Obsidian. Not the igneous rock that we all learned about in earth science class, but a computer software that enables oneself to record their ideas in an orderly, textual format. In other words, a note taking app.

“Just use Google Docs!” Haha. No. Obsidian is great for many reasons as a note taking app: it’s light, it’s fast, it’s convenient, it’s powerful, it’s customizable, the list goes on. But all that aside, what I really want to talk about is its graph view.

“Graph view? What’s that?”Glad you asked. The graph view is a way to view all the notes you’ve created in a graph like format, each note a tiny circle, with countless lines drawn from circle to circle representing the links formed between them.

And when my friend showed me this for the first time, I was like: “Shit, that’s cool.” I know, nerdy right? Thinking a note taking app of all things is cool. But seriously, the graph view is such a unique concept which drives me to want to take notes. Its a visual representation of all the work I’ve done, spanning many months and multiple school years. I’m practically building my own Wikipedia! The graph view is my drive, I’m the pig and its the carrot on the stick. Sometimes I create notes just for the heck of it, just to see the graph expand by an unnoticeable amount.

And the best part is flexing it (Note: my origins come from a very nerdy school in which showing this to another peer results in a feeling of awe. Cannot guarantee same results for other users.) I’ll come up to someone in history class and be like:
“Hey, check out my history notes.” And then I pull up the graph view showing all of my history notes as little dots and they’re so confused.
“What’s that? Those aren’t history notes.” Oh but they are. And they’re beautiful.

I haven’t been using Obsidian for a very long time so my graph view isn’t as “developed.” But, if you look on Reddit, you can see these extensive graph views, filled with countless lines, dots, and notes that it’s hard to tell what’s happening, this world of chaos that is somehow, at the same time, an organized collection of a person’s life work, this dichotomy creating an essence of art and a sense of awe. And that, that is what I strive for. To create my own masterpiece dictating my achievement as an academic. I give Obsidian a rating of 4 stars.