of time keeping these systems in check.
If I were to pare this down to the barest of essentials, I would use just Day One. If I could add just one more complication, it would be Readwise. A reading journal in Day One and a commonplace book in Readwise represent the two main pillars of scholarly reading that has spanned many centuries, albeit with recent technological improvements.
One example is the ability to “chat” with your highlights in Readwise using AI. These interactions have revealed connections and insights I had never considered, drawn instantly from the thousands of collected highlights in my system. The results are astonishingly personal and … brilliant.
Chatting with Your Highlights in Readwise
This technology feels much closer to the “second brain” promises of connected notes apps. Why spend so much effort linking notes in Bear when Readwise reveals connections I wouldn’t have made on my own, all without any extra effort?
While I can’t go back in time to urge my younger self to keep a reading journal, I can pass this advice on to you. Track the books you read in a journal. Use Day One and this shortcut. Save passages in books that speak to you. Revisit and review these reading notes and quotes. Let this wisdom grow like interest on an investment. Your future self will thank you.
We are sitting on a bench in Madison Square Park in the Flatiron District. Buildings encircle this urban oasis, framed by a blue New York sky. It is our last day in the city, and we have been walking all morning. Small dogs in fancy coats trot by us with their owners. The din of the city is somehow a comfort, like ocean surf. The temperature hovers around 30 degrees Fahrenheit, yet I feel warm in the sunlight, layered as I am in cold weather gear. Lisa sits beside me, taking it all in.
“Would you ever think of moving here permanently?” I ask. It’s a common question we pose when we travel.
“Oh, yeah,” she says without any hesitation. “I’ve always been a city girl.” Her face glows in the chilly air.
When we retired four years ago in our mid-50s, it seemed as if we had life by the tail. We sold the house and moved aboard our 43’ ocean-going trawler, set on exploring the world at a sedate six miles an hour. I’ve always loved the water, and getting this chance to cast off the bowlines was a lifelong dream. We built a home in Arizona in a 55+ retirement community as a mere precaution, a refuge from the soggy Pacific Northwest winters. Snowbirds, or maybe seagulls, might have better described us.
But a family tragedy dashed those plans. Crushed and grief-stricken, we sold the boat and stayed put in Arizona these past three years. We made friends and enjoyed the newness and comforts of a planned community that sprouted from nothing in the desert. Mostly, we worked on finding meaning in an unthinkable loss.
Over the past few months, Lisa and I started brainstorming ideas to escape the heat of these brutal Arizona summers. As someone who spent his entire life a half mile from the beach, I had no idea how scorching the desert during the height of summer could be.
These talks felt like a good sign. We were coming through it, maybe even out of it. Like Odysseus, we have traveled far. We have suffered. We have buried an oar in this place so far from the sea.
As we vetted possibilities, we knew we wanted challenge and variety, not vacation-style leisure. We needed a break from this predictable, curated life that attracts many to retirement communities.
But neither of us wanted the usual travel of flights and hotels and always being on the go. We could live out of a suitcase for a few weeks, but all summer? No. We did that during a family vacation to Europe. Forty-three stops in sixty days, including an attempt to see Paris in a weekend. Ugh. Never again.
As we pored over maps and searched travel sites, New York City kept popping up. I lived there for a year in the 1990s when Lisa and I first started dating. Neither of us could think of another U.S. city that had as much to offer a pair of healthy retirees with ample time on their hands. It would also mean a return to our very beginnings.
So, during an unseasonably warm Arizona January, we dug through our closets for winter clothes and flew to Manhattan. We walked all over the city, through Chelsea, Greenwich Village, Midtown, the Upper West and Upper East Sides, and Harlem. I heard stories that New York had changed for the worse, but in my eyes, the city was even more beautiful and clean than when I left it in 1995.
By the end of the week, we knew we had found our summer destination. We rented a furnished apartment on the Upper East Side from mid-May through mid-October. The brownstone is a half block from Central Park and not far from the five-story walk-up I rented many years ago.
We’ll have all the time we need to explore the city at our leisure, not as tourists, but as starry-eyed transplants. I’ll take writing classes. Lisa will paint. We’ll join a gym. We’ll walk the dogs twice a day through Central Park. I’ll make friends with the docents at the Met, a place I stumbled through in a daze during my only visit, but now I can study methodically.
Figuring out how to live in New York City — where to shop for groceries and how to get around on the subways — is the type of travel that, in time, will change us forever. Paris, to me now, is an irritating blur. After five months of daily life, New York will be woven into our DNA. We will always have it.
Yes, it’s a costly trip. New York is one of the most expensive cities in the world, and we splurged on a deluxe apartment. We wanted the best possible experience for this new mode of immersive travel, which might be something we repeat each summer.
“I can’t believe we rented an apartment,” Lisa says, touching my gloved hand.
“We’re doing this,” I agree.
What is this stirring I feel in my chest? Is it hope? This must be what sunrise feels to the hiker lost deep in the woods. We resume our walk, looking around as if we own the place.
This month, I finished a multi-year reading of Will and Ariel Durant's The Story of Civilization, an eleven-volume opus considered one of the finest narratives of world history ever written.
Durant published the first volume in 1935 when he had just turned 50. The tenth volume, Rousseau and Revolution, won the Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction in 1968. Will and Ariel, his spouse and co-author, published the final volume in 1975, a culmination of forty years of writing and scholarship. No author’s body of work has even come close to the scope and duration of this epic history set. Excluding reference notes, the text spans ten thousand pages, covering human civilization from the earliest recorded history through Napoleon’s meteoric rise and fall.
I’ve wanted to read these books since I inherited them from my Grandmother more than twenty-five years ago. I made a few attempts but never got past the first hundred pages. I was too busy or preoccupied with other things to devote the time and focus.
This time was different. First, as a recent retiree, I have the energy to dedicate to a project like this. Second, I approached the reading like a real project. I mapped out the volumes and page counts and calculated that if I read just thirty pages a night, I could read the entire series in a little over a year. I stuck with it, and the little bit of reading every night soon became a habit.
I didn’t finish the books in a year like I planned. The reading stretched out to almost two years. On average, I read just under fifteen pages a day. Yet, it’s striking to see how a little bit of reading each day can add up.
In terms of consistent effort, I’d place the reading of these books on par with the work I put in to earn my MBA degree twenty-five years ago. That two-year program helped me professionally and monetarily; these Durant books changed me in perhaps an even more profound way.
Last year, I wrote about the personal reasons I wanted to read these books. In this post, I’m sharing some reflections on the benefits I’ve taken away from this monumental reading assignment.
Before we get to that, I have some quibbles. While Durant is a masterful storyteller and sometimes poet, the writing feels necessarily dated at times. The focus is too heavily weighted towards Western civilization and Europe. Durant’s interest in the sexual proclivities of historical figures surprised me at first, given the time this was written, but later became tedious. The extended descriptions of famous art and architecture were well-written, but there are easier and better ways to study those now. I found myself skimming a lot of those sections.
Criticisms aside, the Story of Civilization is truly a masterpiece of history. After thinking back on this multi-year reading journey, I'll group the value I've received in three areas:
1. The Past Explained
Before Durant, my knowledge of world history stemmed from high school classes and isolated deep dives into specific events and people. My internal timeline of when and where things happened over the eons was a mixed-up jumble.
The Story of Civilization corrected all that. It starts at the very beginning with a patient professor chatting beside you the entire way. It’s the same wise voice describing the Pharaohs of ancient Egypt as the Goths invading Rome, the dark ages of inquisitions and crusades, a spark then roaring fire of the Renaissance, the return to science and reason, before ending with Napoleon stewing in exile in St. Helena. It’s one continuous story with no gaps or omissions.
These books exposed me to every notable event and person in our shared history. Not just the Kings and Queens, but the composers, the artists, and the philosophers; the writers and scientists and architects; the prophets, the saints, and the heretics. It is not just about major events or people but also insights into the economies, the everyday life of peasants and the middle classes, their religious beliefs, their customs and morals, and their ideas on family and community.
By reading these books in a relatively short time span and taking hundreds and hundreds of notes, I now have a well-calibrated compass of the when, what, and why of human history. I’m able to draw from this knowledge with most everything else I read. I can place the context of practically any historical figure or event in reading that my eyes might have glossed over before now. This has made my post-Durant reading life a much richer experience.
2. Perspective on Humanity
Taking in the entire written history of civilization definitely gives you a new perspective on human nature. It’s not good. Reading example after example of the corrupting effect of power held by the few over the many is depressing. Or how organized religions are both awful and necessary to the stability of civilization. Or how freedom and equality seem like natural feel-good bedfellows but are, in truth, mortal enemies. Or how the rich get richer and richer until the poor rise up. Or how democracy as a form of government rarely lasts.
A sorry spectacle of generals climbing over slain rivals to power, to be slain in their turn; of pomp and luxury, eye-gouging and nosecutting, incense and piety and treachery; of emperor and patriarch unscrupulously struggling to determine whether the empire should be ruled by might or myth, by sword or word.1
History provides a needed perspective to help us navigate turmoil and uncertainty. Study enough past civilizations, their rise and their fall, and you can’t help but see consistent patterns and inflection points in the world around us. No one can truly predict the future, but surely our shared history is a powerful guide, given how consistently the past repeats itself.
In so many ways, history shows what a privilege it is to be alive during this time of democracy and relative peace. Our past is riddled with countless atrocities, warfare and pointless bloodshed, inquisitions, dictatorships, and crazed emperors. Yet, witnessing so many civilizations fail over the millennia, we must acknowledge this current peace and tranquility will not, cannot last.
That said, there’s room for optimism. For every hundred tyrants, there’s a philosopher or scientist or artist whose gifts to humanity have pushed us forward as a society. Here's Durant:
Let us agree that in every generation of man’s history, and almost everywhere, we find superstition, hypocrisy, corruption, cruelty, crime, and war: in the balance against them we place the long roster of poets, composers, artists, scientists, philosophers, and saints. That same species upon which poor Swift revenged the frustrations of his flesh wrote the plays of Shakespeare, the music of Bach and Handel, the odes of Keats, the Republic of Plato, the Principia of Newton, and the Ethics of Spinoza; it built the Parthenon and painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel; it conceived and cherished, even if it crucified, Christ. Man did all this; let him never despair. 2
3. The Meaning of Life
During the height of my working life and career, I dreamed of one day retiring to my little book-lined study to read and think through the mysteries of life. I'm not religious. I studied philosophy in college and maintained an avid interest in Stoic thinking, but I never had the proper time to bear down on the crux of the problem: why are we here? What is the meaning of all this?
I hoped one day to find the answers buried in the pages of my many books.
I didn’t realize when I started reading The Story of Civilization that Durant was a seeker of these same questions. With every spiritual movement, every religion, every saint, every philosopher, he was there by my side, poking and probing for the answers to questions that bothered us both.
Did Durant help me find what I was looking for? Did I discover the true meaning of life? Not exactly. Maybe the answers I seek can’t be found in a book. And yet, I did find comfort in the parallels between the we-are-all-one views of the ancient Upanishads, repeated and examined so logically by Lucretius and unearthed once more by the 18th-century free-thinking Deists.
You often hear that ancient philosophers conversed with one another over the centuries, adding to, refuting, and affirming each other like some modern-day Reddit thread. Durant’s moderation of these thinkers throughout the books made that conversation come alive in ways I would have surely missed had I studied this piecemeal. I came here for history but found insight in philosophy. I am wiser for Durant's company.
What does it matter by what road each man seeks the truth? By no one road can men come to the understanding of so great a mystery. — Symmachus 3
A Personal Legacy
My Grandfather gave my Grandmother the first six volumes of The Story of Civilization as a Christmas gift in 1959. He passed away five years later, the year before I was born, so I never got the chance to meet him. As a widow, my Grandmother read these books carefully, as proven by her many cryptic scribbles in the margins. I knew her as a devout Presbyterian, but her underlining and exclamation marks show that, like Durant, she also questioned her religion, faith, and life’s true purpose. She donated most of the books from her large family library when she downsized to a senior living apartment. She kept the Durant books and just a few others. She cherished these books.
I wish I had realized she didn’t own the complete set. I would have bought them for her. I ended up buying the remaining five books on eBay. Her marginalia ends after six volumes; mine continues.
Maybe in thirty or forty years, my daughter will pull one of these well-loved books down from her shelves and flip through the yellowed pages, scanning all the scribbles and vertical lines and exclamation points in the margins, stopping to puzzle over why a particular sentence or paragraph was marked. You can tell much about a person from what they write in books. Maybe that is legacy enough. Or, maybe, when the time is right, she will decide to embark on the same voyage as her father and great-grandmother, walking along amiably with Durant and two silent pilgrims.
Reading Advice
The physical books that make up The Story of Civilization are long out of print, but you can sometimes find a nice set collecting dust in a used bookstore. eBay usually has sets for sale in the $100-$200 range, which is considerably cheaper than the cost of an MBA.
You can buy the complete set on Kindle, but I don’t recommend it. The file size caused my Kindle to lock up, though the individual books work fine. When I traveled, I left the hefty physical books at home and read on Kindle instead. Amazon has periodic sales of various books within the series for as low as $2 each, and I ended up buying most of them that way.
You can buy or borrow audiobook versions on Libby. I listened to parts of the series on walks and drives but found them more challenging to follow than in print.
My advice is to buy the set in hardback. Put the books on your shelf. Let them marinate. Pick up a volume and thumb through it every once in a while. And when you’re ready, go easy. Read a little every day. Harvest the time you might have wasted on social media. Savor the writing and the story. Write notes in the margins. Reflect on what you’ve learned. You might be amazed at the distance you'll travel.
