Obsidian is Not King of the Hill


The King is dead.

Long live the King.

 Perhaps it sounds like blasphemy for all the Obsidian enthusiasts out there. But it's true. There are things higher up on the graph than Obsidian.


"Learning" (item 150 in the figure below) is higher in the Hierarchy of Brain Management (e.g. PKM) than Note/Graph-Making (164) or the use specifically of the Obsidian application (165).

There are different categories of Learning (150), spanning from Beneficial (151) to Harmful (152) and including Benign (153), where the latter can include time-wasting distractions.

A book could be written about the graph to the right. However that would be an example of distraction  because the title of this blog is "Old Man Learns to Code."

The "Aging" process 100 can include both the upswing of cognitive capabilities from conception through birth as well as up into the age of 25 before it plateaus and then begins to decline as one progresses beyond 50 and towards the "golden" years. 

In formal school-based education (155), knowledge growth can take the form of passive intake as students just sit back and let a teacher drone on. Hopefully, the more active form of learning starts to develop as the better students do their homework. One can choose to engage in active Self-Study (160) after the years of formal education wane.

Self-study may involve the following: (a) Repeated focus on and capture of possibly-educational material (161); (b) Analyzing the material (162); (c) Identifying key concepts (164) and graphing them for example as mind maps of the recognized concepts and their detected interrelations, (d) Zettelkasten the identified concepts (165) can then take place, for example by way of Obsidian, (e) Later on the self-driven studier can review his/her the cast material (167), try to memorize it, be bold enough to criticize it (even though it's his/her baby) and then perhaps advance to re-formulate it by returning to step (164) for a rinse and repeat.

"Harmful Learning" (152) can include submitting to brain washing as opposed to vigilantly engaging in critical thinking. Some allow themselves to fall for the siren songs of various cults. The non-useful forms of alleged learning (153) can include spending endless hours watching YouTube shorts.

Memorization techniques (170) can be discussed in a whole separate book and indeed many books have been written on that topic alone. If one does not carry on life-long active learning, the alternative is stagnation (130) and passive forgetting (110) of the knowledge base acquired in earlier times, in other words, brain decay (115) 

More to Explore
How to Educate Yourself (without school)
How to achieve more while studying less - Obsidian & Conceptual Notes
Why Obsidian Canvas is THE BEST Mind Mapping Tool
Obsidian: Notes to Build Wisdom (FULL GUIDE + SETUP)
Having an exceptional memory is actually easy
Who Really Controls Your Mind?
Will AI Reduce our Critical Thinking Skills?
The Dark Truth About Note-Taking & PKM Systems
The Ultimate Learning Technique

... to be continued

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