The ghost in the box 👻
The ghost in the box 👻
A mysterious phenomenon of the Zettelkasten
🏷️ Categories: Writing, Zettelkasten, Creativity
Now that Halloween is approaching, I bring a mysterious topic....
For that letter, I have the pleasure of bringing back an old friend. The more veteran people will already know him, he is
, someone with whom I have many things in common, and although it seems incredible, we met by pure chance. Someday I will tell you the absurd story of our first meeting at Substack.He, like me, uses Zettelkasten, that note system I've told you about before. In fact, he's an enthusiast about it. Talking to someone who also uses it is always inspiring for me. In my experience, using the Zettelkasten is one of those habits that, if you follow it for a week, you start to notice its potential; after a few months, you see how it helps you organize your ideas; but if you keep it for years, it can completely change your way of thinking.
Today we'll talk about a mysterious phenomenon that we've both experienced: the relationship you form with a “ghost” that seems to dwell inside your notes.
Yes, you read that right... the Zettelkasten has a ghost that many people who use Zettelkasten claim to have seen.
But I'd better leave you with him to explain it to you.
I would like us to reflect on what he tells us. I'll make notes for us to think about together.
Will you join me...? 👻
Great potential
The promise of the Zettelkasten method is that - writing and connecting notes in a specific way - will allow you to create an artificial writing partner that will surprise you with new ideas and help you write high-quality texts.
Who wouldn't want to enjoy these benefits?
As you might expect, the expectations surrounding the Zettelkasten method are correspondingly high. Moreover, this is no mere toast to the sun. There are two reasons that reinforce these expectations:
The founding father of this method, Niklas Luhmann, excelled professionally thanks to the help of his Zettelkasten.
The Zettelkasten method is all the rage in the productivity community (much like cold water baths were all the rage in the fitness community).
The disappointment of “seeing everything”
However, the usual thing is to feel deep disappointment when you visit someone else's Zettelkasten. Or, if you don't feel that disappointment, you are most likely getting excited by superficial aspects of the method (e.g., the aesthetics of the application it uses or the use of labels).
Luhmann himself wrote a note in his Zettelkasten about this situation:
The ghost in the box? Viewers visit. They see everything and nothing more than that —as in a porn movie—. And the disappointment is correspondingly high.
—Niklas Luhmann, ZK II Zettel 9/8,3. 1
Viewers “see it all” but are unable to see how a Zettelkasten fulfills its promise: they cannot see Luhmann's artificial writing partner. Or, rather, Luhmann's companion is actually a ghost hiding inside the note box to dodge the viewers' gaze (in German, Zettelkasten literally means “note box”).
However, there is an even greater disappointment: starting your own Zettelkasten and not finding your own box ghost. Just inert notes. Which leads you to think:
Am I doing something wrong with my Zettelkasten?
Is this method really worthwhile?
Maybe I should look for the next method that promises something similar.
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: These are frequent doubts, I myself had them at the beginning 🙋♂️. This happens because, as I said to , “the trees do not let us see the forest”. When you focus on seeing “notes”, you are seeing those “trees”, the mistake is to believe that a forest is the simple sum of all the trees. It is a whole living ecosystem. You have to see how the species in the forest are related and stop seeing trees.
The true nature of a Zettelkasten
The underlying problem is that if you don't understand what the true nature of a Zettelkasten is, you won't be able to see the ghost in the box.
In fact, this problem is not unique to the Zettelkasten method. For example, a similar disappointment would occur if you looked at a brain with the expectation of seeing its thoughts, or if you looked at a game of chess thinking that the game is its wooden pieces and board.2
The common problem in these cases is the inability to understand the true nature of what you are seeing. Thoughts are not found in a brain: they are the consequence of the connection and coordinated action of neurons in a living brain. A game of chess is not its pieces and its board: it is the process of moving the pieces on the board in a certain specific way that creates a game.
So what is the nature of a Zettelkasten? A Zettelkasten is an environment for thinking: that is its true nature. The ghost of the box is not in the notes or inside the box, it is in the private process that happens in a user's mind when they use their Zettelkasten to think.3
That is where to look.
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: It's a common mistake, it happened to me too, I thought that the more notes I had, the better. The reality is that this brings nothing, only noise. What generates value is to sit down and reread the notes, think and connect ideas with others. That's when you learn, remember what you write down and come up with new ideas.
“It's too bright and that's why it's hard to see. Once a dunce wanted to look for the fire with a lighted lantern. If he had known what fire was, he could have cooked his rice much sooner.”
The ghost in the box is not found as Luhmann's viewers expected. In fact, this search is wrong-headed at its root. There is nothing to find inside the box. The way to “find” the ghost in the box is to recognize “what is already there” when you interact with your Zettelkasten. And, when you can recognize that condition, you will realize that every effort to search had been in vain.
So, my solution to the search for the ghost in the box is: stop searching and, instead, try…
Use your Zettelkasten for thinking: A Zettelkasten is a universal thinking environment, don't limit yourself to using it for your hobbies or a specific project. When you want to think about something, use your Zettelkasten.
Increase the intensity: You need high concentration and motivation to correctly and completely follow the steps of the Zettelkasten method. If you only spend 15 minutes a day, you are unlikely to reach that level of intensity. Increase the time and concentration in your Zettelkasten sessions.
Understand its true nature: Why does a Zettelkasten enhance your thinking? And vice versa, why does your thinking power your Zettelkasten? It is comfortable to accept that this is simply the way it is. But why is this so? It is not enough to know that this is true, find your own answer to these questions.
Push your understanding into the true nature of things. Go out to find the fire you have been promised. If only to realize that you have always had it in your hands.
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: Does this ring any bells? I was talking recently about how it helps me find unexpected connections between ideas. The ghost appears when, going through your notes, you find unexpected connections and generate a new idea. In reality, the idea was always in front of you, waiting to be discovered. They are “ghost notes” that inhabit the note box and only make an appearance when you sit in solitude in front of your Zettelkasten and start reading and connecting. For example, In Search of the Essential and The pleasure of contemplation emerged from those ghost notes. I simply sat down to reread my notes and the idea appeared out of nowhere.
✍️ Your turn: Have you started using the method? If you use it, have you already experienced the feeling of the ghost in the box?
💭 Quote of the day: “The Zettelkasten offers combinatorial possibilities that could never have been planned, foreseen or conceived of in this way.” Niklas Luhmann.
See you soon, take care and learn many things! 👋
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The original note is in German. The English translation is mine from the English translation by Sascha Fast.
I found the example of the brain in this article by Sascha and the example of chess in a comment of “autonomygaps” in the same article.
When I say “private process” I refer to Wittgenstein's beetle and the idea of private language. You can read more about this in this article by Andrei Sukhovskii that combines the idea of the beetle with the phantom of the box.