Story vs Telling Part 2

Yeah, so you were saying something about sacred spaces. No, so you were, you had just said, right? No, that you were saying, um, huh, that, uh, you have trouble with the notion of places being made sacred. No, I have the, I have a problem with the notion of sacredness.

Ha, that was what you were saying. Like, because the idea of holy is like reverence mixed with I will never get here kind of a thing, but like with spaces, I'm just like, I'm already here, you know, like I'm not a pollutant in anything. Okay.

What about different types of that though? Right. I do feel when there is a cultural expectation of a certain thing that you can find yourself following into that practice more easily than you might in it. Like if you ever have been to the Lotus temple in Delhi, have you been there?

It's really nice. Yeah. And you might find yourself in a more meditative and a like contemplative like mind space because that's just like what's happening, you know, the architecture is kind of inviting you to think that like, I don't feel reverence.

I feel wonder and I feel curiosity, but then that's not a specifically can I find spaces amazing, cool, awesome, interesting, inspiring, sure, sacred, not really. And I know sacred is different from those feelings that I described. Yeah. So people's behavior that makes something feel sacred or not.

Right. Like I'll give you an example. When we were in Naoshima in Japan, there was this artist installation that was, I think I've told you about it, but not on the podcast, but it was very cool, right? Because the material was made with this hydrophobic, there we are hydrophobic material.

And then it was also designed in a way that periodically water would come up from these, I guess, drains, you would say that were through the floor, but then the water would run around the floor. And it was kind of like a cave shape that was open to the elements. This cave could maybe have 300 people in it, but it had a capacity of maybe they would

only let like 10 people in at a time. And you didn't always know where the water was coming up because of the way the floor was. You couldn't quite tell the whole. So I think everyone had a moment where they by mistake like stepped in a puddle or a puddle

just like appeared next to them because it was running around. So it was just like such a cool space. And eventually like people just kind of sit down and you just kind of like watch the water play around. And it was this really interesting thing in a way that I have not seen a lot of our

exhibits. It really made people stop. Right. Like I think uniformly every single person found something to stop on and just be there. And it's so rare.

I feel that you can kind of like find those things, whether it is, you know, a painting or an installation that can really just connect with a lot of people and connect with them in a way that really feels meaningful. Right. Fine.

But I don't think there was any element of reverence to that. Right. Like people are like, this is a cool thing and we're here to experience this. Yeah. Yeah.

That's how I would generally experience these kind of things. I think there's a different thing where like I went two weeks ago, three weeks ago when I was in Colorado, I was taking a workshop with Anne Waldman, who was one of the founders of Naropa. She's a beat generation poet was there like with Allen Ginsburg and Jack Kerouac.

And what we did on the last day is we went on a trip to a cemetery where at this point in her life, she's 80, I think maybe even 81 years old. So like a lot of her friends are buried in this cemetery. And I think there's a certain way that she would approach the graves and that she would tell us the stories of them that there was reverence.

Right. But actually the person whose book I just used to raise the height of Mike, Mike, uh, Anselm, but we went and visited his grave and his wife had made the kind of, um, we use a mausoleum tombstone, right. Like, right.

And it had like this bench and the bench was supported by these books and these authors that had been really pivotal in his life. Like she'd had those carved, right. And then there was like these, like a lot of his work had this, I think it was a crow or maybe it was a raven.

And so she'd had that like could put it's like as the kind of headstone marker at rate. There was, there was this kind of sense of reverence in the way that Ann was telling us about this and telling us about, you know, the way that his wife like accepted his, I think he had maybe had it. I don't know.

I don't want to get to misconstrue the details, but like just there was a reverence towards how she spoke both about her friend and then both about how she felt about the, the tribute that had been made by his family for him. And it just, it gives you, I don't know, for me, it gives me these kinds of feelings of, which is more than awe when I see people in that place.

Yeah. It's a different dimension. Yeah. And for me, I can feel some of that even from their feeling of it, if you will. So then I can see where devotional spaces come from, because I see it in the way people

behave in them. Correct. And I think this is where like our lines of you being okay with the religiosity and being not being okay with it comes. I'm very okay with like not knowing that feeling or not having

like an empathetic mirror to that. Like you can feel feelings that other people are feeling just because you have mirror neurons they're going to activate. And I'm just very okay with not letting them activate or like, you know, not indulging that.

