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
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 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
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” – da vinci “every book is a failure” – orwell From time
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
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 doesn’t have to mean you pick up the language and aesthetics often associated wi
artful incompleteness
(abandoned substack draft) No piece of work can ever fully contextualize itself, you’ll go mad trying. But what if things we
Oral history of 2010s
Point of this doc is to situate myself, feel more grounded… It’s going to be a substack post Game of Thrones decade, 2011-
we are all Vincent Adultman
Social fabric is woven with polite fictions. One of the major threads in that fabric is the idea of a unilateral self. The ide
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 canâ
twitter drafts 2022oct7
power: people who feel powerless seldom want the responsibility that comes with power. to a surprising degree, power is grante
new guy navigating group norms
(og thread) every group of people develops some set of norms, and there is typically friction when a new entrant joins the gro
abdication
(oct2022 thread) a thing I haven’t quite been able to connect the dots on properly, but have an increasing felt sense of: th
external meaning structures
(og thread) people who are bad at generating their own meaning get much more troubled by disruptions and turbulence in externa
behavior change requires addressing copes
(og thread) vague intuition that a critical factor of why behavior change/redesign is so unsuccessful so often is: insufficien
power
(original thread) experimenting with a frame, not sure if I’m entirely behind it but let’s see how it feels: iR
plaintext
Some shit about written language. Cuneiform. Rewatch that extra credit video. Hyper literacy âś± i love to be a wh
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
trivia
Erasmus Mersenne Jadav Dashrath Wang yinji abdallah Chola Jane jacobs, mixed uses, wealth creation, sidewalks, strangers
100 greatest products of all time
Work in progress.
you can just not do the thing
(og thread) “The entire internet gaslighting itself into watching Morbius is one of the most hysterical things I’v
how to be a self-directed indie scholar
Here’s my backstory, my approach, my beliefs. First, I believe the core thing is that you have to have a personal set of cur
language
A big part of why I write is so I can think clearly without all of the inelegant clutter of most people’s words, and mo
filters and boundaries
(og thread) i dont feel like anybody ever talked to me about filters and boundaries in the way that i’d have liked to he
broscience stress theory
(original thread) my big broscience medical conspiracy theory is that tonnes of things are downstream of stress (which have to
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 hereâ
words smoosh concepts smoosh memories
(original thread) there’s something interesting that happens when you void the warranty on your received indoctrination
socially inherited bloatware
(2019nov thread) had several conversations w/ friends who’ve been incapacitated by the burdensome bullshit obligation to
naming ceremony
this was me just freestyling and jamming about my substack Naming ceremony This is an associative exercise, just listing out t
wooten
Don’t think about the bass, think about the drums I asked him to take the attention off the bass, and you heard it get bette
taskmaster: do you deserve joy?
(og thread) looking back, one of the major anxieties of my teens and most of my 20s was caused by this unhelpful, unhealthy be
2050 predictions
I was asked by @mold_time to make some predictions for 2050. Now, that’s a wack thing to do, because 2050 basically 30 years
hyperinflation
everybody owes each other stuff, we call this society then people invented coin to represent this debt and trade it around, we
better explanations
(dec2021 thread) throughout my life I recurringly find myself thinking the thought “nobody explained this to me the way it o
calendar rehab, aversion to containers
(original thread) might as well talk about it out loud: i experience a deep aversion to putting stuff to do on my calendar (ot
better explanations
(2021dec3 thread) throughout my life I recurringly find myself thinking the thought “nobody explained this to me the way it
my compulsive people
(og thread) hypothesis: a thing abt “my people” is they each have some way in which they are oddly compulsive, at
mayor
This was Aug2021? doesn’t seem that long ago. Was discussing with malcolm how we would do things differently. It’s m
In Praise of Idleness, by Bertrand Russell [1932]
Like most of my generation, I was brought up on the saying: ‘Satan finds some mischief for idle hands to do.’ Bein
Pericles’ Funeral Oration [~431 BCE]
(VV: Emphasis mine.) Most of those who have spoken here before me have commended the lawgiver who added this oration to our ot
just hit your target
This is the same core principle for starting a business or becoming an author, or anything really just sell one product, then
coleridge moment
(og thread) Just had a Coleridge moment. i took a nap, and in that nap i was on vacation, and on that vacation i was perfectly
prioritization defeats anxiety
observation: A person who is prioritizing is still not succeeding at the impossible task of doing everything they want to do,
how to scenius, draft
(scenius thread) a more general version of this is my dominant preoccupation, so here are some riffs and thoughts broad stroke
kurosawa
Aspiring directors #1- expensive, hard, you must learn and experience things, it’s not easy But if you genuinely want
postratmusings
“Trying to sell ebooks to not have a job” well first of all, yes, I don’t want a job. I personally hate jobs. Second: in
i miss writing
I just had the thought that I miss writing. Which is a funny thought to have, considering how much time I spend every day twee
the invitation: stop fussing
There are few things I dislike more than people telling me what to do. So this is not a directive. This is an invitation. You
naiise
I have been too tired/busy with other things to do very much these few days, but I promise I will never shut up about the stor
The Making Of A Public Intellectual, Devoney Looser [2017]
Summary: The author is an expert on the subject of Jane Austen. She was interviewed by CNN when the Bank of England placed her
The Problem Of Excess Genius, by David Banks [1997]
David Banks, Department of StatisticsCarnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh PA 15213 The most important question we can ask of
no scolding
(og thread) I seldom articulate this explicitly but one of the cornerstones of my approach to peopling is “no scolding&#
arrogance
(og thread) When I was a teenager, the dominant criticism my closest friends had of me was that I was too arrogant, and they w
leadership and responsibility
prev: do whatever the fuck you want I didn’t grow up wanting to be a leader. I grew up wanting to have fun. And leadership o
Do Whatever The Fuck You Want
(written ~Dec 2020?) When I was a teenager there was a Singaporean band that I really liked called Ronin, and one of their son
gender stuff
I wanna try tweeting like my most straightforward honest feelings about gender stuff; my thinking itself seems to be convolute
turning 30, 31
30 I just turned 30. I kinda try to do an update every year, though I’m not sure if I’ve been super deliberate about that.