Have you read The Story of Civilization or have plans to read it? Let me know in the comment section below.
A few weeks ago, I came across a blog post about the author’s reasons for switching to a different everyday-carry notebook. I love posts like these, and this one had me clicking on websites, blog posts, and videos about notebooks and pens until long past bedtime.
For some, it can be difficult to resist the possibility that a new notebook or pen might help squeeze more insightful words onto a blank page. There’s a reason I highlighted this passage from Todd Henry’s Daily Creative:
Sometimes the feel of a new tool in your hands is all it takes to create a spark: a new keyboard for your computer, a new pen or notebook. There’s no magic in the tool; it’s how the new tool makes you feel about working, how it invites you back into your craft.
I love digital note-taking and spend a lot of time organizing and linking my reading and knowledge notes. But I sometimes question whether that investment will ever pay off.
A few months ago, I traced my last dozen writing projects back to where the ideas first originated. I hoped many spawned from insights born out of the interconnected links and backlinks in my note-taking system. But, no. Every one took shape in the pages of my handwritten journal, often followed by mental acrobatics played out on the surface of 4x6 index cards. Only later did a keyboard take part. Even after I had a working draft of an essay, I almost always returned to my journal to question my thinking. Many essays took a new direction after these mid-stream journaling sessions.
Despite a fascination with digital tools, pen and paper is where my real thinking happens.
That being so, I may have written too much about apps and software if the creative spark takes place elsewhere. So, today, I’m sharing the analog tools I use daily. And surprise, surprise: writing this post led me to a rewarding discovery.
STM Notebook
For the past three years, I’ve used this notebook from Scribbles That Matter (STM) as my paper journal. I wake up early and write in this notebook every morning over coffee. I love the larger B5 size for more expansive thinking. The STM has 213 high-quality dotted and numbered pages (120 GSM), a few index pages, a pocket in the back to stash notecards, two place-marking ribbons, a loop to hold a pen, an elastic band to keep it closed, and even a slipcase for storage. The notebook lays flat when opened, yet its binding remains tight even after a year of daily use. This notebook hits all my buttons.
Notsu Index Cards
About a year ago, I graduated from cheap Amazon basic 4x6 notecards to Notsu dot grid index cards. These are made from thick (350 gsm) card stock with subtle dots and rounded edges. Unlike cheaper ones, my pen glides over the smooth surface of these high-quality cards. They are thick enough to handle permanent markers without bleeding and withstand almost any abuse without crumpling.
The Allure of Fancy Pens
I’ve managed to stay away from using fancy pens in my notebooks and journals. I’ve bought a few nice pens over the years, only to realize I didn’t enjoy writing with them. I tried fountain pens but found them fussy and precious. I’ve come to accept that my southpaw scrawl is more suited for ballpoints than nibs and special ink.
For the past three or four years, I’ve written every day with a Pentel Energel 0.5 Needle Tip pen. The Energel’s water-based gel ink flows evenly on the page without smearing or skipping, even with my awkward left-handed slant. The 0.5mm fine tip lets me write with uncanny precision. I prefer blue ink in my notebooks and journals. Traditional black is far too grown-up for me. Pentel’s shade of blue is perfect. And it’s affordable. The pen costs just $1.39 when purchased in bulk.
After discovering the Pentel, I bought several dozen from Amazon, fearing they might one day be discontinued. After a while, throwing away an entire pen felt wasteful, so I started buying just the refills, which cost a mere $0.60 each.
After reading the aforementioned blog post and researching the Mark Two pen and its companions, I began to examine the body of the Pentel more critically. While the ink flows like magic, the pen itself is a plasticky piece of junk.
I was still pondering this illogical allure of fancy pens a few days later when I had an idea. What if someone makes a nice pen body that accepts Energel refills? Is that even a thing?
I asked ChatGPT. “Certainly,” it replied, and it spat out five higher-end pens that accept the Energel refill. My heart began to beat a little faster.
Two suggestions didn’t fit my style, and two required trimming the refill to fit. But one, the AI’s top recommendation, looked very, very promising.
Two hours later, after studying another slew of videos and Reddit posts, I ordered the $100 Big Idea Design Dual Side Click Pen in stonewashed titanium.
Big Idea Design Dual Side Click Pen
I’ve been writing with this pen for two weeks now. Due to its unique adjustable design, it accepts Energel refills and a hundred others. The refill fits snugly and doesn’t wiggle or wobble. The titanium version weighs 28 grams, a little over twice as much as the Pentel. It’s just enough extra weight to coax the ink to flow even better on the page. The copper or zirconium (!) versions would be too heavy to hold for long stretches.
Engaging the pen feels more like chambering a round than the bouncy click of the Pentel. Pressing either side button gives a satisfying thunk as the pen disengages. When I pull the pen out of the loop of my journal, a sound like a crisp finger-snap erupts from the titanium clip (yes, even the clip is titanium).
It took no time to fall in love with this pen—a beautiful, understated, utilitarian badass that accepts my beloved refills.
And since it’s backed by a lifetime warranty, this could be the last pen I ever buy.
Of course, I’m already eyeing the bolt-action model and perhaps a mini version to carry with my pocket notebook.
This, my pen enthusiast friends tell me, is how it begins.
I love the idea of a read-it-later app. The premise is simple: Save articles and blog posts that arise throughout the day with a single tap and read them later when you have the time. This way, you stay focused and never worry about misplacing or forgetting an important article.
A good read-it-later app can transform almost any web article into a clean, ad-free format with a consistent layout and font. It organizes newsletter subscriptions without clogging email inboxes. The best ones allow highlighting and annotations that carry over to popular note-taking apps.
The biggest problem with read-it-later apps is that saving articles is too easy. All those well-intentioned essays and posts languish in your queue, unread. You feel guilty about not reading them, so you archive everything and start over, only to repeat the process. And, maybe even worse, you end up reading the wrong articles.
Readwise and Readwise Reader
I have long been a fan of Readwise, a reading app and service for organizing book highlights and notes. About three years ago, Readwise launched Reader, its own read-it-later app that integrates with its book service.
I’ve been using Reader for the past two years, and it's ... okay. It has been a long development effort for the Readwise team. There are updates to it almost weekly, and the app continues to improve and evolve. It can handle most of my read-it-later needs, but I’ve honestly never enjoyed using it.
The user interface is choked with features. There are too many ways of customizing views and gestures. I can never remember the difference between a short or long swipe or a left or right swipe. The article queue is cluttered with menus, yet I often struggle to find a function when needed.
I feel guilty for not loving Reader. It is “free” with my Readwise subscription—who doesn’t like free? But I prefer apps that prioritize minimalist design and style, even at the cost of fewer power features. Readwise Reader abounds in power but lacks the finesse I expect from a well-designed app.
Testing read-it-later Apps
After a frustrating search through multiple menus to send an article to my Kindle, I decided to look for an app that better suited my tastes. I spent an evening installing the leading read-it-later apps on my iPad, Mac, and iPhone.
(A quick disclaimer: I have no financial interest in any of the apps I’ve evaluated. No one is paying me for this blog post.)
I tested Pocket, Instapaper, Inoreader, Goodlinks, and Matter using a checklist of needs and wants. I made some quick decisions. Pocket lacked export capabilities and felt dated. Inoreader’s fixed reading layout was a turnoff. Goodlinks was fantastic but didn't integrate with Readwise.
Instapaper impressed me with its aesthetics and how it imported articles behind paywalls. Matter, the one I knew the least about, surprised me the most. It matched Instapaper’s immersive reading experience but offered a wealth of additional reading selections as part of the subscription.
I spent the last four weeks pitting Reader, Instapaper and Matter against each other in my daily online reading. The odds were stacked in favor of the incumbent. I did not relish the notion of paying for another app subscription.
After four weeks, the choice became obvious. Matter is my new read-it-later app.
Matter: “1% Smarter Every Day”
Matter is a subscription-based read-it-later app that has been around since 2021. At $80 per year, it costs more than Pocket, Goodreads or Instapaper, but less than Inoreader or Readwise Reader (though you get both Readwise and Reader for the same price).
What sets Matter apart beyond its well-designed reading app is its ability to follow favorite writers and its unique algorithm that suggests complementary articles. I didn’t expect to value this, but as you’ll read, I found these content offerings compelling.
Saving Articles
Matter makes it easy to add articles to its reading queue. Use the share function from an iPhone or iPad or tap a button in your browser’s toolbar. I tested Matter with Safari, Chrome, and Brave, and they all worked well. A double-tap on an article from Unread, my RSS reader, sends it to Matter automatically.
The Reading Queue
Matter’s uniqueness begins to show up in its reading queue. Its minimal design focuses on reading content, not menus or decoration. An iPad mini displays twelve articles in Matter without scrolling. Readwise Reader, with its extra fluff and clutter, shows just five. For each article, you see the estimated time to read, the percentage you’ve already read, and the number of annotations you’ve made. The queue can be sorted by the usual parameters: article length, date added, author, etc. But a flick of your finger launches an article to the top of the list, or for a bit of whimsy, a shake of your device shuffles the order. Archive any article with a simple swipe.
Immersive Reading
Reading an article in Matter is an understated pleasure. The font and screen layout can be adjusted to your liking. Swiping down from the top of the screen gives you an AI-generated article summary. After the title, you see an estimate of the article length in minutes.
Menus and buttons quietly disappear as you read, leaving you alone with the text. When you reach the end of the article, the buttons return and stay present as you continue to peruse what you’ve read, knowing you’ll need to take some action now that you’re done. This is very thoughtfully executed. Here’s a look at the same article on Reader and Matter.
I often read on my iPad at night. There are several dark mode reading choices, and none blinds you with the bright white text glare of less sophisticated apps (like Reader).
Matter provides a brilliant way to explore links within an article. In most read-it-later apps, following a link takes you out of the app into your browser, disrupting your concentration. Matter does something so much better. When you tap the link, a window appears with a scrollable view of the linked article and the option to save it in your queue for later. A single tap on the perimeter of the window brings you back to where you left off.
Reviewing links without leaving the app in Matter
I love this ability to follow an author’s train of thought and references without losing my own in the process. I seldom clicked on links in Reader because of the inherent disruption in flow. Now, I’m a link-clicking demon, and I feel like I’ve engaged a new level of learning and understanding from what I'm reading.
Capturing highlights is as simple as dragging your finger (or Apple Pencil) over the text. No pop-up menus or distractions. Just yellow highlighted text. Tap again to delete the highlight, add your own notes, copy the text, or create a beautiful image of the quote for sharing on social media. If you add a note, linking brackets and tag symbols hover above the keyboard for those who keep notes in apps like Bear or Obsidian — a subtle but helpful touch.
You have the option to listen to articles with a choice of high-quality AI narrators. As you listen, blue highlighting tracks along with the text. If you’re listening on a walk with your AirPods, a double-click of the stem highlights the sentence or paragraph you’ve just heard. I thought AI narrators were a gimmick until I started using Matter with AirPods. This works with YouTube videos and podcasts as well. I'd love this feature in audiobooks, but sadly, Matter doesn’t offer that.
When you reach the end of an article, you can archive it, share it as a link, or save it as a PDF.
A swipe up from the bottom of the screen provides a “more like this” selection of similar articles sorted by algorithmic match. The recommendations are startlingly good. I’ve been presented with my own blog posts as options a few times, so I know they’ve cast a wide net for the population of articles to include in the matching process.
A swipe from left to right on the screen returns you to the reading queue. I love apps that use universal gestures.
Readwise Integration
If you’re a Readwise subscriber, highlighting a passage in Matter, including notes, tags, and links, automatically flows through to Readwise and your notes app. This removes any mental overhead of having to think about where or how to save what you’re reading. It just works.
Obsidian Integration
I’ll briefly mention the Matter plug-in for Obsidian for readers who use that note-taking powerhouse. The Matter plug-in is fantastic, rivaling the Readwise plugin in options to customize how highlights and annotations are presented in your notes.
Reading PDFs
Matter did the best job among the three of importing PDFs. Instapaper doesn’t support PDFs at all. Reader accepts PDFs but doesn’t transform them. Here’s the same PDF in both Matter and Readwise Reader:
Kindle Integration
It takes two taps to send an article to your Kindle if you prefer to read longer articles that way. Matter automatically adds a “Sent to Kindle” tag, which shows up in the queue list so you don’t forget.
The article format in Kindle is the best I’ve seen. You can send a group of articles in bulk, and they show up on Kindle as a digest with an interactive table of contents for easy navigation. Unlike Instapaper or Readwise, article metadata is preserved when highlights are imported to Readwise and your notes app. Limitations by the Kindle prevent wireless syncing, but Readwise parses and saves all highlights and annotations perfectly via side-loading or emailing the Kindle Clippings.txt file.
Reading Better
When you subscribe to Matter, you get a terrific read-it-later app, as I’ve described. But there’s another part to Matter that delivers even more value, so much so that the $80 annual subscription cost might be a bargain.
Your Personal Daily Digest
In addition to your saved reading queue, Matter offers a changing selection of articles as part of a daily digest. Some are curated staff picks, but most are articles that Matter thinks you will like based on previous reading. The articles presented aren’t always new. Some of the most interesting articles I’ve read from the digest were written three or four years ago, yet are still timely based on my current interests.
If you find an interesting article from the digest, you can read it on the spot or add it to your queue. If you swipe up from the bottom of one of these articles, you can find even more related articles, and so on.
Following Favorite Writers
Matter allows you to follow your favorite writers no matter where they publish. For example, essays from Paul Krugman from both The New York Times and his Substack Krugman Wonks Out can be found on his Matter author page. The depth of writer selection is astonishing, with many available articles only accessible via paywalled subscription sites, and then, only with distracting ads sprinkled through the text. I already subscribe a few of these publications but prefer to read them in Matter because of the comfortable reading experience and power reading tools.
