I’m not familiar with Bear but it looks kinda similar to Notion. I really love the databases that you can make in Notion, which is primarily what I use it for. It does have some annoying shortcomings though, and figuring out how to do things can be less than intuitive at times IMO. I see Obsidian recommended a lot too, but I haven’t used it personally since I think you have to pay for syncing.

I don’t use Notion for collecting inspiration though, I just use Pinterest for that. I couldn’t find an alternative that I liked that had a moodboard-type layout and was accessible on iOS and PC.

Definitely used books, both because they’re cheaper and because I feel like they have more character. Some of my books have notes or indications in them of who their previous owners were.

I have seen a lot of highly upvoted comments on reddit which were very, very wrong.

I still use reddit for help on things. But for topics that I’m less knowledgeable about (so I can’t gauge the accuracy myself), I try to just take everything with a grain of salt.