Root-Finding

About (GaGa)

16 min read

I am GaGa

I am the Gardener of this Garden. I am the Guardian of this Galaxy.

(tags explained in GaGa’s Guide to Navigating this Galaxy section)

I enc the concept of “digital gardening” / maintaining a personal digital-garden and I loved it, and so decided to create one (this site). I like analogising the cultivation and maintenance of a garden (involving pruning, planting, propagating and generally nurturing) with the development (and cultivation/maintenance) of a worldview. Sometimes, thoughts/opinions/beliefs - rep TOB - hurt/harm us in some way: physically via thorny implications (which stab our emotional state), or more existentially, via overcrowding and siphoning away resources/nutrients/energy (focus) from other beneficial TOB. These are the weeds of the garden, that must be continually weeded 1. Some TOB are beautiful, glorious, decorating the garden with vibrancy, colour, texture - they give us hope and happiness. These are the e.g. flowers of the garden. Some TOB are nourishing for us, providing sustenance and invigorating our minds (and bodies), potentially spicing up our approach to life - this is the edible stuff (e.g. fruit, veg, herbs, spices, mushrooms…). Some TOB provide shade, refuge, stability - they frame the garden, and have deep root networks spanning other gardens; these are the trees. Then, everything within the garden and beyond (i.e. other gardens, and the untamed wilderness) all form an ecosystem - the superorganism that is our ever-evolving collective conception of the world.

After playing around with this organic analogy, I em a cosmic analogy to accompany it: framing our worldviews as galaxies, and the collection/unification of these worldviews and beyond as the universe. Within galaxies, we have nebula (representing thoughts lacking form/shape/structure), which can form protostars and then perhaps stars (representing e.g. opinions and beliefs). Maybe clusters/constellations of stars could represent more substantial beliefs within your worldview; maybe (proto)planets/natural satellites could represent less substantial beliefs or opinions, that revolve around beliefs with more mass - either larger planets or (proto)stars. And then, all beliefs and opinions revolve around the supermassive black hole at the centre of your galactic worldview - this is your core belief about the meaning of life and the point of everything. Some galaxies cluster together and revolve around each other (similar worldviews). Different shapes and sizes. Some are older, some are newer. Some collide. What does that mean? explore

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is:

  • I like the idea of cultivating my own digital garden.
  • I like the idea of encouraging others to cultivate their own digital gardens.
  • I like gardening as an analogy to developing and sharing thoughts.
  • This organic (gardening) analogy could have a parallel cosmic analogy.
  • Taken together, we can view our worldview as a garden and/or galaxy.
  • It’s good to seek to consciously maintain and/or observe2 this worldview.
  • Doing this publicly/digitally is a good way to show how the worldview evolves, and output/input views that other minds input/output.
  • Since this is a personal thought space, the person it belongs to should be the sole entity/agent calling the shots on what happens within it (the sole gardener/guardian).
  • So, everyone is the supreme overlord GaGa of their own garden/galaxy.
  • Hence, I am the Gardener of this Garden. I am the Guardian of this Galaxy.
  • This particular garden/galaxy is called Root-Finding (RF for short), and its GaGa is me.
  • Yasss I now have a space in which I am the ultimate ruler overlord ultra-powerful person muwaahahahaaa!
  • And you can have that too.

GaGa’s Rules

  1. There are no rules for GaGa.
  2. As a rule of thumb, GaGa will change whatever, whenever. Don’t expect consistency or continuity. But, don’t be surprised if it emerges. Sometimes. Often.
    1. However, GaGa recognises the value of witnessing/observing evolution of thought and worldview, so would be good to show e.g. snapshots of previous versions of notes.
  3. Experimentalism
    1. Experimentation is central to my approach to life, and since this site is a part of my life, experimentation will also be central here.
  4. Divergence
    1. While I recognise that convergence (i.e. finding common ground, communicating clearly in a way that maximises ability to be understood, etc.) is an important aspect of interthinking (communicating), an important part of progressing as a species and society (i.e. developing ideas/approaches that help us all to thrive more than currently) is being able to diverge from the norm and generate new stuff, and this can only be done maximally when not tied to what already exists (i.e., when not restricted to the set of concepts/representations/communicative norms that make understanding/communicating easi(er/est)). This is divergence, and this is what allows the generation of novelty.

