again
Sometimes repetition is a sign that you’re returning to something important. Sometimes it’s a sign that you’re failing t
sigh
I met an old friend for lunch a while ago. He observed that I was initially tense and weary, but that I then visibly relaxed o
knowable
(original thread) since i was kid i always wondered why things weren’t better. i’ve probably spent thousands of ho
quotes
I’ve thought from time to time that people don’t do a great job of quoting things. I figure I might as well make m
my creative process
“social mistake i used to make a lot was, always engaging with everyone the way I wanted to be engaged with, which was to be
deviants
(original 2018 thread) it’s funny to consider how much of the conversation around things like “what makes you uniq
people-shaped
This post is a quick sketch / copy-over of some tweets where I use the phrase “people-shaped”, which I think is so
safety rituals
the meta thing is, this sort of conversation itself will become a safety ritual if you don’t then take some action that
Advanced Stupid
I have a lot to say about this, have been sketching drafts of this over and over, never quite satisfied, so here is a dump of
so you’ve been main character’d
the hardest thing about dealing with being main character’d is managing your psychology, your emotional / physiological resp
culture
Nov 2024: what is culture? There are lots of ways to approach talking about it, but I particularly want to focus on what I thi
how to de-escalate tense situations
A thing i’ve gotten very good at that I just helped a friend in DMs with is de-escalating other people, eg someone DMs y
what’s it like to live your dream?
(nov 18, 2021 thread) there are a bunch of things i wish some earnest person would ask me about, tho if i talk about it now it
how to DM your heroes
How to DM your heroes when they follow you 1. specific proof-of-work: “I’ve been a fan of your work and writing since the
encourage your friends to ship their ideas
(original thread) friendly subtweet: sometimes when someone has an idea to do something, the best thing you can do is not to s
Aug29: AGI fire alarm drill day
In October 2017, Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote a post on intelligence.org titled There’s No Fire Alarm for Artificial General
I use scapple to do my think-out-loud maps
I’ve somehow become an unintentional advocate/evangelist for Scapple, which is a mindmapping tool made by Literature &am
Pericles
Pericles (495–429 BCE) was a prominent Athenian general and statesman. He died aged 66, of plague. I find him to be a fascin
🎨 everything is a remix
Everything Is A Remix [37:30] is a video by Kirby Ferguson. It’s one of the most powerful videos I’ve ever watched
vision
1 ✱ We seem to be having a sort of crisis of vision, where hardly anybody seems to have interesting ideas about where we’r
small talk
1jul2024: I have more to say about small talk. people who say they don’t like it, seem to misunderstand it… ✱ &#
📱smartphones changed everything
The following is a set of notes for an essay I want to write. ✱ A common feature in fantasy fiction is powerful magical obje
jinky, janky, junky
I think it’s cute how three different words – jinky, janky and junky – all have this venn diagram overlap that I lik
dealing with losers
(2020nov5 thread) I’m not a fan of divvying people up arbitrarily into winners and losers – one should never be gleefu
fumbling the bag
There’s an exchange on Tinder(?) that I once saw on Twitter that I think about a lot. Read this really slowly and closel
“Wrong.”
This is more of my personal approach to things rather than some kind of claim about how the world works, or even how it should
fuckability
fucking is labor, fuckability is capital many (most?) people wanna be fuckable more than they wanna fuck having good sex is a
books
Books I’ve written: The first book that I published is called FRIENDLY AMBITIOUS NERD. The second book that I’m cu
ADHD
this post is now redirected to Constructive ADHD
⏱ 4 hours
Realistically, I can only ever be *truly* productive for 4 hours a day. Most days, I’m lucky to even have 2 truly good,
Most People
I’ve been sharing this set of notes more and more as time goes by. I suppose you could say most people care too much abo
do 100 things
“Do 100 Thing” is a phrase I came up with when riffing around the idea of being prolific, making lots of stuff. It
talent is not rare, talent is clueless and scared
(see also: greatness is deviance) When I was younger I thought that talent was rare, but as I get older I realize that the ans
🎸 let’s jam!
