Yet Untitled 100 - A mirror with a hundred fragments

What 100 instalments of Yet Untitled have told me about myself

Dearest Yet Untitler,

I’ll whisper it. We made it to 100 mainline YUs!

I had a few ideas about how to celebrate. One was to share the address of a Andheri bar via Substack notes, inviting anyone who was free and in the vicinity to come and raise a glass on publishing night. There were thought about inviting blurbs from merry, attending YU-ers and building the instalment real time. There were visions of high fives and meetings with folks never met but who seemed to know me well because of this here newsletter.

But, dear Yet Untitler, I decided to proceed quietly - much as is the Yet Untitled way. Quiet and reflective.

I thought it’s worth asking myself what writing (over) a hundred instalments has meant, or what it’s revealed about me to myself. Perhaps it’s a bit self-indulgent, dear Yet Untitler, but I hope you’ll permit me this self indulgence today. I have, at the end of it all, hit a century. Think of it as if, via your permission, you’re buying me a drink at that bar where we never met.

Honesty is a currency I spend well

YU is built on frankness. And honesty is as much my radar as my tone. I often think about how these instalments have been generated week after week, and I feel it’s the opportunity and permission of speaking as myself that makes me zero in on subjects with great surety. Because of the permission from you, and the past encouragement via your comments, I then go in with a commitment to honesty, which leads to good reading and the occational revelation for both you and me.

I would list YU 073 here, a post where honesty took me way into myself to places where I usually avoid going.

Yet Untitled 073 - Melting Shame Pebbles

I enjoy my craft

Wherever I may be as a writer, YU is where I take the opportunity to enjoy my craft. And YU has helped me see clearly that I draw great enjoyment from my craft. As I learn more, I feel there’s more to enjoy.

It’s been amazing to have this laboratory where I can push my craft in different ways. YU has stretched me to innovate via the commitment to deliver. Remember the poem instalments that I wrote while on shoot?

Yet Untitled 064 - Disruptions

The challenge I set myself was that I must always deliver something of value. I gave myself the freedom to let this ‘something’ take any shape necessary, and managed to run with things till it did. I don’t know how this has happened, but I never published any instalment without feeling that I had checked this box.

The subject of death drew me out

The instalments where I really opened up were about death! It began with the very early instalment I wrote after the death of my grandmother, and continued with two instalments around the loss of my father further down the line. I’m pleased with the innovations I made while writing these - they were more than straight-up narratives. They were playful, they allowed me to use all of Substack’s powers in marrying image and music with text.

Yet Untitled 004 - Death and Music

Yet Untitled 051 - What I’d ask of those who are gone…

Yet Untitled 049 - Ground Control to Major Dad

This prompts me to be on a serious lookout for another trigger that launches me into such innovation. I wonder what it’ll be..?

Clearly, I’m an archivist!

Archivist. Not an anarchist. Not the antichrist. Perhaps a Buddha on a good day!

YU would not be what it is without my expansive personal photography archive, which I built over my digital life not knowing what I was building it for. It’s like an encyclopaedia of personal prompts that point me in the direction of where my deeper life is looking. Deeper life looks - Vasant takes picture - Vasant uses picture in Yet Untitled - Vasant understands why he may have taken the picture in the first place!

My archivist tendencies led to some pretty trippy posts, especially after I got my dad’s old transparencies scanned. The one to bump up for here would be this one: YU 012: Whose life am I living?

I stuck to what I had set out to do

I’m recalling something I wrote in the very first instalment of Yet Untitled:

“If you have enjoyed my Instagram account, you may have noticed that I am always trying to get the best collaboration out of a photo and the written word. Here I am trying to take this enterprise further. I always felt a need for a slower and more reflective experience between what I create and what is consumed. This newsletter seems to be the answer.”

Photos. Text. Slowness. Reflection. It’s all stayed pretty consistent.

I arrived at Yet Untitled after years of looking for a medium of consistent creative output. The clarity wasn’t found accidentally, it was hard won, but when I found it - I knew I had found what I was looking for and I clung on. For 123 weeks and counting.

Freedom Kicks Ass (for me at least)

More recently, I wrote about the power inherent in being able to tell yourself: “you can stop anytime” in YU 098 - Enjoying myself at ease.

This is a principle I’ve always applied to YU. Whenever it’s Saturday and I’ve written jack-shit, I tell myself - “well, you can always not publish”.

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve told myself this. And I have always published. Like honesty, this freedom is a currency that I spend well. I know this varies from writer to writer and circumstance to circumstance, but perhaps each of us might feel a burden lifting when we give ourself the permission to fail rather than the command to succeed. Burden-less, we thrive! What I find noteworthy is that I find rigour in this leniency. This is counterintuitive. It baffles me.

But there it is. Take what you’d like from it.

I’ll end quietly with a thanks to each one of you. Just because it’s quiet does not mean it isn’t deeply felt. I could never, NEVER, have done this without you.

Thank you for listening. A hundred times.

Lots of love

V

PS: Which YU particularly stood out for you? Hit me with a comment!

PS. I cannot leave you without referencing my favourite instalment in all of my canon. Here’s…

Yet Untitled 012 - Of Umbrellas and Exploding Hedgehogs