> Every note in Obsidian. Every half-baked atomic thought, every Zettelkasten slip, every carefully linked concept map. (4, though I suppose you could argue it's 1 + 3)
> But over time, my second brain became a mausoleum. A dusty collection of old selves, old interests, old compulsions, piled on top of each other like geological strata. (2, albeit with a 3 inside)
> Instead of accelerating my thinking, it began to replace it. Instead of aiding memory, it froze my curiosity into static categories. (2)
> The inhabitants of the library, cursed to wander it forever, descend into despair, madness, and nihilism. (2 with a 3 inside again)
> It is associative, embodied, contextual, emotional. We do not think in folders. We do not retrieve meaning through backlinks. Our minds are improvisational. They forget on purpose. (4, 2, 2)
I think the author (either in person, or via some LLM that did much of the actual writing) is just fond of this sort of rhetorical repetition, and it happens that if you're doing that then 3 is often the best number. (Because 2 may not be enough to establish the rhythm, and 4 may be enough to feel overdone.)
I do think there's too much of it here, and specifically too many threes, but I think the underlying fault is "too much parallelism" and the too-many-threes are a symptom.
> Every note in Obsidian. Every half-baked atomic thought, every Zettelkasten slip, every carefully linked concept map. (4, though I suppose you could argue it's 1 + 3)
> But over time, my second brain became a mausoleum. A dusty collection of old selves, old interests, old compulsions, piled on top of each other like geological strata. (2, albeit with a 3 inside)
> Instead of accelerating my thinking, it began to replace it. Instead of aiding memory, it froze my curiosity into static categories. (2)
> The inhabitants of the library, cursed to wander it forever, descend into despair, madness, and nihilism. (2 with a 3 inside again)
> It is associative, embodied, contextual, emotional. We do not think in folders. We do not retrieve meaning through backlinks. Our minds are improvisational. They forget on purpose. (4, 2, 2)
I think the author (either in person, or via some LLM that did much of the actual writing) is just fond of this sort of rhetorical repetition, and it happens that if you're doing that then 3 is often the best number. (Because 2 may not be enough to establish the rhythm, and 4 may be enough to feel overdone.)
I do think there's too much of it here, and specifically too many threes, but I think the underlying fault is "too much parallelism" and the too-many-threes are a symptom.