"It looks like anarchy, but it’s always been discipline."

I’m learning to walk the tightrope and not look down.

Interview with

Lydia Sviatoslavsky

for VERA PR, January 2025.

Read the whole DISCIPLINE & ANARCHY series here.

WHY DO YOU DO IT? WHAT DRIVES YOU?

It’s what I am here for, in this life, in this body, this time around. That’s why I do it, and what drives me is the joyful knowledge of that, and the conscious alignment with that. And my sheer stubbornness. And occasionally arrogance.

WHAT IS ONE THING YOU DO FOR SANITY MAINTENANCE?

I limit my time on social media. Not because I’m addicted to it, but because I’m a raw nerve. Everything gets in. The whole experience of it — the perceived urgency, the simultaneity, all the voices climbing into my head at once at the highest frequency — really fuck me up. It’s not because social media gives me anxiety, because I think it gives everyone anxiety, but that it actively distorts me. It wears everything down into pointlessness. If I spend more than a small shred of time on there, I find I have nothing to say to anyone. Great news for a writer.

WHAT IS THE SCRAPPIEST THING YOU’VE DONE TO MAKE OR SAVE $$?

Oh god, what haven’t I done. I’ve done just about everything you can think of to make money, but answering a Craigslist ad to star in an erotic hypnosis video comes to mind. I’ve also been known to dump spices in hot water and call it soup.

YOUR TASK IS TO PRESCRIBE ONE BOOK OR FILM TO THE COLLECTIVE FOR MANDATORY CONSUMPTION. WHAT IS IT?

I love this question, because I know everyone (myself included) bristles at “mandatory consumption,” but I would love everyone to watch Jan Komasa’s CORPUS CHRISTI (2019) and then tell me why they think I chose it.

CURRENT OBSESSION?

Extreme space clearing. Like decluttering, but for psychos. Every day for the past two months I’ve been getting rid of at least five possessions — truly useless stuff from around the house at first, until it got to the pain point, which is where I am now. I’ve been torching (well, recycling) my “archive” — journals, notes, drafts, formative texts. The thought is, everything that’s meant to exist will exist, one way or another. If I’m not actively working with it, right now, I don’t need it. If I ever need it, I’ll know how to get it. If I don’t know how, it wasn’t mine in the first place.

MOST USEFUL FAILURE?

Honestly, all of them. All of them were (are) necessary. It may sound cliché, but I truly believe rejection is protection. Failure is just me ascribing a value judgment to something going differently than I wanted. I’m with Steinbeck 100% on this point: Nothing good gets away.

SELECTED Q FROM THE PROUST QUESTIONNAIRE: Who is your hero of fiction?

Raoul Duke — a man on the move, and just sick enough to be totally confident.

WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY WORKING ON?

A lot, but I’ve learned I can’t talk about projects — at worst, it kills them, at best, it tags them, establishes some sort of false coordinate, an illusory timeline. I am working on myself, however — I’m learning to walk the tightrope and not look down.

DISCIPLINE OR ANARCHY?

It looks like anarchy, but it’s always been discipline.