failing analogies, finding success, and fast friendship
july '23
And the second half begins! It feels uncomfortable to say that because yesterday was clearly June 1st - my guess is that someone’s foot fell asleep on the time machine’s gas pedal.
Instead of rambling about my tardiness with this letter or giving you some random explanation as to what I was working on, let me share something of value. Isn’t that the point of this whole thing anyways?
I recently saw a tweet thread that read "Most people die at 25 and aren't buried until they're 75". The thread breaks down the monotony and depreciating value of life in digestible bits and interesting visuals; but it’s not depressing, rather very inspiring!
But anyways, since you clearly didn’t click that link… let’s get into it.
i’m feeling lucky
Remember in May, I mentioned that scene from the start of High School Musical where they all go crazy when summer break arrives? Well this playlist is how it feels as an adult, when you finally feel like it’s summer and all you want to do is groove.
Can’t lie, this set of 40 is awesome - featuring Tom Misch, Kaytraminé, Remi Wolf and many other names that were unkown to me as of 10 days ago. Enjoy!
Can’t lie twice - I made this playlist for June. But I’m still grooving to it, so I’ll add a handful more throughout July and then refresh fully in August!
[Archive playlist can be found here, and in my spotify bio]
success(ion)
Like many of you, I just finished watching the series finale of Succession! Unlike many of you, I didn’t watch a single other episode - just the last one. Yes, my girlfriend was watching the finale and didn’t care to watch the whole show but it was fun watching the last episode. I had no context nor did I really care to have any; it was simply entertaining to watch the culmination of a grand storyline and see the surprise and turmoil on Anya’s face. One thing stood out to me though, while trying to understand all the characters… They all wanted the same thing: success. They wanted to feel some semblance of success. Whether it was taking over the company as the CEO, finding acceptance from a partner, or emotionally maturing in a way that felt fulfilling, they all sought success. Which got me thinking: what is success?
In this quick, spit-balled, brainstorm of an answer, I’ll be using three different sources to try and urge you to define your own version of success.
Source 1: this famous McConaughey Oscar Speech
Source 2: this (now-deleted) tweet from my friend Luca
Source 3: this TED Talk excerpt from Richard St. John
Yes, all three sources come from white men. Does that matter? No… I think.
Source 1: Mconaughey’s Oscar-winning speech is iconic because of his poise and grace on the stage while being able to deliver such a poignant message. The key part of the message I’d like to extract is the person that he chases - himself in 10 years. He explains that his own version of success is always fleeting and unatainable because he’s trying to be the next-best-version of himself that will always exist in the future. I love this piece because it reinforces the idea that we are never perfect and there is always work to do. But ofcourse it has it’s limitations… where are the metrics? What about seeking approval from a semblance of achievement? In Mconaughey’s description of what he chases, he poses a beautiful image of chasing this 10-year-headstart self but in reality, does it become a dystopic search for a better version of yourself that might never exist?
Source 2: The similarity between Luca’s tweet and Mconaughey’s speech is the idea of consistency. They both preach this never-ending pursuit of success that seems to have a dystopic undertone to it, if left unattended. But Luca gives us an unsolicited definition in less than 140 characters. He uses relentlessness as the quantification of how successful someone is. Relentlesness is a powerful word, in my opinion. “Relentless” describes something so powerful about somebody’s desire to achieve something. It means that this person won’t let anything get in their way. If we went along with Luca’s definition, the more relentless someone is, the more successful they are. But is that fair? Usually we see statements that say: “______ is/isn’t a measure of success”. What I like about Luca’s definition is that it flips the common saying and allows success to be measured by something else - a characteristic, in this case. What I find intriguing about Luca’s tweet is the last four words: “in most people’s eyes.” Does this mean that success is not actually measured by relentlessness but by the arbitrary metrics of people that view my work? Does the outside world mold my own definition of success? (Luca deleted his tweet. I’m not sure why, but it makes u think)
Source 3: This dude is a bit crazy, let me be honest with you on that. He talks fast and says success like every 5 seconds, but it’s somewhat cute because you can tell he’s been through some shit. And he really believes in his own definition of success. You see, when he says success is a continuous journey, he’s describing the changing nature of what success means to us at different times in our lives. But he’s leaving out the key words that describe this change: misconception, envy, greed and jealousy. These 4 characteristics will pop up every so often, just to misconstrue our own definition of success. For example, someone could start out learning the guitar and sharing their progress on Youtube. Next thing you know, they’re focused on selling classes and promoting some brand’s handmade guitars. The measure of success could change from musical talent to social media fame and eventually to money. I think Richard St. John embraces this malleable measure as a good thing, but I’m not sure I agree with him. I think the changing definition of success is very natural and repetitive, but not sure if it’s healthy or efficient. He also mentions using the 8 principles to achieve and sustain success… but how can you sustain success if it’s a continuous journey?
