"Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them." — Tiago Forte
This collection represents a personal digital brain—a living archive of one person's intellectual, professional, and personal journey from 2020 to 2025. It is designed to demonstrate how a RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) system can transform scattered notes, highlights, journals, and insights into an active, organized, and searchable knowledge-building experience in an age of information overload.
In a world where we consume more information than ever but retain less, this knowledge bank embodies a different approach:
- Capture Everything That Resonates — From book highlights to shower thoughts
- Connect Across Domains — Philosophy informs technology; cooking teaches patience for learning
- Revisit and Refine — Notes grow more valuable through progressive distillation
- Build a Second Brain — Offload storage to focus on synthesis and creativity
The documents here aren't just files—they're nodes in a personal knowledge graph, interconnected through themes, ideas, and lived experience.
Chronicles a complete arc from struggling with neural networks in 2020 to building autonomous AI agents in 2025.
| Theme | Example Documents |
|---|---|
| Early struggles | 2020_learning_ai.txt — Wrestling with CNNs, feeling like "alchemy" |
| Foundational papers | 2020_vanishing_gradients_paper.txt, 2022_batch_normalization_analysis.txt |
| The GPT paradigm shift | 2023_gpt_shock.txt — "English is the hottest programming language" |
| RAG & retrieval | 2023_rag_retrieval_paper.txt, 2024_vector_databases_comparison.txt |
| The agentic future | 2025_agentic_future.txt, 2025_mcp_agents_tutorial.txt |
Key narrative: Witnessing and participating in the transformation from hand-coded backpropagation to autonomous agents that rewrite their own prompts.
A curated collection of philosophical texts and reflections that inform how to live and think.
| Theme | Example Documents |
|---|---|
| Stoicism | 2021_meditations_marcus_aurelius.txt, 2025_stoic_reflection.txt |
| Cognitive science | 2020_thinking_fast_slow_kahneman.txt |
| Existentialism | 2020_man_search_meaning_frankl.txt |
| AI ethics | 2024_tech_ethics.txt, 2024_superintelligence_bostrom.txt |
| Strategic thinking | 2023_art_of_war_sun_tzu.txt |
Key narrative: Ancient wisdom (Marcus Aurelius) applied to modern challenges (AI alignment). The Stoic concept of "what is up to us" becomes crucial when building systems that act autonomously.
A toolkit of mental models collected and refined over five years—the operating system for thinking.
| Category | Models |
|---|---|
| Decision-making | First Principles, Second-Order Thinking, Inversion, Regret Minimization |
| Resilience | Antifragility, Via Negativa, Memento Mori, Circle of Control |
| Learning | 100-Hour Rule, Compound Interest for Skills, Slow Hunch, Adjacent Possible |
| Work & craft | Mise en Place, Maker vs Manager, Kodawari, 10x vs 10% |
| Strategy | Barbell Strategy, Optionality, Lindy Effect, Skin in the Game |
Key narrative: These aren't abstract concepts—they're applied. "First Principles" debugs career assumptions. "Mise en Place" prepares the workday. "Antifragility" shapes life design.
Notes on how to learn, think, work, and manage knowledge itself.
| Theme | Example Documents |
|---|---|
| Learning techniques | 2020_feynman_technique.txt, 2021_spaced_repetition.txt, 2023_interleaving_practice.txt |
| Knowledge systems | 2024_building_second_brain_notes.txt, 2024_zettelkasten_method.txt |
| Deep work | 2020_deep_work_summary.txt, 2022_flow_state_research.txt |
| AI & learning | 2023_rag_concept_click.txt, 2023_prompt_engineering_lessons.txt |
| Wisdom vs knowledge | 2024_knowledge_vs_wisdom.txt, 2025_meaning_and_ai_reflection.txt |
Key narrative: The meta-journey—learning how to learn, building systems for capturing knowledge, and ultimately creating a RAG system to query it all.
The most intimate category: journal entries tracking personal growth, relationships, hobbies, and milestones from pandemic isolation to wedding bells.
| Life Thread | Arc |
|---|---|
| Sourdough journey | Failed starter (April 2020) → Workshop (2022) → Master recipe (2025) → "What bread taught me about life" |
| Fitness | Gym restart (2021) → Progressive overload guide → 405lb deadlift (2024) |
| Relationship | Nervous first date → Meeting Maya → Japan together → She said yes (2025) |
| Career | Starting ML (2020) → First PR (2022) → Building AI project (2024) → Teaching others |
| Mental health | Pandemic anxiety → Discovering Stoicism → Therapy start → Burnout recognition → Balance |
| Travel | Japan dream → Planning → Tokyo sensory overload → Kyoto stillness → Return with Maya |
Key narrative: Personal growth made visible. The person who failed at sourdough and struggled with CNNs in 2020 becomes someone who builds AI systems, bakes wedding bread, and finds meaning in craft.
