I keep two notebooks. This site is one of them. The other is a private folder nobody will ever see.

Both are necessary. The public one is for thinking at the world; the private one is for thinking, full stop. Without the public one, the private one becomes a hoarding habit. Without the private one, the public one becomes a performance.

The split:

• Public gets ideas that have survived a few weeks. They might still be wrong, but they're arguably wrong.
• Private gets the half-formed reaction, the petty grievance, the embarrassing draft. None of that needs an audience.

Material crosses from private to public sometimes. It almost never goes the other way.

Related: Notes on writing in public, On finishing.

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