The most troubling aspect of Viridiana is not the desacralization of Catholic symbols, but the mockery of fundamental morality.

The film can be read either as a provocation against established dominant views, or as a critique of superficial morality, one based on slogans with no understanding of the underlying principles.

It’s interesting because, as a provocation, it would be a rather superficial exercise itself. As a critique of shallow morals, it touches more deeply because the questions are difficult to answer. When someone acts in the best way possible out of conviction, is that a stupid act? Or is it only stupid because the actor has not scrutinized her convictions more deeply? How deep is deep enough? In this regard, it echoes Middlemarch.

So is it a provocation or a deeper look? The bias towards sexual drives hints at a superficial exercise in provocation. The incident with Jorge relieving the dog only to find another one in the same condition points towards a more profound reading.

I guess there’s a bit of both. Kudos to a film that doesn’t want to explain itself and leaves interpretation open.

Overton Window: the band of ideas a society treats as politically acceptable at a given moment.

—Athenaeum

I bet the overton window is wider and wider as history goes by. Freedom of speech and competence when shaping the messages have made ideas the currency of these times, and they are all exposed. Some resonate and some don’t, and there’s probably a next frontier: how to viralize an idea.

When we are children, emotions will hit us so hard that we feel obliged to express them and act on them.

As we repeat that cycle, we learn emotions are bursts of reactions, most of the time not worth taking them as truths the world needs to realize.

As we grow older, our minds fill with streams of thought (ahem), and we treat them as great ideas everyone should appreciate. As we repeat this cycle, we learn the fleeting nature of thoughts, and realize most of them are better to sleep on.

Repetition and reflection are the mechanics of growth.

The analytical mind will break things down, identify the parts and understand their relationship.

It risks missing the emergent properties of the whole, and the potentiality of the whole to become itself the part of something bigger and more complex.

—Reading The Matter with Things

The eye follows contrast before it follows outline.

In painting, as in life, what is left in half-darkness can govern the whole scene.

My own delight in black & white photography, where it is more obvious that you are capturing light, not images.

seeing is not the same as noticing; consciousness has a rhythm, and that rhythm can leave small gaps.

—Athenaeum on Attention Blink

How much is out there that escapes our noticing. How much is in there that shapes our reason!

proof by contradiction: a proposition is established by showing that its denial leads to an impossibility.

Looking at the world from the upside down leads to new insights. Charlie Munger also advised: “always invert”.

Ask not only “how can I get this done?”, but also “how can I fail at this?”, then work backwards. Pre-mortem.

The multiple visual layers in this film, with concurrent action happening in every layer, is so apt for these times. I write this while I watch the TV, while I was watching Playtime on my iPad, while Claude is building a new version of Stream of Thought.

True prescience from Jacques Tati.

Migrating the vault to the new architecture.

This is really promising now.

Will this update on it’s own, following the webhook?

Can I edit from the website?

It seems so, but I think I lose something when I do.

And can I have bold letters?

The signals that reach us are the loudest and emotionally more impactful, but not necessarily the most relevant. The quiet signals in the background, inaudible because they have been internalized, do more to shape our lives than the headlines.

Being aware of the subtle is a skill to develop. A process of realizing what is there but we’re not noticing.

“Intense work followed by moments of rest.”

A recipe for creativity. I liked the video.

Sounds right to me. Easier said than done, though. How many times am I not really resting but consuming? Not really letting the mind wander while you do something more physical than intellectual? Isn’t this why all good ideas happen on the shower?

“RAM harvesters”

We’re in some cyberpunk branch of reality now.

…the idea changes the question from what life maximizes to what it can afford, and under which conditions one advantage becomes another kind of vulnerability

—Athenaeum

Technology and engineering is the art of defeating trade-offs.

Conscious of his own insignificance and modest talents, he nevertheless took pleasure in doing things well, and this earned him the heartening admiration of those around him. In his modest way, he was an inspiration.

This is the terrain of linguistic relativity: the idea that the language one speaks can influence how experience is partitioned, noticed, and recalled.

—Athenaeum

Language shapes our thoughts and, therefore, shape our world. What is, then, the language of enlightenment?

When the gains are shared and the costs are private, people may wait for others to move first, and the result is underaction even when agreement is widespread.

—Athenaeum on Collective Action

Powerful idea that can only be countered by public institutions, education and conscious living.

FOMO, that is not just fear but anxiety (but AOMO doesn’t sell), is a sign of these times of infinite options. What movie should I watch? Which book should I read? Which music should I play? Then, in the middle of the song… “ah, no, this one instead!”.

