Popular culture has a problem with strong women. Not with strong women themselves — but with how we imagine them, and how they’re usually depicted on screen and page.

The Four Archetypes

The representation is painfully narrow. In mainstream media, strong female characters tend to fall into just four categories.

The Stereotypical Feminist

This is the least developed type — a character who exists as a mouthpiece for whatever’s trending in feminist discourse. These are the fakes, the checkbox characters created to give the appearance of answering society’s demands. The demand is real, but the male screenwriters clearly didn’t put in the work.

Captain Marvel is a perfect example. A massive budget spent on marquee actors and marketing, all for a massive disappointment.

Captain Marvel’s defining traits are literally just physical strength and perpetual anger. She’s completely forgettable, her story paint-by-numbers. Her entire journey toward empowerment consists of punching the male villain while shouting a few feminist slogans about strong women in his face.

The Traumatized Woman

Think “The Girl on the Train” or “The Luckiest Girl Alive.” One struggles with alcoholism after her divorce, the other is dealing with the aftermath of assault and terrorism. These aren’t bad stories — they’re important stories that reflect a harsh reality many women recognize in their own lives.

But these stories alone can’t capture the full range of what strong women can be.

The Psychopath

This is actually the most interesting archetype. Psychopaths are clever, inventive, and you can build genuinely complex plots around them.

Take “Gone Girl,” where the protagonist orchestrates an elaborate revenge scheme to destroy her husband’s life and bend his entire existence to her will.

In one sense, the psychopath is the perfect “strong woman”— she can never be a victim of manipulation because she’s always the manipulator. She doesn’t care about conforming, can’t be guilted into submission, making her essentially immune to patriarchal pressure. This is the ultimate female power fantasy.

But here’s the catch: fictional psychopaths are remarkably palatable to patriarchal culture. Being the object of obsession for a woman who also functions as a second mother, now with sexual availability thrown in — that’s a male fantasy. Especially when these women only exist safely contained within TV shows and novels.

The Femme Fatale

Beautiful, brilliant, endlessly charming — she weaponizes every advantage to manipulate men. She’s taken patriarchy’s leash and turned it back on itself.

Another male fantasy. And an impossible ideal for real women—who among us can always look flawless, always have the perfect comeback ready, and casually juggle admirers? In reality, women are more likely to get stuck splitting the check than receiving hearts on silver platters.

The femme fatale is also always young. There’s no other kind. Real women age.

What About Women Who Don’t Fit?

Our novel’s protagonist, Freya Akselsen, was one of those women. And she triggered a fascinating response in male readers — specifically those with conventional masculine socialization.

Freya Akselsen: The Ideal Protagonist

Here’s the thing about protagonists: they need agency. The drive to change their world. That forward momentum that makes a story move.

A passive hero can’t carry a narrative. In our culture, it’s probably easier to imagine men as naturally agentic because that’s what masculine socialization emphasizes. The adventurers, super-spies, politicians, and detectives are usually men.

But I wanted a female protagonist. No trauma backstory, no dark past to overcome, no desperate need for love. So we chose the perfect candidate — a trope-smashing Instagram business coach. Freya Akselsen.

Freya doesn’t just dispense productivity tips and tell everyone to read “Atomic Habits.” She’s that rare breed who actually implements new habits before finishing the last page. How many habits have you adopted after reading self-help books? Probably zero. Freya? At least ten.

“Fake it till you make it”— that’s Freya’s whole philosophy. And her name isn’t just symbolic (I wrote about that in an earlier piece) — she uses self-development advice as a tool for self-mythologizing.

When things go wrong, she pivots to positive thinking. When she’s short on ideas or information, Freya doesn’t overthink it — she just acts.

Freya isn’t stupid, but she’s not a genius either. No special talents like being a chess prodigy.

But Freya Akselsen succeeds because she takes one more step than everyone else, and gets up one more time after failing.

Despite being the perfect protagonist on paper, male readers hated her. Let me tell you why.

The Patriarchy Litmus Test

Freya Akselsen is no femme fatale. She doesn’t leverage her looks and charm to ensnare men’s hearts. She doesn’t actively exploit male weaknesses to get what she wants.

It would have been prudent to respond neutrally, diplomatically, as befits the confines of the Deep State. However, Freya found herself unexpectedly seething at Mister K’s audacious display of candor over the phone.

“So what do you want from me?” she asked with deliberate indifference. “I don’t understand where you’re heading, Mister K. You’re not taking any risks: I’m sitting with my knight in my cell, as ordered.