Interesting. Because I felt similarly about like organized religion, but I think now that I've found more things outside of that. Yeah. Like I saw this show actually last week when my mom was here called Redwood, which was

Edina Menzel's like triumphant return to stage, but I'm not mistaken. She originated when the character was in Wicked and she has this incredible voice. Right. And the story of Redwood was the story of someone who has gone through like an incredible personal tragedy and she finds religion of the big trees, right?

Of the Redwoods of California. Those like the giant Redwoods are like 2000 years old more and she goes up and she spends a night in them. And there's a whole like kind of beautiful story of how she feels the nature and the tree talks to her.

But it's just, it's interesting. And I mean, I could, I was a bit heavy handed and like there were all these things, but I do feel like I see that more and more, it felt more and more topical, right? Where people are finding this sense of like connection and fulfillment in things that were not, that are not strictly spirited, that formerly considered spiritual.

Like I have, I have friends who are dancers with me, right? And who find that in Katak. And I think that's less of a stretch in some ways. Cause I think Katak has always been spiritual for, for some people, but I think these ideas of finding it in, you know, um, nature or in kind of like just spaces that are not very

far away from organized religion. I feel like this is like a really lovely way for the world to be going. Um, and it brings me. Yeah. Like happy for them.

No, I mean, like very honestly, it's, I would say it's good when people find meaning wherever they find meaning, right? Like it's not a bad feeling to have just like it is in the family of awe and wonder. So it's a great feeling to have, right? But I also just feel very okay without it.

So I don't know, like it is one of those things where like, you're not going to paint with all the colors and it's fine. I do think that at the heart of storytelling is kind of this notion of helping people find fulfillment. And I think this is something that I have come from, you know, early in our

podcast and relationship, I think, you know, I've talked to you about how I feel this way that I think one of the like, kind of like driving things for me in doing this kind of work and in building this company is this notion that we can help people find more fulfillment, right? Like there is this ability to both to help brands tell their story in a way

that people can connect to them on more levels and then also to help people tell their stories in the way that, right? Like they're able to share the kind of different facets of themselves. And so I just, I don't know, I'm interested in that. I would a hundred percent say that like, I really choose fulfillment a lot in my

life. And that's why a lot of my life is like centered around creativity and wonder and awe and care. People that opportunity with you to find fulfillment in you. I don't, yeah, I think so in almost all of my relationships.

No, I mean in your art. So like where we dropped off last time was this idea that like, maybe it is a telling problem rather than a story problem, both with what I'm doing with my art and with what is happening with the podcast. But like maybe we do have a story, but we are not just able to tell it well.

And maybe I do have art that has a story, but like, I'm not telling it well. Yeah. I think in my mind, telling was definitely part of it, but I was also kind of focusing on how, right?

Like I think that we've been thinking a lot about the what, but thinking about the how of what we're doing, which is the telling, right? It's like, how are you taking it to your audience? How are you getting it to that place? How are you communicating what you're trying to communicate?

Let me say it that way. Okay. So like maybe a double click on that a little. Like in either context is fine. But like, what does that mean?

Well, I'll give you an example. So one of the things we were talking about last week was this notion of like, how are you taking your story to the places that that community is already having as a gathering whole? I think I said it, right?

And I think today or a few days ago, I was reading the newsletter of one of my classmates from my MFA Cody and Cody has, you know, I think 21,000 or maybe, I think maybe 27,000 somewhere in the 20,000 subscribers to their newsletter. And the newsletter is a lot about thinking about our patterns, right? Thinking about why it is that we do the things we do.

And how do you break down those patterns and how you just understand when you are falling into a pattern? As I was looking at this, I was like, Hmm, this is the community that a lot of ways I think would be interested in something like our podcast, but we do kind of spend time thinking about how we think about things, how we break down patterns.

What are those patterns? Sure, there may be more business aligned, which may be not all of those people on Cody's new newsletter would be interested in, but I was looking at like, it's like $75 a place of classified in the newsletter. It's like, do we spend more than that amount in like building our podcast?

A hundred percent. So is it worth it for us to try and see other some places where we could put these things, like maybe even spend some money to get ourselves in front of that community. So that's the kind of thing I mean, where I think, I think we can choose certain

house, right? We're like, Oh, we're promoting this through these social networks. And I think, um, depending on how you carve the how, right? How you decide what is the, the kind of like, are you choosing based on what mediums you're engaging with?

