From Newton to Nodes: My 21-Year Journey to a Future-Proof Second Brain
- Patrick Ng
- 2 days ago
- 2 min read
They say the "Second Brain" was coined by Tiago Forte in 2017, but my quest to externalise my thoughts started 21 years ago. If I could summarise two decades of trial, error, and hardware graveyards in 21 seconds, it’s a frantic evolution from plastic styluses to local AI.
Escaping the "Digital Hostages"
Before the iPhone, we had pioneers. I’m talking about the Psion, the Palm Pilot, my beloved Apple Newton, and the now 36-year-old Sharp IQ-8000 Organiser.
From hardware, I transitioned to software like Claris Organiser and Scrivener, eventually landing on SaaS giants like Evernote. But "modern" platforms felt like a trap—holding my notes hostage for a monthly fee. I experimented with brilliant but isolated mind-linking tools like The Brain and Tinderbox, but every time a platform aged out, I faced a painstaking manual migration.
The lesson? If you don’t own the format, you don’t own your thoughts.
Finding a Permanent Home in Obsidian
Two years ago, the endless migrating stopped when I found a free app called Obsidian. It isn't a proprietary black box; it’s a sleek interface sitting on top of simple Markdown (.md) files.
Here is why it's the ultimate Second Brain:
Local & Synced: My notes live directly on my computer, phone, and cloud.
Future-Proof: Even if Obsidian vanishes tomorrow, I still have standardised text files readable on any device.
The "Vault": It treats your folder of notes as a living ecosystem with standardised links to connect ideas seamlessly.
The AI Frontier: Chatting with my Past Self
This month, my system got a massive upgrade: connecting my vault to Artificial Intelligence.
Using the Gemini-Scribe and Copilot plugins, I’m no longer just storing notes—I’m conversing with them. I can link thousands of ideas in entirely new ways and use my historical notes as the direct context to write my next article or script.
Finding the right balance is the current hurdle. The free Gemini API is a bit slow and lacks the necessary context window for heavy workloads, while "pay-as-you-go" APIs get expensive fast.
My next move? Installing Ollama to run a local LLM. It promises zero fees and total privacy, and my ultimate goal is bridging the LLM with an agent to run Obsidian CLI commands. We'll see how it goes!
Looking back at the Sharp IQ-8000 sitting on my shelf today, it's clear how far we've come. Hardware dies and software models fade, but the data—your thoughts and connections—is what actually matters. Now, my second brain doesn't just remember for me; it thinks with me.