handover protocols
“Political visions are fragile. They appear—and are lost again. Ideas formulated in one generation are frequently forg
how to weave a hyperthread web
“Everything rests upon Me, as pearls are strung on a thread.” – Lord Krishna to Arjuna, Bhagavad-gita, Chapter 7.7 In hi
pre-installed personalities
(original thread) with each passing year I get more and more convinced that people are practically born with most of their per
mkt1000
1000 blogpost ideas. There may be a few repeats. 0121013243069365911100013371000000s1d1st2010s2020s2nd3d3rd48laws4chan50s50sha
psychographs
(original 2019 thread) You know how people sometimes go to sleep thinking about a problem and wake up with the solution? I wen
dismantling obsolete beliefs
(2019 thread) there’s a sort of bullshit detector in my brain, which contains a set of beliefs about how the world works
aesthetics (junkyard of notes, links)
I want to persuade people that it’s worth their time and effort to experiment with their aesthetics. Why? I can start by
sensitivity
sensitivity is a superpower – IMO sensitivity + smarts + strength is the holy grail. We have many cargo cults that worship s
Narcissism
many cultures have anti-narcissist defenses that, kinda unfortunately, seem to end up discouraging everyone except actual narc
Top 10 things I’ve had to unlearn
Slingshot
The following post is a copy-paste of a Twitter thread. It will take some time before it turns into an essay of its own. I’v
make friends
Warning: This “blogpost” is currently just a messy, meandering collection of thoughts and notes. If I can only pic
threads
Here are a list of my threads.
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
the world is not kind to those who are tacky
Late night thought: “Don’t be tacky (unless you know why you’re doing it)” is a surprisingly powerful heuristic for me
@visakanv’s top 10 lifehacks
(Originally posted on Twitter) 10. Do 1,000 of something. Anything, it doesn’t matter what. Really. When was the last time y
magic is just persistent curiosity
I’ve been circling around a few thoughts recently, and it’s about the idea of “magic”. I guess also se
memex
People keep asking me about the memex in my Twitter header. You can download a PDF of it if you like. Make friends. It is dang
assemble the mindcity
(original thread) Now that more of us are playing the threading game: As we compete+collaborate effectively articulate things
sf friends
I was going through my photos and I wanted to keep track of all the people I met. Unfortunately sometimes I met someone and di
Where does money come from, really?
A question that made me anxious when I was a teenager is “where does money come from really?” Most people tend to be s
blogroll
In the old days, people used to have lists of links on their blogs to other blogs that they liked reading. Here’s mine.
A letter to my younger self, on the trip of our life
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
I have a happy problem. I have over 10,000 Twitter followers. I’d like to think that I’d like to meet every last o
mkt content ideas 2017
Origin Stories I’d like to do a post exploring the origin stories of all the popular marketers and marketing thought lea
economics of dating
I’ve always been quite fascinated with the economics of dating. Louis CK had this interesting bit about how there are some p
you can’t get everything you want
getting what you want isn’t always a good thing “I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they e
first day of work
This was me on my first day of work. It’s been 4 years now. Here’s what I remember… I was terrified. It was
Turn curiosities into essays
This is an old note that’s interesting because it was from a while after I left my job, but before I started really succ
the boy who wouldn’t behave
“Why is nobody helping me?” Amos Yee isn’t the first person to say the things he’s said. He isn̵
battery low
I got curious about exploring this metaphor because of how I felt during a trip, thinking about how tedious and annoying it wa
lsd quotes
LSD quotes “Psychedelics […] dissolve opinion structures and culturally laid down models of behaviour and informa
make friends
— 1 — You can spend years arguing with idiots, or you can spend years making friends. The idiots aren’t going to be
2019 twitter
January strategy/marketing/biz/career stuff: sermon: play the long game theory about loving your own writing the best content