Design Principles
Siltmark is a journaling method in a single text file, with an analog variant. It is designed to solve the problem of maintenance and the anxiety of the empty template, drawing from a specific Intellectual Lineage.
One Medium, Append-Only
In the digital version, everything goes into a single file. You always write at the end. Nothing is reorganized, moved, or deleted. The flow is chronological and unidirectional. This eliminates the recurring question of where to put things.
Prose as Default
The basic form of a Siltmark entry is the free paragraph. Not bullet points, not outlines. Bullet points reduce experience to a syntactic fragment; prose preserves the voice.
No Maintenance
There is no weekly review, no migration ritual, no moment when you need to go back and tidy up. The file simply grows. The system does not ask anything of you when you are not using it.
File Structure
The file uses three levels of Markdown headings to organize time:
- Year (H2): Written once.
- Month (H3): Written once (YYYY-MM).
- Day (H4): Written each time (YYYY-MM-DD, Day).
This structure makes the file navigable via outline without sacrificing readability.
The Seal System
Five characters serve as lenses, not categories. They are placed at the start of a paragraph, followed by a space. See the Seal Cheat Sheet for more.
Content Seals (Prospective)
- ~ (Tilde): Feeling, emotional state, inner weather.
- ? (Question Mark): Open question, doubt, unresolved matter.
- ! (Exclamation Mark): Spark, insight, something that opened up.
- & (Ampersand): A noticed connection between different things.
Highlight Seal (Retrospective)
- ^ (Caret): Noticed as significant at a later reading. Can be combined (e.g., ^!).
This closed set of five eliminates the decision fatigue of infinite tagging.
The Empty Entry
A date with nothing beneath it is a complete entry. It records that you existed that day. It functions as a safety valve: near-zero cognitive cost, no guilt.