drafts
from time to time people ask me something like “what have you changed your mind the most on” and it’s like… i never held on strongly to things that i wasn’t sure about, so it didn’t really have to change all that much, the picture just got clearer
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“this strikes me as one of those scenarios where the coping mechanism worsens the situation” – me to “your husband X”
laziness: sometimes when going through my notes i find something that had so much effort put into it by a past version of myself that i am moved to the threshold of tears. my default narrative of myself is that i’m kinda lazy but that’s absolutely untrue. I work very, very, very hard and I don’t appreciate myself enough for that
everything i think i know about stress: big bioscience medical conspiracy theory. There must be so many books about this. Nonetheless I insist on blundering forward in my ignorance. Once I’ve written out everything I think I know, I can then get schooled in all the ways I am wrong. : https://twitter.com/visakanv/status/1513442329184538624.
plaintext literacy: If I can’t tell what you mean, nobody else can. And you’re going to receive every possible interpretation. the funny thing about ‘implications’ is that some people will get mad at you about their interpretation of what you said, which could be the furthest thing from what you had in mind when you said what you said.
aggressive hypertexting – reworking hyperthread post. should desire paths also be a part of this, or separate? feels like it should be separate
try and summarise FAN and introspect. think backwards about what is most important. how do you help people. what has unblocked people.
focus: attention direction / attention sovereignty is the source of everything. and funnily enough attention misdirection is misunderstood, i think kind of on purpose. I believe in thinking things through from scratch and using different vocabulary. // you may have to spend a decade begging people to not do things that are bad before you learn that negative reinforcement hardly ever works except maybe if you have really punitive consequences and you need to teach people to focus on what they want to see more of. // I’ve approximated several versions of this mantra since I first started writing as a kid. My favorite version of it is a little longer than the title – “focus your time and energy on what you want to see more of”. It’s primarily meant as a reminder to myself. Occasionally I bring it up with someone who I think is receptive to the idea, and to being reminded of it. // A lot of people focus on what they want to see less of. This is counter-productive. Explaining this will take a while. Why is everything so complicated? I wish things were simpler. But they are simple in a sense. I’ve noticed that even friends who seem to get it, don’t seem to get it
enter the labyrinth – I think here I just want to write an essay about introspect. Honestly a part of me is kinda grumpy, bummed and annoyed that the book isn’t already more successful than it has been. I’m grateful for the success it’s had so far – people have DM’d me telling me that it’s changed their life. I guess I don’t talk about it enough? It’s not available on kindle, it’s a bit janky.
“Why do I want so bad for people to see/know that I am serious?” Well, I was wronged as a child in ways that were not individual people’s fault but rather systems and societies. The solution to systemic problems require individuals flourishing in groups.
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thinking about text mediums, books and blogs and websites and timelines and apps… where can you do important and interesting work? the substack is now a form that people are coming to consolidate around, there’s something about that buzz of activity that makes it somewhat compelling. it’s nicer to be in a coffeeshop where other people are also working, than it is to be alone in a room… those are two different modes.
in other words: use different language to think for yourself, to break out of old, stale patterns of thought that have accumulated baggage, connotations, etc. grammar and vocabulary are both opportunities for joyful fuckery. which is another way of saying, experiment with your words, ya filthy animals. “stressed” “tired” – words and phrases become invisible when we overuse them. tormented. weary. // Nobody is using words the way they should be. Could be. Entire adjacent-possible universes shimmer and tremble just beyond our grasp. // car-crash into perfect unreality — a grammar of one’s own – https://twitter.com/visakanv/status/1373167257778409480 // 8apr2022: I’m not tired don’t say tired what does tired even mean. I just woke up. I’m booting up. It’s box breathing time baby. I’m bothered by the ulcers in my mouth and some general itchiness. Hair could probably use some thinning. Followup with clients.
social local maxima: in retrospect one of the red flags of someone I used to look up to (like 10+ years ago) was that he enjoyed seeking out incompetent people to dunk on. this feels like a fragment rather than an essay. but what’s the idea here? it’s about… don’t dunk on unworthy opponents, that makes you look gross, attracts gross people. always aim higher.
the messes i inhabit – trying to rehabilitate how i think about it. thinking about doing something like a film. what if I made a film of my mess? what if it were a “text film”? describing the mess in detail in text? / make yourself comfortable – as with the rest thing, I don’t do this enough! “I don’t do this enough” is not a comfortmaxxing phrase. I invite myself to be more comfortable. reference ribbonfarm tendrils post.
tiredness/knottedness/exhaustion – about my relationship with rest and sleep. why do I put all this pressure on myself? what if I let it go? Paula Scher said you can’t make anything except in a state of play, so how do I get playful about all this?
does anyone give a shit about you? i’m a naive romantic idealist in the sense that i believe that the beginning of the solution to all sorts of complicated-sounding problems like “meaning crisis” and “ideological deficit” and “god-shaped hole” etc etc is literally just people giving a shit about each other. is there someone in your life who you can call when you’re struggling? who will give you a hug and be present with you when you need it? what is god if not that? what is meaning if not that?
i know in my heart that kinship is the answer to a great many problems that trouble people. but i feel apprehensive repeating it rn because i’ve let down a couple of friends with my own incompetence recently, and that makes me feel like a bit of a failure n a fraud
humility/confidence/arrogance: There comes a point in your personal development where people will start telling you that you should stop being publicly honest about your self-assessment, for reasons ranging from “it’ll make people feel bad” to “it’ll come across as bragging” https://twitter.com/visakanv/status/1221915534280642560.
but real humility is not “thinking less of yourself”. it’s about being honest in your self-assessment, and about your limitations, about what you don’t know.