Instead, Freya Akselsen is a mirror that forces every patriarchal man to see himself clearly. She’s stubborn, deeply flawed, yet carries herself with tremendous self-assurance.

There must be a reason why, out of all the confidants, Mister K chose you, milady Freya” The dr. Ferdrehels said. “I don’t understand it yet.”

Freya merely shrugged.

“He didn’t choose,” she replied. “It’s just that on the Night of Merge, I chose to save New York and captured the aliens to restore our Future.

Throughout the story, she refuses help when it’s offered—actively sabotages attempts to rescue her.

I could have saved you only by harassing you enough to force fleeing to Texas,” said Mister K, “You would have lived to the age of ninety-two on the ranch.”

Freya slapped the table in front of the curator with a loud clap, trying to sober him up.

“A ranch?!” She exclaimed. “I would never, ever go back to Texas!

She’s nearly impossible to guilt into gratitude.

“I didn’t ask for this,” Freya retorted sharply. “And never asked to be saved.”

And Freya can’t even be called a good person. She doesn’t do anything evil — quite the opposite, her actions are benevolent — but her thoughts? Those are coldly calculating.

Freya acts according to her own judgment, bites off more than she can chew, takes risks. Like James Bond.

If Freya were male, nobody would call him a bitch or a Mary Sue.

A New Type of Strong Woman

Freya is Scarlett O’Hara’s daughter and May’s (from The Circle) older sister.

She’s a fighter, but there’s no terrible tragedy in her past that she must process throughout the story, no journey to reconcile Old Freya with New Freya.

Even the leaked sex tape at the story’s opening — that’s not Freya’s tragedy. It’s society’s tragedy, where an intimate video can cost a woman her confidence, reputation, and career. Not a trial for the heroine, but a litmus test for the reader’s attitude toward her.

Yet Freya Akselsen isn’t a psychopath bent on revenge against men or the world. Men occupy far less mental real estate than productivity hacks. Throughout the story, Freya pursues her own goals—never male attention or love.

“Business isn’t a substitute for a man, and a man isn’t a substitute for your life’s work. A business doesn’t need to be placated like a lover. And the right business,” Freya added with a smile, “will always work for you—which, you have to admit, gives it a distinct advantage over a man.”

Freya doesn’t even call herself a feminist. Feminism is just another tool in her kit, something to monetize and build an audience with while breaking into real business.

The trolls’ moms gave them no more than five dollars for school. So they were utterly crushed by a counterattack from the very heart of Freya’s audience, summoned by the fan groups on Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram. Rushing to their idol’s defense were the stay-at-home moms, the nail techs, and the college girls from the middle of nowhere. The housewives who’d swapped their ladles for smartphones at the rallying cry of the digital age. And men who craved attention from all the aforementioned women, so they started posing as “one of the good ones” and didn’t notice how they were spending twenty bucks a month on Freya.

Not the best audience if you’re a serious woman sharing secrets of real success, but loyal. And loyalty means a lot in real business.

Freya lives in a world built on masculine notions of success, where she could easily become just another casualty. Instead, she doesn’t just accept the rules — she internalizes the success philosophy so completely that nothing else matters. Not a thing, not a person.

Why Freya Terrifies Male Readers

Because a woman like Freya strips men bare. Like standing before God, they appear before her as at the Last Judgment, with nothing to offer but their actual personality and merit.

The femme fatale legitimizes male weakness by exploiting it. Patriarchy lets men feel desired even if only momentarily, for mercenary reasons. Being used by a woman who outshines you isn’t humiliating when you’re still wanted and needed.

But Freya Akselsen? She simply doesn’t see mediocre, unremarkable men. Despite being far from perfect herself.

She leaves them no way in.

The puzzle starts simply enough: if every plank on the Ship of Theseus is replaced over the course of a century, is it still the same ship?

Can physical continuity really be the measure of identity? I had two arguments against it. First — humans are multidimensional beings extended across time, all versions of us existing simultaneously. More practically: we’re not made of the same matter we were ten years ago. So why should the ship’s identity be tied to its material components?

No, the ship’s true identity isn’t in its physical substance, but in its non-physical attributes. It’s the persistent idea of the ship, its continuous history, and the collective myth surrounding it that define what it actually is.

Then the thought experiment gets complicated: a second ship appears, meticulously assembled from all those old, discarded planks. Which one is the real Ship of Theseus? The planks, after all, carry history. And history is part of the myth.

