Motivating yourself, especially on self-driven projects, can be hard. Once you finally have something works, how do you keep evolving it?
We talk this week on breaking out of creative ruts and how to evolve, using the podcast as a meta example.
Theme music is by Steve Combs, available here: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Steve_Combs/Steve_Combs_Premium_Preview_EP_1325/06__Steve_Com
Creative block isn't always about not being able to create. Sometimes it's more like: do I like what I did here? And sometimes you come back to it later and you're okay with it.
Regardless of what creative work you do, it's slightly self-indulgent. And that's not a bad thing — it's how you stay connected to why you do it in the first place.
Hi, I'm Kahran. Hi, I'm Divya. Thinking. Thinking. And this is...
Thinking. On Thinking. And this is the 28th episode of Thinking On Thinking. This week we talked about the creative process. We talked about how we create, what different forms inspire us,
when do forms feel tiresome or boring, and how do we get to a place that we want to do something? It was a meandering conversation where we really touched into lots of these different aspects of the creative process. We really enjoyed it and hope you enjoy it too.
So, you know, we have talked about maybe doing interviews, potentially from the next season, with people we think their thinking is interesting. Not that I've gotten bored of your thinking and I don't think you've gotten bored of my thinking,
but it might be interesting to like, you know, bring other people. And especially because I think that people who have very different life experiences tend to have very different mental models. And it would be like really interesting.
So I was just thinking about that in context of people often say don't change the format of what you are making. Like if people have come to expect certain thing out of you, you want to like continue to almost like with a huge dose of discipline, keep delivering that, right?
And I was just thinking how do you feel about that? Like one, how do you feel about the maybe we should interview people idea? And how do you feel about changing the format of what you are doing? No, it's interesting you asked that.
Actually it reminds me of what we talked about last episode, right? Because we were talking about how in fine dining and you were kind of contending this notion that there's taste makers and those people keep driving to kind of push culture and push the way people are thinking about an experience in a certain direction.
Yeah, so I don't know, I kind of feel like it's a similar thing, right? Like if you keep doing the same thing forever, it kind of will stagnate at some point. I don't know, like the same cast doesn't keep doing the same Broadway show forever, right? Like even these long running shows like Phantom of the Opera just closed.
And I think it ran for like 70 years maybe. Wow. Yeah, it was I think the longest running, maybe 71 years. And you know, I had so many different casts over that period. Because like people don't want to keep doing the same thing.
Between sort of seeking novelty both for yourself and from the form that you are creating in and seeking the ability to get to perfection, like how do you think about the tug of war between both of those things? When you're someone who's like good at a lot of things and you know, a lot of things can come easily to you.
It's hard to balance what it's coming from that you don't like to do things you're not good at versus that you're you're staying in your strengths. The same old. Once you know something works, once you know you're good at doing something, you kind of do those things.
As I understood it, framing it almost from audience expectations so that because so that you can be dependable so that people can count on you so that people know what to expect from you. It's important that you deliver consistent, understandable outcomes. Right. I have this aversion to things that feel new or maybe things I feel like I wouldn't be good at.
But I'm not sure if that's just because I don't like doing things I'm not good at because there's a lot of things I am good at. So I just end up saying, hey, these things I'm not good at. Are they really worth the time? So for example, let's say that you've been writing short stories.
OK. And those short stories are about fantasy. Right. Like in a particular space. And let's say that you've been writing it for a few weeks, months, you have written like 10 stories. At what point do you sort of continue to leverage this world that you have built?
That you understand that people around you also understand who are reading. That you know these characters. You know what kind of people should exist in this world versus when do you think about, OK, no, you know what? I'll go and write something new now. And especially when you're thinking about like, you know, areas where there isn't a prior tradition for how length is dealt with.