Are you choosing based on like how much effort you're putting into it? Depending on how you do that, there's going to be some stuff that's going to feel more difficult. And I think sometimes if you carve the problem differently, you're able to now see that these things that you maybe thought were more difficult or not as

difficult as you thought, or maybe these things that are just thinking about the problem in the way where you're not like as focused on maybe like, how am I using Facebook to my advantage or something? And it's more thinking about, well, what is Facebook doing? Like it's a gathering place for a community.

Well, what other things are gathering places for those communities? But then one needs to define what is going to be the connecting thread for this thing as well, right? So like, let's say I would, if I was thinking about myself as an artist, right? I don't know how to define why would somebody be interested in what I am making.

Like, are they here because of, even if you were to ask me like five reasons, I could, like I could make a list, but it would feel very cognitive as a list and not a particularly emotional list, if that makes sense. Okay. Um, let's do a little experiment.

So, uh, as you know, I have this good friend Dylan, uh, who is a painter. Yeah. Um, Dylan is a painter. Yeah. The more you are multidisciplinary, less, the more diverse your practice is, the

harder it becomes. Like I'm not saying that it is going to do. Yeah. Like I don't think it is the problem that I want to be an artist and that is the issue.

The problem is that like my practice is too broad. Like the answer to what do I do requires 15 minutes to properly explain. Like I met your dad last weekend, right? And I was like, I mentioned something about going for the shoot. And then I was like, wait, I'm not sure if you know, like I am a VFX producer.

And then he was like, I don't know what all you do. So, you know, everything feels right. You must be doing that. And like it was funny, but it is also true. Like a lot of people who know me don't know, and it is true for you as well.

Like every new facet is, I don't know. I feel like most storytelling or messaging requires you to almost like create a projection of the multifaceted gem that the person or the thing is and project it on a 2d space. And it's like, okay, here is one projection and here is another projection.

And here is another projection. But it's like, but what if one did not want to compress that? Do you get what I'm trying to say? I guess that does make sense. But I would just wonder like what happens if your projection is not complete.

Right. And this was the story I was telling a little bit about like, you know, the videos I've been shooting of the dancing of like rehearsal for our cut-doc show and whatnot. Whereas like, yeah, sometimes you can have these really tight crops of like just the gungoos and you're implying the rest of the story.

But that is because you know, the underlying story is story of Katha and Katha is a dance form and there is all of those things. That's what I'm saying. Like I don't know what is the through line for me. And I would say that when I'm making a video to share with a certain community,

then I would send a certain kind of video. Right. It's like, if I know, if I'm watching a clip from Eurovision, my expectations of what that is is really different than if I'm just like watching a compilation of a great singing, you know?

So, so depending on what audience is that's for, you're going to cut the clip differently. You're trying to emphasize what a great singer someone was on Eurovision. You're going to cut the clip differently than if you're trying to show the highlights of Eurovision. So who is the audience, apart from let's say Cody's audience?

Who's the audience for? Are, yeah, who's the audience for our. Ah, podcast. Well, I think there's a set of people who are interested in self-help. And I think a lot of them tend to be entrepreneurs, or at least there's an

intersection between like self-help and entrepreneurs. And I do think that that is the place where we most live. I think, I don't know, I think like, like, Cody has an audience that's like a lot of small business owners. It's people who might be like really small influencers, or maybe they make like a

craft or they make different things that are, I don't know, like, like small businesses where you would have maybe one employee or you're doing it yourself. And now is that the right audience for us? Maybe. Like that's very different than I think the entrepreneurs we have met, because

we've both come from a more tech space where people are more building products for other people and they're building teams along with building those products. I think it's still could be the right space. Small business owners in America and in every country. Would you say that like there is also this factor of maybe Cody is interacting

with the, like, you know, mindset side of those small business owners, but we go on the business side of more, those small business. Like I'm just trying to think about. So let's say there is, if I just think about each individual person is multifaceted. Right.

Like not just us, but like everybody else is also super multifaceted. So like you could be interfacing with their business side or the fact that they are a creator or the fact that they are interested in XYZ or the fact that they face XYZ problems. The cow specific does the community get in this case.