GaGa’s Guide to Navigating this Galaxy

Some thoughts that should hopefully make the inputting/processing/digesting of all thoughts in this space easier.

Tags

I use tags to indicate stuff to minds (mine included). These tags could be thought of as meta-thoughts: thoughts about the thoughts they tag/surround.

  • Thought completion/development
    • explore succeeds (perhaps also precedes) a thought I’ve barely thought about
      • For me: indicates this is something to maybe return to for further thinking, if I feel inclined to.
      • For you: indicates this is an underdeveloped thought, so plz don’t take it too seriously (well, you can, but since it’s not yet a serious part of my my-worldview, I won’t have much to say about it).
    • expand succeeds a thought which is partially developed, but which I sense has a capacity to be further developed.
      • For me: acts as a reminder to expand the thought.
      • For you: indicates this is something I intend to return to for further discussion (unlike explore above, the thought this tag is appended to is probably a more “serious”/substantial part of my worldview, and so I probably have more to say about it).
    • refine indicates a thought which is nebulous and/or unwieldy and could do with condensing / being made more coherent.
      • For me: acts as a reminder to refine/tidy it up.
      • For you: indicates that the thought is in a messy, incomplete state so plz bear with me/it.
    • tbc indicates a literally completely incomplete thought - I probably got distracted by another thought and intend to come back to finish it off (if I remember what I was on about). Often, I’ll forget to complete a thought AND forget to include the tbc tag which is not great gardening/guard(ian)ing practice 🥴
    • clarify is kind of similar to e.g. idk, tbc, refine, expand in that it acts as a reminder for me to “complete a thought”, except it’s generally related to a specific discrepancy / question (often regarding semantics / the meaning of particular words, or certain facts, or a particular explanation of a concept). Like most tags, it also signals to processors (you) that the thought is incomplete and that I intend to clarify it later.
    • I often start a tangential ramble without any clear direction/purpose/place in the broader thing I’m rambling about - but, including these tangents follows the organic philosophy of a digital garden (well, my digital garden), of fading opacity (/strengthening transparency) in thought processes, to get a better idea of “what’s under the hood” in general cognitive activity. Also, sometimes tangents lead somewhere (in)directly relevant to the point they’re tangent to. But even if they don’t, they can add something that would be lost if they were unadded duh. So, I may generally opt to leave the tangents in. But sometimes (oftentimes) I don’t know how to end / transition away from the tangent and want to indicate that I understand it will likely be perceived as superfluous, waffly, pedantic, etc. by many minds. So, I will let this tag do that: whatev
  • Distinguishing emergent from encountered thoughts (i.e. origin of thoughts)
    • em can be slotted in/around any thought(s) to indicate that those thoughts are in emergent terrain - that is, they are thoughts emerging from an internal independent thought process - they are a result of the PO part of IPO.
    • In contrast, enc indicates the entering of / transition into encountered terrain - that is, these are thoughts I have encountered externally as part of thought discovery process - they are a result of the IP (primarily I) part of IPO.
  • Miscellaneous
    • technical precedes more technical (mostly mathematical) stuff - skip if uninterested.
    • duh is appended to any statement/observation that I internally mock myself for stating/observing, because it seems so obvious to me after further thought and/or is objectively circular/tautological.
    • rep is to indicate that the thing directly before it will be represented / referred to by the thing directly after it.
    • idk is to indicate that whatever thought it is prepended/appended to is very tentative and I don’t exactly know what I’m even trying to say, but just hope you get the gist.
  • Anddd there will probably emerge a bunch of other tags that I forget / can’t be bothered to explain here at this time, but I’ll probably add them if they gain more prominence on the site.

Also, I don’t yet know how much I will actually use these tags - they’re just tags I get the sense, at this stage, will be useful. It’s likely some will fade out of relevance before making any substantial appearance.

