FRIENDLY AMBITIOUS NERD

by Visakan Veerasamy

FRIENDLY AMBITIOUS NERD is a collection of essays by @visakanv about becoming a kinder, bolder and more curious version of yourself.

"sort of a Marcus Aurelius Meditations but for Twitter addicts" – @johnvmcdonnell

Inside are riffs about creativity, taste, marriage, relationships, Internet culture, community-building, masculinity, dealing with assholes, cultivating your aesthetics, book and movie recommendations and general nerd-ing out about how to have a good time as a human being on the Internet.

Genres: Self Help, Nonfiction, Personal Development, Essays

ebook

Published March 1, 2020

Reviews

[Dominik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Feels like reading an unformatted archive of tweets (which is precisely what one is reading).

But the tweets are good. I find I prefer to just bookmark Visa's threads and read them, this half-book half-Twitter format doesn't feel well executed to me. Maybe 4 stars when it gets to v1.1.

Regarding content: I feel I've read most of it (on Twitter). After seeing the same type/vibe of content multiple times, you kinda start getting the feeling of "genericness", but I remember that the first time I read his stuff, it was innovative and good - so that generic vibe I got is probably just me.

Maybe a bit too heavy on autobiography. I could also just be pattern-matching to bullshit artists who always follow the same format (autobiography then unfounded advice) but even accounting for that, I'd have preferred less biography (or maybe have it lead more directly into the meat of the book).

Friendliness takes an enormous portion compared to Ambition and Nerdiness. That may be fine, but may also be something to look at.

The single most revolutionary idea from the book (for me) is "be so prolific you can't recognize yourself". I would like to see this book written:

Part 1: ONLY short biographies of prolific people and what they were prolific at
Part 2: ONLY how-tos, tutorials. Steps to take to become prolific. Literally guide my hand through the motions of drawing every day, of writing every day.

That would be a cool format, particularly because of the strict separation of biographies and how-to (usually it's always interspersed).

Anyway that's it. Book's fine, but a couple of polishing steps would be nice.

Good philosophy for why:
https://blog.regehr.org/archives/1471

[Chandler · Rating 1 out of 5]

hm. i feel a bit bad about this one, like i SHOULD give it a 2. i was going to do that at first: i was going to say something glib like "finally, definitive proof that some books desperately need an editor -- and that i desperately need an hour and a half of my life back." i would have pointed out that there were legitimately some bits that made me go "oh, that's an interesting way to think of it!" and a few lines where i was like "lol ok dam that's insightful." i would have, however, been forced to admit that on the whole this "book" is several dozen scattered collections of half-baked platitudes.

/until/ the halfway point. until the "this is what no historical materialism does to a mf" segments, until the "you MUST avoid in-group/out-group creation!!" fearmongering, until the "hmm, i bet you overly generalize conservatives -- aren't you 'disincentivizing outgroup members from aspiring to be better?' chiding (sure it wasn't meant that way, but, lol). i mean, really: "if you expect the worst from them, that's what they'll give you" -- trivially true! they'll give you the worst no matter what! i have to say, for most people, the word "liberal" can provoke a range of reactions, negative to positive. even the most far-right extremist will happily say "boy, the fellas at marble slab sure were liberal with how much ice cream they gave me!" so whatever your relationship with the word is, just know i mean it here as scornfully as i can: the middle segment of this book is one of the most liberal things i've ever read.

gotta say, i'll add a star just for the amount of nerve it takes to leave in several instances of "[add list of stuff here]" (ooh, that's right, this isn't the "final version") and repeat several paragraphs character-for-character later in the book. but whoops! that star's immediately lost for having all the "insightful" lines...highlighted? and in different shades here and there at that? i'm not reading a 70s comic book! i can focus on what i want to, lmao

(two "floating" stars for being both heartfelt and quick to read, at least!)

[Deepu Asok · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a collection of essays by blogger Visakan Veerasamy. The book mostly talks about the following key areas.

1. Making friends- Visakan talks how having a nourishing tribe of people among which you feel safe is the most important thing in life. He shares stories from his own life about his struggles growing up as a loner to becoming someone who has a rich network of like minded people who really care about him. (Quick Fact: A bunch of his twitter friend's flew him into California for a meetup :) I wish I had friends like that.)

2. Being ambitious- He sorts of dispels the argument that being ambitious is bad. He explains how setting out to do big things that will change you as a person and add value to the world is exactly what we need to do.

3. Being a nerd- This was my favorite part of the book. He talks about what being a nerd really means, "being obsessed about something that strokes your curiosity without being apologetic about it". If you are someone who is interested in mechanical watches, a rare kind of video game or some weird hobby, you don't have to hide that obsession. Wear it on your sleeve, because that's who you are, and there's nothing wrong about it. On the contrary, you will attract people who are interested about the same things, and you will end up having meaningful and engaging relationships with them.

Overall if you have been interested by his tweets and blog posts, this is a good read to get into his mind to understand his philosophy about life and making a network of friendly ambitious people.

You can find him at @visakanv. He writes at http://visakanv.com/.

