A seedling is a note that’s barely started — a thought I’ve pulled out of my head and dropped here so it doesn’t escape. Most are unfinished, some will turn out to be wrong, all are honest about that.
Reading a seedling is like walking past a sapling in a garden: you can see what it might become, but it isn’t there yet. If something here looks half-formed, that’s the point — it’s literally the youngest stage in this garden.
A note graduates to budding when I’ve come back to it, sharpened the claim, and started to feel like the idea holds together. Not all seedlings make it that far, and that’s fine.