But identity is fundamentally a social construct. Its authenticity isn’t an intrinsic property of wood and nails — it’s a status granted by collective belief, by the people who recognize its story and place in the world. Who knows about the old ship? Did it feel legitimate enough to claim that myth? Who had the, forgive me, marketing on their side?

That’s how I arrived at the plot twist: an author’s public identity works exactly the same way. It’s a constructed myth, a narrative built over time. The “real” or “authentic” version in the public’s eyes is whoever tells the most compelling story — whoever builds the myth the audience chooses to believe in and follow.

It might not make any sense now, but bear with me. I really liked the feeling of understanding this idea, so WILL you.

Ever since we started writing A Plan of Silence, I thought it’d be cool to turn it into a game—without any specifics. And now, when literary agents showed us the door and we’re actually building a thriller dating sim to promote the novel, I realized we are blessed.

And our inexperience blessed us.

Because to write the hefty brick of 128k words that is The Plan, we had to write 3 million words of drafts. Three completely different branches from beginning to end, and endless offshoots. Yes, I counted all our Discord records. Yes, we wrote directly in Discord. Yes, we’re not like everyone else, and I’m going to capitalize on that anyway.

Now, when data is the new oil, having such a massive archive of hand-written material is a blessing in itself. But back then it was a genuine curse.

Because neither the concept, nor the setting, nor even the plot foundation of the novel fundamentally changed during all that time—though they improved significantly. Years of research didn’t vanish. We already knew dramaturgy well, and the art of building emotional roller coasters so that the reader could do loops and barrel rolls. To finally complete the story, however, we had to learn an entirely different skill.

We had to learn to listen to the character’s true choices.

Because it turned out that a novel is the same thing as a game. Where you, as game designer or game master, build a plot that the player’s choices will reveal. You create challenges for the player, simple and hard ones; you build tension through rising stakes, you let the player recharge with breathing room. With points of no return, where choices transition into consequences, you create a sense of progress. And you build an experience that changes the player at the end of the day.

Sounds obvious, until you realize the “player” of the novel isn’t the reader—it’s the main character.

Because just like a player, our Freya—the star of The Plan—went through every story branch. Stress-tested our lore and setting. Questioned doors that wouldn’t open, and exploited our oversights to phase through walls straight to the treasure, without fighting bosses. Freya cheated to win, then got upset and abandoned the plot if she managed to cheat successfully. And she also lost interest and quit our novel’s game if the trials were too brutal, like Dark Souls.

I’m glad she turned out loyal and stayed with us to the end.

And that’s all not an exaggeration.

Our story crises and writing blocks were caused by putting the protagonist in conditions where she couldn’t move. We burned ourselves out because we threw Freya into completely inhuman, visceral trials that broke her worse than random deaths in a game from a particularly teeth-grinding parkour level. We wrote two branches of 30 chapters each that couldn’t finish. Because in the first one, Freya had no ability to influence her fate—and in the second, fate catered to her too much.

And when we tried to force her down the prepared rails, she just “shut down.” The way neural networks or—God forgive me—large language models can shut down by sending empty responses when they don’t want to respond to a user’s stupid prompts. We were bad users. She was good Freya.

And then, we understood how it works.

A game is built around the player—and the game designer can’t change the player, because they don’t choose one to begin with. All the game designer can change are the rules and mechanics of the game. In the game, there must be skin, but also the relief and gain. A game is medicine against the world’s injustice and meaninglessness, through being the complete opposite of the world. It is the art that life imitates.

And understanding this, we wrote 32 brilliant chapters in one breath.

And now, when we’re making a game, this helps from a completely unexpected angle. We have material about absolutely every plot development. Answers to every “why” question. Knowledge of all extreme motivations. Because Freya experienced everything.

In the novel, Freya resolves the issue with her ex very quickly when he crawls straight out of the drain to save her from the Deep State—but we know how he got there, and what lives on the other side of the deep concrete walls. Freya chooses only one person from everyone she met—but we know how their story would have developed all the way to the alcove (more often to the grave; but in The Plan’s universe, the grave is just the beginning).

In the novel, the player was Freya—and our task was to capture her unique choices.

In the game, though, the player is you. So only you get to decide whether she saves the world or dooms it. Fights the aliens, or runs and hides, tossing her hero sword in a trash can (like she did in the novel). Hands her ex over to the Deep State, or teams up with him against the Illuminati. Whether the talking animals will speak—and what their secrets will cost her.