I don’t just think highly of myself, I think highly of everyone.
the spirit of the commute – I want this to be something quite liminal
what do our ads tell us about us? One of the things my wife finds funny about me is that I’m always insistent about making it on time to movies in cinemas so I can watch the ads. To me the ads are an important part of the experience. // One of my lifelong background fascinations is to study ads as a proxy for studying the state of media, people’s self-image, sense of being perceived, etc. have a draft of a book called Optics that’s about this. I distinctly remember being startled the first time I saw a gta v ad… the above ad I think further emphasises how much our experiences have become performances – moments are to be captured, shared, revisited, analysed, compared. None of this is entirely new but it keeps accelerating, our personas increasingly take precedence over our persons
https://twitter.com/visakanv/status/1534825202369957890
don’t punish idiots https://twitter.com/visakanv/status/1272480849431105536
kirthimukha / threshold guardians – gates, jade gate… walking through cultural walls / being a magician? – leap of faith
STORYTELLING HEFT: killmonger/dany/poisonivy – https://twitter.com/visakanv/status/1131937971806937088 something here about storytelling, villains… same post as scheherazade? separate? storytelling heft nevertheless — ode to yinsen – media, reflecting on tony stark… this should maybe be broader, about the fictional characters that inspire me. would also mention starcraft. i’m also thinking of… robocop, doom… that might be better for youtube — andor, arcane, mass effect
thingification — media narrative cycles – valorization then demonisation of marie condo, Facebook, oversimplify, praise, complain… https://twitter.com/visakanv/status/1425490068274225155
sg100
IDENTITY – what does it mean to be a citizen?
living at the crossroads – sanjay’s super team
the monuments we consecrate… in Silk Roads i was reading something about how… well rulers are the ones to decide what monuments get built, right? and the buddha statues came up as a response to apollo?
against flanderization – this is to help artists find their voice, this is also simultaneously “against audience capture”, “refuse to be enthralled by the algorithm”, focus on making what people want. let me tell you a bunch of things that I enjoyed. I enjoyed reading about charteresus
beautiful things – I think it’s good and important to surround yourself with beautiful things. I don’t mean being a consumer just purchasing whatever people tell you is beautiful and then building a massive collection, but rather identifying things that personally speak to you, move you. this is a process of articulating your own stories
infinity in the palm of your hand – this is poetic but it shouldn’t be the title of a post, it’s too abstract.
make 100 misshapen pots
inhabit a nexus of questions – here I could talk about the person who asked me about being overanalytical, how do you do it without “taking everything apart” – interesting choice of phrasing there.
how to talk to people – the first thing is to see it as a lil game of collaboration, like passing a ball back and forth, or trading licks as musicians. you don’t need to begin by making it this big weighty thing. the challenge is that different people struggle with this to different degrees, and at the extreme end some people have so much anxiety they can’t speak at all. I don’t know if I can help with that, that might need more serious intervention, it’s probably a bunch of other issues in concert. but for people who are just kinda uncertain, kinda nervous, I’d say… start small. ask people for the time. talk “in passing”, like you’re on the way to somewhere else, so you don’t put them on the spot and make them feel cornered. “I like your shoes/shirt/glasses” etc is something you can say to someone as you’re passing for practice’s sake. / good reply game between friends can look like bad reply game.
divinity – hinduism, my name… feels like a weak collection of strong elements, this will be dispersed. pantheon of wojaks. maybe i’ll post it as a bunch of skips.
Private spaces, public commons – I should read private lies… — The etiquette of the public commons
American Cringe – Was still thinking about how some Singaporeans describe me as shameless, when I saw this tweet – and broadly speaking, I think it partially explains why America is still global #1.
It’s because ambitious people from all over the world go there to be taken seriously. Americans still celebrate their mavericks, misfits, even their clowns. Framed another way: they are successful because they have no shame – I am not American — an outsider’s perspective. America as a nation is a narcissists and they love to hear about themselves lol. But I laugh about this with friends I don’t think I want to write about it in an essay. This is an example of private spaces. LisaWehden: shamelessly love the fact Americans are enthusiastic for any wacky idea
artful incompleteness: everything is incomplete. i feel embarrassed that I haven’t completed things. for example I have this idea that everything can be reframed as a set of questions. and then I feel embarrassed that I haven’t already done that. But why? Why am I embarrassed about my imperfections?