Like, for example, if you're thinking about books, people will often write like trilogies or five books or seven books, stuff like that. Right. So like those kind of quote and quote make sense. But like when you have short stories, how many are too many? How do you decide that it's time to move on from this thing? And still continue to write like I'm not saying that, you know, you move on from writing into making music.
That part I can imagine being harder because you're acquiring a new almost like physical skill as well with the whole understanding of the craft. But like at the sort of second or third level in your craft, how do you switch? And when do you switch? I don't know if I find it that difficult because I write very character-centric. Like it's not that hard for me to take those characters to different scenes.
What if you had to change the characters? Move away from these characters? That's also fine. Like I read this interesting prompt, I don't know, maybe it was four or five days ago, where it was just like gave you this picture. And it asked you to write a short story about the picture. And the picture was I think there's either birch or aspen trees, but their trees would light bark that kind of peels. And there was a grove and one of the trees had a number on it.
And so I wrote this story or I'm writing the story about this girl named, I don't know, I've never said her name out loud, Bonsoi, I guess. And she lives in this underground community. And what they're doing is they're trying to keep these plants alive. And some of them they can be just kind of left, but some of those soils have to be grown to fruiting. And then like the soils refreshed every now and then.
And so the way the way the story is happening is, you know, this community has been like opened or discovered or something. And someone is having an interview with the girl with Bonsoi about like what she did for this kind of like World War Z. I don't know if you've ever read that book, but I haven't the whole way it's structured. It is it's as an interview. I always just really loved it. But like, yeah, I don't know. I saw the thing. I kind of found this character.
It's like a quasi sci fi sort of society. I haven't fully fleshed out the societies. I think because I don't really care that much about the societies. I have a writing partner actually who really loves kind of world creation. We're writing a set of actually short stories in a world that we've been working on for a couple of years now. And I would say there we first kind of had one city that we were focused on.
And I would say after a long time and really thinking about that city and kind of getting to some real kind of intractable things, where I think we both really wanted different things. We've now sort of started building other cities in that same world that will have different rules. So maybe the sort of content of what you're writing about is not exactly the thing. Maybe the form is. So like, let's say you have written 10 short stories.
How easy would you find it to move to like a novella? Or, you know, if you haven't ever written poetry, how easy would you find it to move to poetry? Or like changing something a lot, which, for example, us talking to each other versus doing an interview podcast would be a massive change. Yeah, I guess to my mind, a similar sort of change would be like, like a lot of music is like poetry set to music. I don't know. I think I've thought about like, like trying to write song lyrics.
And I think I would really find it fun, but it feels very difficult. Hmm. When do you get bored? Like if you're writing something or if you're creating something, you know, like I remember there was this one time when we were talking about it and you were like, you tried to write poems for some time, but then after like trying to write them every day started feeling like a burden. What changed? I would say that what happens for me is I think I get frustrated with where I am.
Okay. So for example, like it may be that I've written something and I read it and I'm just like, why is this where this has ended up? And usually what I'll do is I won't engage with that right away, right? Like I'll leave it and I'll come back and look at it. I'll see if I still feel that way. Or I'll be in writing something and I'll start to feel like this is going nowhere or something, something about is feeling frustrating to me.
And then usually again, like I'll put it aside for a while and try and work on something else for a little while and then maybe come back to it and see sometimes it means it's like going in the wrong direction or something is not right. Does that feel like creative block to you? Like some people would describe that as, oh, I'm feeling creatively blocked. Well, I feel like when I feel creatively blocked, I feel trouble in creation. And I don't know if it's quite that.
Huh. It's like, it's almost, it's honestly, it's more like, do I like what I did here? Interesting. And sometimes I come back to it and I'm okay with it, right? Like I remember there's this like four line poem I wrote about like a flower in the monsoon, like a year or so ago.
And I was like, oh, I wish there had been more to it. And then I looked at it later and I was kind of okay with it. Hmm. So there's a whole thing about a roughness and endings that I think is kind of like a motif that I've realized. And maybe I like to explore more.