Once I understood the scope of the published writing available in Matter, I took a different stance on its subscription cost. It’s a reading app, yes, but it’s also a potential replacement for many of my magazine and newspaper subscriptions.
Finding Your People
A few weeks ago, I wrote an essay about why blogs matter. In it, I described the long-pull value of connecting with others through writing and sharing one’s particular interests. If you write it, they will come, goes the theory. Eventually.
Matter’s “more like this” tool provides a much faster way to find and connect with like-minded people.
Here’s an example: I sent my blog post to Matter to test the article import process. On a whim, I swiped up from the bottom of my essay to see if others had written something similar. And, of course, they had.
A few taps later, I read this passage from Henrik Karlsson:
It is crazy-beautiful to have a stranger arrive in your inbox, and they are excited by exactly the same things as you! You start dropping the most obscure references, and they’re like, yeah, read that, love it. The first handful of times it happened, Johanna asked me what was wrong. I was crying in the kitchen.
I had never heard of Mr. Karlsson, but here in a blog post from 2022, surfaced for me in Matter, I found a kindred spirit. His post led me to a half-dozen others. I would never have found any of these through a conventional Google search. For anyone with interests that border on the fringe or unusual or mildly obsessive, a “more like this” journey with Matter can be fascinating.
Making Reading Fun
The final benefit I’ll mention deals with that awful, soul-sucking dread that comes with opening your read-it-later app, knowing you’ve accumulated far too many articles to read on a Sunday afternoon. For read-it-later veterans, you know the feeling. You’ve got 30 minutes to read six hours of articles. Your good intentions turn to despair as you survey your reading list.
Matter offers several innovative solutions to prevent reading queue angst. First, the audio narration and AirPods integration I mentioned earlier can help you read more during otherwise dead times in your schedule.
But the surest way is to read a little every day. Matter encourages this through goals and streaks. You set a daily reading goal, and Matter rewards you with a fun recognition when you finish. Later, it reminds you to keep your reading streak going.
Many apps do this, and I’m sure it’s annoying for some (it’s optional), but it definitely motivates me. These little recognitions likely explain why I’ve conducted 1,500 straight Readwise reviews and 4,500 consecutive Day One journal entries.
Wish List
There are a few things I would love to see added to Matter in the future.
Improvements to Article Parsing. There are some niggling problems with the way Matter imports certain articles. Photo captions are sometimes jumbled with text. Markdown-style tables don’t carry across. Footnotes within articles are often missing.
Kobo/Android support. If I finally give up on Kindle, reading articles on Kobo devices or Android e-ink devices would be helpful.
Multi-word dictionary lookups. Matter allows you to look up single words in its onboard dictionary, but there’s no easy way to look up a person or place on Wikipedia. I’ve often been reading an article when I had to exit the app to look something up. Instapaper and Reader both do a better job at this.
The last item on my wish list doesn’t count as software improvement. I wish Matter provided potential customers with a more feature-laden free tier or a more robust trial to understand the app’s capabilities better. Matter offers a seven-day trial of its premium app, but users still can’t explore RSS feeds or its excellent writer feeds, which represents a good chunk of the value of the subscription, in my view. I suspect the high annual cost turns off many would-be customers without understanding what they’re really getting. At a minimum, Matter should explain the limitations of the free trial.
Is Matter Worth It?
Matter and Readwise have a lot in common. Both apps target readers who want to be more thoughtful about how and what they read. They both require eye-watering subscriptions to pull this off. One reason for the high cost is the tiny size of the population that values such a service.
In Matter’s case, the potential market is even smaller, as it exclusively targets the Mac/iPad/iOS ecosystem. If you have an Android device, you’re out of luck.
There are many less expensive (or free) read-it-later alternatives. Safari’s built-in “Reading List” function is free. Goodlinks is a terrific read-it-later app with a $10 yearly subscription fee. And, of course, Readwise subscribers get its Reader app for no additional cost.
And yet, for its intended market, the value is extraordinary. Matter gives you an immersive environment that helps you focus on what you’re reading, even when you roam outside the bounds of the article by following links. It suggests additional reading to help you learn even more. It provides a central access point to a vast library of world-class writers and thinkers, many whose works are accessible only through paywalled subscription services. It does all of this in one aesthetically pleasing and thoughtfully designed app.
I came looking for a read-it-later app, but after using Matter daily for the past four weeks, I am staying because of the depth and serendipity of its content.
If you use a Mac, an iPad, or an iPhone and want to get more out of your online reading, you owe it to yourself to try Matter. If you’re on the fence, subscribe for a month and see what happens. If you’re anything like me, you’ll be happy you did, and wiser for it.
Questions about Matter or any of the read-it-later apps I’ve mentioned? Let me know in the comment section below. Learning about Matter’s full capabilities can be difficult without first committing to a subscription, so I’m happy to assist.
This blog had its tenth birthday last July, and I forgot to celebrate.
I had no idea what I was doing when I shared that first essay in 2014. Since then, I’ve written about a hundred more posts. Each is now swirling around the ether, a faint signal in the noise for those who share an interest in keeping a journal, or reading great books, or managing finances on a Mac, or taking better notes. Or being a better father, or living aboard a boat, or suffering an unimaginable loss.
An odd assortment, I know.
Readers from sixty countries have visited my blog. I have corresponded with dozens of people with questions or comments about what I’ve written. I’ve also become friends with other bloggers who care deeply about many of the same things. It’s a marvel of the internet age that we have this medium to find each other, rare and valuable needles in an unending hayloft.
Who knew such a thing could evolve from sharing that first essay?
Why A Blog?
I recall my teenage son’s bemusement when he discovered I kept a blog. “Dad, what? You’re a blogger now?” he asked with a chuckle. Back then, blogs were not cool (sadly, they are still not). I read more than a few articles at the time that said the glory days of blogging were long past.
I didn’t fully understand what I had started. I knew sharing my experiences could make a small difference in the lives of others who sought a similar path in life. I wanted a way to practice writing that didn’t involve business jargon. And even then, I knew I wanted to carve out my own place on the internet away from the ilk of Twitter or FaceBook. But I still didn’t know what I was doing.
Ten years later, I have a better idea about why keeping a blog matters to me:
1. To find my voice. It took staring down my 50th birthday to believe I had a valuable perspective to share. My writing to that point had been private musings in a journal or business memos.
In 2014, I took a sabbatical from work, which profoundly changed me. I started to look at the world as a writer might, thinking differently about life, family, and our purpose here on earth. While I enjoyed my career in finance and strategy, I yearned to explore broader, more humane interests. Over time, the blog became an outlet for these thoughts, helping me find a writing voice free from financial acronyms and corporate buzzwords. I am thankful for this.
And while the writing itself is never easy for me, I love the outcome of having written.
2. To discover what I think. It’s easy to fool yourself in a journal by writing open-ended, rambling thoughts without any conclusion or action. But writing for an unknown audience requires more thought and rigor. I have to open my mind to the variety of perspectives others might bring to the subject, which helps me avoid tunnel vision and insular thinking.
Writing a longer post or essay forces me to explore a topic more deeply than I otherwise would. I’ve reshaped dozens of posts after discovering — once I started writing — that I no longer believed my original surface-level premise.
I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.
— Joan Didion, Let Me Tell You What I Mean
Writing gathers a hundred swirling half-notions and back-eddies into an orderly stream of coherent thought. Writing for others dredges that stream into a navigable river we can travel down together.
So, yeah. Keeping a blog makes you smarter.
3. For connection. The internet can be an awful place, but sometimes it can surprise you. Through blogging, I have connected with many interesting people who reached out after reading one of my posts.
These connections mostly happen through blog comments. When someone replies, I get a little ping on my phone. This always brings a smile to my face. Often, the comment provides a unique perspective that shifts how I think about what I’ve written. Sometimes, a caring person wants to compliment my writing or express compassion for something I’ve faced. Blog comments are one of the ways I know that most people are kind and good.
Many bloggers worry about allowing comments on their posts. I get this. I use the Akismet spam filter, which has blocked over two thousand (!) spam comments over the life of this blog. The plug-in whisks them away before I even see them. In ten years, I’ve encountered less than a handful of inappropriate replies. Maybe I’ve been lucky. It sure isn’t this way on web forums or social media. Still, I doubt I would have kept up this blog without this ongoing stream of feedback and encouragement.
Why Not Use Social Media?
I spend about $200 a year between hosting and domain registrations to keep this blog running. Why spend all that when I could post my thoughts on social media for free?
First, sites like Facebook and X and their algorithmic cousins aren’t the right place for long-form writing. Attention spans max out around 15 seconds on those endless scroll sites. Few will take the time to read a 2,000-word essay.
Second, the posts on these sites are often staged to make life seem a little too perfect. Instagram influencers have made this an art. It’s all so fake. The best blogs tell it like it is, the good and the bad. The glass may be half full, but it’s never overflowing.
Finally, I would much rather pay for my little corner of the internet than allow my writing to be a source of profit for politically-minded billionaires. But that’s me. I’m not part of their target market.
What about Medium or SubStack?
I follow a few excellent writers on SubStack and have shared some essays on Medium. Both are free to writers and offer a simple way to get started with little effort or complexity. But they’re not for me. I have no desire to monetize my writing. I’ll never allow ads on my blog. I am not interested in growing my subscriber base or offering a paid newsletter. I don’t want barriers between my writing and potential readers.
To me, these platforms feel like just more sophisticated forms of social media, with many contributors striving to collect followers at the expense of thoughtful writing. I understand writers need an income, so I don’t begrudge this approach. It’s just not something I need or want.
WordPress and Micro.blog
My blog operates on the open-source version of WordPress on a third-party host. WordPress powers almost half the internet, so it's incredibly robust and customizable. And complicated.
A little over a year ago, I started using Micro.blog for shorter posts I might otherwise have shared on social media. Micro.blog is a little hard to describe. It’s a hosting platform, an Indie web community of like-minded bloggers, and a cross-posting service that enables the POSSE ("Publish on your Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere”) model of blogging.
Over the past year, I shared around a hundred posts on Micro.blog. Most of these relate to books I've read, inspiring quotes, links to interesting articles, or travel photography. Micro.blog syndicates these automatically to accounts on Bluesky and Mastodon. I keep a rolling feed of these on my home page.
I considered merging WordPress into Micro.blog to make things easier on myself. I’ve never been happy with the format of emails that WordPress sends out to subscribers, nor do I like that readers need an account to subscribe or like a post. Maintaining a WordPress blog is complex with all its settings, CSS styles, and plug-ins. Things seem to break a lot. Using Micro.blog would be a comparative breeze.
When I tested merging the sites, the flood of short posts overwhelmed and obscured the longer, more meaningful essays, making the site feel cluttered. In addition, the hundreds of comments posted on this blog over the years would not carry over. Losing all that feedback felt like too much of a loss. After all, this is a collaborative effort.
So, for now, these two sites stand apart, serving different purposes.1
Favorite Blogs
I follow about 75 blogs using the Unread RSS reader. Some publish every day, others less frequently. I’m sharing four of my absolute favorites. Each represents an inspiration to me of what a personal blog can be.
Jamie Todd Rubin. An exceptional blog with thousands of informative posts about reading, writing, technology, and family. Jamie has probably influenced my reading choices more than anyone on the internet.
Patrick La Roque. Patrick is a photographer who writes like a poet. He’s a big fan of the Bear app, which is how I got to know him. He considers his blog a journal, and as such, it covers a wide range of topics. They’re all great.
Writing Slowly. Richard blogs about the craft of writing and note-taking. His site is a treasure trove of tips, advice, and anecdotes. If you are interested in the Zettelkasten approach to note-taking, Richard’s blog will be a rewarding destination.
A Room of My Own. Stella writes beautifully about many of the topics I hold dear. Her reflective style is refreshing and thought-provoking. I can’t wait to read what she writes next.
The Blog Is Dead. Long Live the Blog.
Recently, a blog I follow ended its seventeen-year run with this sad farewell:
I do think that the end really is here for the blogosphere though. This time it really is different. I’ve weathered many ups and downs in the blogosphere over my 17 years in it, but now it feels like the end of the blogging era.
Maybe this veteran blogger is correct. Perhaps it’s silly to keep a blog in this age of artificial intelligence and ubiquitous social media. Maybe, after all these years of gloomy predictions, it really is the end of blogs.
But here’s the thing. Our attitudes naturally shift from optimism when we are young to meliorism (the belief that the world can be made better with effort) when we are middle-aged, and finally, to cranky pessimism when we are old. I feel the pull, but I refuse to give in to pessimism.
So, call me cautiously optimistic about the future of blogging. Registering a personal domain and starting a blog has never been easier. Indie web firms like Micro.blog are helping creatives take ownership of their online contributions instead of depending on platforms that trap and resell their content. More and more people are recoiling from social media’s apparent bias, algorithmic manipulation, and spin. The need for online truth and honesty has never been higher.
And it’s a big world out there. There’s always room for one more voice, for one more blog. If I’ve learned anything over these past ten years, it’s that echoes from blog posts can reverberate a long time and be heard in surprising places.
Maybe the best time to start a blog was twenty years ago, but the next best time is now.
Do you keep a blog? Or follow one that you love? Please share in the comment section below.
In the course of writing this post, I made some improvements to WordPress. I created a new landing page that helps new readers find posts more easily. I found a setting deep in the bowels of the system that allows readers to comment on posts without needing a Wordpress account. And I switched to MailPoet, a service that manages email subscriptions to a weekly digest of new posts. ↩
I read 53 books last year, split about evenly between physical and e-books, and listened to just one audiobook. I usually listen to 10 -15 audiobooks a year, but in 2024, I decided to leave the AirPods behind on long walks to be more present. This felt like a fair exchange.
