Niche is cliché

thinking tools in disguise, clichés in the niches, Zettelkasten workflow in Obsidian

Hello intersectional thinkers 👋

Greetings from Tokyo where I’m binging on old Japanese animes and going to summer festivals.

The Tsukiji’s lion festival築地獅子祭 kicked us off for the beginning of summer on Sunday.

In today’s musing:

🧠 thinking tools in disguise
🔃 niche is cliche
✏️ Zettelkasten workflow in Obsidian

Let’s go!

1 unexpected intersection

Florian writes one of my favourite newsletters on the planet:

In his last post, he shared this tweet to illustrate the unspoken powers of metaphors:

Gorm @metaphorician

After years of floundering, I think I'm finally getting it: You get energy by spending it. The fuel tank metaphor is completely misleading. The body supplies energy to meet demand. The tank *expands* if you use a lot of fuel. In other words, biology is fundamentally antifragile

Some literary devices are not devices. Or even literary. They shape thinking.

Don’t let the bland academic names of power concepts fool you.

Any other dangerously useful concepts in disguise that come to mind? Please leave a comment! On the top of my head, beauty is another one. It has superflous and optional connotations, but it’s arguably a fundamental virtue.

What do you think?

1 paradox

Finding a niche is cliché.

The “I tweet about X, Y, and Z” bio is generic.

Naval Ravikant and Gary Vaynerchuck both talk about business, investing, and technology. But that’s not what makes them unique.

The audience is not just drawn to what you talk about (external topics) but how you talk about it (internal filters).

1 visual Zettelkasten

I outlined my Zettelkasten workflow in Obsidian!

There are a few potentially controversial takes compared to the consensus in the ZK note-taking community so if you’re into note-taking, take a look and let me know what you think!

Have a great week!

Vicky

PS. It was my first day in the office at YouTube Japan! Excited to see the behind-the-scenes of the creator economy as a creator.