These are times of infinite menus and choice exhaustion. These are times of second guessing ourselves and switching—of not finishing anything.

How to choose, commit, and abandon ourselves to the moment?

How to stop thinking?

All the characters that are lone wolves develop very specific rituals and manias.

When I see Fer and he’s so cute I want to bite him, I bite my lips instead. And that gesture where part of me wants to bite through and part of me is restraining it creates major energy. I’m not moving or doing anything. But major energy is created.

I think there’s something about it. This bringing of tension between doing and preventing to do that is powerful. I think this is the basis of why the yogic fluttering of the breath is so energizing.

Current is a very welcome new approach to consuming content.

Two things make it different:

1. It removes the unread count, eliminating some of that guilt associated with not following through on your commitments.
2. It gives content a certain velocity, based on the time relevance of the piece: breaking news have a very short half life, timeless pieces live longer in the stream.

Very thoughtful.

I assembled the new fan—old style, one with blades and a cage enclosing them. The cage has a the name of the brand in it. I assembled it a little off axis, slightly tilted. It’s going all OCD in my brain, very hard to stand it.

What is it that a slightly off thing creates such discomfort? Why are we wired like that?

I don’t know what to do with it… Should I adjust it? Should I adjust the environment so that it just “feels right”?

Or should I learn to accept it?

Some boundaries are made not of matter, but of limits on visibility and influence. From there, the next question is not what lies on the other side, but what can ever be known from this side.

—Athenaeum on Event Horizon

Makes me wonder about the relevance of information when compared to time and space—physical dimensions we are used to experience.

Information is more subtle, more “intellectual”, but as a matter of experience, we might as well reduce every other dimension to information reflected in our consciousness.

Repetition leads to familiarity leads to acceptance.

Mind hacks that you can use to improve yourself—affirmations, gratitude—or to manipulate and audience.

That video that shows just one word at a time and speeds up to prove how fast can you actually read.

That seems to point in the direction of the efficiency of the approach: one thing at a time in fast succession.

This is the Dunning–Kruger effect: people with limited knowledge often lack the very insight needed to recognize their limits, so confidence can rise before competence does

Just testing that I can sync now so easily.

• Kanso — remove the unnecessary.
• Ma — protect the empty spaces.
• Shibui — prefer depth to spectacle.

—He’s sad because we’re leaving in two days.
—Then we have to stop thinking that this is over until the day we go.
—But, how can you do that?! If I tell my head to stop thinking about it, then it can only think about it!
—Then we will have to trick our minds!

I once said that our use of AI depends entirely on whether we use it to do something or to avoid doing it.

The same seems to be true of rest. Some forms of rest replenish your energy, while others slowly turn into lethargy, draining your desire to do anything at all.

I’m not entirely sure why this happens. My guess is that intention plays a role. Perhaps what you’ve eaten. Either way, it’s something worth thinking about.

What would you be doing if you weren’t being influenced by the reactions of like or dislike? Following that deeper guidance will take your life in a very different direction from where your preferences would have led you.

—Michael A. Singer, The Surrender Experiment

There’s some message in this movie that doesn’t come across easily. The creative act, its relationship with real life. How the creation of fiction uses real life events, then distorts the through a lens.

But what is the message behind the ending that then gets extended?

What is the message on that confrontation that unlocks the creative burst at the end?

Elsa gets unlocked by the island, by taking some distance. Raul gets unlocked by his insight on the person, and a sudden realization of the inner soul of Aitana.

Is this it? Plots need air, but true connection needs character and spirit, and Pedro gets that through the souls of those he connects emotionally with.

I loved the sound and image of the typ by sequences.

Maintenance is about longevity. The fundamental objective is to maximize the lifespan of something.

Better build quality is also a way to achieve this.

Not caring about lifespan because you are supposed to replace it anyway is another approach.

Should we:

1. Design to be easily replaceable?
2. Design to be easily maintained?
3. Design to last without maintenance?

These 3 are fundamentally different and cannot be optimized simultaneously.

I think nature optimizes for (1).

The picture of Earth from space. The first time it was captured it shocked everyone. A sudden shift of perspective that put everything in context. The relativism of realizing that everything that has ever happened took place in that floating marble in the middle of nowhere.

How quickly the shock subsided! The half-life of life altering shifts is fast. We’re programmed for immediacy—our attention quickly zooming in to make our insignificant problems fill the frame.

If we want those impressions to last, we must soak in them daily and for years. Slowly, they permeate our reason, and enter into some unconscious space that is mysterious and protected. By the time you have imprinted them, they are no longer shocking but part of a new normal—one that grounds you with the assurance of truth. That truth is obvious and available to anyone, but it’s not present for those that did not do the daily practice.