dec2023 update: I should talk about wooten, werner, mayer, the beatles, paramore, guns n roses… In my cornerstone post T
risk
post to be updated over time 2024oct19— the question I have for myself here is, how does this usually come up? How do people
after gifted
AFTER GIFTED is an ebook that I’m working on to help formerly gifted kids find success and happiness in life. Optimistic
🗣 hecklers
I’ve been thinking a lot about hecklers lately. There are a bunch of related-ish words, with varying connotations: hater
☢️ the apocalypse test
A thing I do that brings me great clarity is to focus on individual people over everything else. I don’t care much about
cold emails
If you get really good at cold emails, comms and positioning, you can run circles around people who rely on warm intros in sma
🙏🏾 how to ask for help
One of my new personal rules for myself is, if something annoys me, I’m going to funnel that into content that I can ref
🗿 don’t pedestalize people
I use the term Pedestalization to describe the act of putting someone on a pedestal. Hero worship is pedestalization. Some peo
status and status regulation
2024oct15: there was a period of time where this seemed like one of the most important concepts I’d ever heard of, but I
elitism
It’s interesting how often the phrase “elitism” comes up when I solicit feedback from others. I’m aware that this will
learned catastrophizing
I get young people in my DMs all the time. A common thing I notice about their despair is that they do a lot of generalizing (
listen to kids
About once or twice a week I get some long DMs, usually from a younger person, who’s all stressed out and wound tight about
take deep breaths
The following post is an ongoing-work-in-progress. The goal is for me to make sense of my learnings about breath and breathwor
➡️ pay it forward
When I was a broke teenager, my older friends often insisted on paying for drinks or meals. I used to feel a potent mix of gra
↗️ many people like to contribute to vectors, few like to own them
moved to /marketing/vector
🍵 empty your cup and allow life to surprise you
2024apr29: I think this wants to be a more substantial post about attention. consider my recent conversation with dinesh about
👋🏾 everyone loves to make a great introduction
I think the big secret of social life is that everybody loves to make a great introduction. If you can become someone that peo
🇺🇸 San Francisco [2019]
Dear Visa-17, Visa-29 here. So I recently got on a Singapore Airlines plane (I know, finally!) and flew across the planet to S
⚠️ how to get my attention
(There’s quite a bit of preamble in this post before I get to the answer – just scroll down past the hot dogs if you&#
📱 screentime
I had a large amount of screentime as a child. And if I could go back in time and have a do-over, I would have liked even more
👯♀️ make friends
I’ve kind of developed a name for myself as “the friendly guy”. My book is titled FRIENDLY AMBITIOUS NERD. I
🕸 VV’s memex – a map of directives to live well
I saw a picture of “Bay Area Memespace“, and for some reason I felt compelled to put together my own “@visak
👫 relationships are challenging + a lot of work
Preamble: Hello everyone! This post has been getting shared a little bit, so I thought it might be worth taking some time to p
💃🏾 flirting is about signalling interest with plausible deniability
What I tell my nephews: flirting is basically this – give moderately strong signals of interest with plausible deniabili
#StrugglePorn – is it painting a false picture?
good conversation started here with Nat & Gary I’m not personally a fan of Gary’s overall brand, but I appreci
🍱 I used to be a picky eater
I saw somebody make fun of picky eaters on Twitter, and I felt compelled to write about my own experiences. I was like this my
🚥 a system can only be improved at its tightest bottleneck
I’ve been thinking a lot about Tiago Forte’s point about bottlenecks – that the only meaningful improvement you
😈 sinister connotations allow people to be assholes with plausible deniability
I like words. It’s a big part of why I’m a writer. I like everything about them. Here are some interesting things
a list of some of my twitter threads
🚨 UPDATE: My book FRIENDLY AMBITIOUS NERD is out! Buy it now: gum.co/friendlynerdbook Hello! I’m @visakanv, my friend
🐉 Drogon vs Balerion size comparison
The fun thing about this post is I basically cobbled it together out of my own frustration at not having a simple, easy, strai
🤯 ideas that expanded my mind
Disorganized notes. (Revisiting this again in 2023… I remember doing a twitter thread in maybe eigen’s repliesR
⛰ one must imagine Sisyphus LOL-ing
Life, particularly in modern civilization, is an absurd circus. We’re all clowns living in boxes trying to amuse ourselves w