Five Big Questions: Nishant Jain

Plus so many forms of beauty.

Welcome to this week’s installment of Five Big Questions, the short interview series where awesome people share a bit about who they are and what moves them.

Today’s guest is Nishant Jain, a former research engineer turned artist, writer, and podcaster. His wonderful newsletter, The SneakyArt Post, features his drawings from around town (secretly captured in a sketchbook), along with ideas and conversations from the SneakyArt Podcast.

Nishant has such an eye for detail; his art always reminds me to pause and take a closer look at the world unfolding around us. (You’ll see what I mean.) He lives in Vancouver, but sketches scenes from the many places he visits.

Without further ado, here’s Nishant, in his own words.

What’s one thing you struggle with that people might be surprised to hear?
I have deep, long-form conversations with artists on the SneakyArt Podcast, where episodes run from 90 minutes to over 3 hours. I love to share my ideas and am quite comfortable speaking in public. But at the same time I am intensely self-conscious, and prefer to avoid conversations with strangers. My favorite social plans are those that are cancelled at the last moment. Instead of FOMO, I suffer from JOMO — Joy Of Missing Out.

When I sketch outdoors, I try to make myself as inconspicuous as possible, so that no one will notice me and ask questions. This is actually how SneakyArt got its name. It is becoming a not-so-easy task now, as recent press coverage has made me mildly popular in Vancouver.

What’s one thing you’re proud of?
My path to becoming a writer and artist was not laid out for me. There was no roadmap, guiding light, or role models. But I made it happen because I really wanted it.

While completing a Bachelor’s and then a Master’s degree in Engineering, I wrote stories, poems, comics, short films, and stand-up comedy in my spare time. I pursued all kinds of creative projects because they gave me a greater sense of fulfillment than my work with race cars, studying human movement and reflexes, and PhD research with stroke patients. At a crucial juncture in this double-life, I realized I needed to make a commitment. So I quit 2.5 years into my PhD program to be a full-time creative.

I have built my career by pursuing the things that make me curious, pushing past fears and hesitations, and charting my own path.

It took me a long time, but I am proud to call myself a writer and artist.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever heard?
A person I respect gave me this advice. It helps me define myself, gives me purpose, and helps me realign myself whenever I am waylaid by stray thoughts. But most importantly, it helps me believe in a positive-sum world — where my success does not hinge on the failure of others, and I am not in a rat-race.

He said, “Do not try to be the best. Be the only.”

What’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever read?
The most beautiful thing I have ever read is by Kurt Vonnegut, who changed everything I thought I knew about writing. He showed me that big impact can happen from even just a few words, from simple words, a turn of phrase, or a beautiful, vulnerable idea.

My favorite passage of writing comes from his novel, Slaughterhouse-Five:

What’s one consumable thing you recommend? 
I love watching sitcoms. My favorite show this year is Letterkenny, a Canadian sitcom about a small town in rural Ontario. I recommend it to everyone for its talented cast, superb editing, and sharp writing.

Thank you so much, Nishant! You are a gem.

More Five Big Questions, including a therapist, a comedian…and me!

And now, on to a few things bringing me joy lately…

A trifecta of beauty.

“It seems like you have a theme going on here,” said the dude at the coffee shop, eyeing my latest book haul. Indeed he was right. Three very different books, united by beauty — and phenomenal writing, to boot.

I wasn’t going to write about You Could Make This Place Beautiful because seemingly everyone else has. It debuted on the New York Times bestseller list. It likely (hopefully) has a prominent display at your local bookshop. But! I loved it so very much that I can’t help but give it a shout out here. Smith (“the poet, not the dame”) writes prose the way only a poet can. Told in short vignettes, the memoir begins with the dissolution of her marriage but brilliantly expands to include meditations on parenthood, family, work, contemporary womanhood, and the patriarchy. If that sounds dry, it isn’t. A gorgeous, compulsively readable work on how, in the aftermath of loss, we can (re)write our own lives… into a story that is uniquely ours and yes, achingly beautiful.

Hello Beautiful is Oprah’s 100th book club pick — with an endorsement like that, what could I possibly add? But perhaps you, like me, slept on this one for a few weeks until a person you knew couldn’t stop talking about how lovely it is, and how they never wanted it to end despite the fact that it made them cry many human tears. If that’s what you need, then allow me to be that person. This contemporary family saga is an homage to Little Women, with characters so clearly drawn you feel as if you know them. It’s that rare kind of novel to get lost inside, capable of making you both swoon and sob.

I’ve been examining my relationship with consumption — a complicated matter that’s proven even trickier to write about. So when The Ugly History of Beautiful Things called to me from the “new fiction” shelf, I didn’t hesitate to answer. So far I’m loving this essay collection combining history, science, and memoir, painstakingly researched and dazzlingly written. If you’ve ever admired a piece of jewelry, perused a decor magazine, worn a soft fabric, coveted a piece of furniture, merely beheld any beautiful object — so, all of us? — or felt conflicted about your role in a world rife with beauty and destruction, this book is for you.

Speaking of beautiful objects, I’ve been mildly obsessed with Haus of Hands, the Seattle-based maker of these soft sculptures, ever since I first spied them in a house tour ages ago…

I can’t look at them without smiling! Here’s the designer, below.

At the moment, I lack both the space and budget to adopt a pair of my own, but if you happen to be in the market for some epic, hand-shaped joy, the next drop is this Friday.

Last but not least, I wanted to share this message I saw on Substack Notes earlier today (click to read in full):

Congratulations to Anne! And may this serve as a reminder to us all to KEEP GOING.

Thank you so much for reading. I’ll see you on Sunday! x