The purpose I’ve ascribed to obsidian is to be a memory bank of my projects (AKA PARA) and all the multiple years of my experience. I use it to pay it forward to my future self.
This thread on ycombinator about how writing is thinking is very helpful. Your purpose in obsidian for the most part is found in how and what you write. When I come back to my vault, graph, or any other page and have a realization or epiphany about either the knowledge or yourself, I stop thinking of obsidian as just another tool for capture and instead think of it as a way to augment and improve how I think, which is the best future return I think we can give to ourselves.
Obsidian for me is and should be a multi pronged tool that allows me freestyle my thought process without having too much hierarchy or friction. The low friction, low hierarchy, and atomic nature of obsidian is where it shines. I ascribe it’s purpose as tool for active recall and to really supplant multiple large domains of thought.
If you get bogged down in the hierarchy too much it’s easy to get lost on which level of contexts you are writing for. Sort of like a house of cards. There is always a ridiculous amount of information in major project that can be remembered on a whim by just quick capturing and having snappy access to multiple levels of context with a low friction environment.
Some books about writing I think are the best tools for expanding what’s capable with obsidian. In the end it likely does end up just being another tool for storing lots of old information, I am always taking a bet or a risk on which old information is going to give returns into the future.
Writing for me in obsidian is a way to push the boundaries of my thought, but it’s not always apparent that’s what I’m doing. So if you feel stuck and are evaluating the purpose, I’d say that’s a very good place to be, because you want to be in uncharted waters to explore new boundaries of thought.
I find my memory to be finicky even when I try to be deliberate about what I do and how I specialize.
It’s not that I find it hard to get stuff done, my memory is just not always 100% at saving the contexts I associate with my experience and how I approach my projects.