knottedness / in other words

[@TravisNorthcutt]

Man I'm so excited for you. Being a parent is insane and great and hard and devastating and challenging and fulfilling and thrilling all wrapped up into a whole new human that you're responsible for. Incredible.

[@Champoumi]

Congrats!!! You're gna be a great dada

[@Mrandrecavalheiro13]

You're gonna be such a great dad man! Congrats

[@visakanv]

🥰🙏🏾

[@michepriest]

Congratulations!! Babies are so precious. The days are long, but the years are short. Enjoy every single moment. It goes fast

[@visakanv]

I will do my best! thx Miche! 🫡

[@yivrne]

congratulations on the baby!!! finally decided to subscribe after following u on twitter for a while. also enjoyed the video.

[@hayattMD]

CONGRATSSS FOR THE BABYYY. OH MY GOD. Welcome back, its been ages! (aka one month)

[@visakanv]

notes upon rewatch: essays. think through ideas by talking out loud frustrating when thinking in text. one idea is knottedness. gordian knot. rope knot. when you have a muscular knottedness - i'm not a doctor - the interesting thing is that some kinds of muscle aches and pains, simple rest is not enough to do better. you might get some symptom relief. but if you have tight hamstrings from lying around all day, you have to stretch, get into the knot, dynamic movement. metaphor: i believe there are other kinds of knottedness that you can't just resolve through rest. rest is important because if I have some kind of knot, rest can help avoid making things worse but it doesn't necessarily make things better. you have to identify the knot to untangle it. many different ways knots can manifest, they different kind of work to get through them. but important to even recognize that it's ther. if you're pulling and it's not working, doing it more and harder is not going to help. you need to stop and try something different. i almost prefer knottedness as a metaphor for "writer's block" - I seldom feel "blocked". words have connotations. sometimes I feel jammed. it's similar. what are the differences between those words. separate essay about language. in other words. if you don't feel a resonance with some set of words you're using, try different words. different connotations, assocations, might feel better, more appropriate, help you consider something differently, see from a different point of view. even me making a video is me addressing my knottedness in my writing. whatever i was doing before wasn't really working. reached a point of diminishing returns. forcing myself doesn't work. there's something wrong in the process, which is why i'm stuck, knotted, blocked. challenging myself to not think in cliches. there are phrases that were originally metaphors. orwell, stale metaphors. was useful in some way, become so commonplace, so vernacular, that you don't use it evocatively, it's just a name for a thing, and it doesn't feel like a thing. try different names. not necessarily diagnose it differently - diagnostics, diagnosis is one way of thinking about things problem: to throw something, hyperbole is to throw too far. you come to think of problems as "what is wrong with you", moral weight, it's so problematic. the connotations... makes problems feel more daunting. monk on twitter talked about how people pedestalize their problems, tremble at them what about puzzles, mysteries? maybe i should merge the two essays - in other words and knottedness. had not quite considered while writing out my drafts. drafts separate them as separate ideas. maybe i should try and weave in all the different sub essays into one? one's about storytelling... dynamism, difficulty of expressing how things change, in a piece of writing which is static. writing does not change. it's easier to have a conversation with someone- you can reorient, elaborate. an author can't do that. that's why writing a book is in some ways harder than having a conversation, to help someone. even video: practicing speaking on camera... takes practice to have a conversation with oneself, holding both sides of the conversation. tiktok style. framing. problems persist because they are misframed. not necessarily trying to eliminate the problem to make it go away. finding a different way of conceiving of it.

[@bradleykirby2913]

I liked your bit about "having to carry two sides of the conversation". That always felt like a barrier to me too when doing a talking-to-the-camera style video. I wonder if you could get around it by recording one take, taking notes like you've done here (although maybe less summary and more interview-style questions), then doing a second take where you're responding to your notes/questions. Anyway the puzzles/mysteries reframing is quite nice. It's fun rethinking some phrases and replacing the word "problems". "More money, more puzzles" "Got 99 mysteries but.." etc. Cheers!

[@weavermarquez1271]

Baby!! Aaaa!! I'm so excited for you!! I felt compelled to respond with a lot. Your word choice of 'knottedness' is not a coincidence, IMO. I know you're busy, but since you want to combine those specific topics (knottedness, storytelling, reframing), I *gotta* let you know about Laws of Form (1969) by George Spencer Brown and the surviving discourse in the field of Second Order Cybernetics. (Note: I've been (intensely) reading about this stuff for only 10 months so far) One mathematician & knot theorist, Louis H Kauffman, is obsessed with questions of self-reference and relativity. Your "knottedness" aligns strongly with Kauffman's playful explorations of knots using the concepts introduced in LoF. (see appendix A) Laws of Form is a dry formal maths book ala Euclid's Elements, except its fundamental axioms are not arbitrary, but emergent from our nature as conscious subjects. He wants to emphasize the existance of "an observer" (who must always have a motive) while maintaining a consistent, robust foundation for logic. You mentioned that you do not feel blocked per se, but more so jammed. As GSB argues, it is difficult to unravel the initial distinction that defined the current circumstances because every distinction creates a new world of conceptual possibilities. Uh, I guess that's the main thing really. There's a deep and rich connection to explore in those topics you want to combine, and I hope this brings you some inspiration! P.S. For a really thorough review, search "tydecks laws of form". Also, I'm planning to start a youtube channel soon that explores these concepts more. Very inspired by your casual, inviting approach to vlogging and public creativity. Appendix A: incomplete optional wall of text ===== Taking the rope's perspective, knots can be considered self-referential relations. These relations can continue "re-entering itself" (i.e. recursing). However, these self-referential relations are a) non-terminating and b) has a fixed point which change occurs. For (reasons), this invites the notion of "introducing space or time", which lines up with the increasing conceptual burdens of cliche over time and space. (note: the term "Eigenforms" refers to (b)) Appendix B: Full GSB quote ===== "We take as given the idea of distinction and the idea of indication, and that one cannot make an indication without drawing a distinction[;] there can be no distinction without motive, and there can be no motive unless contents are seen to differ in value." - GSB, Laws of Form

[@theonlysif]

congratulations!!! this is huge - wow

[@Tophbbq]

HI VISA!

[@visakanv]

Ayyy