Brain Dump Weekly #0
Where I try to remember what I almost forgot
Lately, I’ve been feeling like my head is a hallway where things pass through but rarely stay. A sentence from a YouTube video I loved disappears the moment I close the tab. A clever comment from a friend fades into vague memory. Even something I underlined in a book… gone, like I never touched it.
I usually watch YouTube essays on the go, like during my commute in Transjakarta or KRL, or in a café while waiting somewhere. It makes me feel less alone in how I think. But it feels like a waste when they vanish into the “Watch History” tab, never revisited.
I keep telling myself it’s okay. That I’ll come back to it later. That I’ll remember it when I need it. But more often than not, I don’t. The thought’s gone, the feeling slips, and I’m left with the trace of something that once felt important.
That’s why I’m starting Brain Dump Weekly.
This isn’t a summary log. It’s not a curated list of insightful takeaways. I’m not building a second brain, and honestly, I don’t want to. That whole idea—dumping everything I consume into an archive so I can retrieve it later—feels too mechanical. Too extractive. Like I’m treating ideas as resources instead of letting them live and breathe with me.
I want something messier. More human. Something that still has my fingerprints on it.
So instead, I’ll write.
I’ve decided to set aside five minutes after I encounter something interesting—an article, a video essay, a book, a conversation, a weirdly timed tweet—and just write what I remember or what I found interesting. Not for the sake of productivity, not to make content out of everything I touch, but to hold onto the bits that made me pause. Maybe later they’ll become essays. Maybe they won’t. That’s not really the point.
I won’t overthink it. I’ll just open the notes app on my phone and type. I don’t always have the energy to open my laptop anyway. Then, sometime over the weekend, I’ll go through those messy notes. I’ll clean them up a little just enough to make sense of what I meant, and post them here.
And yes, I’m aware that we live in an age where AI can summarize almost anything. Essays, podcasts, books, even entire YouTube channels. It’s convenient, no doubt. But for me, maybe just me, that convenience makes it even easier to skip the work of actually processing what I read or watched. So I’m trying to keep things a bit more traditional. Slow it down. Write with my own words. Let meaning surface through the act of typing. Or writing, with pen and my own hand.
I know not everything I write will be useful information. That’s not the point.
The point is: if something sparks a little interest in me, that’s already enough. :D
What matters is that I noticed.
This will be raw. Probably uneven. Sometimes thoughtful, sometimes just a sentence that wouldn’t leave me alone. But I’d rather have that than let everything dissolve into the noise.
And maybe, if you happen to read any of this, you’ll find something that sparks a little interest in you, too.
For me, maybe, somewhere in the middle of this practice, I’ll find a different rhythm for paying attention again.
That’s all for now. Wait for my first actual brain dump this weekend. We’ll see what sticks.
from Runnilune, still learning.
Written by Raihan Khairunnisa.
tags: brain dump weekly, english.