# A life worth living

By [wordbloc](https://paragraph.com/@conaw) · 2023-09-24

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'Non-dogmatic' is a term I came across recently while reading 'A Life Worth Living,' a book written by a 90-year-old Japanese grandmother, recommended by Ajahn. It struck a chord with me. Observing some of my natural reactions in action, without exaggerating them with reasons like confidence, persistence, or whatever else, simply doing it, and then moving on with life🏃‍♀️.

Fear is a common human experience. I've come to understand that some fears stem from a deep-seated desire, a longing, a sense of expectation. Sometimes fear is a magical signal, indicating what matters to you, even if you are not consciously aware of it. People often say not to expect too much from things, but I think that's a post-hoc perspective. You should expect things, or at least you will.

At times, this fear can even blank out your mind. I like an attitude where you push through despite the fear. Many situations call for it. I don't naturally possess the kind of confidence that's common in the West. I question a lot of things, I'm curious, and my reactions aren't quick. I enjoy slowly and meticulously pondering things before responding.

(yeah … My interface's response time is as slow as Ethereum without Layer 2 🤦‍♀️.

Recently, I prepared a presentation for a beloved Hypertext Research group at SG(we share the “narrow“ focus amazingly), talking about my Wordblock idea. I had prepared my presentation slides for a long time, and on the day of the presentation, I was desperately referencing Marvin Minsky's 'The Society of Mind,' attempting to integrate [some concepts](https://twitter.com/CultRoam/status/1638748018777395205) into my presentation. Even if to others, they seemed unrelated and illogical, I was passionately committed to it.

![different knowledge representations by Marvin Minsky](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/48345626e5856ffdc2bbf400ee0ac26f0cd3655f2d2ad46d868f8aae9bbd8b38.png)

different knowledge representations by Marvin Minsky

I was very nervous, and I didn't even know the source of this nervousness. It's like trying to open up your inner world, thinking you've opened a well-manicured garden, but others see an unordered jungle perhaps. I found that I genuinely couldn't answer everyone's questions rooted in their specific knowledge domains, but the questions themselves were more important.

For example, Prof. Simon asked why it's like Xanadu: "Since you are proposing a system that resembles Xanadu in many aspects, what reason do you have to believe that this is today feasible at scale? Technological advancement? Societal advancement? Greater societal need? Why should it work now when it failed then?"

Others raised questions about citations, links, and reference loops, as well as how to record and verify data ownership and reference relationships.

Although I'm better at expressing my own motivations and the imaginations that are mixed into the design of this little thing, I don't know how to answer these questions. I can only honestly say I don't know, but allow me to understand, read, and learn, and then provide my understanding and comments. I say I hope everyone can help me, whether it's about the application scenarios of this little thing or if it sparks any interest in any aspect.

Of course, this jungle leaves most people at a loss. But I also received a voice from Jérémy:

> _"I think the benefit of micropublications goes beyond 'succinct communication of findings.' It is more about directly getting to the point (whether this is succinct or not) with potential additional information (e.g., related work, proof) being present as linked (micro)publications. Since the reading of articles is not linear, this new way might exploit better hypermedia to create scientific publications. Of course, this new way of writing may create some additional challenges, but articles are not written linearly anyways, so it might make more sense for writers (and readers who read non-linearly)."_

In my continuing conversation with Jérémy, I began to see a clearer and tighter connection, a shared expectation and effort between the Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 communities for a 'better internet' itself. In the iterations of the World Wide Web led by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, many concepts, such as Solid and GGG, are being explored now in the blockchain (or rather, we are continuing the profound thoughts that already existed in the World Wide Web), but few discuss the continuity and commonality of these ideas, what is being repeatedly re-used, but only with a more embellished narrative. An essential question is: **can these two webs merge?**

For example, in a concept of Web 3.0 proposed by Sir Tim in 2007, the social graph is defined as composed of each web space. After the transition from the publisher's view to the viewer's view in Web 2.0 (a transition period from the reader's view to the viewer's view), Web 3.0 will become the viewer's view, meaning:

**users will be able to modify existing original content on the Internet, forming a network (Web 3.0 has a similar concept called a 'curation network').**

> [A web space is a personified composition of web resources.](http://yihongs-research.blogspot.com/2007/09/web-space.html)

Based on my interactions with Jérémy and Prof. Simon exchanging resources, I drew a matrix in the last ten days. You can easily see that there are already a large number of papers/articles (carried in the form of “blocks” below). Each text block with context contributes a part that gets straight to the point of this issue.

![related publications](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/12ad30eddc39a9ed79c212c085cc44977c423ee5aabe67c0bb787802802d559f.png)

related publications

![One of my goals is to use these ever-increasing blocks to compose a dynamic article filled with references.](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/976cae17c8d2491b218cf42b6c2b14088c4af00ad19935d45672abf00b06e95b.png)

One of my goals is to use these ever-increasing blocks to compose a dynamic article filled with references.

[https://whimsical.com/with-jeremy-LrDAc9dCHrwXYMECNUQCAz](https://whimsical.com/with-jeremy-LrDAc9dCHrwXYMECNUQCAz)

You might sense that this is different from the one-way Internet jump link. Instead, it is built upon a decentralized web (abstraction layer) and referred to as _micro-publication_, I mean for now. Its mission is to establish **bidirectional links on the internet**. On one side, it connects to the original publications on the web, and on the other, it forms the fundamental units of the viewer's view.

> micro-publication is the basic unit of the viewer’s view.

In other words, you can publish content as you do now (on personal blogs, academic platforms, writing platforms, etc.). When someone wants to take any action based on your content (quote, rewrite with an alias), they can create this web space to establish a link with your original content.

My article's theme is: **How to turn the one-way links of the World Wide Web into two-way links?** Publications are stored on the web, viewers make a modified version and store it on the abstraction layer. What's the abstraction layer made of? A decentralized web stack that integrates Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 components. Every word block abstracts the 'get-to-the-point' from the publication (articles, academic writings, etc.) and is linked through hashtags.

One question: how to confirm these bidirectional relationships?

_(to be continued._

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*Originally published on [wordbloc](https://paragraph.com/@conaw/a-life-worth-living)*