So let me show you something. So like this is the newsletter I was reading in here. Maybe I should shrink it a little bit. I think it's fine. I think it's fine.

Right. You can. And I think what Cody's talking about here, I can shrink it a little bit, um, is that a challenge that they overcame, right? And it was being an alcoholic and kind of reaching sobriety.

And, and then it's talking. What they're talking about here is like, like how it feels to have this celebration in a time when the world is so screwed up, you know, and then how, like, how, how it feels like when you can't celebrate, even when you've like, when you feel it's so important to celebrate that celebrate, this is something

that you'd like, right? That they really want to do the fuel or fight against fascism, but could not do it on this day. Right. And then what is the context where I was coming from this, like really coming

out of this experience, I felt like I should be able to do it. You know, I felt like I've grown so much, but still I can't, I still feel hopeless. Right. Like, and now, now where are they going with that? Well, guess what?

It's okay to be a hopeless, right? And there is like a place and that sometimes that that's just where you are. And so I feel like in this story, there is just so much. And then here's some information about like how we can go deeper and like what some things are happening.

I'm classifieds. And so what I feel happens here when you do something like this is that you're, you're creating a space. You're telling a story that lets people connect with that story. Like you're telling a story that lets someone see themselves and see their

problems and see, sure, I haven't had that exact experience, but I know what that feels like. I know what it feels like to want to do something and to have committed to yourself. And that is generic, but it's done in a way that's not generic. Right.

It's done in a way that feels very real. But then that's not a marketing problem and that's not a community problem. That is the product building problem. Like the things that you highlighted are about Cody's message and their writing, not about who are the people that they're reaching.

And maybe there is something that I don't understand here, but like, based on what you just said, I would think about the questions would be, how are we presenting the information in our podcast, not who are we reaching? Well, to me, those go hand in hand. Right.

Like how we present, how we tell the story is influenced by who we're telling the story to, but I really agree. Right. Like this is where I started from. I think the issue is how we're telling the story, not so much what the story is.

And I don't know if you're, if you're combining those two in your how. No, but like how can, but I thought that you were saying that it's about who we are telling the story to, like, where are we finding those people? Are we going to the places where they gather, which is not as much about the like structure of the message.

It isn't, isn't right? Cause depending on who you're telling that story to, right, the structure, the message is going to be different at an extreme example, right? Like my professor was teaching both us this last semester and she teaches a class in the women's prison.

And I'm certain the way that she presents that material would be different in depending on the context, because just the people are in such different contexts. Yeah. But like if you have, that's a little bit like, you know, our workshops can be very structured.

We can cater to things and to people. But if you're thinking about like a larger thing, like whether it is podcast, which is more genetic and you try and find the people or whether it is like me as a whole, like I wouldn't have a singular audience. Right.

No, but a facet of you might have a singular audience, right? Like do the people who, how do I say, who's a good multidisciplinary artist? Like people who write Pharrell's music may not like what he is making at Louis Vuitton. Right.

And in fact, like there's not necessarily an overlap between those two. It doesn't make him less of an incredible, like what he, it seems that I was just at the Met Gala show. So I saw it. A lot of that was like Pharrell because like Louis Vuitton has a big part.

LVMH has a big part of that Gala. And so, yeah, right. Like people were talking about how like, yeah, it's so rare that someone like an artist like that can make a jump to becoming the creative director of like such a storied fashion house and then just like be celebrated in it.

Right. Like be taking it somewhere. But I don't think that means that people like his music necessarily are going to be into high fashion, you know? Or like into that type of work.

And even if they are a different aesthetic for that, then. But I feel like we are just defining the problem more and more broadly, which results in not solving it. Right. I'm saying that I think you have to solve it for the different facets differently.

There is an audience for the comics you make and there is an audience for kind of think of other things you make. I don't know the games you make, but those are not necessarily the same audience and those communities are not in the same place. And I think what, what you're trying to say to me, which I'm pushing back on is

that you're trying to find a story that unifies them. And I'm saying, I think it's time for multiple stories. I mean, there have always been multiple stories, which means that like, you know, 10 people like this thing and 15 people like the other thing and five people like the other thing that have always been multiple stories.

