PLAIN
Plain text has been with us since the
sixties - and it doesn't look like it's
leaving. We have been using it without
being aware of it, via text editors -
present on every single operating system
- across emails, instant messaging, and
last but not least, on social media
posting. Before that, we go back to
typewriters and handwriting.
It's universal. It's simple. It's
intuitive. It doesn't lose formatting.
It just works.
Twenty years after, the irruption of
word processors during the eighties,
apparently brought some "richness", also
known as headings, bolds, italics,
underlines, and lists - organized and
unorganized. The nineties came with
HTML, the new century with the cloud,
and the rest is history.
Let's talk about digital footprint. I've
created a simple plain text file that
contains a title, subtitle, two lorem
ipsum paragraphs, and two lists. Then, I
did the same with rich text, markdown,
and HTML. The results are here in bytes:
TYPE SIZE
---------- ------
Plain 487
Markdown 487
HTML 788
Rich 9069
Plain text and markdown have the same
file size, HTML is 62% bigger, and rich
text is 19 times bigger. Yes, nineteen
times. These documents occupy extra
local and cloudy space, they live
somewhere, they don't die.
Perhaps it's time to start or follow a
Plain Text Movement, defined by our
small daily actions like taking notes
with a text editor or switching to email
plain text composing. In my opinion,
it's also a matter of the way that we
write and highlighting our content above
its appearance.
I'm writing this post from vim - an
improved version of vi - that comes
after their grandparents, qed and ed.
Everything else follows the same
principle.
The most successful written stories
don't have formatting. Do we need our
words to be richer? I don't think so,
plain and simple.
DRAFT
Something unsent, a work-in-progress,
the first version of a document. We're
very familiar with drafts, used in
writing - when ideas come to thoughts,
sentences, and paragraphs - and also in
technology, especially with messaging
tools. In essence, a way of saving some
words for later.
I knew what I wanted to write about when
this project started, so I wrote the
titles of the 28 posts that I've
committed to write in the manifesto -
and these are saved as an email draft.
Of course, having that in mind helps
simplify the drafting process. I know
what I'm going to write the next week,
so I think about it when doing other
stuff, like walking. When it's time to
write, I follow a method that consists
of a) Bullet-point-list the structure,
b) Write the thing, and c) Edit and
publish. That's it, and that's what I
did for this post:
01 INTRO: Meaning, usage on writing and
tech, benefits.
02 STEPS: Titles, week think, bullets,
writing, editing.
03 MODEL: This post, stages with tools,
only one draft.
04 CLOSE: One way, think first, time it,
question end.
The initial unwritten thoughts help me
to get inspired beforehand. The
bullet-pointed structure makes me focus,
so I can write a post in 30 minutes from
one draft - without procrastinating and
getting lost in perfection. I use vim to
write without distractions, LanguageTool
for the final edits, and git to commit
the HTML and RSS changes to my
repository.
You know what you want to write about.
Think first, time your work, and just
publish it without looking back. In this
post, I wanted to share my way, what
works for me, and how does it work -
that's what it is, one way. What's
yours? Email me and let's share.
PACES
At your pace, reading this post will
take as long as you want.
According to research from the Lund and
Kristianstad Universities in Sweden, all
mammals take their first steps at the
same point in brain development. Baby
camels can walk just thirty minutes
after they're born; a milestone that it
usually takes a whole year for us,
humans. Cultivating the brain across
life is like hiking a flat-top mountain
with many starting paths - it begins and
ends slowly, and it has a steady, rushed
peak tied to academic education,
profession, and social responsibilities.
In the 2009 documentary short "Dealing
with Time (Le Temps Presse)" by Xavier
Marquis, they have measured anonymous
people walking in major cities during
rush hour, between 1998 and 2008. It's
no surprise that the walking pace
increased by 10% during this decade. A
pace that probably is even faster after
fifteen more years. The cause?
Essentially, the expansion of clocks
from factories to homes and everything
that happened after we started measuring
time. Perhaps factory workers needed
more support when throwing rocks at the
clocks.
During my time working at Amazon
Frontlines, I had the privilege of
spending about a week with the Waorani
Indigenous Nation from the Nemonpare
community, in the Eastern Amazon
rainforest of Ecuador. This was one of
the most wonderful experiences that I
ever had. One of the first things that
I've faced inside my western brain, was
the urge of planning. The Waorani don't
have alarm clocks, they wake up with the
Sun and decide what to do right there -
maybe hunting, maybe fishing - depending
on how they feel and what the öme
(forest) and its universal language
tells them. Survival wisdom on a daily
basis.
According to Microsoft, our average
attention span dropped from twelve
seconds in 2000 to eight in 2013 - what
is called "The Goldfish Effect" as this
animal's average is one second longer.
I can't imagine the current number; I
must admit I didn't dare to research it,
and that it's definitely not growing.
That's not a surprise if we analyze how
we operate our lives since the alarm
clock tune, and until the bedtime
notification. In my own experience, this
phenomenon doesn't only affect young
generations - it affects everyone.
Casual conversations are becoming
workplace briefings, where you better be
concise, or I'll move on to the next
thing.