But so sometimes it's also that it's like you realize you're writing a technique or you're doing something that you're not necessarily that comfortable with. And so that can also be like, oh, is this the right thing? Like the other day I wrote something and then I ended it with this like bizarre couple as I looked at it even then and later of where I was like something about like the heath death of the universe. Hmm. Because I knew what I was thinking about.
What I was thinking about was how like there will be a point when like all potential reactions have happened. And and right. And then there won't be anything else. But it's just like, I don't know. I was like, am I really am I really writing in this way?
So it's a weird, it's a weird thought process because it's like that's not necessarily like a writer's block. It's like, it's like a critique of yourself in the happening. Hmm. So whenever I do any branding exercise with people, I always ask them to sort of give me the thoughts right then and there. And then give me the thoughts two days later.
And that's a very, because oftentimes what you like in the moment will not be the thing that you will like later. And because you have to live with it later. This is way more true for branding, maybe then for other things, but like just sort of evaluating it again and seeing how does it sit with me now. I found it to be like way more helpful, especially for people who don't have a visual vocabulary. Like it reduces the frustration that they might feel reduces the number of end moment changes that they might come up with.
But like, as you were speaking, it just like made me think of, oh, it's kind of similar to what I am doing there. But I'm sort of telling other people to do it while you are almost like, hmm, you need yourself to take a break and like look at it again. Yeah. So I feel like for me, it's more related to to that process that can make you stop. Right. Where you look at it and you're like, oh, this is stupid.
Why did I do this? You know, and so I think for me, I don't I don't finish that. I stopped myself before that where I'm like, oh, I'm feeling like frustrated with this. I'm going to put it down before I reach this point where I'm like, oh, why am I doing this? You know, so I'm curious, does that ever happen for you?
Or do you because you like kind of like you you just don't have those cycles as much because you have lived a life of an artist just longer? I think how I have solved for it is by keeping like shorter timelines. So I think one of the ways that I have, well, maybe two ways I have reduced creative frustration for myself is one, giving myself the space between practice and performance and showing most things in the practice column. So like if I'm not thinking that I'm performing, it's often easier to do things because I'm just practicing. So I'm allowed to make mistakes and I'm allowed to try out things and I'm allowed to make errors.
And then the second thing is just giving myself a very set time limit. This is what you are allowed to do in this much amount of time. So almost your expectations reduce like back in 2020. I wrote these posts about creative work on my profile and like I wrote 100 posts took me about maybe six months or so. A little over six months.
But like I wrote these posts. And they were like multi-page posts. They were kind of like blogs but not long form. Right? Yeah.
I would give myself 25 minutes to write it from the idea to the final execution. Like I didn't, I would not know what I need to write today. And in 25 minutes, I would be done. And like there is only so much that I can obsess about in 25 minutes. Right.
I just can't let myself have in a weird way. I can't let myself have high expectations. Sure. I understand that. Right.
But like let me give you the example that I feel like I'm struggling with right now. Right. So I mentioned that that girl and that story I'm writing Bonsoi. Right. I'm like slightly frustrated with it.
You know, I've written maybe 400 words. I think this the limit is maybe a thousand words. Right. So I can't write more than double what I've written already. But I've opened too many stories.
I'm like, shoot, like how should I, how should I tie up all these like things I've written? Because I need to explain why she's in a capsule. I need to like figure out how to convey the like life cycle of the tree thing. And then why she was in trouble because you can't actually grow a birch tree underground, even though she had tried.
But then she was too young to understand, which is why she was the only person there in that part of it when they opened it. And it's like Jesus Christ. How am I going to tie all these things up in this funny words? And I'm just like, oh my God, I can't deal with this right now.
So I think that I would just like give myself such a strong constraint that I wouldn't be able to come up with too many things. How should I put it? Like fully open ended briefs are not my friends. Well, you beat murals and stuff on blank walls.
