Open notebook as discipline, not vanity

The argument against an open notebook is usually that it is vain. The author is publishing in-progress thinking; the implication is that the thinking is not ready and the publishing is performative.

The argument for an open notebook is that it is the only way I have found to be honest with myself about what I am actually thinking, as opposed to what I will later remember thinking. The thread map on this notebook is the receipt of my reasoning; it is harder to revise the past silently when the past is in public.

Vanity would be polishing the notebook. Discipline is leaving it slightly rough.