Abhay Prasanna: Aesthetics, Personal Salience and Sovereignty

In this episode, we talk with [[Abhay Prasanna]], Founder of Roam Bounties, and active Roaman in Slack as well as the Twitter Roaman community. Abhay is always up to date when it comes to everything related to CSS and adding in visualizations to one's roam graph to make it look prettier, more functional, and much more.As someone who has created one of the most, used Roam themes, Dracula Pro (adapted set of colors from another theme), Abhay has been on a long journey to explore himself through the usage of Roam. We talked about:Life before Roam: From engineering to management consultingGaining a vision once he discovered Roam: The perfect notebookHis daily notes workflow where 90% of his blocks live only in his daily notes! Aesthetics and how they play a part in him viewing his own knowledge graph Tackling the voice of the unreliable narrator, defining who you are through making connections and building evidence on yourselfWhat do you really want from your Roam graph and how does that affect you in life? From algorithms of thought to algorithms of feeling. Enjoy!Timestamps3:47 Abhay's origin story and the little breadcrumbs of our lives5:40 Connecting life experiences and emergent writing in Roam9:46 The anticipatory regret for not writing something and not making a connection12:47 You write for the entirety of your knowledge graph14:05 Abhay's workflow is an evolution16:34 Marginality, Mattering and the Roam Community19:43 The writing happens in conversations, and Pokemon evolutions24:06 Valuing the structure of your mind and your Roam graph30:54 We are completely innocent and blameless and make mistakes32:39 The shadow of optimization, and wanting to feel functional35:33 CSS and the power of aesthetics38:32 Learning CSS with Roam as the experiment 40:14 Providing the act of service for the Roam community46:28 Why purple is a memorable color49:01 How do you plan for Roam experiments?51:20 There are things that we value, but do not have exclusive rights to our attention52:31 Salience, sovereignty, and protecting our own attention59:54 How do we tackle the Unreliable Narrator, our lies and our truths?1:01:50 Continuity of contact, not closure into conclusion, and facing heuristics1:03:34 Finding what you don't resonate with helps with answering what you really want1:10:52 The only agenda is to figure out what is actually salient1:15:01 Algorithms of feeling and using Roam templates for your emotions1:20:00 Revelation and illumination are hard to distinguish1:20:49 What Abhay is looking forward to in Roam1:23:42 [[What does Roam mean to you?]]LinksAbhay's TwitterDracula Pro Roam ThemeMasonry Vanilla CSSSupport the show

Om Podcasten

OtiumFM is an upcoming show deep-diving into the world of Tools for Thought, or TFTs! Featuring insights on note-taking, making connections between thoughts, and serendipity, host Norman Chella brings you conversations with individuals in this space so you can better your note-taking experience. Expect guests from various TFT apps, independent researchers, and varying professions who bring with them note-taking insights, from analog to digital and even hypergraphic!Coming out soon.In the first two seasons, this show was called RoamFM, the podcast all about Roam Research, for members of the Roaman community. In these two seasons, join us as we dive into the minds of amazing Roam users, taking a peek into how they use Roam to create wonderful connections.