substack

sort my notes with me

How do you know if you have a problem? I’m thinking particularly about my notes, but you could also talk about say, a drinki

on messes

I had a moment last night when I did this at my desk (evaluate my situation), and the first thought I had was “obviously I s

anguished voyager

guilt > hunger > desk > messes > I have 48 ‘live’ drafts on my substack account, and I have the equivalent of

diablo

i’ve known for a long time that i want to write something about diablo i could do the memoir thing but really i think i want

literacy

what is my conclusion? I think… ultimately it’s not possible for any one person to do everything, so it’s prudent for in

incompleteness and digressions

22jul2024 distractions I’ve been kind of embarrassed, maybe even ashamed, to note that there have been many instances now wh

alice

i finally watched disney’s alice in wonderland (1951) for the first time a few weeks ago. i haven’t yet read lewis carroll

CDs

backstory: I bought my first couple of CDs when I was about 12 years old, and over 20 years later I still consider them to be

fake games

what is the portal in this essay? i think the wild thing is that we play fake games with ourselves. we cargo cult ourselves. w

babel

Historyproj… SG1990… Tamils…India…nonamerican… multipolar world… sidenote on english… gumroad readers… 3rd cul

afterimages

asdf a this might be surprising to some people– i feel like it shouldn’t be, but people get surprised by all sorts of thin

cigarettes

really an essay about addiction, coping mechanisms, behavior change PSA: i’m going to be talking about cigarettes a bunch in

working episodically

magazines, chiarella, mens health, bloggers, herb caen, julie & julia… talk about tv? ✱ When I was a teenager I used t

lentil

it’s been almost 2 months since my last post and I just wanna spend maybe 30 minutes writing something and hitting send with

beautiful noisy messes

i’m tired and i don’t have much time. i need to publish something or i’m going to go mad. i have a lot of tabs open. one

contemplate

I’ve spent a lot of the past two years thinking about how to do these substack essays. Recently, I was getting so frustrated

all the channels 2

all the channels 1 i wrote a whole book about introspection, in part because i believe i’m pretty good at it, and i believe

packaging problem

I was doing the dishes last night and listening to some year-old youtube vlogs of myself doing my monthly status updates. One

behavior change

One of the central questions of my life is, how much control or influence do I have over my own behavior, really? A lot of my

writing on commutes

writing on commutes From 2013 to 2018, I used to write diligently on my phone on my commutes. I’d write both on the way to w

nanny diaries

15aug2024: My wife and I brought our 9mo out for his first train ride. He’s still a little too young to really appreciate wh

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 “hold dear”, or “to care for”, or “to have faith in”. It’s since

improv

I like writing, so here I am. I don’t have a particular thing in mind that I want to write about, so I’m going to improvis

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 – you

get your motor runnin’

Get your motor runnin’Head out on the highwayLooking for adventureIn whatever comes our way Yeah, darlin’ gonna ma

the dynamism problem

(abandoned substack draft) “My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as se

kohai vs senpai

Kohai: I need help. I’m stuck. Knotted. Trapped. Overwhelmed. What do I do? Senpai: What do you want to do? Kohai: I want to

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

writing from the heart

(abandoned substack draft) It’s funny how the bog of life’s troubles can creep up on you. Even when you’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

selfsense1. not tired but knotted

“Nobody 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

nyc

sometimes experiences take a while to really blossom into their fullness. i finally visited nyc for the first time in february

luckmaxxing

we’ve come too farTo give up who we areSo let’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. I’d attend a lot of shows. I wrote com

culture1- singapore, stereotypes, seeing, crossroads

Alright, Chinese New Year is a good topic since it’s CNY in a couple of days, and it’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

scenius2: Write my way out – men of letters / erasmus,mersenne, stein

(abandoned substack draft – this one I’ll probably actually revisit and work again) “If my humors happen to plea

artful incompleteness

(abandoned substack draft) No piece of work can ever fully contextualize itself, you’ll go mad trying. But what if things we

recharge your talismans

(abandoned substack draft) meaningful objects matter because we’re all gonna die tend to them, attend to them, they are

how to fckn read

(abandoned substack post) I have been very helpful (1) to a lot of people in a lot of ways. But I can’t help you if you can�

mediastudies 1

(abandoned substack post) feel like the title of this post should be a quote about polaroid I’ve always wanted to research a

transcendent incompleteness / in media res / media studies2

(Abandoned substack draft) how do we find joy in an existence within constraints? how does art break through the bandwidth lim

how to talk to people

(abandoned substack draft) how to talk to people most people are doing it pretty badly. god, so badly. it’s so fucking i

branching paths (jump cuts)

(abandoned substack draft) There’s a lot I want to talk about, but I will need many tries to begin to get it right. So here�

naming ceremony

this was me just freestyling and jamming about my substack Naming ceremony This is an associative exercise, just listing out t