There have always been multiple platforms. There is no singular way of understanding what I do and how I do it. Like it's just exhausting and which results in it not going back to the first part that I said, I don't think it is reaching enough people. Of the right kind, whatever that means.

Which thing? Let me be, let's. Anything tighter. Okay. Give me one example.

Let's do one example. Let's a sub stack. Okay. And here, what are we, we'll talk to us about your sub stack for our listeners who haven't seen it.

I write about, so like the sub stack is called the messy art of making. And I write about like different things about creativity. So sometimes it is like, you know, factual. Sometimes it is mindset. Sometimes it is my philosophy on certain things like what is art, what is not art.

But sometimes it is just like, you know, like one of the more popular posts is like the three people in your head, which is basically a model that I have of like, you have a CEO, you have a manager and you have an executor and like, you know, you need to balance between the three even in your head. So like the vision, the planning and the doing needs to be balanced.

Like, you know, it's a relatively broad variety, but it is sort of like, you know, some thoughts around making things. Sometimes it's instructive. Sometimes it's not like sometimes it's more self exploratory of like, you know, something that I'm working through maybe or sometimes it is like a recent like

episode post, a recent post that I made was about the idea of, um, how should I put it, like being middle class Indian and then wanting to be an artist. And like that's very personal, but like the one before that was creative advice that is like, you know, the only creative advice pieces, the only pieces of creative advice that you'll ever need.

So that one is like more instructional, but these are fairly broad, but at the same time, like this is what the sub-stack generally is. Okay. So it's kind of about the journey to creativity, the journey of making the journey of being an artist, like with some particular, obviously based on your

experience, right? So with like some flavor of you. Yeah. Okay. And we both would agree that there's certain people who are interested in this,

right? Some are people who are existing artists, some are people who are artists who are maybe like a little bit stuck, right? Like they might be reading stuff like the artist's way. Yeah.

But like the people who regularly read it or message me are not artists. No, but I'm saying that that would be, we would think that those would be the people that would be likely to be engaging with this kind of material, right? Like people who feel that struggle. I don't know that.

Yeah. We just, okay. Let's take a step back. So we were agreeing with me as I can go on saying that this is about, this is about making things.

This is about creativity, right? And with your particular flavor on those. Correct. Okay. Who do you feel, what would the other audience, audiences be other than

kind of people who are in that journey themselves? I don't know. A lot of the people who reply are people who are maybe thinking of being creative. There are people who just like thinking in general, or people who like how we put it in Hindi, but like basically skinning the hair like that.

So like learning for the sake of learning kind of kind of exploring for the sake of exploring. Yeah. Like it seems like kind of like trolling, but it's like good hearted trolling, right? Like pushing you on like, you know, that's what I get from skinning the hair.

It's like, you know, do need to skin the hair? Probably not. But I'm going to help you. But like I'm saying, I'm saying people who enjoy it. No, no, no.

People who enjoy it because my modality is very skinning the hair kind of thing. Like that's how I think, but could we go deeper and could we go deeper and could we go deeper, which might seem senseless to a lot of people, but it doesn't to everyone. Okay. Fine.

So I can add another. So we're agreeing that like artists and aspiring artists, like you just said, aspiring creatives are one category. And maybe those need to be broken into two, but for now we can group them together. And the second is there's a second category of this, like deep thinkers and

people who enjoy kind of critically thinking about things and really kind of deepening their understanding about thinking as a whole. Okay. Fair. Two audiences.

I guess. We can always add more, right? But I'm not, I'm just saying for now. I have also, like now that we're discussing it, I'm also not sure why I feel so like on the fence about this.

Yeah. It's interesting because it's not like this is, you know, this is not a place where you bite saying that this is an audience that you're saying that these are not other audiences in the future. You're just saying that today that there is one audience I know about.

And how do I, so, and then we can go to the next step once we agree that there is a, but I want to first agree, get some agreement here. It's very interesting. My brain goes, but how do we know why people are reading this? Everything that we can imagine is going to be a superficial reason.

That might not be the real reason why they're doing it. Yeah. I think that's actually interesting why I find that custom GPT I made so interesting because it really makes you look at your own work in a way that's different since I'm just demoing things today.

I'll just, I'll show that one also, but here is the custom GPT. So it's called literary lens and let me just grab a, grab a poem really quick. Um, how about this one? Deniline child. I was just looking at that.