Honestly, I like this even more than coddling Freya. Because it gives real creative freedom. Even the freedom to destroy everything—something no novelist can afford, because a collapsed story won’t get published unless you’re Kafka.

Without coddling Freya, though, I would never have become the best version of myself and wouldn’t be making this game.

And here’s a Freya quote that appeared early enough, and that I should have paid attention to much sooner.

I have a plan. I know how to save everyone—people and the Silence alike

This was impossible, according to the plan we’d set.

But Freya did it anyway.

And that became the new Plan.

I’d known from the start that each seemingly straightforward scene concealed layers of subtext — some deliberately crafted, others emerging from our subconscious.

Still, I was delighted to discover our attention to detail extended even to something as subtle as character names.

What can a simple name reveal? Take Freya Akselsen — it suggests Norwegian ancestry, perhaps immigrant roots. The name “Freya” itself references the Norse goddess of love, desire, and victory (though that goddess’s story is far from simple).

But these mythological echoes are just the surface.

A name as weapon against the world

Our protagonist, Freya Akselsen, deliberately announces her full name when introducing herself:

…the lady tucked the pistol into her cleavage before extending her hand for a shake. Freya felt the rough calluses on her fingers.

“Susan,” the lady said.

“Freya,” she replied. “Freya Akselsen.”

More tellingly, Freya invokes her full name when asserting her identity and setting herself apart from others:

A wave of indignation rolled over Freya — she, Freya Akselsen, would never find herself in such a situation.

This pattern was established from the opening line — her name launches the entire narrative:

Today, Freya Akselsen was on track to break a new record.

Every weapon has recoil, and so does a name

Digging deeper into our text, we discovered other characters weaponize Freya’s name in their own ways.

Mister K, her CIA handler, uses her full name only in moments of genuine pain. Unlike Freya, who wields her name with pride, he deploys “Freya Akselsen” when disappointed or angry with her.

“You don’t know!” Mister K interrupted her furiously. “You don’t know anything, Freya Akselsen, but that doesn’t stop you from doing your nonsense!”

When manipulating:

“You’re Freya Akselsen,” the handler said. “And not a murderer.”

When reproaching:

“You don’t know or understand me at all, Freya Akselsen,” the handler said.

Some characters avoid her full name entirely, opting for diminutives:

“You know, doll, I was just thinking, ‘Damn, I hope I don’t spit blood on the parquet, or Fre gonna go livid.’ And it ain’t even your parquet.”

While still others mirror Freya’s own reverence for names:

The dr. Ferdrehels could not contain a soft smile.

“Please forgive me, Freya Akselsen, for adding to everything that has been said, I am also glad to meet you in person.”

I think you can guess who’s her ex — no spoilers needed.

Nameless versus named

Mister K — Freya’s CIA handler — is one of our central secondary characters. His designation isn’t merely stylistic; it’s a name he chose, reflecting his essential nature.

Mister K is intellectually brilliant with boundless imagination. A writer whose career was derailed by tragedy, he nonetheless shaped the modern world. He crafted the Narrative — the stories that make us trust what we should embrace and fear what we should avoid.

Yet he can claim no credit. Even the public figures he cultivates don’t know his real name, though they work closely together.

They say a person’s name is the sweetest sound in any language. But while characters like Freya and Doctor Ferdrehels proclaim their names proudly, Mister K has ensured no one speaks his aloud.

He’s invested so much effort in concealing it that he can no longer introduce himself.

One evening, Mister K — who was not yet Mister K at the time — received a call from his best friend from Yale. He was an editor at a television channel, and Mister K worked for a newspaper. The friend, thrilled, told Mister K about something incredible he had learned.

“Who were you then, Mister K?” Freya asked.

Freya Akselsen, by contrast, grows stronger through her name. As the story reaches its climax and she faces mounting challenges, the frequency of “Freya Akselsen” in the text increases dramatically. Her name transcends mere identification — it becomes both shield and sword.

“Whom do you owe this to, my dear Freya?” inquired the doctor.

“To myself. For if I were to betray myself each time I faced a difficult choice, I would not be who I am. Freya Akselsen.”

By the book’s end, Freya Akselsen has transformed completely, though she remains blind to the change. Her evolution is organic, free of internal conflict or the anguish that typically accompanies rebirth.

While Mister K exists fractured — split between the named man who lost his dream and the nameless handler for the Deep State — Freya’s sense of self strengthens until her name becomes symbolic.