Favorites
The best non-fiction book I read last year was An Immense World by Ed Yong. The book shares how other animals sense the world in ways humans cannot. The book covers dozens of species, from an elephant’s incredible sense of smell to how spiders sense and surf on electric charges in the Earth's atmosphere. You can’t read these amazing stories without shifting uncomfortably in your chair. We think we understand reality but are too limited by our senses. We are not seeing the whole picture. This is a mind-expanding book.
2024 Favorite Books
My favorite novels spanned three centuries:
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan is a short, spare novella written in 2021 and set in 1980s Ireland. In just 109 pages, Keegan puts you squarely in the mind and body of its protagonist, Furlong. You feel the pangs of long-ago childhood angst, the chill of an Irish cold spell, the ugliness of small-town bigotry, the warmth of a coal stove, the despair over human cruelty. The Irish dialogue rings out like music or birdsong, making me wish American English wasn’t so flat and ordinary. I felt sad to leave Furlong’s side after so short a visit and longed to know what happened next, but the tale and ending were told in just the right way, with just the right words. Keegan is a poet masquerading as a novelist.
To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf had been on my to-read pile for years. I was leery of the stream-of-consciousness writing style, and its Goodreads reviews were concerning. Yet I loved it. Perhaps it wouldn’t have clicked with me if I had read this book ten years ago. Sometimes, a book finds you when you’re most ready for it. I was ready. No spoilers, but prepare to be gutted in the second half. You can judge the impact of a book on how long you think about it after you've read it. Eight months later, and I am still thinking about this one.
Finally, I adored David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. I read this as homework for the highly touted Demon Copperfield by Barbara Kingsolver, a modern retelling of this classic. Stepping into a Dickens novel requires a certain faith that the vocabulary and style and flood of characters will eventually make sense. My head spun with each new character, some appearing for such a short visit that I complained to myself that Dickens was being indulgent. I should have known better. By the end, no matter how minor, every character returned, and I understood their part in the story. Sure, this involved unlikely coincidences for our protagonist, but I loved the resulting tapestry of those many loose threads woven together. After spending almost 900 pages with these characters, some incredibly kind, some evil, I felt reluctant to part with them. Reading the book right ahead of Demon Copperfield made it feel like Kingsolver wrote high quality fan fiction. Dickens was indeed a true master.
The Story of Civilization — A Marathon, Not a Sprint
In 2024, I continued my multi-year reading of Will and Ariel Durant’s epic eleven-volume Story of Civilization. I read six more books, taking me from Renaissance Italy to the eve of the French Revolution in late 18th-century Europe. I should complete this journey in early 2025 with final volume, The Age of Napoleon. I’ll write a follow-up review of my takeaways from the complete series when I finish volume XI, but for now, let me say that the experience has been incredibly rewarding.
The 11-volume set of The Story of Civilization by Will and Ariel Durant
Stephen King — Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel
I have read more Stephen King novels than any other author, dead or alive. Last year, I vowed to tackle the ones I missed to read all 75 of this amazing storyteller’s works. I read three more from his backlog in 2024, none of which hit the mark. I have another twelve more books to complete this quest, but my enthusiasm has waned. I guess there was a reason I didn’t read these last books: even the greatest writers have their duds. However, his latest book of short stories, You Like It Darker, was fantastic. Some writers truly do get better with age.
My Reading System
I use the Bear note-taking and writing app to keep my reading notes and links to my personal note system. I switched over from Craft at the beginning of 2024, and I have been pleased with the added capabilities and aesthetic sensibilities of Bear.
I use Readwise to collect and review notes and highlights from my reading. Last year, I added over 700 new highlights to the system for a total of 2,400 collected passages.
I started using tags in Readwise about midway through 2024. I’m not sure why it took me so long. During a morning review of random highlights, adding one or more tags to a passage is simple. Tagged quotes accumulate into a digital commonplace book within Readwise, almost replicating what I have in Bear. Sharing a beautifully formatted quote from Readwise is easier and better than anything I could do from Bear:
A shared Readwise quote example
The Readwise app hasn’t received any new features in years, as the team has focused almost exclusively on its read-it-later app, Reader. However, a recent Reddit comment from a member of the Readwise team shared that significant improvements are coming in 2025. I’m heartened to know they haven’t forgotten the humble book in their quest to dominate online reading.
In addition to Bear, I store my book notes in a Day One reading journal. I love how easy it is to review the books I’ve read in the timeline view or see the book covers of all the books in the media view. I’ve imported seven years worth of book notes, so the “on this day” review in Day One shows the books I read alongside my journal entries. It’s another great way to reflect on my reading.
Book Journal in Day One
The Great TBR Reset of 2025
Over the holidays, I reviewed my ever-growing To-Be-Read list of books. All serious readers have a TBR, and mine had grown so large that I realized I would never get to all of them. I decided it was time for a purge.
Out of a list of 400 books, I marked each with my current interest level: low, medium, high. When I finished, I had narrowed the list to just 50 books, each of which I’m genuinely excited to read. I could work through the entire list in a year, though I know I won’t. It’s impossible to resist that perfect book that comes out of nowhere. Still, looking at my TBR list with more excitement than dread feels much better. If your TBR list has gotten out of hand, the new year is a great time to consider a reset.
My straight-through reading of this mammoth 11-volume history continues. Volume VIII shares a detailed view of Europe in the 17th Century. So much war and bloodshed and atrocity, and yet brilliance too.
From Durant:
Let us agree that in every generation of man’s history, and almost everywhere, we find superstition, hypocrisy, corruption, cruelty, crime, and war: in the balance against them we place the long roster of poets, composers, artists, scientists, philosophers, and saints. That same species upon which poor Swift revenged the frustrations of his flesh wrote the plays of Shakespeare, the music of Bach and Handel, the odes of Keats, the Republic of Plato, the Principia of Newton, and the Ethics of Spinoza; it built the Parthenon and painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel; it conceived and cherished, even if it crucified, Christ. Man did all this; let him never despair.
I’m trying out a new note-taking method. I’ve switched from Field Notes to this custom index card holder. I prefer taking notes on index cards, but I’m always misplacing them or can’t find one when I need it. This “book” solves that. I moved the ring to the top right side to accommodate my left-handedness, so it’s comfortable for writing. I take notes on books or writing ideas, and when I’m ready to process or write, I pull out the cards and arrange and rearrange them on my desk. I’ve always loved the tactile and visual creativity of note cards for deeper thinking and structure. And now I don’t have to scan through my notebook scribbles to find all the various notes I’ve taken on a project or a book. So far, so good!
I passed my third anniversary of giving up alcohol today. I thought I would share some background on this milestone and why I decided to stop drinking.
I have a long history with alcohol. Maybe it’s the genetics mapped deep in my Irish blood or an inheritance from longstanding tradition, but alcoholism runs in the family, near and far. I can’t think of a time in my life that wasn’t steeped in the rituals of drinking.
I met the love of my life in a dive bar. Most of my proudest accomplishments and favorite moments were punctuated with a celebration beer or glass of wine. An early love of Hemingway surely contributed to an interweaving of my very identity with alcohol. If I closed my eyes and pictured my true self in my natural element, it was cozied up to a dimly lit bar with a whiskey on the rocks in a brown, brown study.
I was never what you’d call a problem drinker. I never hit that proverbial rock bottom. But I saw in myself the potential to become one. Retiring early brings many joys, but it also provides the means and opportunity to easily tip over into alcoholism. I left my profession for a pirate’s life of boats and docks and drinking buddies, which, in hindsight, feels like a trifecta of trouble for the would-be alcoholic. I think many people enjoy time on the water as an excuse to drink with friends. I know I surely did.
Over a stretch of twenty-five years, I gave up drinking an astonishing twenty-two times. I know this because of an obsessive need to keep track of my life through a daily journal.
When I gave up alcohol on this day three years ago, I looked through these old journals for clues. I analyzed the data and found troubling patterns — empirical evidence my logical, fact-based mind could not refute.
I discovered that most attempts lasted a week or less. On four occasions, I managed more than a month without drinking—the longest, six months. I often complained of headaches and insomnia in the first few days. After two weeks, I slept better and had more energy. On longer stretches of sobriety, I lost weight, my blood pressure improved, and I felt more optimistic.
I asked myself, as I flipped through those scribbled snapshots of my past, why in the world did I ever start drinking again?
Here’s what happened, time after time after time: I enjoyed such a rebound in health and outlook that I considered myself “cured.” There’s a name for this in sobriety literature: the Pink Cloud. Feeling so good, I couldn’t possibly be addicted to alcohol any longer, so I concluded it was perfectly fine to drink again, just in moderation like everyone else. After all, who would want to quit the stuff forever?
As you might have guessed, the dabbling soon turned to the occasional few too many until I eventually returned to my old ways. I gained weight, slept poorly, and fibbed about my alcohol consumption on medical questionnaires.
It took reading this boom-and-bust history in my own words, repeated and repeated and repeated, to fully comprehend the situation. Self-knowledge is a real-life superpower. My journals delivered a message that I could not have accepted so completely any other way.
For most people, controlling alcohol consumption is natural and easy. For others, it’s more complicated. My journals taught me the hard truth that I’m one of those rare cases where moderation simply doesn’t work.
I was still hoping for a third door: another option besides door number one (drinking) and door number two (sobriety). I simply could not fathom that there wasn’t a fucking third door.
— We Are the Luckiest by Laura Mckowen
The thing is, I now know remaining a non-drinker is essential to my health and happiness. At 59, I’m back to my college weight and waist size. I have more energy than I had at 49 and sometimes even 39. I feel very comfortable in my own skin.
Yet my journals have ground into me an inescapable truth: I am not cured. I cannot dabble. I cannot drink even one single beer. I must remain vigilant, which, even after three years, isn’t always easy.
After all, there is a lot of encouragement in our society to drink alcohol. Drinking, plans for drinking, casual references to drinking, jokes about drinking, memes about drinking, and advertisements for drinking are everywhere. Being a non-drinker, at least in my experience, runs against the very grain of societal norms. Alcohol, which is responsible for more deaths each year than cocaine, heroin, and meth combined, is the only drug you have to explain not using.
We sold the boat last year and now live in a 55+ retirement community in Arizona. We’ve made dear, dear friends, all of whom drink. Like boaters, young retirees do like to tip back a pint or two. Sometimes, it feels like we’re all back at college, only this time with nice houses and money. I pack along a little cooler of non-alcoholic beer to parties, though you’ll see me slip away early. A room is never drunker than when you're the only sober person.
I’ve never gone to an AA meeting, though sometimes I think it would be nice to have even one sober friend who understands my reluctance to hang out when alcohol is flowing so freely. I’m not the most social person, so introducing one more mental barrier to attending these get-togethers isn’t helpful.
A few months back, I smoked some pot at one of these parties to try to enjoy myself more. The last time must have been thirty years ago. As it hit me, I felt that familiar glossy curtain sway between me and my surroundings, that muting of the sharp and bright realities of life. With alcohol, I enjoyed that pleasant release. But, as I sat there with my lungs burning and my mind not entirely my own, I felt uneasy and, well, drugged.
With addiction, there’s always something deeper that keeps you drinking from the poisoned well. The legendary Joe Louis once said of a wily opponent, “he can run, but he can’t hide.” It can be difficult to look too closely at the harder parts of life, the miseries so interlinked with the joys, the seeming pointlessness and terrors of existence. Alcohol hides all that away for a time, but it’s a cop-out. These are the things we all need to face. We can’t run. We can’t hide.
No matter how fast I run, I can never seem to get away from me.
— Your Bright Baby Blues by Jackson Browne
When my son was killed in a motorcycle accident almost two years ago, I was desperate for anything that could soften the pain I felt. If I were still drinking, it would have been an easy thing to drown myself in alcohol. Maybe it’s a small blessing that I had a year of sobriety to weather that awful storm. But, if anything, my resolve now is stronger. Connor told me in the last year of his life that he was proud of me for not drinking. My eyes well up with tears as I remember this. How could I even think of tarnishing that memory?
Lisa, the same love of my life this young accountant met playing pool in a bar so long ago, who’s stuck with me for twenty-eight years and drinks so sporadically that I hardly even notice, has been a huge supporter of my sobriety. The following morning, she asked me what I thought of smoking pot. She was a little worried it might have triggered something and cause me to fall off the wagon.
“I didn’t like it. It felt a little too much like being buzzed from alcohol,” I said over coffee. “It feels weird to say it, but I just like being me.”
Interesting and humorous article by Anthony Lane in the New Yorker about the book summary app Blinkist: Can You Read a Book in a Quarter of an Hour?. We’re reading fewer books as a society. Our ever-fascinating smart phones aren’t helping the cause:
The most potent enemy of reading, it goes without saying, is the small, flat box that you carry in your pocket. In terms of addictive properties, it might as well be stuffed with meth.
— Anthony Lane
I’m a fan of watching the TED Talk before I decide to tackle a non-fiction book, but reading a 20-minute book summary of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time? No, no, no, no.
I came across a journal entry I wrote on this day ten years ago. I was reflecting on the people in my life that made a difference on how things have turned out for me. I realized that many of these people couldn’t possibly know the impact they had on me and the countless others they helped.
I kept thinking about this one community college professor who did more than anyone to inspire me to pursue a college degree. I thought how sad it would be if he never knew the difference he made. So after a quick search on the internet, I found him. I wrote him an email. I introduced myself and told him a few stories about how he had challenged and inspired me, how he had helped me forge a path to the person I am today.
