This was originally a substack draft from 03may2023.
I keep searching for an angle from which I can write something that I personally find interesting and compelling, that I’m also comfortable sharing with other people via this substack. Searching, searching, grasping for a feeling. As part of the process, I have been writing copious reams of notes and drafts, which I have then been overwhelmed and disoriented by. All of that happens within a context that I can step outside of. For example, right now as I write this, I have one clear window…
To clarify my focus I gotta turn it into a challenge. The challenge is to pick something that goes well with the previous posts. It’s a puzzle, puzzles are fun. WE WERE VOYAGERS, unpublished essays, constraints, earnestness, santa, ARE YOU SERIOUS… then? There’s a lot of things I could do, but a lot of the choices are not good choices. Well maybe let’s look at a bunch of bad choices and triangulate that way. I don’t want to write something about bountiful optimism – that was earnestness. I don’t want to write something about creative despair, that was I don’t wanna. I have been doing a lot more of that in a bunch of other notes, none of it particularly productive or useful, but maybe good to get it out. Mood always comes through anyway.
What can I do that is interesting, consequential, compelling? I would like to solve one of my own problems. This is a thing that I know I am capable of doing. I’ve done it before, on multiple occasions, fairly reliably. Look, I have a specific challenge – “write and publish something that I’m satisfied with”. I have an image that I like, above, that really captures the mood that I’ve been feeling.
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I’ve been thinking about workspaces, information architecture, folders, notebooks, organization principles. I remember I once read some Christopher Alexander on architecture – A Timeless Way Of Building, I think – hoping to find some inspiration on how to sort my notes better. (maybe I should revisit it, read it again.)
I found a twitter thread from 2022 which looks like it might have a bunch of prompts I could use for substack essays. But also I don’t really want to do that? A growing frustration within me has been like, why do I keep wanting to revisit and reference past-Visa’s work? There’s a version of me now that’s like, why can’t we just freestyle it? And I’m open to that, I do think we can freestyle it. Somehow I’ve gotten cautious. Too cautious. I think this is a cycle that plays out repeatedly and I have to just acknowledge and accept that it’s happening. A part of me is embarrassed that it’s happening, but it is a thing that happens. Being embarrassed about it doesn’t help. Let’s just get me unstuck and then we can move on to other fun things. (does it feel like I’ve resolved this? not really, right? I want to reference and revisit past work, AND I want to freestyle. I should admit this to myself and do both. does it feel like I could do both? Intellectually yes, but emotionally not so much? Why? Is it because I haven’t experienced myself doing it? So maybe I should make it a task for myself to try? Try referencing AND freestyling, maybe 30 mins of each?)
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An escritoire is a secretary desk… a workspace… the word bureau means desk – originally referring to the cloth covering or a desk.
As I write this I have dozens of tabs open. I’m going to take a minute to close what I can. As I do that I spot glimpses of yesterdays’s work. I had a productive and happy time updating my primary blog, working through categories. I published some notes. At the time of writing, my primary blog has 275 published posts. My /archives/ have 1079 posts. Yesterday, I published 20 of those posts from my substack drafts, tagged “abandoned”. I am continuing to close more tabs. I have a tumblr– HREFgopuram. I have a subreddit, /r/visakanv. (On re-read, I think I’ve reduced my total iOS notes from 1000+ to under 900, which is something. A good start)
(Just got reminded of “the question of questions”: When Rabbi Zusha was on his deathbed, his students found him in uncontrollable tears. They tried to comfort him by telling him that he was almost as wise as Moses and as kind as Abraham, so he was sure to be judged positively in Heaven. He replied, “When I get to Heaven, I will not be asked Why weren’t you like Moses, or Why weren’t you like Abraham. They will ask, Why weren’t you like Zusha?” Why didn’t he fully live up to his own potential?)
Why weren’t you Visa? Why am I trying so hard to be someone I’m not? Miles Davis said, man it takes a long time to sound like yourself. I really don’t want to spend Substack essays focused on writing about creative advice or talking about my own problems, but it also feels like it would be dishonest or evasive not to include any of that, since that is part of who I am. (Are you done talking about your problems? Doesn’t feel like it. There’s still one more thing to resolve the crackle-boom, it feels like.)
This has been a great exercise in “who are you?”
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The view from 50k? Maybe is something I could talk about? When I was a kid, I hated feeling powerless, inconsequential, like nobody cared about what I had to say. To some degree I’m sure all kids feel some of this, which is why so much of what kids love is power fantasy.
Here’s a feeling I have, that like all feelings could maybe be confirmation bias, but it could also maybe have something to it. So I get a lot of mentions and replies from people on Twitter every day. More than I can keep up with. I get lots of DMs, too.
There must be stuff I want to say that I’m not saying and then everything else is noise. I think the thing I want to say is, what is it like to be mildly niche famous? Tim Ferriss wrote a version of it. I might be an arrogant young upstart whippersnapper compared to Tim but I think the thing about Tim is that he got that big by making big bold promises, and there’s something about that that attracts a particular kind of unhinged person. If you make grandiose promises you will attract the kind of people who seek grandiosity. (Copypasting this into the relevant note for the future essay.)