A symbol and unwavering compass for the woman herself.

Or, even worse, you’ve read on the internet that a personal knowledge base will help you fix your productivity. Or creativity. Or life. And now you want to find out which method is better.

In this article, I’ll tell you about the mechanisms behind personal knowledge management so that you can choose what’s right for you. And not waste money on unnecessary apps, courses, templates, and consultations. This is a compilation of my personal notes that were in DM circulation for some time, as well as some past contributions to the community.

Who am I to take a mic?

When I was active in the local knowledge management community, people mostly came with brand names instead of problems. Rather than asking how to write a thesis or organize a reading routine, they asked questions like: “Will Zettelkasten work for me?”, “Is bullet journaling convenient?”, “Does PARA really work?” or “Whose Second Brain is Better?”.

I have an answer, though. I have been using the Zettelkasten method for four years and have created all my articles with its help. I’ve even co-authored a science fantasy novel, “The Plan of The Silence,” about a TikTok coach joining the Illuminati to fight the multiverse collapsing — which was more research-intensive than a Ph.D. thesis. I know for sure, as I transitioned from an academic consultant to a product manager with the help of my Zettelkasten (I learned how to code , too, but without marks on my belt).

On top of this, I didn’t pay a penny to learn that stuff, and I even earned several monthly salaries worth of consultations I got via word-of-mouth.

So, people asked me for advice. In most cases, it turned out that a personal knowledge base was not needed to solve their problems. To-do lists, quality sleep, and notebooks solved most of their problems. People went back to live their lives, and I developed a solid case portfolio.

Then in 2022, I registered on Twitter and discovered where the root of evil had been.

On Twitter, every Tom, Dick, and Harry sells so hard. Second Brain, Zettelkasten, PARA, GTD; Freelancer, Carpenter, Plumber OS. Each method is the best, each method helped earn six-figure sums, and every happy owner generously shares their secrets on Gumroad. The diversity of methods and the breadth of horizons open up so fast it makes you sick.

Personal productivity is like a bustling bazaar in the East. You can bargain for a lamp with a genie, but more likely, you’ll trade your cow for ordinary, non-magical beans.

Today, I will explain what knowledge management methods are, what is worth paying for, and what you cannot buy with money. No conflict of interest: here, I sell my fiction book, not consultations or templates.

The starting point: a simple notebook

When a person has too many ideas that they want to save and use later—whether their own or others—they buy a notebook. It doesn’t matter if it’s physical or digital; a notebook is already a knowledge base.

If the knowledge base grows too large, tools come into play—bookmarks, highlights, and different categories of entries. Notebooks multiply too, both in quantity and diversity. You install Pinterest for ideas for repairs and beautiful landscapes, iNotes for epiphanies after a shower, and browser bookmarks for articles that you never ever want to open again.

Most people stop here. And become victims of those who risk going further.

Because if luck doesn’t favor you, the baggage of intellectual junk grows so much that it’s already a set of pages with links, tags, categories, and volumes. It’s worth calling it a personal wiki—or a personal knowledge base if you want to sound smart.

Or, you really want your junk to become a personal wiki. Because you can’t work without your selection of code snippets, saved YouTube videos, and a collection of meme reactions. But digging through this pile is already unbearable, and it gets worse each time.

In the worst case, you’ve seen people on the internet who regularly dig through piles of intellectual garbage and are very successful. And you decided that if you start your own pile, everything in your life will get better. (You were wrong, and you’ll spend a lot of effort and money on practices and apps that you don’t need—instead of spending time with your family).

“Is it enough?” — ”It’s always been.”

The point of no return: Knowledge Management methods

At this point, you’re already using specialized software for knowledge management, like Notion, Roam, or Obsidian. You’ve watched a couple of videos on knowledge management. And you’ve definitely heard about knowledge management methods.

You have used methods even in your notebook; for example, you marked important, interesting, and recipe notes with bookmarks of different colors. However, over time, the meaning of the colors was forgotten, and now the presence of recipes confuses you. Or, recipes were the only thing that mattered—but now you have to fish them out of the sea of cringy thoughts from your past self.

Knowledge management exists to solve problems like this.

A full-fledged method implies that you will record information in a certain way. For example, you may (or may not) add links between notes, add (or not add) tags to notes, and write (or not write) exclusively in the format of hierarchical lists. And if you follow the method for some time, you will achieve a specific result.

