Imperfection & Learning in Public

Gardens are imperfect by design. They don’t hide their rough edges or claim to be a permanent source of truth. page

Putting anything imperfect and half-written on an “official website” may feel strange. We seem to reserve all our imperfect declarations and poorly-worded announcements for platforms that other people own and control. We have all been trained to behave like tiny, performative corporations when it comes to presenting ourselves in digital space. Blogging evolved in the Premium Mediocre culture of Millenialism as a way to Promote Your Personal Brand™ and market your SEO-optimized Content. Weird, quirky personal blogs of the early 2000’s turned into cleanly crafted brands with publishing strategies and media campaigns. Everyone now has a modern minimalist logo and an LLC. Digital gardening is the Domestic Cozy response to the professional personal blog; it’s both intimate and public, weird and welcoming. It’s less performative than a blog, but more intentional and thoughtful than a Twitter feed. It wants to build personal knowledge over time, rather than engage in banter and quippy conversations. Think of it as a spectrum. Things we dump into private WhatsApp group chats, DMs, and cavalier Tweet threads are part of our chaos streams - a continuous flow of high noise / low signal ideas. On the other end we have highly performative and cultivated artefacts like published books that you prune and tend for years. Gardening sits in the middle. It’s the perfect balance of chaos and cultivation.