You did not become smarter, but your frame of reference became bigger. That gives you the advantage of looking at things within a broader context. That is clarity.

The fundamental purpose of task management systems should be to surface avoidance patterns and make you confront your fears. The rest are details.

An ominous feeling, as if something bad was about to happen. I could feel it in my chest, a force tightening my breath. Is this a higher intelligence issuing a warning through my body, or is this anxiety and rumination of a troubled mind?

Character is created by the singular ideas, the little details and the personal touches that make something yours.

It has to reflect your unique look at the world.

It has to shamelessly show what you like; what you are passionate about.

Automating production
benefits the user but
harms the maker.

Depending on which side you sit on you will see it as progress or threat.

Do these for a Conscious Life™:

• Stand with your spine erect, as if you’re being pulled upward from the crown of your head.
• Give your full attention to whatever you’re doing. Do it as well as it can possibly be done.
• Hold two seemingly contradictory truths at once: our lives are insignificant, and yet it is a miracle that we get to experience them at all.

I like the days after the birthday more than the actual birthday.

You have already gone through the threshold and now you are inhabiting the new reality. The birthday itself is an unnatural day with parties, messages, people reaching out… but the day after is a normal day in a new normal place.

If we had the rites of passage of old, I would have the same reaction—I would love the first normal day in which the boy has turned into man and joins the hunting party as one more. I think it’s more exciting than the over stimulation of the celebration.

A prison with three walls.

Other people’s expectations.
The fear to let them down.
The shame of having done so.

Trapped in that cell, my heart sinks and makes life almost unbearable.

Where’s the exit from this dark place?

I can feel that de door I’m looking for is somewhere deep inside, beyond the noise in my head.

Humans set the benchmark wherever effort, skill, and mastery are required. When new technologies mechanize what once demanded those qualities, the benchmark doesn’t disappear—it moves.

For a time, we’ll lament the loss of human expression in activities that have become automated. We always do. But those complaints tend to fade as we discover new domains where excellence remains difficult, rare, and unmistakably human. The frontier of mastery shifts upward, and eventually our standards shift with it.

What we value is not any particular task. We value the pursuit of mastery itself.

“His voice carried weight for who he was, not what he said. But, isn’t that a sign of what we truly are? Just mirrors that have been molded with time and experience? People want to see the world through that mirror, hoping that it will reveal something new and exciting about the world, and ourselves.”

It all comes down to understanding the difference between the outcome and the experience.

Focusing on the outcome enriches the user and the business.

Focusing on the experience enriches the maker.

What an unsettling feeling, to watch the unfolding of an inevitable derailment.

I guess the freedom and equality the French fought for is at display here. A single mother married to an unconcerned husband. Both too preoccupied with their own agendas. Both working and trying to thrive on their own accords, not as a family. Children being raised on the streets of Paris, while parents are busy with their own affairs.

Nice kid, not evil in any way, just trying to figure things out, on his own, with his friend. No guidance of any kind, no reference to follow.

In his arrest, the unbreakable will to see the ocean. He will do well, if only someone points him to the next sea. Hope in Balzac, he has discernment. He hast taste. He will do well.

I think the key question when choosing an activity is:

What are the problems you would like to face?

Solving problems is how you learn. Maybe alone, maybe with a mentor or teacher, maybe with a peer. People problems, system problems, intellectual problems, emotional problems, behavioral problems.

I programmed a full image service today. I didn’t have any problems cause Claude dealt with all of it. I have an image service today. And zero learnings.

From Primeagen’s Omacon keynote

All automation is a game of speed & scale—the two core levers of competition in a liberal capitalist world.

Speed & scale benefit the consumer at the cost of the maker.

Because consumers outnumber the makers, it’s a net positive.

But the making is where the human spirit resides. By systematically removing opportunities to make as a way of living, we push people into jobs that rot the soul.

“Fake it till you make it” is useful advice only for those that don’t take themselves seriously to begin with.

One day, Wade decided to dig a well in his field. He started digging a hole. He dug and dug, but even when he was 15 feet down, the earth was still dry. He began to wonder whether he had chosen the right spot, but he kept going anyway. At 20 feet, the soil was still dry. Discouraged, he decided to try another place.

He dug again, and the same thing happened. This time, he reached 25 feet before deciding to stop and move elsewhere.

After a month, his field was full of holes—but there was still no well.

You have a better chance of success if you stick to your original idea. It may take persistence and more effort, but eventually you’ll get there. Your mind will play tricks on you, but you must learn to ignore them. Just keep digging.