[Gala · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pesar de que la mayoría de mis amigas en goodreads sois mis amigas de twitter, creo que flotamos a menudo en esferas diametralmente diferentes (aunque por suerte las nuestras colisionaron tiempo atrás).
Para acercaros mi esfera favorita, en twitter US existe lo que se conoce como _el ingroup_, un conjunto de personas curiosas y nerdies apasionadas por la filosofia, antropologia, lenguaje, newageism, maths y tantas otras cosas, quiza TODAS las otras cosas; por eso no sé muy bien como acotarlo.
Descata de entre este ingroup Visa @visakanv, quien se ha convertido facilmente en mi tuitero favorito. No es que me fascine todo lo que dice, la mayor parte de las veces ni sé de qué habla; pero es su forma de aproximarse a la vida, su actitud para con los demás y su capacidad para hacer absurdamente sencillos autenticos quebraderos de cabeza filosóficos lo que me encanta de él.

Mis reseñas suelen ser de 6 palabras so you bet i love this guy.
A pesar de no estar editado de ensueño (es un pdf con muchos de sus twitter threads dropeados en un word) y esta es la unica pega que voy a poner y solo por aparecer ante ustedes como una diligente, honesta y justa reseñista.

Creo que este es el primer libro del que pienso que recomendaría a todos, ya que todos florecerían leyendolo. Sus insights parecen piezas de saber susurradas por la naturaleza. Todo tiene la claridad que parece tener el mundo cuando usas algun alterador de la realidad, desde una optica de inusitada sencillez. Vamos que pass it on

[Phil Filippak]

The free, roaming style, and the topics changing on a whim, and the light language interspersed with rather local internet memes — all that might not be perfect for a popular reader but it's a great embodiment of the principles that this book is about. Which I think is more important because mass market literature may require so many tradeoff decisions that it's easier to write an entirely new book, designated specifically for it.

The book is a bit rough and unfinished, which is not bad because you, as a self-critical nerd, can feel closer kinship with it due to all the imperfections. And although topics seem wildly different, all of them are actually (well, in my opinion) about seeking harmony (even though that word is never mentioned, I checked).

After reading FAN, I think I know Visa more now, and I definitely love him more. Waiting for the v1.1 edition! And definitely passing it on.

PS. A note on ADHD. It seems to me that Visa is locally affected and globally unaffected (wild guess???) by his ADHD. Which _vaguely_ means that he, for instance, can be extremely stable and consistent about his note-taking journey. Or so I think. For me, it's probably closer to the opposite: I can (sometimes) do a narrow task for a whole day, but often struggle maintaining focus over longer periods of time. Endurance-based adventures are something I'm trying to learn and get.

PPS. Postponing rating until the new version is out, hehe.

[Atharva · Rating 3 out of 5]

(I recommend going through the author's Twitter feed before buying this book)
I have mixed feelings about this book.Some of it was good,uncommon advice("Thank your heroes for making a difference in your life calmly,instead of competing with smart people,try to get them on your side) while some of it contained platitudes and highly context-sensitive advice.The book also touched on relationships and echo chambers.Another pivotal idea the author has is to be prolific-to produce a large quantity of work fast,and then to iterate based on that.It is my impression that this book is directed mainly at the young,ambitious crowd-this is visakanv's take on how to be ambitious.

I may not agree with it all,but I found it insightful.

[Ludwig Bald · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this e-book if you need encouragement.

Visakan's many tweets have introduced me to way of seeing and interacting with the world. It matches quite well with mine, so reading his first book was satisfying.

I wouldn't say the book is finished. I would like to read a version of it that has been professionally edited and typeset for readability and flow.

I do aspire to be a Friendly Ambitious Nerd, seeing the world as a cooperative game that's worth taking seriously. This book advocates for this mindset and gives pointers on how to see it through. I do recommend it if you're fine with the style borrowed from Visakan's twitter threads.

[Nathan Koerschner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great! This is the amazing @visakanv's fantastic mind and helpful ideas from twitter, bottled and distilled into book form.

Can't wait to see Visa's stuff in a few years, after he's established all the "groundwork" if you will. Certainly an interesting mind.

[Jinan · Rating 4 out of 5]

If there was a genre of philosophy for navigating the digital/information era as a systemic thinker, this is it. Loved it. Will definately pass it on.

[Ethan Lowe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Worth skimming

[Surbhi S · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hope we can all become Friendly Ambitious Nerds.

[V. Tei-Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even though the book lacks coherence and the author jumps from thought to thought, I like the ideas themselves. Could be better, but it's fairly good.

[Divya · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had this book on my downloaded pile since a pretty long time & I can honestly say that this is one of my best reads of 2021.
Yes, most of it is a compilation of Visa's twitter threads & if you follow him, you probably already have stumbled across some of the content. But the way this book structures them to give the content a semblance of continuity is pretty cool.
Bonus points for the nerd in me since I got quite a few book recos from this one & my TBR pile definitely doesn't thank Visa 😂 However, Friendly Ambitious Nerd is a great quick read that I hope to keep revisiting in future.

