If you can be one thing, be prolific.
Visakan Veerasamy, who has written 241,700 tweets, 849 essays and 2 books, has taught me this.
I always had an inkling that I wanted to write. I began writing to myself on the back of notebooks when I was 9. But as I grew up, I imagined shame, criticism and failure much before I had the courage to share anything. More ideas die in the mind than on the page.
Visa says do 100 things. “The magic of ‘do 100 things’ is that there’s nothing else in that sentence. But people with Expectations add their own words that aren’t there. They read it as ‘Do 100 good things well’, or ‘finish 100 things or you’re an incompetent failure’…it is Do 100 Crappy Things For No Reason, With No Agenda To Live Up To, At Whatever Pace Feels Comfortable, However You Like.”
Not only does he say it. He practises it. Visa creates copious amounts of content on his blog, substack, youtube and Twitter. Apart from being prolific, he has an earnest presence. There is no click bait, no word counts. He is trying to get his ideas out in all their meandering and complex glory. (”If you think I’m Bad, sure, but I’d like you to consider how easily I could be Worse.”) He doesn’t write for ‘Most people’ and he is okay with that math. He is funny, philosophical and honest in his attempt to write about life, the universe and everything. Those are my areas of interest exactly. It is inspiring that he isn’t waiting for permission from anyone or a marker of accomplishment in this pursuit. (“you must think so highly of yourself that’s why you write so much publicly like your opinions matter”).
Visa admits that his writings and blogs are a sprawling mess of ideas, notes and have a life of their own but you can start with these essays that have helped me. (Everything in quotes (" ") is by Visa)
Focus on what you want to see more of - We are surrounded by opinions and debating the ‘wrong’ opinion becomes the core of our battles. I find myself in these righteous shoes often. But this line reminds me to focus my time and energy on what I want to see more of.
Are you serious? - “Some people go their whole lives without ever having met anyone else who I might describe as actually serious, so they find it hard to believe that anybody could really mean what they say, since everything everyone says is bullshit.” We have all suffered this - at work, in relationships. This quality of saying what you mean and doing what you say is precious. As long as people around you are being serious (not solemn or tedious), the joy of doing increases significantly. I want to be a serious person. And I want to surround myself with serious people.
Practice a good reply game - This is a helpful Twitter tool but it made me think about how I could be better at everyday conversations. “The important thing is not to speak your mind, but to support the OP (original poster). You can support them by disagreeing well & you can mis-support them by agreeing stupidly. Every utterance (status, tweet, whatever) is a bit of an invitation, a bit of a proposal. ‘Let’s play this game’. When strangers read the proposal accurately, and support the game, a shared understanding develops. You can make friends this way.”
I hope he will find another friendly, ambitious nerd in you.
And as for me, I am relearning how to write to myself, how to create without expectation, how to do 100 crappy things. This time around though it is on a website for everyone to find.
This essay is part of my last assignment at Write of Passage. Thank you for your feedback and edits.
Thank you for being prolific.
Cheers Trupthi! ❤️🔥