The world doesn’t need another unicorn valuation.
It needs the art that is still trapped inside people that are too afraid to make it.

—Val

I believe we value music so highly partly because when we listen to certain songs we perceive, on some level, the inherent human battle waged within them - the struggle of the songwriter and their triumph over that struggle.

—Nick Cave in his Red Hand Files

After a weekend of pondering how to get back to writing, this note touched me. It’s my own struggle that makes the writing valuable.

And if something—anything—removes that struggle, what remains is meaningless.

Over a cigarette, he considered the nature of the problem and what he might be able to do about it. (Skilled maintainer advice never trying to solve a new or complex problem without a thorough mulling first.)

—Stewart Brand in Maintenance: of Everything

Long ago I decided to always draft decisions but never take them without having slept over it at least one day.

It started as a sound with a frequency. I couldn’t determine if it was coming from the outside or it was in my head.

The light and the sound, the trees, the birds… spring. I loved the house as a character, somewhat coming and going. I didn’t love it as much as I thought, perhaps because I was still under the influence of La Habitación de al Lado, which touched me more deeply. The younger daughter steals the show, with her low profile character and actress the everyone will relate to.

The close and giving man that disappears unaware of the expectations and needs he had created.

Impact comes from challenging expectations. Since expectations are always shaped by context, impact can only exist in a specific moment in time. There is no such thing as a lasting impact—only sparks that rarely become fire.

Some mornings, in a perfect world, you might wake up, have a coffee, finish meditation, and say, “Okay, today I’m going into the shop to work on a lamp.” This idea comes to you, you can see it, but to accomplish it you need what I call a “setup.” For example, you may need a working shop or a working painting studio. You may need a working music studio. Or a computer room where you can write something. It’s crucial to have a setup, so that, at any given moment, when you get an idea, you have the place and the tools to make it happen. If you don’t have a setup, there are many times when you get the inspiration, the idea, but you have no tools, no place to put it together. And the idea just sits there and festers. Over time, it will go away. You didn’t fulfill it—and that’s just a heartache.

—David Lynch, Catching the Big Fish

I’m impressed with the good translation of a fun book into a fun movie. Rocky’s “implementation” is spot on. Ryan Gosling’s acting carries the movie along. The script is perfect, not a wasted second—makes a two and half movie feel super fast.

The similarities in tone and development with The Martian are obvious, which makes the acting of Matt Damon and Ryan Gosling so parallel. Like two actors have worked on the same character (Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford implementing their versions of Jack Ryan.)

It doesn’t need to be comprehensive—it just needs to be effective enough to get you moving.

If I start journaling and then forget about it because I got pulled into action, that means it worked. But when I look back and see the gaps in the log, I can’t help feeling bad about it.

So just let that go.

This note is being typed in my computer.

Commited into a repo in Forgejo in my homelab.

Deployed from Forgejo into my site in homelab.

Served from my homelab.

One step closer to self-hosting everything!

A symbol is a bridge between the conscious and the unknown.
It carries a quiet resonance—the sense that something beyond words is being touched, and yet somehow understood.

The urge to watch something while I eat.

The urge to listen to something while I drive.

The urge to call someone when I’m reviewing tasks.

Just make it memorable.

Memory is what threads experience into a continuum.

Two things are memorable:

1. A good story.
2. A powerful image.

1. Form follows function
2. Design to facilitate action and connection
3. Hide complexity under the surface
4. But expose it to those interested

“The day starts when you go to sleep, not when you wake up.”

If I start late the task, I have to rush through it, I kill every possibility of a dead time, of margin.

That’s my recipe for dopamine that I’ve become addicted to.

If I’m to get any respite, I must get some margin, and that means I must be able to start early.

Focus on the start date, bring it forward, cultivate some margin.

The second part of Goethe’s quote tells us the stakes of this choice: “If I know how you spend your time,” he said, “then I know what might become of you.”

“The way you spend your days is, of course, the way you spend your life.”

If Medicine 2.0 is about reacting effectively to disease and recovering the patient, Medicine 3.0 is living to avoid disease in the first place.

There’s some psychology 2.0 and 3.0 as well: living in such a way that the mental friction doesn’t sink you into negative states.

The two most important characteristics of any tool or system we design are:

1. Quality
2. Composability

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.

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.

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.

1. What was the best thing that happened yesterday?
2. Will this enlarge or diminish me?
3. Does this contribute to the variety of the world?
4. What would it look like to be done for the day?
5. What did you really want to say?

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.

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.

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)

“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.”

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!

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