That's an open ended brief. I have a lot of constraints that I automatically put on myself. So I don't do a lot of different styles. Like I don't do realism. I don't do detail work.
That removes so many categories already. I have like, you know, this sharp preference for bright colors. I have sharp preference for anime aesthetic and like certain kinds of motifs and colors. And I am in a very weird way limited by my own artistic ability.
Like I'm not an amazing painter. I'm an OK painter. I can deal with like a lot of different mediums. I can get to like a six out of 10 to seven out of 10 in almost any medium. But I don't think that I can get to like a nine out of 10 in any medium.
Like I'm not that great of a painter with my hands. I'm just not. And so like that really automatically gives me a very small box that I need to draw in. I feel like this seems kind of what we were asking each other about, right?
Because here it seems like you've drawn a box for you to create in. But you don't feel like that box is constraining you. Like you don't feel like you're becoming formulaic in saying that you use bright colors and have an anime aesthetic. Like that doesn't trouble you.
If I was on my 100th mural, I wonder if I would feel that. You know what I mean? Like I've maybe made like 10 murals in my life. 12 something around that number, right? Like it's less than 20 for sure.
You know, like if I were to do more, then I would have to think about, does this work and does that work? And do I actually want to do this in this way, etc, etc. Like I wonder if that would start becoming a part of the picture if I do many more of it.
I also wonder if there might be a corollary because I was talking about this with a friend of mine, who is a painter? And he was saying that he really felt that way when he started to get recognized, that he had kind of an initial style and that style started to be recognized right before he went to his MFA program.
And he kind of had made a conscious effort during his MFA to try and develop a different sort of style because he wanted to not feel like he was kind of this guy who did this one kind of work. Yeah, I wonder, like because this artistic rediscovery is an interesting thing, right? Like people revere somebody who is like Picasso and who can like,
you know, sort of change their styles quite often. Subject matter, like everything. If one can change it a lot, people appreciate it, right? And. And here I'm just using people as like, you know,
I guess a shorthand for the culture appreciates that as an addition to it. But I don't know. Like, I think a part of it is also you become frustrated with yourself or you become bored with yourself. I don't think that frustration actually is as prominent a word for me as boredom would be.
Like, oh, this form has taught me whatever I needed to learn from it. So can I move on now? Almost. Hmm, that's interesting. That that made more sense to me than the way you were saying it before,
because I would say that I got to a point where where initially I wrote poetry for myself, right? And there was years that I wrote poetry that only I saw. And then I started to kind of want more from it. And for me, the more was kind of like I wanted to like, like share it in some ways. So then I started posting some of it.
And then I, you know, got a chance to read some of it. And now I feel like reading poetry has really been something that I feel like it's a new set of challenges for me because there's a way you're conveying more meaning with it when you're reading it. It doesn't give you the same sort of satisfaction that it once did. So I guess that is boredom.
No, I think about it. Like, what else is the definition of boredom? Same activity is less satisfying. Yeah. And I think that it's very, especially for creative work, I think it's slightly self-indulgent, right?
Like, regardless of what creative work you do, it's slightly self-indulgent. Like, I was recently just like, you know, a friend of mine and I, we have been trying to collaborate on something. And I think we have finally hit on something. And we were just discussing something about this project and that we talked about for maybe an hour and a half. And then I was like, hey, you know, we have been working for the last over an hour and she was just like,
what, this is what work feels like. This is totally not what work is supposed to feel like. I was like, yeah, this is what work feels like if you're actually enjoying what you're doing. This is like, what, I'm getting away with something, right? Like, I feel like creative work always has that thread in it.
Like, there is this sort of like playful self-indulgence that's always there. It's like, I'm doing this because I find it fun. And I think after some point, one would get bored of it, right? Like, I look at these artists and painters who have been painting for years in a particular style. I follow them. I like their work.