For example, Zettelkasten suggests creating very small notes, linking them to each other by common features, and regularly reviewing the resulting knowledge base. It claims that this way, you can create new things quickly from past experience, and ideas will remain evergreen and be implemented organically, accumulating additional knowledge via links over time.

On the other hand, PARA states that you should manage not knowledge but projects. If you identify areas of life tasks (family, work, finances) and collect resources to solve them, then you can effectively complete your projects. And any utilized or not-yet-needed information can be put into the archive. PARA promises that by gathering all your knowledge, goals, and tasks in one place—like on an old writing desk—it will be easier to focus and bring about changes in your life.

I’m leaving the dozens of other methods for you as a home assignment. You can get into any now, as the main thing is always to ask yourself three questions:

1. What do you need to do specifically according to the method?

2. What will the specific result be?

3. Imagine doing it 1,000 times. Is it still worth it?

Try to answer these questions with “cause” —> “effect” + “cost” pairs. For example, “if I write down notes from books I read into separate cards“—>”it will be easier for me to connect ideas from different books for a big picture.” And, to touch some grass, add “I’ll need to process every book after I read it” on top.

A picture from my WIP guide on Zettelkasten, illustrating a portion of the method’s flow. Pictures like this are NOT what you are looking for.

Which method is the best?

The hard-to-swallow truth is:

1. Knowledge management methods do work.

2. There is no single method that works the best due to biological reasons.

Yes, if you keep a personal knowledge base using a method —any method—you won’t have to waste your energy on remembering everything. You won’t lose progress, you’ll learn more effectively, and you’ll be able to process big sources like books or courses easily. Unlike memory, the knowledge base persists over time.

Additionally, there are powerful creative tools that are built on these methods. Obsidian is so great as it was built with the Zettelkasten method in mind. In heavyweight, there’s Panda OMICS, which replaces reading hundreds of medical articles with studying patterns of diseases, drugs, and symptoms—by using a method (and AI). And that’s to name a few.

But, there’s still no right method for managing personal knowledge. This is due to three reasons.

1. Different methods are designed for different tasks. For example, Zettelkasten is for processing large amounts of data and literature, followed by its compilation into a creative project on a large time scale. PARA is for keeping all tasks and records in one place in order to stay focused.

2. These methods work primarily by forming a habit. Your brain learns to rely on the external environment to solve problems. Any method that you come up with yourself—if it’s not too complicated—will help your brain create more effectively and quickly.

3. Methods won’t work without positive feedback. That is, if you don’t immediately apply your knowledge base into action—to reap tangible fruit—your brain will give you a cortisol treat so you stop wasting time on nonsense.

That’s right, three reasons. A person can only remember seven things, and five of those slots are already taken up by things like food, sex, and cat videos by default. Thus, the hollywar debate over which personal knowledge management method is the best will not cease by design.

This is because comparing the effectiveness of methods is hard, and reproducing such comparisons is harder. In addition, most people don’t face tasks and live lifestyles where they need a second brain. As a result, they crack nuts with sledgehammers and write blogs comparing which helium is best to fill their MRI machine—which they use to find small coins in pants before doing laundry.

And at the end of the day, an opened notebook on your table in plain sight, with today’s tasks handwritten, is very likely to improve your productivity better than any app. And sticker notes on your screen (and fridge) will nail personal knowledge management and habit tracking.

Why do people get caught up in it all?

Because selling magical rituals that will solve all your problems is a great business, probably the oldest on the planet. Especially if getting rid of the existential futility costs only $10 for a book, $50 for a Notion template, or $2,999 for a course with Tiago Forte—depending on the depth of your wallet and despair.

Due to aggressive advertising and social comparison, people actively implement personal knowledge base methods. Then they retransmit how good it feels as part of their post-purchase behavior. And due to the already invested efforts and money, as well as self-mythification, they deny the lack of results due to loss aversion. The circle is closed.

And after seeing happy and successful people on the internet, another business decides to implement a Zettelkasten. For themselves and their employees, hoping to increase yields from their cows without increasing the feed portion. I did it, too, and the article about my knowledge management sins will follow.

Average Second Brain enjoyers. Here’s how they did it; for the next 24 hours only, it’s FREE:

Conclusion

No method of creating a personal knowledge base gives positive effects without investments of time and effort. Even with AI. Period.

Even PARA, designed to make life easier and clearer, won’t have an effect if you don’t spend hours on meticulous note-taking and task management.

So are personal knowledge bases bad?