And he wrote back:
I wish I could tell you what a joy it was to receive your message today. I had been to a “Lives of Commitment” breakfast, and - since I’m just about to retire from teaching - I was in my office thinking about how a person ‘makes a difference.’ Then - voila! - your message comes up on my screen. Thank you.
I went to class and told my students to write to their teachers. I told them that a letter like that can really make an impact in a person’s life. I told them about your letter.
If you have someone that’s made a difference in your life, like a special teacher, write them an email. Tell them a story about how they helped you. It doesn’t have to be long. Just say thank you. And then do everything you can to pay that help forward.
I’m currently reading the classic David Copperfield by Charles Dickens 📚 for the first time. I’m reading it on my Kindle with an add-on $3 splurge of the Audible audiobook. I experimented with WhisperSync many years ago when it was first released and found it buggy. For such a low fee, I thought I would give it another try.
I went from reading last night on my Kindle to listening this morning in the car, to reading again in a waiting room, to listening once more as I did chores. Never once did I lose my place.
I have a love-hate relationship with ebooks and Amazon, but wow — what an immersive, magical reading/listening experience. How did I not know this worked as well as it does?
This is the second of what might become a series of posts about how I use the Bear app to improve how I leverage notes in my reading and thinking. This is not a topic that will interest many, but writing a blog offers its indulgences. Unless your interests lie in the nerdier aspects of note-taking systems, you can safely skip this one.
If you told me a year ago that I’d write a blog post about the power of Apple widgets, I wouldn’t have believed you. But here I am—writing a blog post about Apple widgets.
You might be asking, what are you even talking about? What are widgets? Apple introduced these quirky appendages in 2020 as a way to present information from apps on the home screen of your iPhone, iPad, or Mac. The most popular widgets provide information about weather, stocks, and news. My reaction back then was decidedly ho-hum. Why would I want to clutter the precious real estate of my iPhone screen when I could just open the app?
A particular kind of widget in Bear 2 finally convinced me of their value.
In January, I switched from Craft to Bear 2 for my reading and knowledge notes. I shared why I chose Bear in this post. The switch went so well that I soon brought over my journal from Day One and my writing from Ulysses. For the past four months, almost everything I’ve written has started and ended in Bear.
I knew that Bear’s implementation of widgets was top-notch. Widgets are an afterthought in Craft, and Obsidian doesn’t offer them at all. What I didn’t understand was that a widget exists in Bear that does something you can’t even do in the app itself: the random note widget.
Before I dive into how important the random widget has become in my notes system, let me explain the problem it solves.
The Compounding Value of Review
When I first created my connected notes system, I clarified three vital parts of the process: capturing notes and quotes from my reading; curating what I’ve gathered into the system; and compounding the knowledge and insights I’ve gleaned with regular review.
I’ve earned high marks on capture and curation. I’ve had no problem marking passages I like on my Kindle in this digital age. My physical books are filled with margin notes. And I’ve done pretty well organizing all those notes and quotes into stand-alone documents for each book I’ve read. In the Zettelkasten way, I’ve written hundreds of “permanent notes,” which are ideas or knowledge areas I’ve encountered across my reading, linked and cross-linked with other related ideas and books.
But the compounding part of the system, which consists of reviewing my notes and looking for connections and insights I might have missed — arguably the most crucial phase — had lagged. I was reminded of this when I imported my notes from Craft to Bear. I needed to correct some formatting issues, which required inspecting each note individually. There were many notes — far too many — that I hadn’t touched since writing them. What’s the point of taking notes in the first place if you don’t review them?
If you just put notes in all the time and never review them, you’ll have a lot of garbage and hidden notes. You’ll look at your software and realize you don’t use it and abandon it.
— Curtis McHale, PKM in Retrospect
An inspiration for a better review process came from my years of using ReadWise. For almost 1,000 mornings, I’ve reviewed a handful of randomly selected passages from the books and articles I’ve read using the ReadWise app on my iPhone or iPad. These bite-sized reviews are a terrific way to remember and connect with quotes that are meaningful to me.
On many mornings, I’ll have an aha! moment from reading a particular passage or the coincidental benefit of seeing these random quotes strung together.
When I discovered the existence of random note widgets, I had another one of those aha! moments. What if I expanded my morning ReadWise sessions to include random book and knowledge notes from Bear?
Review Your Notes with Random Widgets in Bear
This is easy to implement in Bear. Here’s a snapshot of my dedicated Bear home screen on my iPad. I have similar screens on my iPhone and Mac.
Bear Home Screen on iPad
The random widgets (circled in red) serve as my morning reminder to review one knowledge note, book note, journal entry, and vocabulary word. Each pulls from a specific tag in Bear. Here’s an example of how this works for a knowledge note in my system:
Knowledge Note Example
Notice the two tags at the bottom of the note. The knowledge tag organizes the note, and the review/wisdom tag serves as a status. I added this by dragging and dropping all my knowledge notes onto the review/wisdom tag in the sidebar. This instant drag-and-drop tag assignment is one of Bear’s superpowers. Any note with this tag will appear in my knowledge review widget.
Here’s the magic of using a separate status tag instead of the note’s organizational tag for the random widget. Once I review the note, I delete the review/wisdom tag to remove it from the pool. This way, I never review the same note twice.
I currently have three hundred knowledge notes and four hundred book notes. It should take a year — more or less — to review each one. This cadence feels right.
I’ve written thousands of journal entries over the past forty years. I use an Apple Shortcut to pull up those I’ve written on this day over my lifetime, an excellent review method I brought to Bear from Day One. Out of those thousands of entries, I’ve tagged about three hundred as particularly insightful. These are the ones I review with my random journal widget. I may decide after a year to revisit these, or I might switch to other journal tags I’ve used in the past: fatherhood, goals, philosophical musings, etc. Keeping the review tag separate from the journal entry’s organizational tag makes these thoughtful rotations possible.
My fourth widget is a flash-card-style vocabulary review for challenging words I’ve identified in my reading.1 I’ve structured the layout of the note so the definition isn’t visible from my Home Screen. I’ve prepended the title with two colons so these notes don’t clutter up my quick-open note searches. While this works great for vocabulary, the idea could be applied to almost any study topic.
Vocabulary Review Notes in Bear
Eventually, the widgets on my home screen will appear blank, meaning I have completed a circuit through the pool of notes in that category. At this point, I’ll restart the process by dragging the current crop of notes to its appropriate review tag. Any new notes I’ve written will be added to the pool, and the virtuous cycle continues.
Make Review a Daily Habit
I’ve tried to inject substance into these morning review sessions beyond mere passive reading. I follow the outbound links. I review the incoming back-links. I prod myself with questions:
What else have I learned or considered since writing this note that I can add?
Are there other books or articles that I’ve read that relate? Or new knowledge notes I’ve created that I should link?
If it’s a knowledge note, is it still relevant? Alternatively, has it grown so large in links and backlinks that I should carve it into separate ideas?
Can anything in this note help me with what I’m working on right now?
Some reviews are quick. Others are more engaging, particularly when I come across a note from an important book I read a while ago but haven’t fully absorbed or implemented. This kind of review is one of the most valuable ways I learn to apply what I’ve read.
Setting up these widgets on my Mac and my devices took some time, but I have come to appreciate the visual reminder on my home screen. Unlike the myriad ways our devices can distract us, here’s an invitation to quietly reflect on the wisdom and lessons I’ve gathered from the writers and thinkers I admire most.
Best of all, I have a sustainable process that avoids the dreaded black hole syndrome that plagues so many well-intended note systems, and it ensures I’m getting the highest rate of return on my reading and thinking.
If you keep your notes in Bear and haven’t explored note reviews with a random widget, give it a try. If you’re not using Bear, what process do you have in place for review? Let me know in the comments below.
If you read on a Kindle, have a look at the Vocabulary Builder app on your device. It shows a history of the words you’ve looked up in the dictionary. I used this helpful online tool to export these to an Excel spreadsheet and created reviews for the words I looked up at least twice. ↩
There seem to be two kinds of people on this earth—those who love books and everyone else. The bookish have always been far outnumbered, and the gap must be widening in this age of endless digital entertainment. I count myself among the proud minority, but a book, of all things, has brought into question my lifelong practice of keeping a private library.
A recent acquisition illustrates the issue.
“Didn’t you just read this on your Kindle,” Lisa asks me as she flips through the book I’ve brought home.
I dislike direct questioning about my book-buying habits. It feels like the pointed inquiries on medical questionnaires about alcohol consumption.
“Yeah, but I liked it so much I wanted the hard copy,” I tell her.
The fact is, I will likely never read this book, even though I did enjoy it. I bought the book because I like having a visual, tangible record of the time this book and I spent together. I like scanning my shelves and seeing proof of a rich reading life. I like the way a roomful of books makes me feel about myself. Besides, I tell myself, there are worse ways to spend money.
Like most fixations, the origin can often be traced to our youngest days. Pine bookcases flanked the living room fireplace of my childhood home. I can picture the red and black spines of the encyclopedias that filled half those shelves. I spent hours poring over those portals of knowledge at an unnaturally young age. What an odd duck I must have been, this quiet young boy with his nose stuck in an encyclopedia.
A public library beckoned four blocks away, a magical place for a shy little kid. When a kind librarian led me to a shelf of thirty or forty Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators mystery books, I knelt in almost religious piety, awestruck.
I must have viewed that library as a refuge from the troubles my eight-year-old brain struggled to process at home. I felt safer exploring a haunted citadel in Istanbul with Jupiter Jones than I did around my own family. Later, when the divorce was final, and I moved with my mom and new stepdad to a trailer park in Forks, I dreamed of the calm order of that library — the hush and quiet — amidst the babble and grunge of a beaten-down logging town, our family the poorest in a landfill of white trash.
Living hand to mouth at a young age forever shaped my views on the importance of having enough money, but I’ve always spent freely on books. If I look up from where I write this, I can spot my earliest purchases. A Sentimental Education. Look Homeward, Angel. The Sun Also Rises. These old friends have stuck with me my entire life. Eight apartments and three houses, always near.
If I widen my gaze to take in the walls of shelves surrounding me — a collection of some two thousand volumes now — I can trace the outline of my life’s obsessions: boxing, gardening, philosophy, strategy, bird watching, statistics, history, poetry. Shelves and shelves of sailing and tall ships and the sea, books that even here in the desert can launch me miles and miles offshore. And so much great literature: the French, the Russians, the English, the Americans. These last shelved by era, early to late.
Each spine has meaning to me. I recall at a glance where and who I was when I read it. Pulling a book down from the shelves, I feel transported. The heft of the book in my hands, the smell, particularly from my oldest books, wafting up as I thumb through the pages, letting a random passage catch my eye. I read and remember.
In every other part of my life, I am downsizing, simplifying. Most unhappiness stems from a desire for material things. I fantasize about renting a flat in Madrid for three months with just a few clothes, a journal, and my Kindle. And yet, here I sit in this roomful of material things, these books of comfort and consolation, in complete denial of what I know to be true.
I admire those grand Country Manors with their massive libraries passed down for generations. Until recently, I imagined a distant future when my grandchildren and their grandchildren would cherish my library. Yet, times have changed. I have no Country Manor, and books, once the pinnacle of knowledge and wisdom, are no longer quite so prized.
Shaun Bythell, in his memoir, The Diary of a Bookseller, tells the awful truth. In his business, he buys personal libraries from estates. The heir, often the son or daughter of the deceased, shows little emotion toward the collection of dusty books they’ve inherited. “What would I want with all these?” They look around, bewildered. What must have cost a fortune and a lifetime to assemble is sold, gratefully, for $500. My shock when I read about this first encounter turned to numb despair as the situation repeated at various estates throughout the memoir. No one wants these books. No one.
I called my daughter in Los Angeles. She’s a reader like me but prefers a Kindle to physical books. Of course, she wants the books, she said, but without much enthusiasm.
The notion that this library and I might share the same dissolution took a while to accept, like a wild plot twist in a novel you didn’t see coming. Perhaps it never dawned on me how used bookstores acquire so many wonderful books in the first place. I pull down book after book for evidence. A set of Wallace Stegner books I purchased last year bears the previous owner’s carefully inscribed name and address. A Google search turns up the obituary: her death preceded my purchase by two short months.
As I consider the likely future of this little library, I feel more reflective than anguished. After all, books are beacons of light for me, as for many wayward travelers. Let that be enough. My gaze slips along the spines, and I acknowledge each silently. How many thousands of hours have we spent together, ruminating, investigating? How many journeys? These books have shaped and reshaped me. How can you tell where the stories end and the man begins?
I imagine a time when these books take flight, like a great host of swallows, all chaos and boxes and pages aflutter, and in time settle on a thousand different shelves to inspire a thousand new owners.
Until then, let’s commiserate together, my friends, my shipmates. Let us sing on the deck of this foundering ship, our voices a cheer across the ages.
For the past six weeks, I’ve been evaluating an app to replace Craft for my reading notes.This post shares the reasons I’m moving away from Craft and why Bear 2 might be the best app around for writing and thinking on the Mac and iPad.
Craft and the Value of Connected Notes
I use Craft to capture the notes, quotes, and wisdom I’ve gleaned from reading and studying.Before Craft, these notes languished in the margins of books or notecards stuffed in a file box.In three years with Craft, I have written almost four hundred reading notes linked to several hundred dedicated theme notes, creating what is unfortunately called in personal knowledge management circles a “second brain.”
The lofty promises of automatic insights from smart note-taking tools are mostly overblown.I still resort to notecards or a paper notebook when I’m forced to really concentrate. A digital tool does solve the issue of near-instant retrieval, though, and there is goodness in gathering notes together in a trusted system.
