Wow, I’m so good at overcomplicating things, I already made you go “huh?!” with the title alone! I have some mad skillz!On with the show:In the last couple of weeks, I slowly improved and tinkered with my Linux environment (Kubuntu). I’m not sure if it was a single thing that nudged me to do that, but between installing the latest version of Harper and switching to Vivaldi with its great features I keep discovering, I also started using denote-journal.Denote-journal, from the prolific Prot who also made Denote, was something I wanted to try for a while. I didn’t really have a good reason to, because I’ve been using Journelly for a long time, and on my Mac or Linux desktop, I’d call a capture template that would append to the file, adding my additional entries.But I always had one major issue with journaling on my iPhone: privacy. My iPhone is owned and regulated (with a system profile) by my workplace. So even if I’m fine writing personal notes on my Mac (I’m not, I’m iffy about it as well, I don’t trust Apple to respect my privacy much more than I trust Google), at the end of the day, these notes also sync to my iPhone.On a day-to-day basis, for quick thoughts and work notes, Journelly and my iPhone are great, but when it comes to writing longer notes about my future plans, how I spent the weekend with my partners, and basically anything else that involves people whose privacy I respect, I always self-censor.For this reason, I came up with a way to create private notes with Denote only on Linux. These notes only live on my Linux Desktop, with a few of those syncing to my Android1 (again, not great, but at least it’s not work-managed).I always feel more like myself on Linux because I am more myself - whether it’s customizing my shortcuts and workflow exactly how I like it, or if it’s the built-in privacy that can be further fortified and inspected. Journaling on Linux, without the world’s biggest nanny peeping over my shoulder, is where I really open up and write my most personal thoughts.A couple of times I looked at my Journelly notes, those that I wrote on the Mac where I could write at length and use the full power of Emacs, and compared them to my older journal on Linux. Well, there is no comparison. And while creating a private note in Denote in Linux and linking it back to the original works2, it introduces friction that hinders the flow of my thoughts.So I looked into denote-journal, realized it’s very easy to use, and gave it a try one day, and since then:Essentially, it’s what I used to do when I started using Journelly: refile my Journelly headers into my journal files when I get the chance. Or, as a matter of fact, I use org-refile-copy, which does exactly what it says, because I want to keep the original in Journelly. Since I now use individual journal files instead of a big file split into weeks (as I did in the past), this process is even easier. The only catch is the images.Images in Journelly are saved in its /Journelly.org.assets folder, where my journal files can’t see them directly; and even if it did, these images are too big and cause freezes, and also oriented the wrong way, so they need at least a minimal treatment. For these reasons, I attach each image to the correct header in the journal daily file which I moved over from Journelly.These journal notes are fantastic. I have my quick notes from the day available, but when I want to extend, all I do now is just write a new entry for that day (which looks just like the Journelly entries) and write to my heart’s content. There’s also a bonus: denote-journal allows me to make up for days if I didn’t create a “meta journal note” for the day (so far this happened only once) directly from the calendar, so if I miss a day, I go to the calendar, point at the missing day, and use denote-journal-new-or-existing-entry to take care of things. If I already have an entry, it jumps to it; if I don’t, it creates one.Between my journal on Linux, the emails I write to other bloggers, my blog posts, and the occasional instructions I write in Denote, I think I write more than I did in my entire life. I’m thinking I need to start capturing it in some sort of book, though I have no idea what it will be about and how to edit my writings in a way that makes sense. This is only a vague concept at the moment.Footnotes1 : I keep skirting around this issue so I’ll just mention it quickly: I used GrapheneOS in the past, and it’s great for these kinds of things, but GrapheneOS protects your phone to an extent that certain apps don’t work.2 : I’ve been doing this often enough that I have a whole tag in Denote called “supplemental” with additional thoughts and notes. In Journelly, I was just linking to those, and writing something like “I have more to say about this” and this would include a Denote link to the Linux-only note.