essay drafts
i just feel in my bones that there are about 5-12 essays knocking around inside me that if i just get out of my system i will
vannevar
just for fun, collecting mentions of vannevar bush’s as we may think (1945) tbc
rereading old writing
reading my old writing and it’s striking how i wrote about so many of the same things, but far more tediously. writing i
win_loop
have a draft of an essay i’ve sort of lazily idling on titled “win loops” and i might as well just tweet it
writing on commutes
writing on commutes From 2013 to 2018, I used to write diligently on my phone on my commutes. Iād write both on the way to w
aladdin
I woke up from a dream that was set in something like my brainās remix of the old video game, The Prince of Persia. It remin
kwml
I heard about this book a long time ago, but I canāt remember where exactly. I do remember it being mentioned by Elliott Hul
dadposting
transcribing.a series of twitter threads i’ve written reflecting on being a dad I. feeding my kid at 5am sets off a seri
blog overview 2023
I feel compelled to go to the start of my blog and start commenting on it. Visa Reacts to his own blog. (this is a janky mess)
bookstores
want to spend a substack post thinking out loud about my experiences with bookstores. Iāve already established before that l
let it happen
The big lesson that my life seems to be trying to teach me lately is: stop trying to force things to be some way other than it
felt sense of freedom
I wanted to write a substack post at some point with this prompt but I got tired wanted to remind myself to include this pictu
2023 worklog
dec23 very productive day deleting and merging blogposts on /blog/, then reading about ulysses dec9: earlier, thread about ppl
all the channels
variable rewards Today was a fairly typical day in which I spent most of my time in front of the computer, clicking around, ty
help me understand
The word belief originally meant something like āhold dearā, or āto care forā, or āto have faith inā. Itās since
what’s the point of voltaic?
Maybe letās do a quick roundup update of how this substack has been coming along so far. I started out with the generic name
suffering from misunderstandings
i tend to start in the middle was watching some stuff about toyota on youtube been thinking about processes lately. Particular
can’t or won’t?
what’s the difference between unwilling and unable? lots of people do have poor reading comprehension and are lousy list
give it a minute
Itās been 4 months since I published my last substack post. Is that a long amount of time? It depends on how you see it. I t
covid
i took this pic in feb 2020 and i knew it was going to be interesting/relevant somehow
chaos surfing
(tbc) A thing I get a lot is āvisa seems very good at being extremely online and yet remaining somewhat well-adjusted, emoti
one-foot introspect
I wrote a 300-page ebook titled Introspect that Iām really proud of. Over 2,500 people have bought it so far. Iād estimate
one-foot FAN
Throughout history there have been āexceptionalā people who seemed to have the near-mystical ability to āwalk through th
histories
draft/notes thing? For starters, I recommend everybody watch bill wurtzā history of the entire world, i guess for a nice ove
recent history
It used to be so normal for people to smoke cigarettes everywhere. Old photos of NBA games and boxing had a blue haze ā you
get your motor runnin’
Get your motor runnin’Head out on the highwayLooking for adventureIn whatever comes our way Yeah, darlin’ gonna ma
attention whores
Iāve been wanting to write something called Attention Whores, thinking about how that used to be an insult that was thrown a
mcluhan
Malcolm McLuhan has been on my radar for a long time, but Iād always been kinda avoiding him, the way I had previously avoid
repetition
simplistic but feels right: good repetition is mindful, bad repetition is mindless meta: mindless repetition isnāt all that
scope your problems
Scope your problems Why Twitter is more fun than other things- utterances are well scoped Why writing essays and books a
wretchedness
[3:39 PM, 5/21/2023] @visakanv: have i told you about the blessed/wretched thing? itās another one of my long-stewing pots.
disregard previous instructions
(This post was kicked off by witnessing a younger version of myself struggling with something about permanent records.)