So, while Craft may not be self-aware (yet), it has helped me retain and apply more of what I read and let me inch further down the path to wisdom in the process. You can read this earlier post about how I use Craft to help me read better here.
All is not well with Craft, however. Development veered away from its original minimalist design 18 months ago to expand into the lucrative corporate note-taking market. The once pristine interface is now saddled with sharing and collaboration features that aren’t useful to me. With each update, the app gets more complicated to use.
Meanwhile, important shortcomings still need to be addressed. Craft still doesn’t offer a way to use tags to organize notes. Its search function is too dumb to look across blocks of text in a document.Note security lacks encryption or even two-factor authentication. The default font size can’t be increased, straining my tired eyes in the evening. There’s no way to create a backup of my notes database, which seems bonkers. Adding unnecessary insult, the annual subscription cost for Craft just doubled to $96 per year.
Perhaps my biggest issue with Craft is its lack of versatility. In addition to Craft, I keep my journal in Day One and write for others in Ulysses.I tried Craft for all my writing two years ago, but I missed important features and capabilities of these two purpose-built apps, and Craft’s hobbled search function made it very difficult to find anything as the volume of notes increased.
It troubles me to keep silos between my reading notes, my journal, and my public writing when there’s such potential for synergy. Many of the essays on this blog started as entries in my journal. Some were inspired by a book I had read. I am missing out on connections and insights that would be easier to grasp if my writing were centralized in one connected app.
As a result, I’ve been eyeing a new home for my reading notes that might stretch to include my journal and other longer forms of writing. One place for all my words.
A Summer with Obsidian
The obvious choice for most serious note-takers is Obsidian, an app that has exploded in popularity over the past three years. Obsidian is available on most platforms, stores everything in plain text files, takes linking and back-linking to new heights of efficiency and geekiness, and can be customized with a vast array of visual themes and function-adding plugins. Technology bloggers celebrate Obsidian’s ability to easily handle their notes, journaling, and writing.
I spent two months trying out Obsidian as a replacement for Craft last summer. I found the learning curve treacherously steep. For Mac users, the Electron interface is a confusing jumble, reminiscent of my early days with WordPerfect. Persistence and grit are rewarded with a powerful, capable notes app that can do almost anything. Readwise integration works like magic. Obsidian easily handled my 4,000 journal entries from Day One and allowed me to create links between my reading notes and journal without hampering performance or search. Obsidian is continually updated with new features to improve its note-taking capabilities.It truly is a fantastic tool led by a conscientious, values-first team.
I wanted to love Obsidian, and the nerdiest part of me still does.But all that power and customization led to continual tinkering. I experimented endlessly with themes and plugins to perfect my system. I spent hours watching YouTube videos to figure out ways to automate more and more elements of my note-taking. I became proficient with the query programming language of the DataView plugin. Updates to the app and its plugins were frequent but rarely in sync, which resulted in crashes and performance problems that required my attention. The iPad and iPhone apps were slow to open, buggy, and sometimes unusable. Worst of all, I mistook futzing with the app for actual, productive work. I became bedazzled by the technology in the way the hammer shapes the hand.I’m sure at one point or another, I referred to Obsidian as My Precious. In the words of Roland Deschain, I had forgotten the face of my father.
Obsidian may be the perfect app for many, or even most. Just not me.I packed up my notes and returned to Craft.
What’s Important to Me
A weakness in people interested in note-taking apps is the shiny object syndrome. We’re always looking for the next app that will perfect our note-taking system, which is often just procrastination from doing the more challenging work of thinking and writing.I don’t want to be that guy who keeps changing apps or, heaven forbid, only writes about changing apps.
To guide me, I needed to settle on the things that mattered most in a note-taking and writing app:
Intuitive design. I appreciate uncluttered apps that allow me to focus on my words rather than the tool. Minimalist designs appeal the most to me, particularly those that adhere to Apple’s interface rules for the Mac and iPad.
Note linking. The app must be able to link one note to another and show incoming links from other notes.
iPad and iPhone. The app must offer iPad and iPhone apps with feature parity to its desktop app. I do 90% of my writing on an iPad Pro. I review reading notes and drafts of blog posts on an iPad Mini. I frequently capture notes and ideas on my iPhone.The app has got to support all this.
Fast. The app must open quickly, support markdown, and allow keyboard shortcuts to write and navigate my notes.
Search. It must be easy to find notes with simple but effective searching technology.
Versatility.The ideal app handles note-taking, journaling, and longer-form writing without too much compromise of using dedicated (but siloed) apps.
Stability.The last thing I need when I’m trying to capture a fleeting thought is a frozen screen, a crash, or having to update the app again before I can use it. Frequent interface changes for no good reason drive me up the wall.
Reasonable cost. Any monthly or annual subscription cost must match the value received.
Future proof. The tool stores my writing in plain markdown text files or has robust and trusted export capabilities that provide access to my content easily in the future, regardless of the app.
These criteria helped narrow my selection to just a handful of possibilities.One familiar name kept popping up.
Bear 2
The Bear app has been around for a long time.Its first public beta appeared almost ten years ago, putting it into grandfather status compared to its peers. Bear is developed by Shiny Frog, an “artisanal” software firm that makes just this one app, and only for the Mac, iPad, and iPhone.
The first version of Bear was released in 2016 and earned critical acclaim for its calming and quirky interface and ability to import and export practically any kind of notes file. I used it to tackle the chore of shuttling my notes between Craft and Obsidian.
After a concerning lull in active development, a modernized version of Bear came out last year.Bear 2 supports note linking, offline access to files, tables, tables of content, footnotes, powerful search, and note encryption.I looked at it briefly when it was first released but moved on when I learned its organizational scheme doesn’t support folders.No folders? What?
I decided I should have another look after reading 300 Times a Day, a gushing blog post about Bear written by a writer I admire. What I discovered surprised me.
Designed for Mac
First, Bear is only available on Mac and iOS devices: no Windows, Android, or even a web client.As a result, Bear is developed by Mac users who understand and leverage every aspect of the hardware and software to make it as intuitive and powerful as possible.This shows itself in myriad ways: swiping gestures on the iPad do what you expect.Intuitive keyboard commands exist for everything.It works like a Mac app.
Bear lets you add widgets to your Home Screen for instant access to a favorite note or the last few notes you edited. Sharing notes between apps is seamless. Bear makes good use of Apple Shortcuts for automating note creation.
Bear also supports the Apple Watch to capture thoughts on the go. I thought this might be a gimmick, but I have used it on walks to record notes on audiobooks that I doubtless would have forgotten otherwise.
Bear note capture on Apple Watch
Hidden Power
Beneath its calming interface lurks a set of power functions that rival and, in some cases, exceed those found in Obsidian.You can search for notes by keyword, tag, special operators, and note creation or modification time. Search results extend to the contents of PDFs and images. On the Mac, you can search and replace text within a note (a feature lacking in Craft).
Images in notes can be cropped, resized, and renamed. Any PDFs you insert show a nice preview (optional) and viewer when opened. On the iPad, annotations of PDFs with the Apple Pencil are easy to make.
Bear’s sync engine relies on Apple’s CloudKit technology. In my short time with Bear, syncing notes between my Mac, iPad, and iPhone has been fast and error-free. All notes are encrypted with Apple’s private keys, meaning Bear has no access to my data. The app can be password protected, and individual notes can be further secured with a password. In contrast, none of my notes in Craft were encrypted or even protected with two-factor authentication. A Craft employee or ambitious hacker could read all my notes.In Obsidian, notes are stored as a simple folder of text files, available to anyone with physical access to my computer. To me, Bear feels like the most secure of the bunch.
You can create a complete backup of your Bear notes. It might seem basic, but this was one of my sore spots with Craft that failed to offer any way to back my system other than a raw markdown export of notes.
Import and export functions are truly world-class. Built-in importers exist for Day One, Obsidian, Evernote, TextBundle, and folders of Markdown files.You can export to TextBundle and Markdown as well. If you have PDFs and images in an Obsidian vault, Bear is one of the only apps I know that can import these without breaking attachment links. Documents can be shared in PDF, HTML, RTF, DOCX, and ePub formats.
I imported my Day One journal into Bear as a test of performance. Importing 4,000 journal entries and over 1,000 images and PDFs took under three minutes. Tags from Day One came over flawlessly.Searching those journal entries was lightning fast, and I successfully retrieved entries where the search term was embedded inside a PDF.
Each note has an information panel that displays writing statistics like word count and reading time, a table of contents, and back-links. Back-links are presented in alphabetical order and can optionally show unlinked mentions.A keyboard shortcut toggles these screens on and off.The Mac version allows you to drag the panel to the side so it stays open as you navigate your notes for reference.
Bear has the most powerful web capture of any tool I’ve used, including DevonThink. Share a web page with Bear, and it will convert it to a very presentable note, images and all. I couldn’t do that with Craft or Obsidian.
Exquisite Writing
What I like best about Bear is how it encourages thoughtful, distraction-free writing. The typography is exquisite. You can change the default font, font size, margins, line, and paragraph spacing. Pro customers can choose from 28 built-in themes, but the default, in my eyes, is perfect. With a keyboard shortcut or a quick swipe with your finger, everything disappears but your words.
Markdown symbols are hidden (if you want), and keyboard commands produce all the formatting if you prefer to not type the symbols.You can add footnotes, tables, images, external links, bullet and numbered lists, and quoted passages from a tool palette that pops up as you need it.
Tags
Bear’s organization scheme relies on tags, not folders.This was initially difficult for me to wrap my brain around. I’ve been using folders to store computer stuff for decades.Yet the implementation of tags in Bear is intuitive and powerful.The tags from my Day One journal populated in Bear, and I could nest these under a parent tag called journal by just editing the tag name. Hundreds of notes were updated with the new nested tag name in a couple of keystrokes. In short order, I recreated my folder system from Craft as nested tags in Bear.Tags offer the added benefit of allowing notes to appear in more than one place in your system simply by adding a tag.Working with tags these last six weeks, I no longer see the need for folders, which I guess is what Bear is getting at with their tags-only organization.
Here’s a high-level view of my tags in Bear. You can select custom icons for each, some of which are initially set based on the tag name. Check out what Bear suggested for my “drafts” tag nested under Writing. Only a Mac developer would pay this level of attention to detail and poke fun at the same time.
Tags and screen layout on the Mac in Bear 2
Cost
The pricing for Bear 2 is simple and fair. $2.99 per month or $29.99 per year for all its Pro features. Bear offers a free seven-day free trial.
A Wish List
There are a few areas where Bear falls behind Craft and/or Obsidian that do matter to me.
Better control over back-link presentation.Bear’s back-links are shown in a separate window without any ability to change the sort order. This could be better. Even without unlinked mentions, Craft's in-note presentation of backlinks is better than Bear or Obsidian.
Templates. Bear doesn’t yet offer the ability to create a new note using a template like Obsidian and Craft. I miss this feature, though it’s not that difficult to copy and paste from a template note. I’ve created my most frequently used templates using Apple Shortcuts, but it would be nice if Bear had the function built in as a keyboard command.
Improved persistence in note links.I experienced what must be a bug when I inadvertently created a note with a name that already existed in my system. Links to the existing note were redirected to the new note without any notice or warning message. If I deleted the new note, all links created for the original note were erased.This could create some serious data loss issues if not corrected.Until this is fixed, I am mindful of naming new notes in Bear.
Version history. With Craft and Obsidian (with its premium sync service), revisions to individual notes are tracked and can be restored from a prior version with just a few clicks. This does not exist in Bear.
Quick open gesture.Bear’s quick open gesture on an iPhone or iPad requires a three finger swipe down from the top of the screen. It works but isn’t always easy to carry out, especially one-handed on an iPhone. I believe pulling down from the top of the screen, which now searches within the note, would be better for this frequently used function.
My list of desires for Bear will be shorter than others interested in document collaboration or using platforms other than Mac and iOS.Bear is working on a web version, which might satisfy some, but honestly, if you’re looking for collaboration or different platforms, Craft is still a great choice. Obsidian is hard to beat if multiple platforms, automation, and customization are essential.
Craft, Obsidian, and Bear — My Scorecard
Features
Craft
Obsidian
Bear
Intuitive Design
8
4
9
Note Linking
9
9
7
Mobile Experience
8
5
9
Performance/Stability
7
9
9
Search
5
10
10
Versatility
6
9
9
Future Proof
7
9
9
Security / Backups
3
8
9
Cost
6
8
10
Overall
6.6
7.9
9.0
Scorecard notes:
Links and Back-Links: Obsidian has world-class back-link capabilities, including unlinked mentions, but loses a point on presentation. Back-links are littered with brackets and garish yellow highlights that are difficult to read and give me headaches.
Future Proof: Craft loses points because alias wiki links revert to the original note name when exported. This export error affected nearly 100 of my Craft notes and took time to track down and correct. Obsidian ought to get a perfect ten since it stores everything in plain text, but the app lacks a TextBundle export function to preserve file links when moving to any other notes app.
Is Bear the one?
I’ve put Bear through its paces these last six weeks. I wrote a half dozen literature notes, over forty journal entries, and four blog posts. I expected Bear’s charm to wear off a little, but the joy is real. I am a little startled at how taken I am with the app.
Still, I understand Bear isn’t for everyone.It’s only available within the Apple ecosystem, lacks collaboration or web access, and can’t be customized or extended with plug-ins. It doesn’t even offer a way to organize your notes with folders.These are deal killers for most.
