Mathoms and commonplace books

As is almost always the case, I find Alan Jacobs’ reflections on the blog as Mathom-house a wonderful short reflection, and helpful in thinking about what I want this space to be. If you are subscribed to my Substack (and if you aren’t, why not?), you know that I’ve taken to writing longer essays over there that post on Fridays, along with a podcast episode. But I still have this space, and while I’m not active here right now, I keep thinking about the proper role for it. I like this idea from Jacobs:

But often I read something, find it possibly intriguing, but don’t know quite how to respond. In that case it becomes for me a mathom: I have no immediate use for it, but I am unwilling to throw it away. I have always been uncertain what to do about such textual mathoms, and have tried several different strategies over the years, none of which have really worked for me, for reasons too tiresome to explain. 

The best answer has always been available to me: post the passages to this blog, and tag them accordingly so they can more easily be found later and linked to related writings.

I think that’s what this site is going to become, for now. I read a lot of articles and essays that strike me as important, but I don’t necessarily have something to say about now, or at least not enough to essay about. So, I’ll share the relevant passage here, similar to the series of Excerpts I’ve long posted here, sometimes with a few thoughts, and call it good.