But I just feel like this is like the hundred thousandth girl that you have painted. How are you, like, you know, not bored of it? Why don't you want to do something else? Like, they look exactly like all of the previous characters that you've painted. Yeah. Yeah.
I'm reminded of, you know how Jumpa Lahiri started writing in Italian? Who's the author of the namesake, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's always just kind of stuck with me. I've read some of her interviews where she's like, it just, it just re-opened her creativity
where she kind of felt like she'd fallen into a rut and now she was writing in a new language. I mean, the books are supposed to be amazing. I haven't actually read any of the translations. That seems so hard. Well, that's just because of your own publications, right?
Yeah, maybe because languages feel hard to me. Someone else would say it's so hard that you're, you know, a multidisciplinary artist. Ha, but that feels much easier. Do you feel like what you want out of print forms changes? Like, you know, what do you want out of your writing versus like, let's say we are creating this podcast together
and what you want out of that versus you've done some video work, right? Like, I remember you showing me a documentary that you had made years ago. Or like when you do photography, right? Like all of these are quite different as mediums. Do you feel like you want something completely different from each one of those
just in terms of what it artistically fulfills in you? No, I think I feel each scene is particularly well suited to a particular medium, which I think we've talked about in an earlier podcast. How you and I have very different feelings about the creation process. And I much more come from a place where I feel like a work has an intended destination.
And I know you don't really come from that place. So yeah, I feel like depending on the work, it kind of has a particular ideal medium. And it was interesting, someone, I think my therapist actually, Gloria said to me a few weeks ago, where, you know, could could a story be told across multiple mediums.
And for some reason, that kind of unlocked that possibility in my head where I was like, oh, yeah, you could tell this, you know, in a novella and then also have a play about it. Who says no? Hmm. So that's an interesting idea.
I don't really know the answer about yet. And it also makes me wonder a little bit as I mastered more mediums, would I start to think of creating things in more mediums? Probably. Yes. If that's how I feel, right?
Because you can't imagine creating them in mediums you don't understand. Yeah. I do agree with like there is more medium appropriateness to certain things. Like the easiest example that I can think of is you can have a lot lower narrative density if you're making a game,
because games are inherently interesting. It's a little bit like, you know, you need a very entertaining movie to hold your attention for three hours. But you can meet your best friend for like the five hundredth time and keep talking to them about the same old things again.
And you will be happy to talk to them for three hours. They don't need much more because you have active participation in it. And something similar translates in games that you could be doing something really good and good, boring, seeming. But because you are the one who is actively doing it, it's way more interesting.
Like it's inherently more engaging. And similarly, like how, you know, music, you can listen to again, 100,000 times and not get bored of it. While like the same story, you might actually get bored the third time. Yeah. But like, don't you feel like it's odd then that people will just
watch people play like platformer games, you know, where you kind of are doing the same thing over and over and, you know, they're not even playing it. I think that the same like circuits that make people enjoy sports are the same ones that make people is what makes them enjoy watching. Yeah. I mean, it's very funny, right?
Like if you are somebody who does not understand chess, you can watch the most amazing like match and you're like, ah, OK, yeah, it's just some two guys like, you know, playing with each other and they're just moving pieces around. And if you are like into chess and you understand it, then even those like, you know, minimal movements or even their eye, where is their eye moving?
And what are they thinking? Like that also becomes exciting. So I think that why people watch people, other people play video games is probably more related to that, at least like that would be that is my hypothesis of why is it entertaining to watch people play video games?
We have done it for years. It's the same thing as Gladiator Rings, and it's the same thing as like watching cricket or football or basketball or like any of the other games that exist. I was also thinking about I wonder how much it helps when games have a good adoption cycle for people to understand the games.
Like football, American football, when you watch it on TV, there's all these visual cues they do to help you understand what was going on. Like they'll visually mark on the screen like where the downs are and what line the football has to cross in order for the team to keep the ball. And also because there's so many pauses in American football, there's all these
reasonable moments where you can ask someone if you didn't understand. Whereas in a lot of games, right, you'd be interrupting their experience to ask them to clarify what just happened or something like that. Like soccer, there's basically no pauses until the half, unless someone gets injured or something.