Steve Jobs believed that “innovation is saying ‘no’ to 1,000 things,” so you can focus all your energy on doing one thing incredibly well.The Bear team at Shiny Frog must subscribe to this view. They’ve brought a laser-like focus to making an elegant, powerful writing and notes app for the Mac, iPad, and iPhone. For some lucky minority, Bear represents note-taking nirvana, an app closer in spirit to old-school typewriters and handwritten journals than typical feature-bloated software. An app that disappears into the background, letting you zero in on the most essential thing: your words.
It’s clear that Bear can handily replace Craft as my note-taking app.I didn’t expect that Bear could so easily supplant Day One for journaling and Ulysses for writing. These are amazing, purpose-built apps that I’ve enjoyed for years. There are features I’d miss: “On this Day” reflections, journal suggestions and prompts in Day One; WordPress publication and manual sheet reordering in Ulysses. Yet, the power of having all my writing in one connected and comfortable place feels tantalizingly near.
Bear might just become my only digital tool for writing and thinking.
Questions or thoughts about Bear, Craft, or Obsidian? Leave a note in the comment section below.
I’ve been evaluating Bear 2 to replace Craft for my reading notes and quasi-Zettelkasten for the past few weeks. I’ve used Craft for over three years, but that tool has morphed into a team note-taking and document-sharing platform that doesn’t mesh well with my needs anymore.
My initial impressions of Bear have been quite positive. Here is an app with a calming, minimalist design, yet in many ways, has more power and capabilities than Craft. And best of all, it intuitively works like you’d expect. Like a Mac app.
When Craft first launched, it was only available on Mac, iPad, and iPhone. The developers went on to create Craft for the Web and Windows to reach a larger audience. Somewhere in the process, more features piled up, basic functions became difficult to figure out, and the app lost some of its Mac whimsy and delight.
Before Bear, I tried Obsidian. Here’s an app that has incredible power and can do practically anything with its endless variety of plug-ins. I tried hard to make it work, but I couldn’t accept its interface and design. I kept tinkering with it to try and make it feel like a Mac app. I realized, eventually, that Obsidian was never going to work for me.
When I think about the apps I use and love the most — Day One, Things, Ulysses, and now possibly Bear — they are only available on Mac, iPad, and iPhone.
What is it about Mac-only apps that appeal to me so much? Perhaps they use Macs themselves and have a laser-like focus on how to make the most of the platform. Maybe it’s because the developers who refuse to expand beyond the Mac all share an opinionated sense of aesthetics and whimsy. It’s hard to pin down the particulars, but you know it when you see it.
Take, for example, the icon that Bear automatically assigned to my “Drafts” tag in the app sidebar. Who but a Mac developer would write this into their software?
I tip my hat to those Mac developers out there, the crazy ones who continue to think different.
In the spring of last year, I started reading The Story of Civilization by Will and Ariel Durant. This is no quick undertaking. Spanning eleven volumes and 10,000 pages, it will take me the rest of this year to finish.
The first volume was published in 1935 when Durant had just turned 50. He published the final volume forty years later. Midway through these decades of writing, Will's wife Ariel became a co-author and active collaborator in this epic undertaking. Together, they read an average of five hundred books as research for each published volume.
The Story of Civilization is regarded as one of the most compelling narratives of world history ever written. The tenth volume, Rousseau and Revolution, won the Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction in 1968. Goodreads currently gives these books a 4.4 out of 5. Such a high rating is rare, which indicates how readers truly admire the series. Essayist Jamie Todd Rubin chose these as the sole books to take along to his proverbial desert island, which was all the prompting I needed to start this adventure.
While the books were best-sellers during their time, I do wonder how many people got around to reading them. Who has the time to read this much history? After all, this set collected dust on my bookshelves for twenty-five years before I picked up the first volume.
But the intrepid reader who perseveres is in for a telling of history unlike any other. Durant’s writing is clear, colorful, engaging, and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny. He's good at digging into the philosophical and religious beliefs of these ancient civilizations to parse out what elements contribute to our present-day ideas and also what, if any, stand up to his skeptical intellect. He pokes fun at the war-mongering gods of Egypt and Persia but shows genuine reverence for the ancient Hindu Upanishads with their belief in impersonal immortality and the oneness we share with the universe. In Ancient Rome, we learn about Julius Caesar and Nero, yes, but also about thinkers like Cicero and Seneca, about the everyday lives of both emperors and peasants, how they cooked, celebrated, and prayed. I feel like I'm on a journey through time with Professor Durant, and he's motioning for me to sit nearer to him while we take all this in together.
I have a personal reason for reading these books. I inherited the first six volumes from my grandmother, which were a Christmas gift to her from my grandfather in 1959. He died a few years later, before the seventh volume was published and before I had a chance to meet him. My grandmother became a widow at 57, two years younger than I am today. She was always a voracious reader, and I know I inherited my love of learning and books from her.
I have the benefit of my grandmother's notes in the margins as she read these books some forty years ago. I recognize her cursive handwriting, her exclamation marks, her underlining. I am adding my notes to hers. It's like we're reading this grand history together. Maybe one day, my daughter will join us in this shared experience across time and generations.
I am nearing the end of the fifth volume, The Renaissance, which covers the history of Italy from the 14th to mid-16th centuries. My progress is slow but steady. I read an average of 30 pages a night in my little library, hot tea by my side, pen in hand. I've come to cherish this time with Professor Durant. There have been more than a few times when my jaw dropped open in sheer disbelief at what I've read. I am shocked both by the crazy shit that has happened during the darker periods of our history and that it took so many years for me to learn all of this.
I've reached a point in life where I have the time to dedicate to personal projects. Early retirement has its thrills and challenges. Without direction or structure, I could see how I could squander these precious years. But this is something I’ve dreamed of doing since college. I always loved literature and philosophy, but I was too practical to consider a career in academia. Instead, I compromised. I majored in accounting with a personal vow to resume a scholar's life as soon as financially possible. In hindsight, that is exactly what I have done.
I read a lot, but my knowledge of history is uneven. I’ve read many biographies and a few accounts of specific eras. I have a good grasp of the history of the British Navy during the Age of Sail, early American history, and World War II. I know a little about Ancient Greece and Rome from my readings of philosophy and Stoicism. But these pockets of knowledge feel like tiny stabs of light in an immense underground cavern. Reading Durant, I am slowly illuminating the darkness. I am renewing my education, my scholarship.
Rounding out my knowledge of history complements my other reading as well. How many books have you read that referenced a historical event or leader that you glossed over? If you’re like me, a lot. Having a broad sense of history has deepened my understanding of practically every book I’ve read since I started this adventure. I feel extra synapses firing when I understand a historical reference that would have flown over my head before this newfound knowledge. And with bi-directional links in Craft, my reading notes have exploded in value with the addition of this history overlay. I feel nearer to wisdom the more I read these books.
In the Dark Ages, owning a copy of the Bible was strongly discouraged by the Roman Catholic Church. It was believed that only the clergy could properly interpret the Scriptures. A driving force behind the Italian Renaissance was a loosening of these religious laws to permit a greater pursuit of knowledge, which in turn led to a rediscovery of the philosophy and wisdom of the ancient Greeks and Romans.
Today, we face a different obstacle. Our attention spans have shortened from the constant dopamine drip of social media and TikTok videos, the binge-worthy Netflix dramas, and the pressure to keep up with present events that wash over us like a river. We divide ourselves into polarizing groups, yet read the same books, the same news feeds, and the same websites, and thus end up thinking the same way. Our horizons are laughably short. Modern wisdom can sometimes feel like an oxymoron.
Perhaps, then, a study of history is the antidote we all need to make sense of this distracted and confusing world. Maybe the context of prior ages could help us better understand our current struggles. As they say, those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
I surprised myself a little over a year ago by writing in a paper journal every morning. The surprise wasn’t that I was keeping a journal but that I was doing it by hand. I had been using the Day One journaling app to record my private thoughts for over a decade. But this was no ordinary year. After suffering an immeasurable loss, I yearned for the comfort that sometimes only flows from pen and paper.
Yet what’s even more surprising is that this was no momentary whim. I’ve kept up this daily habit of scribbling in a notebook in the morning and typing in Day One at night for over a year now. And I think I’ve pieced together why, for me, the combination of analog and digital writing has developed into the best possible journaling experience.
The Benefits of Journaling
Keeping a journal promotes mindfulness, reduces stress and anxiety, improves memory, and can enhance creativity. Journaling can also help you heal from profound loss, providing solace, catharsis, and a means to explore feelings that might otherwise get suppressed. When my son was killed in a motorcycle accident a little over a year ago, I turned to my journal as a way to process my grief.
I am not new to journaling. I’ve kept a private journal for more than thirty years. I filled a dozen notebooks before switching over to Day One in 2012. My journal holds almost four thousand entries dating back as far as 1982.1 I haven’t missed a night of journaling in almost a thousand days.
The Lure of Paper
Despite my appreciation for digital efficiency, I’ve always carried a Field Notes notebook in the back pocket of my jeans or my bag. I like the feel of a pen in my hand when I’m thinking. When we moved to Arizona last year, I knew we wouldn’t be traveling as much as we did aboard our trawler. I decided to upgrade to a full-size desk journal for a change of pace. As one does, I scoured the internet for a suitable notebook.2
I chose the B5 Journal Pro from Scribbles That Matter, which is roughly the size of an iPad, though much thicker. The notebook paper is numbered, dotted, and thick enough to feel luxurious and sturdy with no bleed-through (the paper is rated at 120 gsm). There are two placeholder ribbons, several index pages, and a tucked-in folder in the back of the book for storing notecards or loose paper. When you open the notebook, you hear that satisfying crack of the binding. The book lays flat on a desk.3 The cover is made from vegan leather and feels terrific. This is undoubtedly the nicest journal I’ve ever owned.
Journal Pro from Scribbles That Matter
I didn’t know how I would use the notebook at first, but a pattern soon emerged. I reached for it as I sipped my first cup of coffee in the morning while my mind was fresh and any dreams still lingered. I would write a half page of fragments, lists, how I slept, and stray thoughts that were top of mind. Sometimes, my pen would linger over the page for minutes, my mind in a meditative trance. Other times, the words that escaped my pen surprised me, like a possessed Ouija board. Later in the day or evening, I might write a little more about the book I was reading or capture a quote I had heard, but most of the action this notebook saw was during that first cup of morning coffee.
I wrote more honestly and sincerely about the loss I had suffered than I did at the keyboard. Slowly, over days and weeks, the pages filled and overflowed with feelings my stoic heart couldn’t express in front of a blinking cursor.
After several months of morning writing, I marveled over how connected I had become to this notebook. Would-be journal keepers who give up too soon miss out on the magic of a journal filled with 50 or more pages of their musings. Flipping back through prior days and weeks of writing reveals the mosaic of meaning you missed because you were standing too near. These cryptic clues drawn from your subconscious remain invisible until you turn the pages just right and suddenly glimpse the pattern. The invitation to revisit what you wrote yesterday or last month prompts you to probe deeper into the crux of what’s troubling you.
Why Two Journals
And yet, as much as I enjoy this handwritten journal, I still use Day One in the evenings. The two journals flow from different parts of my brain, though they work together in an interesting way.
At a keyboard, I write in complete sentences in my practiced journal voice. I am articulate. I write to understand, yes, but also to communicate with some future version of myself, or potentially others. All my published essays began as one of these nightly journal entries. The handwritten notebook is focused squarely on the present moment; the writing in Day One leans back and tilts forward. One is meditation; the other is memoir.
During the time I’ve kept the handwritten journal, the quality of my writing in Day One feels richer. Fragmentary scribbles in the morning often blossom after a day of rumination, elongating into full sentences and paragraphs. A vague concept at daybreak might give birth to the start of an essay that night or maybe a few days or weeks later. There is a give-and-take between these two journals that I’ve come to appreciate.
And besides, Day One isn’t going anywhere. With thousands of entries spanning three decades of my life, the app holds tremendous value for me. I search it often to track down events, trips, critical milestones in my life. The memories I’ve captured of my son stand out like beacons of light on my darker days. Writing each night in Day One is a ritual that helps settle my mind and bring closure to the day.
A New Year, A New Journal
I completed the final page of my paper journal on the last day of 2023. I realized this potentiality in the middle of December and managed my writing output to coincide with this tidy conclusion. Filling one of these journals each calendar year feels right.
After so many years of digital journaling, I forgot what it felt like to retire one. I had grown quite attached to this old journal with its hundreds of pages of private thoughts. After a year of daily use, the book held up surprisingly well. No loose pages, and the binding is still tight. Before shelving it in its lovely slipcase alongside my other paper journals, I archived a PDF copy with the scanner app on my iPhone for safekeeping.
I am slowly breaking in the new notebook, an identical twin to its predecessor. I miss paging through past entries before I start to write in the morning. But, perhaps it’s a good reminder to celebrate new beginnings and the ever-changing nature of life, to close the book on a year of sorrow. I am not healed. There is no healing from some losses. But, at least I can measure the distance I have traveled through the pages of my two journals.
Do you keep a journal? Do you use an app, or do you write by hand? Or both? I’d love to hear about your experiences with journaling in the comments below.
I liked Day One so much that I transcribed my old journals to have a complete digital archive. ↩
If you’re curious about the features and characteristics that make a great notebook, I highly recommend Mark Fig’s Hobbyist Hangout podcast on notebooks. ↩
I followed Ryder Carroll’s advice on how to break in a new notebook, which I’m sure helped the notebook lay flat and keep the spine from wearing. ↩
I’ve used some version of Quicken for 35 years. That puts me in a stodgy demographic that manages money in a certain “this is how I’ve always done it” way. For the uninitiated, Quicken is a personal finance software program that helps manage your checkbook and credit cards, pay your bills, keep to a budget, and track investments. It’s available on Windows and Mac, though there are differences in capabilities between the two. There are companion apps for iPhone and iPad, but they feel like afterthoughts, lacking key functionality of the desktop software. Quicken Classic is sold as an annual subscription across three offerings: Deluxe, Premier, and the recently released Business and Personal edition.
