hello! welcome to my digital garden! 🌷

ps: in case you arrived here but don't know who i am, you can find 👨🏻‍🎤 an introduction to my life, self and work here.

❔ what should you expect from this page?

this is a living space in which i plant, tend to and share my "lab notes" 🧪.
i.e. the notes i use to manage and share about my research, projects and life as whole.

notes have 3 growth stages: 🌱 seedling, 🌿 budding and 🌲 evergreen.

there are two ways you can navigate this space:

1. 🗺 a structured, organized, narrative way, in which i share the foundational concepts, references, tools and discoveries of my research/learning/work.
2. 🕸 a loose, experimental, self-directed navigation on a topic-based index of notes, which is how the notes are planted in this space.

choose your path below!

1) my research - structured way

(clickable soon! for now, you'll find a few essays below.)

the goal of my research was to map, understand and curate multiple cohesive approaches and possibilities to answer the question:

how can we address the spiritual/psychological, ecological, economic, sociopolitical, technological and educational challenges we're going through and create the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible?

by sharing my findings, i aim to present what i see as viable pathways to address the metacrisis and enable new, more regenerative systems, lifestyles and ways of being.

other inquiries i intend to address:

1) how can we support individuals and groups to create art, technology and games in service of consciousness development and ecosystems regeneration?

a.k.a. how can we develop systems and structures to support life on earth?

2) how can we make life more like a game?

but not any kind of game. a game that's deeply fun, collaborative, challenging, meaningful and fulfilling.
a game that honors the beauty and mystery of life, that challenges and supports us to flourish - to discover ourselves, unfold our potentials and share our gifts with others.

some people have a resistance with the game frame because of its often seen competitive, win-lose dynamics. the concept of game i'm using here is closer to the infinite game and omni-win dynamics observed by thinkers such as buckminster fuller and communities such as fourgames, metagame.wtf and startover.xyz.

you can read a lot more about the motivations, background and metaphysical, ontological and epistemological basis of this research on my viable pathways book-zine.

or you can jump right in below.

core essays

1. 🌿 👋🏻 my thesis - thriving in the metacrisis with the help of life support systems, networks and games
2. 🌱 🧘🏻‍♂️ a meta-system for self design, transformation and development
3. 🌿 💭 foundational concepts for developing regenerative information ecologies & empowering knowledge commons
4. 🌱 🦸🏻‍♀️ design specs & constraints for enabling minimum viable vocational economies
5. 🌿 🕹 energy management, life as play, collaborative life wisdom & ontological design as a revolutionary practice
6. 🌿 🌀 the rise of lo-fi;ambient content and the future of the creator, curation & experience economies
7. 🌱 🌐 an introduction to the L1F3 support systems

note: these articles are still under construction/revision. the emojis represent their growth stage.

my aim here isn't to provide definitive answers, but starting points. my hope if for this curation to serve as an overview, to give us some clarity of the territory and empower us as sensemakers and regenerative players. so we can start playing these games more consciously, easily and collaboratively.

2) notes breakdown

alternatively, if you want to explore these topics on your own, you can see below a high-level skeleton of the main projects, prototypes and references i've been working with. some of these will be more structured pages, others will be links to resources, others are still blank. follow your own judgment/curiosity! 🙃

on the contents below, the emojis mean different things. here's their caption:

additional information

where am i? / what is this page?

"a digital garden is something inbetween a personal blog and a wiki. it's a collection of evolving notes, essays, and ideas that aren't strictly organised by their publication date. they're inherently exploratory – posts are linked through contextual associations (bi-directional links). they aren't refined or complete - posts can be published as half-finished thoughts that will grow and evolve over time. they're less rigid, less performative, and less perfect than the personal "blogs" we're used to encountering on the web."

if you want to know more, you can check out maggie appleton's amazing content for a brief history & ethos of the digital garden and an extensive list of digital gardening tools and gardeners.

the digital garden metaphor can go a really long way. understanding your knowledge as a web of relationships a digital garden can also be seen as part of someone's second brain, or a layer beyond it, a "third brain", so to say.

the structure i use for this garden is very simple. there are topics and growth stages.

keep in mind, the notes i tend to and share here are primarily my personal wiki. they're meant for personal use first. most notes will be unfinished, poorly formatted and not polished, but they're still relevant/interesting enough that i choose to share them. :)

if you want to see my more refined content, you can check my newsletter, instagram, twitter (now X), and youtube channel. this is a behind-the-curtain view into my world and second brain. 😉

how do I make my own garden?

i edit this using obsidian, a note-taking software that I use for my second brain. you can start using the app by downloading it for free at obsidian.md. there are many tutorials and possible advanced setups, but for starters, i recommend nick milo's "obsidian for beginners" youtube series and his LYT obsidian toolkit.

to host my notes, i use the obsidian digital garden plugin .

how can i be in the loop for new content and updates on these projects?

sign up for my newsletter. also, if you want to be even more 'in the know', one possibility is to join a whatsapp group i created, in which i only occasionally share updates and exchange with a small group of friends. i'm leaving it open for new co-conspirators as well right now, as a way to approximate our relationship if you really feel the resonance. ❤ ask me about it on telegram or via email at cassius dot carv at gmail dot com.