I think self-cataloging is fundamentally masturbatory. On its face, there's nothing wrong with keeping notes or searchable records. But letting the record become the goal - organizing, re-organizing, polishing, theorizing - feels wrong in a way I can't articulate.

Self-cataloging can be become a method of procrastination. But that doesn't mean that there is no value to be found in methods like Zettelkasten. The activity of looking through your own Zettelkasten has the potential of creating associations and sparking ideas. That can be very valuable and requires some care of your notes. But trying to find the perfect taxonomy for your own notes is foolish mistake. The technical limitations of the original Zettelkasten, makes refactoring the notes to the current approximation of the perfect taxonomy such a huge task, that it is usually avoided.

A nice example of a limitation that supports creativity.

Maybe if you organized your notes you could articulate your thoughts better!

jk, I agree. I use logseq synced across devices, but I barely know any of the shortcuts and never made any kind of brilliant web of personal knowledge. My notes are always available and are searchable, which is enough for those rare occasions when I need to find something obscure and for those common occasions when I want a tried and true cocktail recipe. Maybe I'll hyper-organize it one day and find a billion dollar idea lurking under the surface...but probably not.

IME there's two main reasons to keep notes: (1) to save time in the future or (2) to force myself to think about something.

(2) often happens after I read fiction, usually to figure out why I liked / disliked the story. These notes are mostly disposable but occasionally useful when the book comes up in conversation years later.

On the other hand, (1) is more like notes on how-tos (recipes, software setup), written with the intention of needing it again. But this is pretty infrequent, maybe a quick skim every year or two. So even these don't need to be super thorough.

> feels wrong in a way I can't articulate.

Anyways, all that to say I think the "wtf-am-i-doing-with-my-life" feeling comes from the realization that I'm wasting hours on a document that'll save future me maybe 5 minutes at best.

...Which is how I feel about NixOS after spending most of this week tinkering / tracking down documentation. Might be worth it if I had a fleet of machines to maintain but probably not worth it for my laptop + server, even if I did yearly reinstalls.