{"id":14984,"date":"2024-12-15T04:45:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-15T04:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/?p=14984"},"modified":"2026-05-26T04:48:41","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T04:48:41","slug":"throughlines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/2024\/12\/15\/throughlines\/","title":{"rendered":"throughlines"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

(2024dec15<\/a>) 14mo\u2019s sleep is going haywire so now im rocking back to sleep like he\u2019s 0-3mo again. remember when i used to do those tweets\/threads? ha. anyway. might as well ramble about an essay idea i had\u2026
\u00b7
so the title that came to me was \u201cthe phantom workspace\u201d- its not quite right, but i\u2019ll start with it and maybe figure out the True Name later. basically im reflecting on the nebulous context in which a lot of my actual thinking\/writing happens
\u00b7
its tricky to point at because i dont really perceive it directly. its somewhat shadowy and murky. and im usually so focused on the thing im doing, i dont really pause to look up and look around. theres a dreamlike quality to this\u2026
\u00b7
(hm, this must be part of why i like the movie Inception so much. it feels fundamentally like the creative process to me, even if you garbled the dialogue etc to be incomprehensible, it has that \u2018phantasmic quality\u2019 im trying to gesture at)
\u00b7
one thing about the phantasmic workspace is that it expands from a point, or several points. this gif does a beautiful job of capturing it. and it rhymes with the inception dream layers, or frame stories (stories within stories).
\u00b7
where the gif falls short for me is that it shows a predictable process- you can see that each shape is followed by a shape with n+1 sides. this does have a pleasing quality and can be evokes purposefully as a poetic structure\u2026 but my phantasms tend to be less \u201cpredictable\u201d(?)
\u00b7
anyway so like. it expands from a point or several points into new shapes, which are made up of more points. and here i can get to an articulation of what happens with failed\/abandoned drafts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b7
There is a throughline from the initial point to the final shape, that\u2019s fuzzy and hard to discern, fragile and hard to hold. if I interrupt the dream, even if I have all the text from a writing session, it basically falls apart. i lose the thread and get stuck in the labyrinth
\u00b7
theres a corollary here too re: what i should do with abandoned drafts- i should disregard most of the details and focus on distilling a sense of the likely throughline. the mistake here is trying to preserve the shapes, which dont matter if the throughline didnt make it
\u00b7
once the throughline has collapsed the shapes dont \u201cmake sense\u201d anymore. they might be intelligible as bundles of words but they no longer add up to a Whole with animating spirit. and its rare that i can renew it immediately after its passed
\u00b7
anyway. most of the time when i sit down with the deliberate intent of Doing Some Writing, it feels like am seeking to enter the phantasmic domain. ~50% of the time, i barely make it past the threshold if at all. ~45% i go some distance then it collapses. 5% i write somethin good
\u00b7
on the other hand, sometimes there are moments where someone asks a question, or something pisses me off, or some other stimuli sets me off, and then its like the portal opens by itself and seemingly guides me from point to shape to throughline mostly in one fell swoop
\u00b7
they arent separate, though. im coming to see that the deliberate attempts are basically training sessions. i am making contributions to the ether, which seemingly vanish, but then return to aid me at the turn of the tide. none of it is ever wasted as long as i keep going
\u00b7
looking back, it feels to me like ive gotten this far without ever really doing a thorough investigation of this process. i probably have some sketches etc, but i think part of me hesitated with a sense of\u2026 what if i somehow break something? lol.
\u00b7
but since \u201cgoing pro\u201d (mindset shift mostly) im coming to terms with the understanding that this is MY process and i have a right to investigate it, theorize about it, tinker with it, and importantly, even be wrong about it
\u00b7
yeah that was the worry. i used to rather be vaguely unsure of how my process works, than be assertively wrong about it. but now i have time and space etc to cycle through multiple wrong ideas to arrive at a better understanding. yea wow i have feelings about this
\u00b7
(a lot of my personal journey through this life has been about me learning to accept that actually i am not a slightly unwelcome guest who has to be on his best behavior \u2018or else\u2019. my life is mine to do as i please with it. keep relearning bits of this from different angles.)
\u00b7
im seeing more clearly how much excess inventory im carrying from a place of fear\/uncertainty\/doubt, how i keep sketching and ideating and plotting how i think things should go, and really all of that weighs me down when the power move is to empty the cup and feel my way thru it
\u00b7
the reason \u201cthe phantom workspace\u201d resonated with me as a phrase i think is that it conveys that this isnt a material situation. like when Morpheus points out to Neo that his speed and strength in the Matrix are not bound by his IRL limitations
\u00b7
now that ive written this particular thread i no longer feel the compulsion to write the essay. the throughline is ~completed and the dream is collapsing. i might revisit it some other time. but for now, on to the next thing. thx<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(2024dec15) 14mo\u2019s sleep is going haywire so now im rocking back to sleep like he\u2019s 0-3mo again. remember when i used to do those tweets\/threads? ha. anyway. might as well ramble about an essay idea i had\u2026\u00b7so the title that came to me was \u201cthe phantom workspace\u201d- its not quite… <\/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":[733],"class_list":["post-14984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-twitter-thread"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5gxNz-3TG","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14984","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=14984"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14984\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14985,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14984\/revisions\/14985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}