{"id":14488,"date":"2024-10-13T09:52:12","date_gmt":"2024-10-13T09:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/?p=14488"},"modified":"2024-12-21T10:17:24","modified_gmt":"2024-12-21T10:17:24","slug":"hyperion-and-lazarus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/2024\/10\/13\/hyperion-and-lazarus\/","title":{"rendered":"hyperion and lazarus"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There\u2019s something very funny about how i\u2019ve been spending the past 2 years struggling to figure out the container for my current work. I recently decided that it\u2019s to be called \u25a3 Frame Studies \u25a3. It\u2019s the current name of the substack, and I hope to spend the next 2 years or so putting together a collection of essays that will bear that title before I move on to whatever\u2019s next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now here\u2019s the funny thing. I\u2019ve tweeted about this a bunch, spoken about this a bunch, and I\u2019ve even helped a lot of other people with it as a marketing consultant. And yet. I\u2019ve been trapped within my own frame of assumptions and expectations of what these essays are supposed to be. And I gotta tell you it\u2019s been fucking exhausting. I\u2019m so tired. There\u2019s a chance I might be mixing up the tiredness of being a parent with the tiredness of working on this project, but I don\u2019t think that\u2019s it. Because I know that when I\u2019m in the right frame for a piece of writing, it absolutely just pours out of me. I don\u2019t even have to think about it, my fingers just go ~wooosh~ and I\u2019m barely a participant. Like that Dave Chappelle quote from Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee<\/em> about letting the idea drive. You know the work is gonna be good when the idea shows up at your house, saying \u2018let\u2019s go!!\u2019<\/em> And you say \u2018I\u2019m not dressed, where are we going?\u2019,<\/em> it says \u2018you\u2019ll be fine, don\u2019t worry about it.\u2019<\/em> Sometimes you\u2019re sitting shotgun, sometimes you\u2019re in the fucken trunk. On the other hand, there are moments were you think, \u201cYou know what? I should drive.\u201d<\/em> That\u2019s when it likely doesn\u2019t work, because there\u2019s no idea in the car. I\u2019ve spent so much time in the driver\u2019s seat and it\u2019s exhausting. I want to let the ideas drive. I don\u2019t even wanna say \u2018my ideas\u2019. Who knows where the fuck ideas come from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I guess there\u2019s a pattern here that\u2019s similar to why I took so long with my second book Introspect. It was a book about processing one\u2019s personal issues, facing one\u2019s inner demons and so on, and I didn\u2019t feel like I could honestly present that book to the world if I didn\u2019t do some of it in the process of talking about it<\/em>. And I did. And I think it\u2019s what gives the book it\u2019s animating spirit. Some of the book is janky, it takes a little too long to get started, it goes a little all over the place, and there are some parts that are straight up unfinished. Would I like to fix all of those things? Sorta. But it doesn\u2019t feel like the most important thing I could be doing. The most important thing I could be doing is actually solving this goddamn puzzle of \u201cwhy am I not having fun working on Frame Studies?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And when I write about it I know it must be because I\u2019m approaching it the wrong way. I\u2019m approaching it like it\u2019s supposed to be something rigid and canonical. I remember making this exact mistake years ago when I was at work, trying to write a proper canonical guide to a particular concept that felt really important, and I spent months and months making no progress on it at all. The advice I\u2019d have given someone in my shoes then would have been to get away from the blank page and try to have a conversation about it with someone. And maybe that\u2019s what I should be doing here, too. I was just reading some of Scale by Geoffrey West, and at some point he talks about one of Galileo\u2019s books, Dialogue Concerning The Two Chief World Systems<\/em><\/a> (1632)<\/em>, which was written as a kind of socratic dialogue between 3 fictional characters, and I find myself thinking that maybe that\u2019s what I need, to stop being \u201cme\u201d and inhabit a different\u2026 frame\u2026 other than Visakan Veerasamy As The Narrator. Why do I seem so averse to writing \u2018fiction\u2019? I guess my first thought is that I don\u2019t really see anybody else doing it. But why do I care what other people are doing? It\u2019s just force of habit, probably. Being a social animal and all that. But alright, I\u2019m pacing my house a little and I\u2019m convinced, I should write a bunch of dialogues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I.<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

