I’ll probably write more about the ways that Emacs (and Org mode) has improved my life, but here’s a brief summary.

I started using Emacs during college after getting introduced to Org mode by my research mentor. I’d just gotten burned by two of my preferred software tools getting shut down—one was a text editor, and the other was a productivity manager, so I was about as receptive as one could be to the idea of open-source text editors and productivity managers.

Over the next few years, Emacs became an integral part of my writing, note-taking, and programming workflows. Part of what I enjoyed about Emacs was how it challenged me to learn more and to become more. Emacs didn’t hold my hand—it demanded that I learn how to program.

Another key component was the community. Without the abundance of blogs and forums and YouTube tutorials guiding me at each step of my Emacs path, I probably would have given up early on. The thing that I loved the most about the Emacs (and computer science community in general) is that they seemed to be the kind of people I wanted to be around. They were curious, hard-working, and clever. They had interesting ideas and interesting taste.

Now, I’m a committed Emacs user. It’s not for everyone, but I love how it’s helped me grow, I love the ideas and communities it’s helped me discover, and I love the sense of ownership and independence that open source brings me.