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. Iā€™d write both on the way to w

aladdin

I woke up from a dream that was set in something like my brainā€™s remix of the old video game, The Prince of Persia. It remin

kwml

I heard about this book a long time ago, but I canā€™t 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. Iā€™ve 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 ā€œhold dearā€, or ā€œto care forā€, or ā€œto have faith inā€. Itā€™s since

what’s the point of voltaic?

Maybe letā€™s 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

Itā€™s 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 ā€œvisa 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 Iā€™m really proud of. Over 2,500 people have bought it so far. Iā€™d estimate

one-foot FAN

Throughout history there have been ā€œexceptionalā€ people who seemed to have the near-mystical ability to ā€˜walk 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

Iā€™ve 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 Iā€™d 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 isnā€™t 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? itā€™s 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: Iā€™ve 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) ā€œMy propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as se

kohai vs senpai

Kohai: I need help. Iā€™m 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: ā€œThis is how it works with guys. Anytime you do anything remote sensitive, heart-warming, anything

jeanette winterson

quotes ā€œTruth 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) Itā€™s funny how the bog of lifeā€™s troubles can creep up on you. Even when youā€™ve 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

ā€œNobody 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. ā€œBut 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 Iā€™ve written with the word ā€œpublic intellectualā€. I

how to write good comments

āœ± Alright bitches and motherfuckers so what constitutes a good comment? Itā€™s 5am so I gotta go to bed but iā€™m 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 iā€™ve 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 ā€œreviewsā€, where I throw in notes that Iā€™ve put together about stuff Iā€™ve watch

reintroducing myself

Maybe delete, here are my guiding thoughts for myself as I introduce myself again: I canā€™t 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€¦ ā€œThe 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 donā€™t consciously plan these. They just happen.

pave the desire paths

A desire path is a path thatā€™s 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 Iā€™m being honest a part

comedic influences

Sometimes I just like to investigate things on Wikipedia. Today Iā€™m 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

Iā€™ve 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€“ itā€™s 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 ā€œNil 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) Letā€™s dive right in. I trust that you already know what Twitter is, you know what tweets are, I donā€™t 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 ā€œaesthetic resonanceā€, though thatā€™s 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 ā€œcultural victoryā€. A funny quote that happens is w

luckmaxxing

weā€™ve come too farTo give up who we areSo letā€™s 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. Iā€™d 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 itā€™s CNY in a couple of days, and itā€™s 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 doesnā€™t have to mean you pick up the language and aesthetics often associated wi