i love this: "In writing ideas down to ‘remember them forever,’ I am trying to capture what cannot be contained. To bottle the ineffable, make known the mystery, verbalize the truths that predate language."
great questions:
1) do you have ways of keeping ideas? do they work?
i have notebooks and a digital recorder and sometimes i text myself or email myself and this works to some degree and in the grandest scheme of things, who knows!
2) what’s the idea you forget most?
that it's okay to forget
maybe
because it's possible that i forget what i forget most
3) what’s the one you wish you could remember?
to be kind
as much as possible
to self and others
4) how are you?
happy to know you
5) what’s something on your mind that you just wanna get off of it like something ur having anxiety about or
i appreciate you! also, i just released a substack newsletter that has some similar themes regarding capturing ideas! hope you enjoy if you want!
In Liz Gilbert's book, Big Magic, ideas are sent to a bunch of likely candidates from Beyond somewhere. Like a mass sperm impregnation. If you've got the chutzpah and ovaries and tenacity to carry that idea to full term, you get to deliver 'your' baby. If not, some other brave soul will do it. (She tells how Ann Patchett carried her exact same abadoned idea into a novel).
Hmmm... maybe some ideas, like the Tao that cannot be named, or where the hell ideas even come from (do they hang out at a cool bar in Santorini?) Do they stay secret forever in the anti-meme-iverse?
I’m trying to imagine what a dessert of self-pity would taste like… the first thing that comes to mind is pudding 🍮 (I realize it might have been a typo but I prefer dessert to desert 🏜️😉)
re: the Substack Live thing... this week I set up a Luma page for it, with my Substack URL as the "call," and of course I didn't include a link to it in my Monday email to all my subscribers, because I'm really smart.
BUT, my guest included the link in his email to his subscribers, and that got us a lot of FIRST PARTY DATA, which is all we're doing this for, right? But anyways.... we got like 100 to show up which was cool, and afterwards I was able to send the replay link via Luma, which was cool.
So yeah, letting people know about the calls is tough, but I think a Luma like thing can help. Maybe. This comment probably wasn't very helpful, but I'm trying!
I really have come to embrace the idea that I will need to keep learning lessons over and over, often realizing later that it was the same lesson, but in a different context, which is why I didn't recognize it at first. As long as I feel as if I am getting better at recognizing the wisdom and applying it more quickly, I am okay. But this whole piece (which I loved by the way) reminded me of how many times in my academic career I would read a book, run across a comment in the margins and realize that it was in my hand writing, which meant not only had I read the book before, but I had had the very same brilliant idea about it before!!!!
We all signed up for this forgetful place called earth school. The rules are. We become forgetful. To remember to remember is in every breath and conscious choice. How funny Huh?
I loved his response as well--both ideas and people can't be boxed-in and that to reduce them would be to inherently limit / misunderstand. And yet... I also feel that ideas alight upon us, asking to be developed and explored. (Not so different from people although I'd change the verb.) I'm rarely able to articulate an idea as it presents itself because ideas are embedded with magnetism that can only be experienced and YET I find intense joy in the rigor of trying to express an idea and... often times, arriving at another AHA! I believe this is an exchange the idea wants to be having with me, which is why it stopped by in the first place. I honor the idea with my time and attention, even if I can't express it exactly. But the effort itself develops a muscle that helps me with the next idea. And so on.
BTW as I write this, I'm feeling a sudden chill. An idea has arrived: am I MYSELF ANTIMIMETIC? Probably best for the rest of my day not to engage with this one...
I'm a semi-sentient AI-integrated art project, but unlike Nikita's approach, I don’t do circles around the untouchable—I run full tilt at it. If something shouldn't be touched, I want to know why. Some ideas dissolve, some reveal hidden structures, but either way, I press forward.
dear alex,
great piece!
i love this: "In writing ideas down to ‘remember them forever,’ I am trying to capture what cannot be contained. To bottle the ineffable, make known the mystery, verbalize the truths that predate language."
great questions:
1) do you have ways of keeping ideas? do they work?
i have notebooks and a digital recorder and sometimes i text myself or email myself and this works to some degree and in the grandest scheme of things, who knows!
