I ran across this post from Jeremy Friesen that was in response to another post by Jack Baty. The TL;DR is that Baty has been doing more and more of his writing in Org mode and this somehow makes him feel lonely as if he were trapped on an (org mode) island.
This got Friesen thinking about his own Org mode use and the bulk of his post is an explanation of how and why he uses Org for his writing. His conclusion is much like mine: all his writing starts out in Org mode and is exported to other formats or applications as needed.
I didn’t understand exactly what Baty was complaining about. It seems to me that using Org is the opposite of being on an island. Yes, you write in a single language—much as most people speak primarily in a single language—but you can export that writing to virtually any format you need. It’s more like being in a big city where you can get anything you want than being on an isolated island.
In response to Friesen’s post, Baty wrote a follow-up post in which he clarified what he meant by feeling isolated in Org mode. As far as I can tell, what it means is that it makes him feel trapped in Emacs because you can’t really use Org effectively anywhere else. Again, I don’t understand. If you don’t like Emacs, that makes a kind of sense but Baty says he loves Emacs. So what’s the problem?
My problem is actually the opposite. Every time I have to write something somewhere besides Emacs/Org-mode, I feel like I’m stranded in a strange land where nothing works as it should.