Universal basic cursed artifact / Wicked witch magic mirror. still can’t quite decide between either of these titles… maybe UBCA should be the subtitle. everybody has a magic mirror now, a remembrall, a pensieve, nightmare rectangle, watching society decline. so… how do you manage it? lose sense of proportion, lost in the world of symbols and abstractions, start worrying about things that don’t exist, hallucinations. —✱— camera, images – optics… needs a potent phrase, update to ways of seeing… tie up with smartphones? a camera in everybody’s hand, and a trade network
Twitter / Parliament of hallucinations – so ok having spent an inordinate amount of time and effort tweeting, and being a huge advocate for it, and having stepped away from it psychologically for a moment to see the bigger picture, I think it’s important for srs/heavy poasters to know that overtweeting can groove your brain
Society of self – IFS, buddy cop movies…
deviants – excellence is deviance, don’t wanna talk too much about this right now since I just talked about seriousness – losers – on one hand i typically say let’s not focus on things we don’t want to see more of. so maybe I should frame this differently somehow. I do get bored of dealing with losers and I want to help people who are on the path to winning. win and help win.
2020s personal decade review https://twitter.com/visakanv/status/1212306988165545984
elite and elite-adjacent cycles https://twitter.com/visakanv/status/1550470130659864576
video game design features thread https://twitter.com/visakanv/status/1340180326190989313
blogmap mar2021 https://twitter.com/visakanv/status/1373630582467403777/ – interesting because of groups – sovereignty, media theory, strategy, socialising, framing, memoirs
how to approach a public figure – Several different people have said something to me like, “it must be weird when people DM you like they know you.” It’s not weird at all! I know why you feel like you know me: it’s because I write about myself a lot. I do that largely *to be known*. The weird part is…
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Hendrix of social media: My internet history / My vision – broadcast vs fractal / Slow not fast / Creator first / Incentives / The algorithm / I don’t want money – tragedy of exploited creators / Not all audience members created equal
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one of the things about the world that makes me sick is that nobody needs support more than people who are struggling, and nobody receives more support than people who are already on the path / have already succeeded
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if you can’t fix it, feature it
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what do you do when you’re bored of yourself
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western binarism: Profit vs non profit / Selfish vs altruistic / conformity vs individuation. If I said “against binaries” that would be me perpetuating the same problem while attempting to solve it. mario castle.
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I used to write in starbucks: When I was 20 years old I used to lug my secondhand laptop to the starbucks at Jalan Jamal in Siglap, Singapore. At the time you could still smoke cigarettes in the outdoor sections, they had ash trays and everything. When I look back now i think about how much everything can change. As I write this, I’m sipping on a Starbucks drink that my wife bought for me, and I’m also marvelling at how much things like tastes and smells – the madeliene
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the center and the margin: About being marginalized, what does that mean? There are halls of power and you’re not in them. / How do you ask for representation? Well now that we have social media you don’t really have to ask, you can make a YouTube channel. But nobody wants to listen? Well, you have to find the people who do want to listen, even if they’re few and far between https://hac.bard.edu/amor-mundi/the-power-of-the-powerless-vaclav-havel-2011-12-23
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psychological extreme sport. I have always wanted this path for myself, so I continue to appreciate and enjoy the journey. tho I do want to say the further along I go the more I worry for people who become celebrities without preparation, because it’s a psychological extreme sport // just as how it’s tragic that some people who love animals become vets and then are startled to realize they’re now surrounded by animal suffering, people pleasers who seek celebrity in the hope of being liked may be startled by the volume of hatred, abuse, etc sent their way
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Complaining is unmasculine. bitching about women is a female-coded activity. what is griefing exactly? Advanced stupid. don’t be a loser. be a winner. if you sit and think about it you should be able to figure it out. but if you can’t, you need someone else to babybird you… should I indulge you? I don’t think that’s what I want to be doing. I mainly want to help people who are already on the path. I don’t need needy losers. So I shouldn’t even publish this.
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hypersexual: recently been haunted by the re-realization that I’ve spent a lot of my life worrying about being perceived as some kind of violent, aggressive, hypersexual, dangerous monster. I definitely feel this less in the US than in Singapore
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the audience you want / the public that doesn’t exist yet. When I was a kid at some point I was obsessed with the idea of becoming a hero . Legion Of heroes .
Who am I writing for? Singaporeans? Americans? Indians? Beginners? Advanced? For the next guy like me that I haven’t met yet. He might be from some city that we’ve never heard of. She read a lot as a kid, I don’t know how to “adjust” for that if somebody didn’t do it. Interested in a bit of everything maybe.
I’ve been spoiled by my twitter. I’ve found some lovely friends on it. But the best thing I can do for my friends is to walk away from that and to focus on what I want to see in the world.
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Perfectionism. Part of me is perfectionistic and wants to wait until the substack essay is “excellent”. What does excellent mean, I want to inquire. It’s true that if you’re not clear about what excellent means then you’re probably not going to get there. I’ll know it when I see it? Well, what are you seeing? How are you experimenting? What’s the rush about? Oh, well, we’re all going to die. So? Lol. So what. Why do you make yourself itchy and grumpy when you haven’t written? Feels like wasted time. Yes, but worrying here entrenches the stuckedness. So can you let go of the worry? Meditation for engineers.