But isn't soccer very easy to understand? I think so. But like off sides is like one of the only complicated rules. And so many people don't understand off sides. How much do you think as a viewer, your enjoyment of something
comes from the technical excellence and understanding of the thing and how much of it comes from like the what does it mean? Oh, for me, absolutely. I will be detracted if I don't understand what's going on. Right. Like if I don't know why we got there, then I will not feel as pleased.
Is that true for all mediums? I think that's true for most things. So would you say that like even for something like music, you prefer to listen to music that you do understand? No, it's not like that.
It's if I can understand why something is the way it is. Like, for example, I have a friend who introduced me to symphonic rock, which is basically exactly what it sounds like. And there will be like symphonic metal, which is like death metal with symphonies. And I think just thinking about like where that like genre came from
makes it feel a lot more interesting to me than if someone just maybe listen to death metal. Hmm. Interesting. I do feel like like different mediums capture different things for me, though. Right. Like like when I feel something very strongly or like I'm feeling maybe upset or just something right, I'll more often write like a poem about it.
But then if there's like a scene I want to capture, that is something that like, you know, to date would be something I would write like a short story or a novella or something about. Right. Worse is if I visually saw something, I would almost always take a picture. Interesting.
Like if I felt the light was really beautiful, it's rare I would write a poem about it. The poems are almost always about something, unless the light maybe feel some one thing that I might write a poem about it. But if I just saw it and I was like, oh, the scene is very compelling. As you know, I've recently been writing some poetry
and I think what it has helped me with is I feel like I have a part of my brain, which is like really articulate, knows how to use language. And there's a part of my brain that feels things. And so I make art using it and they don't really communicate with each other. I think one of the most biggest panic situations in my mind is when somebody asks
me to explain a painting I made or what was I thinking? And I have my brain is just like, I don't know what I was thinking. Please don't ask me about that. But like writing poetry has been interesting because it's almost like having a feeling that I would have normally painted about.
And then trying to say it in words. Oh, I see. It's a substitution. You're not trying to fill a different thing with it, at least yet. It's a connection, I think. Interesting. Yeah, I guess if I started at you medium,
I would connect it to an existing one initially. Like that would make sense. But I wonder if eventually it finds a place. I didn't mean it that way. I just feel like two parts of my brain that do not communicate with each other.
They are able to communicate like writing poetry feels like a bridge between the two. And I'm able to describe what I feel rather than just try to like loosely capture it. No, I understood that what I was saying, though, is that it sounded like the same motivator for you to create a visual art would be the same motivator for you to create a piece of poetry,
at least the way you're thinking about it today. Yeah, correct. That's what I was saying. I feel like I was slightly surprised that they're slotting in the same place. But then I realized if I was to pick up a new medium, I think I would initially be like that, too.
So I would think eventually the medium would find its own place, at least for me. I think fundamentally create very differently. I think so. Because like I can't think of anything. Where I would think this is the only medium, like, of course,
each medium will be able to highlight certain aspects of things. But I wouldn't think that this is the only medium that would be valid for this story or this feeling. Like, I would think that I'm limited by my ability to execute and my ability to see the multiple facets of the experience
rather than the limitations of the medium. Oh, yeah, I think I would agree with that. OK. I just maybe I was using a shorthand, right? I was saying my experience with that medium versus like but it's also where I aspire that to be a little bit, you know,
I'm not trying to become type of photographer that I would need to be to capture the type of ideas I have in my poetry in my photography. I maybe don't understand my artistic self enough to have a form affinity or maybe I am for my agnostic. I don't know.
Actively having made art for more than a decade. That is a weird thing to say that I'm not even sure if I have some form affinity and I haven't found it. I have a very particular kind of affinity for the kind of stuff that I like.