Seven years ago, I switched from Quicken Premier for Windows to the less capable Mac version. I’ve written previous blog posts about using Quicken on the Mac: in early 2018 when I switched and follow-on updates in 2019 and 2020. In large part, I was critical of the Mac version of the software, particularly its inability to export investment data.
In the intervening four years since my last post, Quicken has improved in many ways, including the ability to export all its data, including investments, to Quicken for Windows. With this critical functionality in place, I thought it was time to provide an updated and favorable review of the Mac version of Quicken and how I rely on it to manage almost every aspect of my financial life.
Why Quicken
I began my career in public accounting and held a CPA license in Washington state for over thirty years. I spent most of my career as a finance executive with a large publicly traded company, which allowed me direct experience with stock options, restricted stock units, performance shares, deferred compensation plans, and various employee benefit programs that follow that kind of employment. I’ve always tried to be disciplined when it comes to money, and I’m comfortable managing my own finances. With this background and financial situation, I have had many opportunities to evaluate and push the boundaries of Quicken as a personal finance program.
It takes time and expense to maintain a system like Quicken. Many manage their money with simpler apps or just by scanning their accounts online. For me, the effort of a system is worth it. With Quicken, I know what’s going on with my spending and income in relation to expectations every week. Every expense has a monthly budget that fits within a long-range plan. The impact of gyrations in the stock market is personalized with a press of a button. My entire financial history is accessible from Quicken’s search bar. Bills always get paid on time. Checks never bounce. I am rarely surprised at the end of a month, quarter, or year. The peace of mind I get from using Quicken far outweighs the cost.
As a disclaimer, I don’t work for Quicken or have any financial interest in the software or related services. Quicken doesn’t offer a free trial to evaluate, so unbiased reviews from actual users are helpful. I read almost everything I could find before switching to the Mac in 2018. Consider this update an act of paying it forward.
Recent Improvements
Since 2020, there have been dozens of software updates to Quicken. Unlike those early years when I first moved to the Mac, Quicken has now become a pleasure to use, and I consider it a stable, trusted system. Here are a few of the improvements that made the most significant impact on my use:
Error-free Transaction Downloading. The team at Quicken has vastly improved the technology involved in downloading transactions from banks, credit card companies, and brokerage firms. When I first used the Mac version, download errors would pop up continuously. Those days are happily behind me. I'll go weeks and months between download errors, which seem to resolve after a day. My experience is limited to just a few institutions, so your own mileage may vary.
Investment Analysis and Dashboards. The Mac software now provides overall investment allocation between stocks, bonds, and cash, even with mutual funds that own a blend of assets. This update essentially removed the need for me to separately analyze my investments in Excel. In addition, a new dashboard provides a valuable snapshot of investment performance and holdings that rivals and, in some ways, exceeds my brokerage tools. Quicken’s investment section has become quite good.
Bill Manager. Quicken has refined its bill tracking and payment capabilities in a big way. The Premier version of Quicken offers free bill paying, but I prefer to send these occasional checks directly from my bank. I use their bill manager service, though, which does some pretty innovative things. First, it can download PDF statements automatically without having to log in to the payee’s website each month and hunt around for the statement. It also automatically schedules the payment based on the due date and records in the payment register. You can make payments directly from Quicken, but my recurring bills are paid automatically, so recording the transaction is all I need. A couple of companies I pay aren’t included in Quicken’s Bill Manager service, but these can be added manually. Second, I get a nice cash balance forecast as these future bill payments are scheduled in the register, preventing possible overdrafts or shortfalls. Bill Manager solves a problem I didn’t know I had, and I’m glad I have it.
Snappy Performance. The software runs faster thanks to performance improvements, particularly with newer Silicon Macs. I use Quicken on an M1 MacBook Air and an M2 Mac Mini. Both perform exceptionally well.
Investment Data Export. Until late last year, Quicken for Mac’s export capabilities excluded investment data. This meant I could not move back to Quicken for Windows or any other competing personal finance apps without losing all my investment history. I hated having to rely on this one particular version of software for all my precious financial data. Luckily, Quicken has now fixed this shortcoming, and Mac users of the software can breathe a collective sigh of relief.
Mac Version Still Lags Windows
Despite the many improvements to the Mac version of Quicken, it still lags behind the Windows version in a few key areas:
Reporting in the Windows version is more robust, customizable, and allows comparisons to budget.
Windows Investment analysis is more in-depth with Morningstar Portfolio X-Ray and performance benchmarking.
Tax Center in Windows makes income tax planning easier by calculating estimated taxes using actual tax brackets on recorded income.
Other planning tools like Lifetime Planner, Debt Reduction, and Savings Goals haven’t made it to the Mac yet, but these tools always felt a little gimmicky. I didn’t use them on Windows, so I don’t miss them on Mac.
Quicken Risks and Alternatives
This is an interesting time for legacy software companies like Quicken. I suspect their loyal customers look a lot like me: retired or near retirement, comfortable with desktop apps, lugging along a decade or more of historical data within their app, and resistant to change.
Most new entrants into the personal finance technology space are mobile app-centric. Some don’t even offer desktop apps. Quicken has recently entered this space with its Simplify mobile app and likely believes it represents most of its future growth, which explains why it recently rebranded its desktop software to Quicken Classic.
Intuit, the former parent company of Quicken, recently announced the shutdown of its personal finance app, Mint. Mint is one of the most popular and longest-running app-based finance tools, so its demise sent shockwaves through its customer base. Indeed, this announcement caused me to look more carefully at my use of Quicken and think through what steps I would need to take if the service were similarly shuttered.
I think that the risk is relatively low. Aquiline Capital Partners acquired Quicken in 2021. Typically, private equity firms maintain ownership from five to seven years, so Quicken is in the sweet spot of ownership. Aquiline will be focused on investment and growth vs. the cost-cutting and profit harvesting that comes near the end of the investment horizon as they look to sell their asset. This is good news for Quicken’s current customers.
And yet, I can’t help but feel that users of Quicken software are on borrowed time. Highly regarded mobile apps like Monarch Money and Copilot will continue to improve and introduce more and more capabilities. Eventually, Quicken will be forced to mothball its desktop software as everything moves to the cloud and apps. This is one of the reasons I’m happy that Quicken for Mac’s export function now includes investment data. I might not need this now, but someday I will.
As a safeguard, I create and archive two export files from Quicken every quarter. One is simply the Quicken Transfer File (QFX) you can export from the file menu. I also download a CSV file of all my Quicken transactions by selecting All Transactions from the sidebar and choosing Export Register Transactions to CSV from the File menu. This yields a 60,000-row text file I can access with Excel to search and sort every transaction stored in Quicken for the past 30 years. Between these files, I’m confident I could move my history to a new finance app without too much trouble, even if Quicken stopped working altogether.
Recommendations
Quicken Classic for Mac has a lot going for it in 2024. The software is intuitive, stable, and a pleasure to use. I am pleased with Quicken’s decision to allow a complete export of my data, including investments, should I ever need it. As a Mac user, I have no desire to revert to the more capable Windows version through Parallels or some other clunky virtualization process.
Quicken’s subscription cost is fair for the value I receive, and the frequent updates are delivered almost monthly (as I write this, Quicken released Version 7.5.0, which introduced more new enhancements). Almost all personal finance apps use a subscription business model, and many are more expensive than Quicken. Buying an annual license during Black Friday sales in November can save 30-40% off the regular subscription rate.
For someone with 30 years of history with Quicken, I’m in no mood to switch platforms, given the state of the app today.
And yet, if I were just starting out, would I choose Quicken? I doubt it. From a clean slate, I would probably choose one of the more innovative mobile apps that deliver the power of personal financial management to your pocket or tablet. I plan to test drive a few of these over the coming year to better understand these next-generation tools.
Until then, Quicken for Mac will remain my everyday companion and financial advisor. If you’re a long-time Quicken for Windows user considering switching to the Mac, it’s an excellent time to make the leap.
I read 75 books in 2023, my high water mark for the most reading in a year. Books have always been like a warm blanket, and I needed that comfort during a most challenging year.
You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. — James Baldwin
I took on some ambitious books during the year. I read Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, which has long been on my to-be-read pile. I read a new translation of The Odyssey after having last followed the plight of heroic Odysseus some thirty years ago. I am tackling a multi-year reading of Will and Ariel Durant’s epic eleven-volume Story of Civilization. I inherited these books from my Grandmother twenty-five years ago, and I have finally found the time to read them. Discovering her careful handwriting in the margins of these books has revealed a new and somewhat startling side to my prim and proper Grandmother. What you mark and highlight says a lot about your thoughts and beliefs. It’s like a second history is being told in these pages. I’ve decided to leave my own trail of marginalia for my daughter, should she find the patience and fortitude to complete this generational journey herself one day.
A Slow Read of The Story of Civilization
Favorites of the Year
My favorite novel in 2023 was Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane. It’s a bleak book, but protagonist Mary Pat Fennessy is one of the most compelling characters I’ve encountered in a long, long while. She made the bleakness of this book and its theme of parental grief worth it. I will reread this one if only to spend more time with Mary Pat.
I love essays and usually read a half dozen essay compilations during any given year. My favorite this year was These Precious Days by Ann Patchett, who also narrated the audiobook. I recall precise moments on my walks through our neighborhood here in Verrado as I stopped to soak in the wisdom and honesty of this brilliant author speaking to me through my AirPods.
My favorite non-fiction book was The Art of Living by Thich Nhat Hanh. Sometimes, the universe sends you exactly the book you most need to read. What a clear-eyed and compelling manifesto of living your best life right now.
Stephen King Challenge
In May, I discovered I had read more Stephen King novels than any other author, living or otherwise. Out of his 74 published works of fiction (excluding collaborations), I had read an astonishing 47 of them. It shouldn’t surprise me that I’ve read so much of this author. I love a good yarn, and Mr. King is almost certainly our generation’s most preeminent storyteller. I count Misery, The Dark Tower series, The Stand, and The Shining as some of my all-time favorite reads.
So, I decided to go back and read the 28 books I had missed along the way. In 2023, I read 14 of those, including his most recent novel, Holly. My favorite from the year was Night Shift, his first collection of short stories published in 1977.
I look forward to tackling the remaining 14 unread gems in 2024 before the prolific Mr. King publishes his next book.
More Physical Books in 2023
For the past few years, I’ve borrowed most of the books I read from the library on my Kindle using the Libby app. This year, two-thirds of the books I read were physical copies I own. There was a reason for this change.
We moved from Washington state to Arizona late last year, which afforded the possibility of a larger home library. In my old library, I had to donate a book to make room for every new one I purchased. After nearly twenty years of scanning the crammed shelves for the next sacrifice, choosing what book to cull became excruciating. Borrowing books on Libby seemed the more humane choice.
The new library was indeed more spacious. Once all sixty boxes of books from the move were properly shelved, I marveled at the many gaps between books. This was all the invitation I needed. With joyful abandon, I bought dozens of books during the year to fill those unsightly gaps. I joined two book clubs. I experienced once again that long-forgotten thrill of leaving a used bookstore with a bagful of books. The gaps slowly narrowed and finally evaporated. I struggled in vain to find an open spot for Wednesday’s Child by Yiyun Li, the last book I finished this year.
In a library, no empty shelf remains empty for long… Ultimately the number of books always exceeds the space they are granted. — Alberto Manguel
The coming year will see another series of book sacrifices and likely a return to library borrowing. I enjoyed this book buying spree while it lasted.
My Reading System
I use the Craft app to house all my reading notes and links to my personal note system. I passed the three-year mark of using Craft and have now written and linked over 250 literature notes in this quasi-Zettelkasten system. The connections between books and ideas inside Craft have produced more than a few epiphanies and have indeed taken on a life of its own as a knowledge system.
I continue to be an avid fan of the ReadWise service to collect and review notes and highlights from my reading. I added 234 new highlights to the system this year, bringing me to 1,600 total passages in ReadWise. My daily review of five random selected highlights always makes me smile … and ponder.
Craft and ReadWise form a system that helps me retain and leverage more of what I read. For as much time and money as I spend with my nose in a book, these tools ensure I get the best return for that investment. If you’re curious about either of these apps, please see my earlier post, Read Better with Craft and ReadWise.
The Year Ahead
At my steady pace of 30 pages per evening, I expect to finish The Story of Civilization sometime late in 2024. Beyond that, I’ve been toying with the idea of reading only books I already own, reading only books written in the last year, books written more than a hundred years ago, or reading books I’ve already read. But I know myself. I won’t do any of these things. Books are a comfort to me, and the right book at the right time is the best comfort of all. I’ll know it when I read it.
Book-wrapt — that beneficient feeling of being wholly imbooked, beshelved, inlibriated, circumvolumed, peribibliated … it implies the traditional library wrapped in shelves of books, and the condition of rapt attention to a particular volume, and the rapture of of being transported to the wood beyond the world.
… and
Entering our library should feel like easing into a hot tub, strolling into a magic store, emerging into the orchestra pit, or entering a chamber of curiosities, the club, the circus, our cabin on an outbound yacht, the house of an old friend. It is a setting forth, and it is a coming back to center. Borges, of course, thought it was entering Paradise.
Sometimes a book feels like it was written just for you. May we all find ourselves Book-wrapt this holiday season. ★★★★★
Bear Home Screen on iPad
Knowledge Note Example
Vocabulary Review Notes in Bear
Bear note capture on Apple Watch
Tags and screen layout on the Mac in Bear 2
A Slow Read of The Story of Civilization