Highlights, quotes, and articles saved for their resonance—the personal antilibrary.
| Type | Examples |
|---|---|
| Book highlights | 2023_almanack_ravikant.txt, 2022_antifragile_passages.txt, 2021_tao_te_ching_favorites.txt |
| Recipes | 2025_recipe_sourdough_master.txt, 2023_recipe_morning_eggs.txt |
| Articles | 2023_article_antilibrary.txt, 2024_article_slow_productivity.txt |
| Podcasts | 2024_podcast_ferris_navalism.txt, 2025_podcast_huberman_sleep.txt |
| Personal principles | 2025_my_principles.txt, 2025_quote_collection.txt |
Key narrative: What we save reveals who we are. These represent the external ideas that became internal operating principles.
Technical and professional content spanning software, science, and craft.
| Document | Content |
|---|---|
2021_deep_work_cal_newport.txt |
Deep work philosophy for knowledge workers |
2021_kubernetes_beginners_guide.txt |
Container orchestration fundamentals |
2021_quantum_computing.txt |
Quantum computing overview |
2023_fermentation_temperature_study.txt |
The science behind sourdough |
2024_political_history.txt |
Historical context for current events |
🔗 The Hidden Connections
The true power of this knowledge bank emerges when you see how different domains inform each other:
2023_gpt_shock.txtreferences the "black box" problem → connects to2024_tech_ethics.txton AI alignment2020_thinking_fast_slow_kahneman.txton System 1/2 → explains why LLMs fail at reasoning- Marcus Aurelius's "Logos" → becomes a metaphor for AI's potential rational order
- "You can't rush fermentation" → parallels patience in training neural networks
- Both require feeding, nurturing, and creating conditions for emergence
2020_june_starting_ml_journey.txtexplicitly draws this parallel
2024_antifragility_concept.txt→ applied to career and relationship building2022_mise_en_place.txt→ from kitchen prep to workday preparation2020_compound_interest_for_skills.txt→ justifies daily practice in gym and learning
2023_may_kyoto_stillness.txton "kodawari" → pursuit of perfection in craft- Tea ceremony's "no wasted motion" → influences code elegance goals
2023_kodawari_japanese_craft.txtconnects cultural appreciation to work philosophy
2024_building_second_brain_notes.txt→ "RAG over my second brain = searchable, synthesizable knowledge"2024_zettelkasten_method.txt→ atomic notes with links = this document structure2023_rag_concept_click.txt→ the foundation for the system reading these very documents
| Year | Life | Learning | Theme |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Pandemic isolation, failed sourdough, alone | Starting ML journey, struggling with CNNs | Survival & beginnings |
| 2021 | Vaccine, gym restart, discovering Stoicism | Deliberate practice, first breakthroughs | Foundation building |
| 2022 | Portland trip, turning 30, dating apps, burnout | First PR merged, learning to rest | Growth & setbacks |
| 2023 | Meeting Maya, Japan trip, "best year" | ChatGPT changes everything, RAG clicks | Acceleration |
| 2024 | Moving in together, building AI project | Fine-tuning, agents, 405lb deadlift | Integration |
| 2025 | Engagement, wedding planning | Agentic AI, teaching others | Synthesis & giving back |
- From Consumer to Creator — Reading papers → writing code → building systems → teaching
- From Isolation to Connection — Pandemic loneliness → Jake's book gift → Maya → community
- From Fragility to Antifragility — Anxiety about change → embracing uncertainty → thriving on chaos
- From Complexity to Simplicity — Learning everything → finding what matters → essentialism
"What connects my bread-making journey to my AI career?"
→ Retrieves 2020 starter failures, 2020 ML struggles, the explicit metaphor in 2020_june_starting_ml_journey.txt, and the philosophy synthesis in 2025_june_bread_philosophy.txt
"How has my view of AI changed over time?"
→ Traverses from 2020 skepticism → 2023 wonder → 2024 ethical concerns → 2025 responsibility
"What do the Stoics and AI safety researchers have in common?"
→ Connects Marcus Aurelius's "common good" to Bostrom's alignment concerns via 2024_tech_ethics.txt
"What have I learned about patience?"
→ Synthesizes from sourdough fermentation, neural network training, relationship building, and Stoic philosophy
| Type | Purpose | Example |
|---|---|---|
Personal Journal |
Private reflections, dated entries | "She said yes" |
Book Citation |
Quotes and notes from books | Marcus Aurelius highlights |
Mental Model |
Frameworks for thinking | Antifragility, First Principles |
Learning Note |
Active learning synthesis | RAG concept notes |
Saved Article |
External content worth preserving | The Antilibrary concept |
Scientific Article |
Research summaries | RAG retrieval paper |
Book Notes |
Extended book processing | Second Brain method |
This isn't a static archive. It represents:
- 233+ documents across 7 categories
- 5+ years of lived experience
- Hundreds of connections between ideas
- One person's attempt to make sense of information overload
The beauty of applying RAG to personal knowledge is that it transforms passive storage into active retrieval—surfacing the right knowledge at the right moment, making connections the conscious mind might miss.
In an age where we drown in information but starve for wisdom, this collection demonstrates how thoughtful capture, organization, and retrieval can turn the chaos of modern life into a personal oracle—one that knows not just facts, but context, history, and meaning.
"The network of notes becomes a second brain that can surprise you."
— From 2024_zettelkasten_method.txt