No! If you are working with large quantities of information, create a lot, and need to mobilize your resources fast, knowledge management methods are created for you.

Take video editors, researchers, or developers: they are loaded with data and code. They keep asset libraries, organize sources and citations, and use version control to manage code. They all do a form of personal knowledge management to survive. But would they do it for fun?

Finally, let’s consider the cost.

Two hours a week for note-taking add up to eight hours a month. That’s enough to finish a bad or start a good Photoshop course. Learn how to photobash and use Midjourney to create exactly what you want, not what the AI-god giveth. Down to the smallest details. And you can do it for other people who care enough to pay.

Voilà—and you have a portfolio and that infamous side hustle™.

What’s a better return on 8 focused hours of your life—getting started with this, or a dozen notes with deep thoughts™, 3 resources (2 Medium articles and that only video you weren’t lazy to save), and 5% progress in the “Self-Improvement” area of PARA?

Everybody answers for themselves.

For me, the best thing would be if you went and bought our book. It will give me a financial incentive to write more stories for you based on experience and experimentation. A great contrast to heroic capitalistic fantasy ads in disguise, isn’t it?

Our current submission process takes at least a month. We’ll evaluate your social media presence to see if you’re promoting your already-published books and/or hyping up your new novel. After that, our submissions manager will review your book and decide if it piques our interest.

Here’s my question—why the hell do I even need a publisher then?

If you’ve already got your own media channels where you can hawk your book, you might as well self-publish and pocket the profits. Amazon will handle the e-book and print-on-demand for you. Take the AI-generated graphic novel *Wist* as an example. The author built a TikTok for it and rocketed the thing to bestseller status—despite only owning the copyright to the story itself.

Even me, with my modest audience and an unfinished book, I had a decent hit—percentage-wise, at least—and it could’ve kept going if I hadn’t stopped posting regularly.

So, it’s pretty damn cheeky for a publisher to demand that authors do the selling themselves—while maybe, maybe, getting 10% of the wholesale price per copy. The real power of a publisher isn’t their printer; it’s their established distribution. Those prime bookstore shelves, the cozy relationships with literary critics, the tame bloggers they’ve got in their pocket.

Emotionally, I’m in-between of two feelings.

First, endless despair. Turns out, it’s not enough to spend years honing your craft, writing dozens of stories, sharpening your skills, and enduring the torture of finishing a novel. That’s just the start. There are thousands like you, and the U.S. publishing industry is a mess—layoffs, drama, and the worst debut season in a decade. Doesn’t matter if you wrote a kickass book—you’ve still gotta sell it.

Second, finally, acceptance. The miracle might not happen. You’ve gotta run your own media channels and build new ones for an English-speaking audience. Learn to make TikToks that don’t make you feel like a cringey sellout, maybe even start a YouTube channel. All while slaving away at a soul-sucking JOB and outdoing yourself time and again. (Yeah, “JOB” here is my little nod to “slavery”—same vibe, less chains.)

So far, I’ve sucked at sticking with anything longer than a day if it doesn’t spark joy or pay immediately. And since the creative grind only pays off in the crucible of war, I guess I’ll have to dig deep and find that damn joy somewhere.

For that shred of confidence, by the way, I owe my friends big time. When I’m mentally unraveling, I think of their support and stitch myself back together.

And who knows? Maybe one day I’ll be TikTok-famous, awkwardly holding The Plan in hand, and we’ll all have a good laugh about it.

That is so wicked I cannot handle it anymore.

I mean, they really believe that writing is about text production. Read this article, for instance, as a glittering example of the trend. The author unironically rants that to earn money writing, you need to sell your text where they pay more.

To help you understand the irony, it’s like saying: “If you don’t earn enough selling milk right at your farm, try getting on the shelves of your town or supplying a cheese factory.” Except the milk is your writing.

Sounds legit, right? But writing is not milking a cow. It’s about something other than getting quality milk at optimal cost. It’s not about resource creation; a resource you can spend, trade, or accumulate.

The writing is about problem-solving. And, ultimately, changing the world. It’s about learning how to dive into the deeper realities behind the façades of texts, narratives, morality, and ethics. What’s even more crucial about diving is being able to return unharmed, mentally and physically, to the surface — to share your hard-earned truth with others.

Writing is about finding the truth. And then, telling stories about the miracles and horrors you saw to make-believe those who live with eyes wide shut.

Writing text, in this paradigm, is the last skill on the writer’s toolbelt, as research, reasoning, and communication skills are much more mission-critical. You can be a writer without writing, but by drawing, singing, rapping, game developing — today, even generating.

