streamofthought
The two most important characteristics of any tool or system we design are:
Quality is the level of care and attention given to the tool in relation to its intended use.
Composability is the ability of the tool to combine with other tools to form more complex solutions.
“They will be heroes of many things, and will have learned nothing.”
—Socrates, Phaedrus, in relation to the creation of the written word
Perspective is gained by zooming out. When you zoom out you can see what was adjacent to the frame but not in the frame. Perspective is, therefore, gained by reflecting on what exists but is not shown/not said.
“Now for the evidence,” said the King, “and then the sentence”.
“No!” said the Queen, “first the sentence, and then the evidence!”
“Nonsense!” cried Alice, so loudly that everybody jumped, “the idea of having the sentence first!”
— Lewis Carroll, “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”
Appreciation for the things we use.
It’s not what I have, or even what I want. It’s what I use.
What I use has a home — visible, accessible, within reach.
What I use gets worn. And wear is a badge of honor, a quiet kind of beauty.
The things I use carry the scars of work, the traces of a life well lived.
“De donde yo vengo, es ilegal ser inocente.”
The Pricemaster is one of the best things I’ve watched in a long time. That contrast of ordinariness and awkwardness. The soundtrack elevating the experience. It is disturbing and funny at the same time. And the strange acceptance.
“Dreamers,
They never learn.”
In the Navy SEALs, they say, “Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.”
“There’s never time to do it right, but always time to do it again”
“For us, creating systems and teaching them became synonymous with making art.”
—Tom Sachs, Tom Sachs Guide
“…with the days lingering and long, spacious and free as the summers of childhood.”
—Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire
Individuation and integration are the two processes to become whole.
“When you arrive at a certain level of mastery, every action you take builds you up instead of wearing you down.”
No interest in the story anymore—too much hustle.
Not even in the gist, the headline skim.
What matters is the vibe: an elusive feeling, a lightning-strike of emotion.
Meaning reduced to its essence, where language breaks down.
“Force decisions instead of vague intentions.”
“Never leave those GPUs idle at night!!”
A meditation on death. A spectacle too. Boyle knows how to craft an impressive image, a touching moment. Music was exceptional, as always.
Naming something can change our perception of it. We prime the brain to connect the thing to something. Suddenly we perceive it with a different lens.
Powerful thing naming is.
“We should all become masters.”
But masters of what?
Of that which absorbed us as children.
“A world which increasingly consists of destinations without journeys between them, a world which values only “getting somewhere” as fast as possible, becomes a world without substance.”
—Alan W. Watts, The Way of Zen
It’s a masterpiece.
The sense of overwhelm is asphyxiating. The story constantly branches, so that at any moment multiple crises are pressing down on Howard at once. If Greig Fraser mastered “dirty” photography in The Batman, the Safdie brothers master dirty dialogue here—overlapping, chaotic, and deliberately disorienting. The film is a rollercoaster that offers no respite. And Adam Sandler’s performance? I’m at a loss for words.
“The problem is that metrics are seductive.”
—Joshua Rothman, ”Is Life a Game?”, The New Yorker, 2026
Efficiency often comes at the expense of diminishing the tangible experience of being in the world. It makes sense intellectually, but—as we are all learning (especially your audience!)—it does not make sense experientially.
You are an example of conscious living, Rajiv, and an inspiration to so many of us. Sacrificing the joy of lived experience for the expediency of results is not leading us to a better place.
(my comment to a YouTube video by Rajiv)
“These are my notes on the journey through the imaginary lands.”
“He hel distracted conversations in the hall, always looking somewhere else, unsure what he was looking for—only that it wasn’t the conversation he was in.”
If you focus on the HOW, the WHAT takes care of itself.
I couldn’t stop watching this show — that’s more than I can say for 99% of what gets made. The story keeps many possibilities open and builds genuine suspense — you’re always wondering what might happen next. I wasn’t a big fan of the ending, though; I expected more.
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
Withhold the good.
Defer the distraction.
Embrace the suck.
This could have been a straight comedy—Lebowski-style—but instead it becomes everything at once: action, drama, comedy, thriller. It’s amazing how PTA pulls this off.
It says a lot about the state of the world that the whole supremacists-versus-resistance thread has shades of parody and yet still feels completely believable.
The film also has some of the best car-chase sequences I’ve seen in years.
DiCaprio and Penn are on another level. Penn fully inhabits the weirdo role; DiCaprio absolutely nails his character, blending commitment, doubt, apathy, desperation, and exaltation.
“Is it not a pleasure to learn, and to practice what you have learned at the right time?
Is it not a joy to have friends come from afar?
Is he not a person of virtue who remains unresentful when others do not recognize him?”
—Confucius, Analects 1:1