I have a large volume of notes and drafts that I have been increasingly frustrated with. I\u2019ve decided to try tackling them by writing them out as dialogues. I have not thought this through. I\u2019m just going to freestyle it and see what happens. For starters, I need to give my characters names. My first thought goes to generic names like \u201cJohn and James\u201d, which I feel meh about. I kinda want slightly silly but evocative names. Hypertext\u2026 Hyperion\u2026 and\u2026 longform\u2026 Laurence\u2026 Lazarus. Lazarus and Hyperion. That\u2019ll do. What context shall I put them in? Present day? Cyberspace?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lazarus, a young and moderately successful author, was feeling disheartened. He had been working really hard for a really long time and didn\u2019t seem to have anything to show for it. He had a large volume of drafts which he felt suffocated by, yet the idea of throwing them all away felt like sacrilege to him. He hardly seemed to be getting any sleep, and he was chugging coffees and energy drinks and smoking far too many cigarettes, all of which he knew was ruining his rest further. But he couldn\u2019t seem to help it. One moment of clarity, he thought, just one resplendent moment of clarity, and it might all turn around. He might finally find the magical string of words he needed that would reanimate all the material around him, and he would be able to confidently share his work with his peers, and they would be astonished, and the readers would be awestruck, and the world would be marginally better for it, and at last he would be able to sleep fitfully, feeling like he\u2019d earned his keep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that moment of clarity continued to elude him, as it had for over a year now. \u2018I should talk to someone,\u2019 he mused. \u2018Someone who understands what I\u2019m doing, someone who appreciates my work, who won\u2019t just give me clich\u00e9d advice, someone who\u2019ll ask me the right questions\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As he went on, he found himself thinking of his old friend Hyperion. Years ago, Lazarus and Hyperion were bandmates in a somewhat popular local rock band called Molotov. Lazarus wrote the lyrics, and Hyperion wrote the riffs. The two of them always had excellent chemistry, each of them constantly coming up with suggestions that improved the other\u2019s work. If it weren\u2019t for the other deadbeats in the band being so unserious about their craft, Lazarus was certain that they could\u2019ve been far more successful than they were. But lately he\u2019d been second-guessing himself. \u2018What if I\u2019m just wrong about everything? What if I have no idea what it actually takes to be successful, and I\u2019m just\u2026 thinking whatever is convenient to make me feel better about myself?\u2019 He shook his head. \u2018Hyperion would know how to think about this. How has it been years since we last spoke?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, life happened. The band canceled a series of gigs because one member or another couldn\u2019t make it, and then they postponed having practice, and then everyone drifted apart. Lazarus was busy with his work in advertising and writing his novels on the side, while Hyperion moved to work in tech startups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2731 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(2024sep24) A writer is stressed, overwhelmed, distracted, uninspired. He paces his cramped little study, which has his computer and his books, and his children\u2019s toys, and other assorted junk. He glances at his phone. An old friend had texted asking to meet for a coffee. He sighs. Might as well. Nothing else seems to be working. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a day with torrential rains. He boards a bus that\u2019s filled with a raucous gaggle of shrieking children, soaked from the downpour. He sighs again. He just needs some time to think, he thinks. Surely if he could just carve out a little time and space, everything would become clear. Although, he notes\u2026 he had a lot more time and space before his children were born, and things weren\u2019t much clearer then. But, he has more of an incentive now than ever to attain clarity. The question is, does seeking clarity make it likelier to emerge? Or does the seeking itself tragically kick up a dust that makes it even harder to see anything? There\u2019s not much time, he needs some sort of win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He stares out the bus window as the rainwater slides outside it, melting the outside world into a blurry cascades of shapes and colors. \u201cThis used to be my favorite thing,\u201d he thought to himself piteously. \u201cOnce upon a time, or in another life, this would be a lovely experience.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The soft mallet of this possibility strikes a dusty gong in his heart, and a faint-yet-deep chime rings out, shimmering. \u201cThis could be a lovely experience right now still,\u201d it whispers to him. \u201cIn fact, it already is. All you need to do is to take off the psychic armor- release the muscular tension- take a deep breath- and recontextualize yourself\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Train. The light screeching of the rails.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s something very funny about how i\u2019ve been spending the past 2 years struggling to figure out the container for my current work. I recently decided that it\u2019s to be called \u25a3 Frame Studies \u25a3. It\u2019s the current name of the substack, and I hope to spend the next 2… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5gxNz-3LG","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14488"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14493,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14488\/revisions\/14493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}