I promised you a quick, spit-balled, brainstorm of an answer so here it is:
Success is an achievement of the ideal future that lies [insert metric of time] ahead. It can be measured by things like influence, money, approval, happiness, etc. It has no set timeline and is constantly changing as our immediate priorities evolve. Success has no final destination, yet is most accurately achieved when not worrying about it.
Rough, I know. But this segment was more to spark a thought and conversation, rather than give you some great answer. I don’t know shit, but let’s figure this all out together. What is your definition of success?
through my eyes
I made this photo yesterday, as my grandparents enjoyed the evening sun at our airbnb by Olympic National Park. Thatha is seen through the storm door and Paati is in the reflection of the main door. I initially intended on just capturing Thatha in his element and then realized Paati was in the frame too - which is perfectly symbolic of their relationship: all-for-one and one-for-all. I’ve been documenting delicate moments on this trip, with the family and just them too; very excited to share more soon!
amit and ciro
I really enjoy capturing vignettes of people that pay flying visits into my life and routine. In the past, I’ve written about Moka and how he became a part of my daily routine in New York - and eventually became a friend too. I’ve also written about Oscar and Daniel, the construction guys at my parents’ house who ended up having the most interesting backstories. The beauty of these stories is that they capture a connection that I shared with these - previously, random - people for a brief period of time. Today I’d like to introduce you to Amit and Ciro, two people that played a minor - yet special - role in my weekly routine but are now departing on their own journeys.
Amit and Ciro are my age. Amit is a Malayali Indian who is a few inches taller than me and always has a smile on his face. Ciro is a curly-haired Latino who always looks like he has a secret to not tell or a smirk to hide. They were both studying at UT in Austin - Amit doing his Phd in biomedical “stuff” and Ciro pursuing a career in acting but with a finance degree. Doesn’t make sense, right? I told him that. I also told him about my life, and this and that. Ciro would share something else and we’d all offer our opinion. Amit would say one thing and we’d all laugh. My friend Anthony, who also shared this friendship journey with me, would chime in and we’d all have something to say. And then for the next 2 hours, we wouldn’t say another word to each other. We’d yell each others’ names every now and then, but the chit-chat lasted not more than 15 minutes everytime. Once we were all tired of this charade, we’d call it an evening, and head home - Amit and Ciro in Amit’s car, Anthony on his motorbike, and me on my bicycle.
We followed this weekly routine for months. For the first couple weeks, we’d meet at 8pm on Thursdays upon pure verbal understanding. Once we analyzed each others’ commitment to each other and the upkeep of a particular routine, we exchanged phone numbers and a groupchat was formed. The groupchat had and still has no name, just four people’s contacts thrown together randomly. I often wonder why we didn’t name it…
At times, this routine felt like a romantic relationship with a very consistent date schedule. But Ciro was going on his own dates and Amit was focused on work. Other times, this routine felt like a deep friendship - the kind that you’ve kept around and nurtured for decades. But at it’s core, this routine was a subliminal manifestation of accountability. While I hate to reduce Amit and Ciro to meeting invites on my calendar, it often felt as though their purpose was as such. But these meetings were the best meetings. Not the type where you begrudgingly talk to your boss for 30 minutes - more like a facetime with a bestfriend. These meetings were something I looked forward to every week. Even on the toughest of weeks, I had one thing to keep me afloat - my Thursday evenings.
Unfortunately, our weekly routine is coming to an end at the end of the summer. Amit and Ciro are leaving and it’ll be back to Anthony and me. It’s nice to reflect on the consistency that Amit and Ciro helped us keep. That level of accountability is rare and usually only comes free with things like corporate jobs and grade school.