Okay. So then you could come in here and you can, so, you know, these are just some sample things to get you started, but I'll paste this poem. And it will give you some thoughts on the poem, but the other really interesting thing that it does, as you'll see in a second is it will start to give you places

where you are in a lineage or, you know, like in a heritage of different artists, but they may not be from the places that you would have thought of. Right. Like I would not have thought that like Emily Dickinson's like cryptic emphorisms would be a thing that would be resonant with people who might read

some of my work. And it's just interesting because it gives you an idea of like, Oh, these could be communities. These could be communities that I could be engaged in with. And like, I do know, uh, Samuel Delaney's work and I do really enjoy some of that

work. So it's really interesting to me that you can see that, Oh, here's some heritage. Right. And I, so I think that that zooming out is sometimes really interesting to be like, Oh, these, it might be wrong, right?

Like maybe people who are already into Gertrude Stein would not find a resonance with my work, but it gives me a sense of this could be a community. I could tap into, right? Okay. I know that I sometimes get intrigued.

Like it's so, it's so fun watching it. I think also the way that GPT writes was really such a satisfying aspect of the adoption or driving the adoption, you know, cause like appears in front of you, you're waiting for the next words. It kind of reminds you of like old school chat interfaces.

It's very satisfying. Right. And then I love this kind of like, gives you a little bit of a view of like, how do you, how would you see yourself as a word? You exist between all of these different artists and things.

Anyway, so I think that this is enough of this. So that's the interesting thing there. Right. Like I don't think my work is made less by me thinking about like, you know, this, these ideas that like a bond who couple already explored, do I want to either,

do I want to reference them? Do I not want to reference them? Or do I just want to be aware that this is a world that exists. And I think if I apply that similarly, it's like, yeah, do I want to just be aware that there are other people who are creatives on this

journey? And maybe I will think about how I could tailor some of the message to them. Maybe I won't, but I just can be aware of like that is a potential. And I think that that gives you just a way to kind of, it gives you a grounding and a little bit of a vector. When you are trying to answer this question that we started off with,

which is like, how do we get more resonance? How do we get more of the bell curve in front of my work? I think I need to think about that one. Well, do we want to, we could start talking about one of the audiences or we can leave it for.

I will, no, I'm like serious. I'll actually need to think about that. Okay. Because, uh, like a part of why I feel like I need to think about this is that like it's intellectually interesting and I don't think I've done this before. And another part is like, I think the moment I start defining anything

artistic, I start feeling like I don't want to define the audience. It resonates with whoever it resonates with. Like I want to leave the box open. I feel like it's one of those things where scratching it more is probably not going to be helpful.

And I need to sit with it and actually let it, um, how should I say permeate inside me? I'm sure there's something emotional there and there is something like tactical there. Yeah. Do you feel like it's like, uh, like, I feel like I would come up with that from a fear of missing out.

It probably is. I'm feeling some FOMO, but part of it is also, I think a lack of courage or ownership or like artistic, how should I say owning? Because I just feel like it requires courage to say it's okay for people to not like me because there are going to be some people who will like me.

So yeah, that's like, it's, it's saying, if you say it, it's like saying, I want these people to like me, which is scary. Damn, that is scary. Right. That's interesting. That's why I feel like, yeah,

I've had this resistance towards like figuring out which journals would really be into my work because I'm like, if I just submit randomly, then it's better. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's also, I feel like why some of these residency applications are, because I just go through a lot of like, you know,

oh, do I want to apply to this one? What would be good for this one? And by the time I'm writing like, you know, the essay, I already now care. I'm like, as you would like to, as you can see from my essay that I would really like to be here. I'm just like no longer unemotional about it. I really do care. Yeah.

Interesting. Yeah. It is just really interesting. I mean, as we were talking about last time though, like, I don't know, I do think that there is a whole, like you will find a community. You know, I feel like that's something that I learned from looking at the, those lineage that I've like joined through my MFA and whatnot.

Like is that people found some community. It may not have been a huge community, but they did find there some community. So, but you know,

problems of courage are not problems of reasons to leap. They are problems of not leaping off the ledge. So, but yeah, I feel like, you know, if I let just let it sit for a while, something should open up. Okay. Okay. Thanks. We'll see. But yes. Thanks. No way. It's fine.