[Chudeep Shankar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Visa is one of my fav twitter people. This book is a subset of his delightful worldview that puts forth the idea of a 'friendly, ambitious, nerd' to prosper in an internet world. It is more like a friend giving his views over a coffee talk than some self-help guru preaching his ideas. Each section is good on its own and some of his pointers on developing one's social self are amazing. I felt the overall narrative could be much more tighter and not feel like reading different twitter threads.

[Grin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good summary of Visa's talking points. If you follow him on Twitter or you're in ingroup, there's not a lot of new content here.

[Gavin · Rating 2 out of 5]

80% of the value is the title. (It’s no small thing to reify and embody a cool newish archetype. I’m not scoring the man.) props but not points for the book’s style and like typesetting representing the bit, too.

What dissatisfies me (as so often with this part of thought) is the absence of earned transcendence, rigour, apt grandeur. Yes, I like being happy. Yes, being kind is not actually in conflict with being smart. Yes, learning social skills is interesting and worthwhile and actually a kind of public service. Yes, we often raise children to be self-limiting. Now what? What are his ambitions? To be himself, more. Who are his models in this endeavour? “Prince, Bowie or Hendrix… Richard Feynman… David Ogilvy”. In being meta and self-referential he is most like the latter.

There is, though, a clearer view of the collective nature of rationality here than in deeper and more searching equivalent work.

Visa is a very good tweeter. And for all my hard-earned cynicism about the hollowness and insincerity of books and their readers, this book of tweets reveals the large gap between megathread and actual book.

Don’t let me discourage you if you are very young. Possibly essential for burned-out gifted kids or helicoptered kids or machinic EAs or otherwise disembodied and anhedonic young men. But you probably need something much stronger than this, something to be a blowtorch of prose. Good luck

[Aaron Arnold · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's a famous line that "most books should be essays, most essays should be blog posts, most blog posts should be tweets, and most tweets shouldn't be written at all." Visakan, AKA Visa, has flipped that line on its head, writing a book which is a collection of essays that reference blog posts which are borne from tweets - and it works. The Singapore-based Visa is one of the more relentlessly positive people you'll find on Twitter, and he has written countless posts about the possibilities he's unlocked for himself by trying to be someone who other people find interesting, which sounds like a strange way to phrase self-development, but is actually a good way to think about it. As he says, "Friendliness is about being a nourishing presence, Ambition is about daring to dream bigger, Nerdiness is about cultivating taste and curiosity." A good measure of a philosophy is "putting aside for a moment whether this is right for me, would my life be improved if everyone around me were to practice this?" Dale Carnegie is the classic example, but while this is not exactly a self-help book (a somewhat unfairly maligned genre), it is full of helpful advice for people who want to get more out of life and thus easily meets that test.

[m. · Rating 3 out of 5]

i like visa's stuff on substack and enjoy the way he thinks, much of it tracks with my own experience, but it felt unnecessary to have this in book form. the format was very social media-y, light writing interspersed with photos, memes, emojis, sometimes screencaps of his tweets.

i would have liked this better if it took advantage of the medium and played around with it. maybe developed his ideas further, improved the writing to make it more literary. as it is this could have just been a notion or neocities page instead. giving this book a little grace because i do think visa has become a much better writer in the past four years since its publication.

[Circé Creates · Rating 5 out of 5]

FAN took me out of my book reading slump, and that's thanks to two things.

One. The format, in short essay chapters, clustered together in themes, is great. You pick up the book, read a bit, and pick up one or two ideas to think about.

Two. The informality of the style. This book is ALIVE, you have the impression of being in an actual conversation with Visa. Which is both refreshing, and comforting when you know him.

I highly recommend it. It's going to make you think about important things.

[Carmen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rough around the edges (much of it is a compilation of tweets and it feels like he's thinking through what he's saying as he's writing it) but the ideas are good and well-intentioned. I find Visa's vision of what our lives/creative scenes/internet communities could be inspiring.

"For the beginner, interestingness is about novelty. For the expert, interestingness is about nuance."

[Evan Segaul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vis is a good guy - this book is like reading Naval but for the regular man instead of the businessman.

It’s repetitive, but it feels good and I’m excited to load some of the quotes I’ve highlighted from it off my kindle and into my life.

[Zack Viera · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good stuff, I flew through this. Definitely an appropriate recommendation for where I am in life right now. Visa seems very cool and articulates himself in a way that is way better than I can currently, but we’re thinking about the same things! I proudly identify as a FAN :)

[Thorge · Rating 3 out of 5]

big fan of visa's twitter. if you read a bunch of post, there isn't so much new stuff in here. quick and nice read. his introspection book is much better and an incredible read.

[Markus Magnuson · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you read Visa elsewhere you will have heard all of it before but it’s very nice to have it in a concise format and the ideas themselves are highly useful.

[Sahan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was writing a review in the airport and the Goodreads app died :(

Will do it on the plane

[Aayush Kucheria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely love Visa’s (stated) approach to life.

[Kumar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Its a great book, I will read this again when I'll get married!

[Satyaki]

https://www.visakanv.com/archives/202...

[Praveen Kumar · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love visa's writing, it feels raw and not written to sound like another internet guru. The section on kids and relationships is pretty good.

[Hoanh Le · Rating 3 out of 5]

good, but more of an organized collection of tweets