Low Level Detours

July 29, 2025

As always, lets start with the reason this is coming into existence in this form, particularly.

Problem Statement

There are times when I don't know something or something feels weird and I go down the rabbit hole, until it becomes clear. Now I have to manage both the main thread and this secondary one.

I have to document information obtained from both the dimensions into one write up.

• If I include it in the main write up, the write up feels more lively as I have choose rawness over flow. And, the flow suffers. The write up becomes unnecessarily long.

• and the write up feels less lively as it hides the fact that learning is not linear.

• If I decide not to document it, I feel like I am betraying myself.

• If I decide to create another write up for that specifically, my mental health suffers for a variety of reasons.

  • I am not here to keep documenting things.

  • It hurts momentum.

  • It is not easy to write.

  • I need a proper reason to write something, to introduce something. And the main flow offers that. When I think about writing it separately, suddenly, that reason vanishes.

  • And, I don't like hyperlinks. I avoid them to the extent I can because when I read articles written by others and if I see a hyperlink to some other page, I can't unsee it. And if I visit it, it will open another thread. But I only have 24 hours.

  • I don't like hyperlinks so I try to avoid them to the point it is possible.

If my write up is brief and the reader isn't familiar with the technicalities, it is bad.

If my write up is extremely expressive (bloated, basically) and the reader is familiar with the technicalities, it is bad.

In both the cases, the reader suffers. Although there are other two cases as well but as I am an expressive writer by design, one option already cancel out.

As a writer, I prefer expressiveness over anything. But I do hate when I forget what I was doing.

Therefore, I need a solution which respects both the reader and the writer.

Introducing Low Level Detours

A low level detour is a short and crisp write up, which is intended to solve a problem, directly or indirectly, referred by another write up.

Low level detours would be isolated in the sense that they focus on something else entirely, but, what differentiates them with the main threads is that they would be short and crisp by design. And, outcasts are everywhere.

In the main thread, a detour can be identified like this.

• When a topic needs a separate thread, maybe because I don't understand the technicality supporting the main thread, there would be a simple one line explanation of what's happening.

• After which, there would be a curiosity sparking sentence, in the form of a question, asking the reader if they know it or not. And if they want to know more about it, they can have a detour.

How it solves the problem?

If the reader is familiar with the technicalities used in that part, they can avoid the detour. Now the write up is no longer a bloat for them. Their momentum is preserved.

If the reader is not known to those technicalities, they can choose the detour.

My liberty to write expressive write ups is not taken away from me. So I am also happy.

But, there is one last challenge that I am very well aware of. The detours have to be short enough so that the reader doesn't forget where they came from. In short, the length of the detour must be short enough that the momentum is not lost. Plus, they have to be explanatory enough, so that the detour doesn't become a problem itself.

Plus, it will help in improving my articulation skills.