internet
(2023jun1 thread) in response to the time war story, bigolas dickolas: Iāve told variations of this story several times but
blogosphere
collecting some tweets and notes… Neilsen blogosphere study 2012: Buzz in the Blogosphere: Millions More Bloggers and Bl
drafts aug2022-may2023
drafts from time to time people ask me something like “what have you changed your mind the most on” and it’s
ayy players
someone asked what I mean by A+ talent I personally define it as the ability to step into a situation, figure out what’s
the dynamism problem
(abandoned substack draft) āMy propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as se
kohai vs senpai
Kohai: I need help. Iām stuck. Knotted. Trapped. Overwhelmed. What do I do? Senpai: What do you want to do? Kohai: I want to
bro just describe things
Here is some advice for myself. Just describe things. Get back into the heart of yourself, feel what you feel, inhabit your bo
stressin’
(abandoned substack draft) I have seven different tabs open right now, each with a different draft of a different substack ess
junkyard of vague intentions
Earlier this morning I wrote 1,500 words, and then I dumped them in my junkyard (below, lol). I feel pretty good about it. Tho
Bill Burr
on male bullying/bonding: āThis is how it works with guys. Anytime you do anything remote sensitive, heart-warming, anything
jeanette winterson
quotes āTruth for anyone is a very complex thing. For a writer, what you leave out says as much as those things you include.
writing from the heart
(abandoned substack draft) Itās funny how the bog of lifeās troubles can creep up on you. Even when youāve done the read
how to name things?
(abandoned substack draft) how to name things thinking is easy, information architecture is hard Noticed several of my creativ
aesthetic resonance
WHAT IS THE POINT OF THIS FUCKING ESSAY. I WANT YOU TO CONSIDER YOUR AESTHETICS. BUT NO RIGHT NOW MORE IMPORTANTLY I WANT TO A
unstuck
(original thread) meant to write an essay today but got distracted by twitter lol and now its bedtime so maybe i’ll blur
selfsense1. not tired but knotted
āNobody heard him, the dead man,But still he lay moaning:I was much further out than you thought And not wa
resonance over coherence
This is an abandoned Substack draft from March 2023 I have hundreds of drafts and thousands of notes. Sometimes I feel a sense
unsolicited advice
“I’ve noticed a few recent tweets that seem to deviate from your ‘brand’. If you want to continue to g
nyc
sometimes experiences take a while to really blossom into their fullness. i finally visited nyc for the first time in february
reality
This post was a stub that evolved into “reality is unrealistic” substack essay a few months later. āBut please r
self-bullying
(og tweet) idk if i’ve framed it like this before when talking about trust and freedom etc: a person who bullies themsel
FAN thesis take 1
All right, hey friends! So what I’m going to be doing is I have a speech that I’m giving in a couple of weeks. Tod
iron FAN
One of my favorite blogposts by Venkatesh Rao was about the Iron Man movies. He describes how Tony Stark had two problems ā
take note, notice
I take a lot of notes. I also have quite a lot of thoughts about note-taking. I could probably keep going. I also have a lot o
public intellectuals
This is a substack draft where I just thread all of the tweets that Iāve written with the word āpublic intellectualā. I
how to write good comments
ā± Alright bitches and motherfuckers so what constitutes a good comment? Itās 5am so I gotta go to bed but iām leaving th
everything is sexual
(og thread) maybe this is jarring for me to say in context here because i inhabit a different vocabulary entirely but i think
thinking in dominos
One of the best memes iāve come up with is what my friends know as The Dominos Meme ā an expression of earnest, ambitious
2000s
an interesting thing about 2004 was that both Mean Girls and The Incredibles had scenes where white women were frustrated/emba
internal conflicts?
movie/media reviews
I have a folder in my notes app called āreviewsā, where I throw in notes that Iāve put together about stuff Iāve watch
reintroducing myself
Maybe delete, here are my guiding thoughts for myself as I introduce myself again: I canāt possibly expect to say everything
do not leave your longings unattended
<folders pic> the point of this post is to have some wistful energy, some liminalityā¦ i should be feeling it right now wh
real social media has never been tried
I tell this story a lot when talking about the promise of social media. The title feels like it should be the title of a hendr
in other words
This world has lost its glory / Let’s start a brand new story now, my loveā¦ āThe limits of my language are the limit
oceanic?