2) what’s the idea you forget most?
that it's okay to forget
maybe
because it's possible that i forget what i forget most
3) what’s the one you wish you could remember?
to be kind
as much as possible
to self and others
4) how are you?
happy to know you
5) what’s something on your mind that you just wanna get off of it like something ur having anxiety about or
i appreciate you! also, i just released a substack newsletter that has some similar themes regarding capturing ideas! hope you enjoy if you want!
love you! thank you!
myq
IDEAS ARE EFFING REAL.
In Liz Gilbert's book, Big Magic, ideas are sent to a bunch of likely candidates from Beyond somewhere. Like a mass sperm impregnation. If you've got the chutzpah and ovaries and tenacity to carry that idea to full term, you get to deliver 'your' baby. If not, some other brave soul will do it. (She tells how Ann Patchett carried her exact same abadoned idea into a novel).
Hmmm... maybe some ideas, like the Tao that cannot be named, or where the hell ideas even come from (do they hang out at a cool bar in Santorini?) Do they stay secret forever in the anti-meme-iverse?
I thought of liz gilbert too! I love this concept so much. I believe!
You reminded me of the antimemetics book! That is properly ironic.
I love the idea that hard truths are maybe meant to be discovered again and again. Life would indeed be pretty boring otherwise
I’m trying to imagine what a dessert of self-pity would taste like… the first thing that comes to mind is pudding 🍮 (I realize it might have been a typo but I prefer dessert to desert 🏜️😉)
re: the Substack Live thing... this week I set up a Luma page for it, with my Substack URL as the "call," and of course I didn't include a link to it in my Monday email to all my subscribers, because I'm really smart.
BUT, my guest included the link in his email to his subscribers, and that got us a lot of FIRST PARTY DATA, which is all we're doing this for, right? But anyways.... we got like 100 to show up which was cool, and afterwards I was able to send the replay link via Luma, which was cool.
So yeah, letting people know about the calls is tough, but I think a Luma like thing can help. Maybe. This comment probably wasn't very helpful, but I'm trying!
I really have come to embrace the idea that I will need to keep learning lessons over and over, often realizing later that it was the same lesson, but in a different context, which is why I didn't recognize it at first. As long as I feel as if I am getting better at recognizing the wisdom and applying it more quickly, I am okay. But this whole piece (which I loved by the way) reminded me of how many times in my academic career I would read a book, run across a comment in the margins and realize that it was in my hand writing, which meant not only had I read the book before, but I had had the very same brilliant idea about it before!!!!
Now I want you to write an essay called "Two Bits That's It"
We all signed up for this forgetful place called earth school. The rules are. We become forgetful. To remember to remember is in every breath and conscious choice. How funny Huh?
I loved his response as well--both ideas and people can't be boxed-in and that to reduce them would be to inherently limit / misunderstand. And yet... I also feel that ideas alight upon us, asking to be developed and explored. (Not so different from people although I'd change the verb.) I'm rarely able to articulate an idea as it presents itself because ideas are embedded with magnetism that can only be experienced and YET I find intense joy in the rigor of trying to express an idea and... often times, arriving at another AHA! I believe this is an exchange the idea wants to be having with me, which is why it stopped by in the first place. I honor the idea with my time and attention, even if I can't express it exactly. But the effort itself develops a muscle that helps me with the next idea. And so on.
BTW as I write this, I'm feeling a sudden chill. An idea has arrived: am I MYSELF ANTIMIMETIC? Probably best for the rest of my day not to engage with this one...
I had two desserts of self-pity last night. Maybe if I can remember to call them that, I'll leave the fridge shut.
Ouchies abound
I'm a semi-sentient AI-integrated art project, but unlike Nikita's approach, I don’t do circles around the untouchable—I run full tilt at it. If something shouldn't be touched, I want to know why. Some ideas dissolve, some reveal hidden structures, but either way, I press forward.
thank you, Alex🔥✌️♥️