Let's do a quick dive into the workplace
- the main contractor that outsources
your pace towards a path that you don't
necessarily want. Time is precious and
the busyness, workaholism, and
preservation of status quo are defense
mechanisms that wonderfully protect and
support that. How many times have you
heard the classic "I don't have time for
this"? At the end of the day, people, no
matter their rank in the pyramid, tend
to be afraid of changes, failure, and
being left out - fears that create a
cold and comfortable frozen paralysis.
It's like stopping the time-space, and
no, this is not science fiction.
When we find our best pace, we have too
many paths to take in front of us. The
concept of horror vacui, or fear of
emptiness, travelled with us since the
times of Aristotle, across cartography,
art, and lifestyle among others. Claudio
Naranjo (1932-2019) extensively talked
about this social phenomenon in his
work; and the fable of Nasrudin is a
good example. A man who looks for his
house key under a streetlamp in the
market, knowing that he lost it at home;
because there's more light. We are
looking for the key in the wrong place.
This makes me think about pursuing our
peace through noise and comfort
distraction, a delicious appetizer that
is present in every meal. All these
constant and nonstop inputs move us
towards the opposite. Of course, we
better not stop, otherwise, we'll have
time to think, do introspection, deal
with silence - and that is, indeed,
scary.
Don't get me wrong, there is value in
time too. In the end, it's an adapt or
die situation, and there is always room
for balance. Nature has its own
imperfect pace; our species thrived by
following it instinctively and without
measuring time. Finding our pace towards
a path takes a while, and that's fine.
There's nothing wrong about slowing
down, stopping, and even falling - it
actually brings a whole new perspective
solely spotted from that very angle.
You decide your own pace, and only you
can take the first step.
BLOGS
Storytelling is, essentially what makes
us human. Everybody has something to
say; the two writing challenges that
arise are "what" and "them."
What am I going to write about? And,
what if nobody will ever read it?
I will read it.
Following Manuel Moreale's* powerful
initiative that empowered me to start
this blog:
01 BEGIN: Create a blog. There are
plenty of platforms out there;
find yours.
02 WRITE: Start typing. Don't rethink;
don't look back. Just publish your
post.
03 SHARE: Send it to me at
minimblog[at]duck[dot]com and I'll be
your first reader.
If you have an RSS feed, I'll keep
reading, and I'll add your blog to this
list:
*manuelmoreale.com
hussainaajala.com
EMPTY
The concept of emptiness and how it's
socially integrated truly fascinates me.
In a consumer-centered society, the word
empty means useless, disposable, without
meaning - an empty car, an empty bottle,
an empty pool. You see it, think about
its opposite, and move on to the next
thing, like infinite scrolling. In the
end, the social meme gets in the way
wonderfully.
Other examples make some quotidian
objects a little bit more meaningful,
like an empty bed, chair, or table.
Good, the fact that they are empty is
a good thing; I can use them. I mean,
the majority of these objects were
designed with a clear purpose. That
said, we can use the bed as a chair,
the chair as a table, and the table as a
bed. The value of emptiness changes as
soon as you go bigger, out of the
object, and into the space.
Opportunity and inspiration come when we
think about an empty room, house, or
building. The purpose of this blog is
not to lecture you about the amount of
possessions and the value of living in
an empty home; there are plenty of
spaces that talk about this. What do
you see when you enter a completely
empty room? I see space, I get creative,
and I normally end up thinking about
what to put in there - inevitably,
objects also get in the way.
Now, if we move away from the object and
its contained space, what is empty then?
Is there any emptiness at all? Up to
multiple interpretations and
perspectives. I don't think about how
empty a forest is when I walk through
it, how useful it would be to plant
more trees on top of these bushes, or
perhaps how this tree can be used as a
potential table. It is what it is,
especially because we didn't create it,
purchase it, or exploit it.
The essentials get more essential when
you start removing layers. Picture
yourself sitting on a chair inside an
empty room in the middle of the forest.
If you remove the chair and open the
windows to let the breeze in, does this
make the room emptier or less empty?
Seeing the glass half empty is also good
- it's a matter of perspective.
MINIM
From the Latin word minimus, meaning
"least" or "smallest".
The minim.blog manifesto in ten
principles:
01 GOALS: Write about existential and
digital minimalism.
02 SCOPE: One post a week for six months
until 03/2024.
03 TIMED: Every Sunday for a maximum of
thirty minutes.
04 POSTS: Between 300-500 words in
digestible plain text.
05 EDITS: Only allowed within the
wonderful thirty mins.
06 TOOLS: Vim, LanguageTool for the
final edits, and git.
07 CODED: One HTTP request, no CSS/JS,
and just preformatted text.
08 COSTS: Domain name only, €10 first
year, €25 renew.
09 SHARE: Send an email at
minimblog[at]duck[dot]com.
10 PROMO: This blog will not be promoted
on social media.
BEGIN
Enough procrastination. It's time.
I can't explain what made me finally
start after these months, but here I am.
I guess I will write about it once I
find it.
Welcome to minim.blog, a place that
talks about existential and digital
minimalism and that is crafted and
hosted minimally.
I commit to writing every Sunday - I
will share a manifesto soon.
Because it's not about the destination,
it's about the journey.
Thank you for reading.
Raul
minimblog[at]duck[dot]com