(I wrote it before GenAI got big enough to replace copywriters, but it was obvious from the beginning that it was just a beginning. The story, however, is not about AI but you.)

If the writing differs from this, we have a big problem to talk about.

I mean, hardly anyone has dreamed of becoming a writer to write “4 Hobbies Emotionally Mature People Avoid”. No, writing trespasses people’s lives differently.

You might have read the book, and it fascinated you so much you craved reading it the first time again. But you couldn’t, so you began writing your own to relive the ecstasy of exploration.

You read a newspaper article, and it made you feel — anger, glee, or remorse; it opened your eyes — and you realized that you want nothing but to help others to see, too.

You read about people who change lives and epochs with their writing, be it Russo, Marx, Rand, or Hemingway — and you wanted to live a life as meaningful and significant as theirs.

You read a Reddit creepy story about the rules of surviving the stay at Grandma’s house, and it was at first fun, but then you were trembling with sheer fear. You laughed it off — to suddenly realize that the rules of surviving the cottage stay with college friends would be even creepier.

Or there was this school essay that struck you too deeply. Even though no one noticed and you got a B, writing it changed you forever.

No story of becoming a writer is shameful, or boring, or even usual. You’ve managed to see the beauty, ugliness, fearsomeness, and curiosity of the world — be it the world outside or within your body. This experience transformed you into the one who wants to seek, and tell, and prove, and change the world. Or make it crispy clear the world’s fine the way it is.

And look at you now, writing “20 Fascinating Uses of ChatGPT You Never Imagined” or “3 Habits That Undermine Your Career,” with ChatGPT being your unironic competitor in the market. Feeling guilty every time you insert a CTA to your Substack newsletter, where you allow being a fraction of yourself for a $5 subscription.

Feeling envious of solo entrepreneurs and coursebros on Twitter who make six-figure on crap anyone (but you) could do. And maybe even buying their course on how they make six-figure on anything their hand reaches, including you.

I cannot believe you dreamed of this. I did not; neither did you. And I feel so bad and sorry for us, and I wish we could now hug and cry.

It’s not our fault, though; we both know it.

We live in a society. Pursuing our real dream, we learned how to write — but did not unlearn how to need food and shelter. Or you found your love, then kids, and they must not struggle as much as you did. You would literally die so that people you love live a happy life.

Compared to any of these, penning “3 Habits of Successful People” isn’t a sin anymore but a virtuous self-sacrifice.

But you are the Chosen One. Yes, you can learn to unsee the truth in the name of the greater good, as the truth always lies alone on the track of the trolley problem. But it always comes back to you in nightmares, more gory and mutilated each time.

That is your great gift, seeing it no matter how hard you try.

So let’s finally face it.

1. The joy of writing is stolen from you because now it’s milking your brain for meaningless clickbait stuff to grab people’s attention and steal their time.

2. You are doing this because you deserve to earn. The publication platforms, in turn, are built to catch and hold people’s attention and time; that’s how they earn. That’s why you are here.

3. It’s all possible because people are conditioned to have their attention wandering and time slipping through their fingers. And you are conditioned to need, lack, and want — so that the economy can function.

4. It happened because the world is fundamentally broken, and it works to keep you unhappy, be by it mistake or design. And if you say it aloud, you are political, and conspiratorial, and boring, and toxic, and not welcome anymore. Because people do know the truth, and are afraid it would turn their lives into lies.

5. But that’s the truth, and it’s the reason why you have to finish that “How I Tripled My Passive Income Doing Nothing.” That is why while finishing it, you dream of making something big™ and quitting.

6. Because you’ve known everything you’ve read on this page long before.

7. As your writing exists to seek the truth, to delve into the very gut of the world, and expose it — using your wealth of writing tips, tricks, and devices.

It’s not that you know how to fix the world; neither do I. Nor will deleting the “10 Best Tools for Writers” draft help, or quitting the job. Even writing a revelation, as I did, won’t change the world.

But if we keep our eyes and minds open to whatever dreadful or daring things come our way and keep writing about them, we will eventually find the way to turn world a better place — for all of us.

Because all the good things we have — such as civil rights, free elementary education, human rights, healthcare, and women’s rights — only exist because someone chose to skip writing for their job. And wrote what they really thought and felt instead.

Like I’ve just did. And you’ll do. And we’ll try our best to keep our relationships with writing this way.