And yes, I left out the specific activity to prove my point that it doesn’t really matter what you’re doing, as long as you have the right people there to do it with you. And to keep doing it for as long as you possibly can.
But yeah, you could’ve guessed it… it’s soccer. We played soccer every Thursday.
pre-kinetic energy
A couple weeks ago, I was sleeping for an average of 3 hours each night in order to finish something that had been on my to-do list for what seems like forever: reworking my website. And I’m happy to say that I made it happen. Check out rishvee.com! (It’s still in a soft launch phase, many additions to come)
I’m a procrastinator, for sure. But this particular task wasn’t necessarily procrastinated. I believe that as creatives and designers and tinkerers, we cannot sit in an office and get work done from 9-5. It’s a much more fluid process that involves reflection, introspection, analysis, extraction, experimentation, and so much more. A lot of these processes happen at the weirdest moments, least when you’re expecting them. For example, if I didn’t start experimenting with Midjourney a few months ago, then I never would have realized and made visuals for the Nike Prism project. And sometimes you need days and hours to just sit and think about what to do before you even do it. It might feel like wasted time or laziness or procrastination but sometimes these idle-minded, yellow-lighted, pit-stopped periods of time are the most necessary. I’d like to call these moments, pre-kinetic energy.
I have failed the Physics SAT Subject Test multiple times so this analogy might not make total sense, so bear with me. From middle school science, we understand that potential energy is stored energy OR energy that is not being used. On the other hand, Kinetic Energy is energy in motion OR energy that is being used. If we need to use this analogy in terms of creativity and creative output, it’s tough to equate it as a binary. Much like it’s difficult to determine what is art and what is not, the boundaries between energy in motion and stored energy is quite obscure. I’ll refrain from saying that it’s a spectrum because I feel you could say that about anything in any social context and end up sounding like Osho.
Pre-kinetic energy sits right between potential and kinetic energy - it is the build-up of dormant, “unused” energy, priming to be used as energy in motion. This could last a few seconds or maybe a few months but regardless, it’s the shift from potential into kinetic energy. If we go back to my Midjourney example, we can see that initially, my tinkering and experimentation within the AI models weren’t for some greater purpose. I had no idea what I was doing and for the most part, I still don’t. But something inside me said that it’s the best use of my time and I should work on it. My experimentation would usually happen at night, when I was simply bored and could no longer scroll through reels… but over time, I realized that this energy was just building up so that I could apply it when the time came. Potential energy here would be the knowledge of some AI tools and a general understanding of how to use them. Kinetic energy would be a full-blown creative endeavor using AI, whether I knew the ways or not. Pre-kinetic energy, is this tiny little sliver between the two where the buildup of that potential energy is consistent and constant up until a creative endeavor requires it to be transferred into kinetic energy. It’s almost (almost!) as if pre-kinetic energy is synonymous with consistency… but it’s not. It’s more like planned and calculated serendipity. Another example: I need to write and record a video for a product I’m promoting, but I’m not sure where to start. So, I subliminally push it off and procrastinate by doing other tasks which include watching old Casey Neistat videos and them out of nowhere… BAM - I have the right idea and train of thought that allows me to step into the creative cockpit and turn all that potential energy into kinetic energy. In this case, the pre-kinetic energy is more like a trigger. Something that sets the kinetic energy into motion.
I’m starting to doubt the integrity of this analogy as I write more. It makes sense in my head, but not quite the same on paper/screen. Maybe I need to wait for some more potential energy or something.
Do you see value here? Is this an analogy worth pursuing? Please help.
link dump
remember when steve jobs invented the bicycle for the mind?
learn to read korean in 5 minutes (seriously)
an index of everything that’s been killed by google
a boiler room dj set influenced by “brown” culture
for musicians and engineers: this
even experts make mistakes sometimes
the future of mercedes design has arrived
June flew by… and in July, I’ll be the one flying - Seattle, then Jordan, then Santa Barbara. It’s a busy month, filled with chaos, but hopefully the best kind.
Carry on, enjoy good tunes, and stay hydrated!