I got bored of putting “For you” and “For me” for each tag above at some point. Anyway, I now realise that where I have specified what a tag indicates “For you”, this is actually a “For me” in disguise, because it is mainly included to pacify my ego by making me feel like I’ve fully explained why/where things will not be “perfect”. Beyond personal utility, I admit that this tag stuff has a prominent side-purpose of subduing perfectionistic tendencies which have previously gotten in the way of me sharing thoughts / expressing myself freely. And this “justification” paragraph is itself an attempt to subdue my egoic concerns of others’ perceptions of me as being egoic. whatev

Messiness

Since I’m not used to publicising my thoughts so extensively and attempting to organise them in a way that is generally coherent and not too annoying/tiring for minds to process (as of 10/04/2026 when I’m writing this), this site is inevitably going to be very messy, for a while. Possibly forever. So plz bear with me. Also, because I’m prioritising expression over perfection, and there will probably be q pretty large volume of thoughts, I won’t be able to check thoroughly to the extent that I’ll be able to catch all mistakes without sacrificing time that would be better spent just expressing.

^ btw the highlighted q above is an organic typo (meant to be “a”) which I have left in to literally highlight my point.

This messiness is quite uncomfortable for me rn, because I’m used to micro-tuning/managing my digital word salads to perfectly, completely accurately represent what I’m trying to say, ironing out anything I perceive as below this standard. But, this approach has not been working for me so far - I’ve been wanting to do something like this site for years but the perfection pressure I feel (my own silly concoction) has always postponed it. So, I think it’s time I embrace imperfection - not for its own sake, but for the fluidity and felt-freedom in expression it allows for.

In keeping with the philosophy of experimentalism discussed earlier, I’ll try different things and figure out what works best (or, just better) over time and hopefully the messiness may tame itself slightly over time (or not).

ALSO, typos and other mental/physical malfunctions manifested as stoopid mistakes such as typos are inevitable. Just want to explicitly acknowledge this for ego-pacification.

ALSO, repetition will be abound I’m sure, and this is both (1) intentional and (2) unintentional:

  1. Intentional because I want to illuminate different thoughts/ideas from different angles using different word salads / strings of words / ramblings.
  2. Unintentional because the things I talk about here generally either are or are related to significant objects in my worldview, and so inevitably, they will form recurring themes, and I may forget whether I’ve discussed a particular analogy, perspective on something, or general thought, because I discuss them with myself (verbally 3, via writing, via thinking, etc.) so frequently and can get muddled about what I have/haven’t shared with others. But actually, this could possibly fall into the intentional category, because I intentionally do not filter what I’m saying (even when I’m aware it’s probably a repetition of something I’ve said elsewhere), as I think this is useful for “corroborating” aspects of my worldview, by mentioning it several (or many) times, in different (or similar or identical) ways. whatev

Incomplete Notes

(i.e. most notes)

Some notes will be empty. Some will have barely anything in them. I aim to pad them out with thoughts over time as and when they occur. Generally, if I’ve created a note (or linked to a not-yet-activated one like this), I intend to fill it out somewhat at some point. But there will probably be a lot more of these sparse/empty/inactive notes than not, at least initially.

When I create inactive notes, it acts as a reminder for me to eventually expand on the particular idea the words in the note represent in my worldview. It also serves to signal to processors/minds (i.e., you) that I intend to discuss the thought referenced in more depth at some point.

What you may notice…

(i.e. stuff I have noticed about my own outputs)

  • Strangeness in expression.
    • I have quite a chaotic, ad hoc approach to writing (here, at least) because I want this to be a place of divergence where I can let my mind run wild and feel free to express myself fully, however I feel inclined to in the moment, without filtering based on worries of how things will be (mis)perceived. So, as touched on above, messiness and at least some degree of chaos is inevitable.

More linguistic/grammatical things:

  • I use a LOT of slashes /
    • I like to capture as many angles/framings/words/representations as I think useful/necessary/meaningful.
    • When I use slashes, generally, if they separate singular words, there is no space before/after (like that); there is a space if they separate longer statements / just seem to fit (like that). Anyway, it’s more of a vibe thing - if I feel like the slash could do with spaces around it, I do that and vice versa; more well-defined internal (my-garden-specific) grammatical/syntactical rules will probably emerge over time. whatev
  • Potentially excessive use of brackets
    • But I like brackets - I refuse to change! This. For now.
  • I use a lot of e.g. & etc. & i.e.
    • I tend to give examples of things in a list in 2 ways based on vibe (i.e. what I feel like doing):
      • E.g. example1, example2
      • example1, example2, etc.
    • I often put alternative descriptions or explanations (i.e. labels) after using “i.e.”
      • But sometimes, I just give the description/explanation (label) without an i.e. (again, it’s a vibe thing).
    • Since e.g. and i.e. are prepends (they come before the thing they reference/represent, unlike etc.), there is a choice of whether to include a comma after or not (for example, i.e. OR i.e.,). Again, I vary this based on vibe.
    • Also, as above, sometimes I just use “for example” or “for instance” instead of e.g. to make it more explicit / based on vibe.
  • I often say and/or
    • technical In general, everyday English, “or” is taken to be exclusive (one or the other) whereas in e.g. set theory, via the union operator, it is inclusive (one or both); I maintain the exclusive convention for OR, so that distinguishing between and/or as I often do is not redundant, because the intersection (AND) is always a subset of the union (inclusive or), whereas it is strictly NOT included in the exclusive or (XOR) - so, AND and XOR are disjoint (i.e. are distinct / mutually exclusive). refine whatev
  • I often put “Actually!” or other exclamations in seemingly random textual locations
    • This is usually mirroring an “aha” moment I’ve encountered - probably something occurred to me that seems obvious now and I’m glad I thought of it.
  • I use a lot of probably-unnecessary-but-whatever-I-like-it-anyway adjectives / general words (like the use of “textual locations” above)
    • I think I do this because I find it fun for some reason, and they sometimes explicitise things that are implicit duh in whatever noun (or general word) they decorate.
  • I use “generally” or equivalent, like “typically”, “usually” - but “mostly” generally - a lot
    • I like to make generalisations / general statements, but also want to explicitly acknowledge that these are literally general - they generally apply, but not necessarily always. Kind of a way of covering my butt if I make a retrospectively stupid generalisation - I can just say e.g., “well, I did say it’s generally (not always) true”.
    • Similar logic applies to words like “probably”, “(un)likely”, “possibly”, etc.
  • I vary where I put full-stops (or whether I put them at all)
    • E.g. if there’s a tag, I could put it before ([a sentence]. tag) or after ([a sentence] tag .)
    • Or there could be no full-stop
  • I’m sure there are a bunch of other common lingual/grammatical/syntactical idiosyncrasies dispersed throughout my writing that I can’t think of rn (oh, maybe casual abbreviations like rn and plz are some as well).

Meta-Note

Why GaGa? And why do I keep referring to myself in the 3rd person via GaGa? Honestly, no idea. Actually, I should revise that sentence-starter to “Dishonestly” because when I think about it, yes idea. When the slogan with “Gardener of Garden” and “Guardian of Galaxy” em (emerged), I thought collapsing them into GaGa would be fun. And of course, would be silly not to mention Lady Gaga who’s a cool dudette - so I don’t mind hijacking that reference (though to differentiate, I capitalise the 2nd G 😉). Also, GaGa has connotations of craziness and babyishness, so my embracing of GaGa as a self-label here is a way of acknowledging the crazy person / baby within me. Anyway, it’s often amusing to just randomly select a thing (e.g. mental object) and run with it, and GaGa is that thing here.

Also, I just want to point out / make explicit: YOU are GaGa. If you choose. If you want to start your own digital garden/galaxy, then you will be the sole gardener/guardian of that garden/galaxy.

Collectively, we are the Guardians of the (mental and digital) Galaxies. 4 We are the GaGa(s).

Footnotes

  1. I find the term “weeding” funny in gardening lingo because it tends to represent the act of deweeding. ↩

  2. doesn’t really make sense to maintain a galaxy, hence inclusion of “observe” - actually, after further thought via writing, YES you can maintain a galaxy fictionally as the guardian of that galaxy duh . ↩

  3. I recognise it may sound a bit sad and/or crazy to talk to myself, but it genuinely helps me process my thoughts, and I don’t think it’s that unusual, right? 😅 ↩

  4. I momentarily dropped the garden analogy because I think it sounds relatively lame compared to the relatively cool collective cosmic version: Together, we are the Gardeners of the (mental and digital) Gardens. Like, woah. That sounds like a movement everyone wants to join. ↩

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