Words spill out of me. Every day I wake up and I write a bunch of tweets. I donāt consciously plan these. They just happen.
pave the desire paths
A desire path is a path thatās created by people using it, rather than by top-down design. The path is proof that people wan
220,000 tweets later / twitter overview
I started putting this together because it seemed like Twitter had a non-trivial chance of dying. If Iām being honest a part
comedic influences
Sometimes I just like to investigate things on Wikipedia. Today Iām curious about some details about immigrants. I start by
the problem of atomized thinking?
Not sure how i want to phrase it I want to talk about arrogance and humility and how people get that wrong lots of mistakes yo
sweet spots
I got distracted halfway when writing this because of a pradyu tweet about asian kids complaining. but then afterwardsā¦ nah
status notes
Iāve been wanting to write some stuff about social status for a long time, but I never quite had the right framing or contex
a man from each century
BCE Pythagoras Pericles Herodotus 0-999 Paul the Apostle Plutarch Marcus Aurelius Faxian (337 CE ā c. 422 CE) travelling mon
scene sketches
One of my favorite things that I periodically do on Twitter is what I might call exploratory nerdposting ā itās when I sta
Advanced Stupid
to labor together
a project is anything that requires collaboration, even if only with yourself My secondary school motto was āNil Sine Labore
be not not-yourself
Sometimes double-negatives can be very helpful. “be yourself” can be endlessly frustrating, but I believe that
palm leaf manuscripts / tweet grammar
(2023jul15) Letās dive right in. I trust that you already know what Twitter is, you know what tweets are, I donāt really w
writing used to be easier for me / logjam
Writing used to be easier for me. When I was a novice, when I was younger, when I perceived myself to be a nobody with nothing
incorrect estimates
I had this nice fantasy when I published my second book that I would then churn out a nice essay every week. If I had done tha
Scheherazade
my debt to scheherazade ā this is kinda poetic but it’s more of a chapter/subheader than the actual title. this is mea
chasing the feeling with no name
A part of me is always chasing a particular feeling. Sometimes I call it āaesthetic resonanceā, though thatās not the wh
men of letters / write your way out
“If my humors happen to please some worthy man… he will try to meet me. I give him a big advantage… for all
Against Flanderization
As a creator, you might feel like it’s your job to give the audience what they want. In practice, this turns out to be a
a love letter to my process
ios/substack draft A love letter to my processĀ Feels a bit tacky to write so much about writing. But this is an internal fee
culture2, notes
One of the victory conditions in the Civilization video game series is ācultural victoryā. A funny quote that happens is w
luckmaxxing
weāve come too farTo give up who we areSo letās raise the barAnd our cups to the stars Longevity of songs One of my favori
scenius: with love comes criticism
(abandoned substack draft) I used to be a very active member of my local music scene. Iād attend a lot of shows. I wrote com
irritation with others
(og thread) i hold on to my irritation with other people in large part because i want to think of everyone as peers i want to
mysteriously winning
(og thread) When you’re starting out, it feels like you don’t have a lot of value to contribute. but as you get be
culture1- singapore, stereotypes, seeing, crossroads
Alright, Chinese New Year is a good topic since itās CNY in a couple of days, and itās a useful entry point for thinking a
Iron FAN, mk2, out of the cave
(abandoned substack post) solutions that extend beyond One of my favorite blogposts by Venkatesh Rao was about the Iron Man mo
aesthetic conformity vs being distinctive
(og thread) a lot of recommendations on how to look/sound better goes something like “here’s how to conform better
map of human conversation
“art is never finished, merely abandoned” ā da vinci “every book is a failure” ā orwell From time
scenius2: Write my way out ā men of letters / erasmus,mersenne, stein
(abandoned substack draft ā this one I’ll probably actually revisit and work again) “If my humors happen to plea
free agent reflections
its been about 4.5 years now since i’ve worked a “proper job”, in another year or so i will have been a free
eggshells
(og thread) in my 30s i’ve been coming around to learning that most people are quite forgiving. i got burned really hars
aesthetics of earnestness
Aesthetics of earnestness Earnestness doesnāt have to mean you pick up the language and aesthetics often associated wi