Yeah. Like whether it is games or it's painting or it's movies or it's music, like it's there is a very specific thing. But I don't know if I have a medium where I would want to just make that.
That's interesting. Like, I wouldn't really think about capturing my ideas as a painting. Just because I don't think I have the skills to like create a painting. Maybe I could sketch something, but it would take a lot of energy from me to try and capture something in a sketch, you know.
But you do write prose and poetry and do photography. But I write a certain type of prose, right? Like I really write very, very dialogue centric prose generally, which is kind of like poetry. It is, I think so.
Huh? Explain. Poetry is often a dialogue, right? It's just a two person dialogue. It's the author and the reader. Whoa.
Otherwise, you're kind of like you're you're observing a dialogue, depending on how it's written, right? You're a dialogue between two characters. But in this case, it's just like the author is talking to the reader about something. You're not often like describing something or like, I mean, you can be.
But maybe for me, a lot of my poetry isn't that way, right? It's not like like an epic poem like like the Ramayana or Gilgamesh or something, right? Which is like giving a scene. I hear you. Even those are like, you know, oral traditions.
They are frame stories and they are like, you know, a storyteller telling a story to a person. Kind of a thing, right? Like even something like Mahabharat is written from a particular person's point of view as a story to another person. No, that makes a lot of sense.
I just had never thought of poetry like that. That's so funny. I feel like you said this to me really early on when we started working together, where I was like, oh, I feel like I'm so disconnected in the different kinds of things I like to write.
We were like, oh, you know, there's there's a big connection because a lot of it is very dialogue centric. I can't remember. I think there was a third thing at the time I was trying to write, but I can't remember what it was.
I just don't think that like I had made the connection about like poetry as a form about it. But like, as you were saying, even I was thinking about like, like I really love that poem, Hope is a Thing with Feathers. And all of these poems that I really like or that I really enjoy, they do tend to be from that tradition of like, you know, a person is sort of speaking something to you.
And I guess like poetry is short enough that you can imagine yourself inserting a dialogue at the end of it like it doesn't feel that sort of long form, I guess. Yeah. Today I learned. I don't know. While you were talking just now, I was reminded I did try once
to like shoot a very feeling centric photography project. It was one of my final projects. I did an independent study as a photographer my last year in college, and it really did not go that well. So I wonder a little bit if I have shied away from it
just because I have this memory of like this project that was very like I really kind of tried hard. It was one of the very like first real like photo projects I tried to do. And it just was a kind of a disaster. But I did another one after that that was looking at like the modernization of rural Vietnam after the end of the U.S. embargo, right?
Like a nice photo story, you know, very dry. Lots of emotions that are not yours. So yeah, that was great. Yeah, autobiographical work can be scary. Yeah, definitely.
Yeah. So back to the original question I asked, how do you feel about the interview idea? I think it would be great. I think like you said, we've done a lot of thinking at this point, right? And it would be useful and interesting to understand more people's perspectives.
I think you and I do have very different experiences. We had different life experiences before this point. And so it's been really interesting to kind of see how can you end up with kind of almost similar mentalities from such different places? But I think understanding more of that, right?
Because I think as we've gone out into the market, we've met more and more people who kind of share some of our values, who share some of these concerns about technology and also ideas about like kind of the direction that we can go from technology and also from like a cultural point of view.
So I think understanding more about what are the stories of the other people who kind of are on this mission with us would just be really cool. So I'm excited about it. I think it'll be a really cool third season, fourth season, third season. Fourth season.
Fourth season, my goodness. Yeah, we are an episode 28 right now. It's well, it's been a journey. It's been a journey more than a year. Yeah, you're going to have.
Awesome. Bye. Thanks for listening to this episode of Thinking on Thinking. Our theme music is by Steve Goomes. If you found this topic to be interesting or have other topics you wish we would explore on a future episode,
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