Canto 7 :: Virgil

"Without imagination there is no hope, no chance to envision a better future, no place to go, no goal to reach." —Bessel Van de Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score

Hell is the descent before understanding, so we must remember that Dante's Inferno isn't the end. After he hits the center of Hell, Dante then climbs the mountain through Purgatorio before ascending into Paradiso.

It's a story you see—The Divine Comedy. It took the real Dante over 10 years to write, and it chronicles how one man sets off on a journey that changes how he understands himself in relation to his life, the world, his fellow humans, and the divine. He doesn't stay weighed down in despair; eventually he works his way toward salvation.

And how about our pilgrimage through these Cantos? Let's look at the data points.

First the quantitative:

Jon and I started our collabs in August 2025 and are still doing them today (as of May 2026)
We've met a total of 11 times over 10 months for ~ 60 hours.
In the first session, we identified my value prop—a product x poetry thingamajig
In the second session, we reframed it around my creative process aka Virgil.
In the third session, we didn't start building. Instead, we identified a deeper user pain point—not just the need to make something but make something FUN.
In sessions 4 - 7, we pushed this ideation further as a type of potential business (Hey Virgil), with services (collabs, experiments, and TBA), with a mission (to help people be more agentic and creative by exploring the intersection of product and poetry), etc & etc.
In session 8, we commenced building and playing (which I can't wait to share); I also started writing these Cantos.
BTWs, Jon's also achieved his own Virgil-ly evolution with Practical.
We both juggled our Batman-vs-Bruce-Wayne responsibilities throughout it all.

Considering how impossible this all felt at the beginning, I'm quite happy with the output. But let's also look at the qualitative data—specifically this point:

It's 2026—the new year! And Jon and I are back from the holidays with session 8. Jon says THE WORDS.

👨: Sarah, it's time to build it.

👩: "Yes! 🙌

👨: So what's it going to be? What does it do?

👩: First, we begin with exquisite corpse.

👨: Ok!

The 🤖 says: Exquisite corpse is a collaborative writing or drawing technique in which each contributor adds to a composition in sequence, only seeing a small portion of what came before. Developed by the surrealists, they prized the technique because of how it produced unexpected juxtapositions and images, revealing something closer to what happens in the unconscious mind.

We decided to do it a bit differently. We each wrote 4 phrases on a piece of paper. We even invited a coworker to contribute two. (He opted to pull lyrics from the club-dance piece he was composing). Then Jon and I built our compositions quickly and in two ways.

WAY 1

[image: Way 1 compositions]

Then we built standalone couplets.

WAY 2

[image: Way 2 compositions]

We loved our creations and marveled at them.

👨: It's like we're trying to introduce unpredictability into the algorithm!

👩: Exactly! Whatever we build, this is the north star—the feeling—for how we know if we're doing it right.

👨: Ok!

—

So what does this mean? About Hey Virgil? You? Me? And what's next?

Jon and I are here to play!

With how we make and engage with products and technology
With how we can make tech fun again—by putting the play and personal back in the hands of the people
With how we can experiment and innovate new ways through the product development process beyond the noise from Silicon Valley
With how we prioritize ourselves—humans—as agents of change.

When the world's upside down and the path ahead is dark and fuzzy, there is no better time to be more creative, more innovative and more cacophonously playful in this confusing world.

Maybe with the 🤖 or not? 🤷‍♀️

Let's navigate the constellation together—working through practical ways to fire our imaginations. To give us that launchpad we need to break free from the weight of all this gravity and shoot for the stars.