[xyzelement]

I’ve been thinking recently about documenting my journey towards religion - what it has been like starting from a hyper-logical, secular-intellectual perspective and layering the religious wisdom atop that foundation.

Religion itself (Judaism in my case) has a lot written about it obviously and I am not reaching any novel conclusions but it seems like the winding path I I followed could be helpful for others.

To be clear it’s a daunting challenge - because there’s no single point answer but the narration is a journey of its own as well.

[JackFr]

You'd not be the first to tread that path:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessions_(Augustine)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Storey_Mountain

[xyzelement]

These are great suggestions. Thank you!

[kstrauser]

That's exactly the sort of thing I document for myself. Getting my thoughts together enough to explain them to a hypothetical, likely-nonexistent reader gives me a lot of clarity into my own thinking.

[xyzelement]

I call that "journaling" - I have a lot of physical paper journals that I wouldn't expect anyone to read - they so far have been write-only as a way to explore or clarify a topic for myself. I say "so far" because potentially I could read through them for valuable ideas that can be re-shaped for an audience.

"Documentation" in my mind does have an audience that you hope can benefit from what you are writing. The difference between that and journaling is that you need to define what this audience is like, their starting point and interest, and then write in a way that dovetails with that.

Maybe like this: journaling is an exploration that takes you from where you are to some hopefully elevated but not-known point. Documentation takes your reader from where they are to where you want them to get to.

Or like this: only you can assess the quality of journaling. Only your audience can assess the quality of your documentation.

(and I guess the audience can be yourself in the future. EG, I figured out the wiring schematic for my house and I am going to document it for myself in the future so I can get to this point of understanding quicker. But that still has an author-audience relationship, the future version of yourself might say "what the fuck was I thinking when I wrote this, this doesn't make any sense for my wiring needs" whereas that expectation wouldn't exist for a journal)

[kstrauser]

That's such a blurry line, isn't it? And there are so many approaches. I tend to journal such things in the form of personal wiki pages documenting both my thoughts and why I think them, with links to sources. Basically, I'm writing to myself, but in a way that I could restore state after getting amnesia. It's probably overkill but it helps me think things through.