Currently attending an investment management conference with a bunch of central bankers (organized by a large asset manager) - it is interesting to observe the increasing uneasiness with the types of investments they are allocated to… coupled, still, with complete obliviousness to Bitcoin
Isolating subtle movements
If you’ve been reading Soir Bleu for a while, you’ll know that I’m an avid freediver. While depth is only one way of measuring success in this sport (and a dangerous metric to become obsessed with), it certainly is a good proxy to gauge the quality of the diver’s technique. Without a solid technique, increased depths will remain elusive.
Recently my depths have plateaued. While unfortunately timed colds and sub-optimal conditions played a role, the key issue has been my equalization technique, which has been, up to this point, mainly intuitive and hardly a result of deliberate practice.
And as I enter a deliberate practice of my Frenzel equalization (with odd devices like this), a whole universe of subtle movements is being revealed to me, that had heretofore been wholly unconscious.
As I learn to isolate subtle movements of jaw, diaphragm, tongue, soft palate and abdominals. and become aware of them, I am confident that my technique and results will improve.
But more importantly, becoming more conscious of these parts of my anatomy, is translating into other areas of my life. It turns out that all these body parts perform essential aspects of our physiology and when used inefficiently can cause real issues in the long run.
In other words, technique typically translates into greater excellence in one domain of life, but in many cases it unveils whole new areas of improvement in others.
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Georges Seurat’s “Le Chahut” (1889/90)
Rediscovering the inner child
This week, my wife and I attended our first magic show (https://www.asiwind.com/), a long-anticipated experience for me. My fascination with magicians began after watching David Blaine's TED Talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFnGhrC_3Gs; they often strike me as intriguing personalities, driven by a deep passion and a sense of wonder that's almost childlike in its purity.
While Asi Wind’s show was mind bending and highly entertaining, there were elements of his routines that aroused skepticism or at least put the magic behind his choreography into question.
The real magic happened after the main show when we got to sit down at a table with him and a few other attendees and he improvised card tricks (not unlike this Andrew Huberman clip: ). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6oMqP6dJY0&t=15s
Some of these tricks were nothing short of incredible, a masterclass in preparation, execution and craftsmanship producing pure awe and wonder in the onlookers.
If you have the chance, reengage with your inner child and go to a magic show near you.
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René Magritte’s “The Magician (Self Portrait with Four Arms)” (1951)
Understanding Bitcoin's security
Most people’s initial reaction to #Bitcoin is that it is obviously a scam, a ponzi scheme or a joke. My own reaction was not very different when I first heard about the technology while studying in Cambridge in 2013. Needless to say I didn’t pay attention to it again until late 2016.
I had moved to San Francisco and since then a couple of things had changed: I had started working and therefore had to start thinking more carefully about my investments. And in the aftermath of the financial crisis it became clear that our financial system was fundamentally broken beyond repair.
One obvious historical choice under such circumstances is gold, to which markets tend to have a love-hate relationship. It can be a decent store of value but it is an asset with no yield and as the last decade has shown, gold tends to be outperformed significantly by equities while the music is still playing.
Well in early 2017 another asset had started rallying: Bitcoin. And being in the bay area, I inevitably had to take another look. It immediately became clear to me that Bitcoin had a lot of the desirable properties of gold as an asset (scarcity, independence from central authority and fungibility). But not only did it have some additional benefits, but it also seemed to trade more like an option — with more volatility and therefore greater upside.
I started buying some just to dive deeper but still had my doubts. What if the network was attacked or hacked?
The most important moment in my Bitcoin journey, came one sunny afternoon when I visited some friends in their Mission district apartment. Over dinner we talked about Bitcoin and the future of Finance. And my doubts were eliminated one after another by a friend, who, being an authority in the field of artificial intelligence and blockchain technology, was able to convince me from first principles of the impenetrability of the Bitcoin network.
This conviction in the technological soundness is the key ingredient to being able to allocate confidently to Bitcoin and to “hodl” through its inevitable, breathtaking volatility.
Let me give you a couple of first principles examples to illustrate the power of the Bitcoin network:
Even with all the computational power in the world, it would take longer than the universe’s estimated lifespan (billions of years) to hack a single Bitcoin private key. Hyperscaler data centers are a drop in the bucket within this paradigm.
To launch a 51% attack on the Bitcoin protocol, you would need to control around 8 GW of power (and growing), costing approximately $36 Million of electricity per day. In addition to energy costs, the capital expenditure on mining hardware and the difficulty of acquiring and operating that much computational power make such an attack highly impractical.
Be safe out there!
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Vincent van Gogh’s “Flowering plum orchard: after Hiroshige“ (1887)
Conspiracy corner
We often realize how important our health is only once we get sick.
It is probably the most important thing we can care about. And yet most of us do not realize that we we tend to do things every day that deteriorate our health and that we are immersed in a system that actively promotes this.
Don’t take it from me, take it from these Stanford educated siblings (https://open.spotify.com/episode/14XV2p3zAYVWPt7F2hpP9Z?si=330e6a658f6d4835) who were both deeply ingrained in our healthcare system - one as a doctor, the other as an employee at Pfizer - and who just could not stand it anymore.
If you do not understand how serious the allegations are that these two make against the food and healthcare system and how deep the implications are for us and our children, I do not think there is a way to make it more clear for you.
If your knee jerk reaction is to cry “conspiracy theory”, it is because you, too are captured by the system.
Here are a few things the companies and the scientists and bureaucrats they pay, do not want you to know or express:
- Being healthy is actually pretty simple and it is not something that can be easily monetized: it consists of good, unprocessed food, sleep, exercise and relationships.
- All leading causes of death (heart disease, cancer, diabetes and Alzheimers) in our population are metabolic diseases, triggered by dysfunctional mitochondria.
- Viruses hardly ever kill a metabolically healthy person - almost all Covid casualties could have been prevented if we were a metabolically healthy population.
- Pharmaceuticals are often necessary to resolve an acute medical problem or condition like an infection (antibiotics). But they are almost never a silver bullet for chronic disease - in these situations they usually mask or relocate the problem without addressing its root cause (SSRIs, statins, now Ozempic). If a doctor is telling you otherwise, they are a drug dealer, not a serious doctor.
- Vaccines are actually problematic and like anything else you inject into your body, should be treated with care: There are no studies proving that the combination of the many vaccines we expose our children to at a vulnerable age, do not cause serious long term issues - the rates of autism, asthma, allergies and other chronic diseases have skyrocketed since the broad prescription of vaccines. And vaccines are likely to play a role.
- Most of the “science” proving that a given pharmaceutical is safe, is funded by Big Pharma. And Big Pharma is paying billions of dollars every year to settle lawsuits over pharmaceuticals that proved to not be safe after all.
- Doctors are often very well intended but they are not perfect. And they often swim in a sea of bad incentives: “Every patient who is going to enter this ward, is going to get a surgery, whether they need it or not”. If all you have is a hammer you are going to see nails everywhere.
If you listen to your intuition on a lot of the above, you’ll know that this is true.
Let me be very clear what I am not saying: I am not saying that there is a lifestyle that is going to guarantee us infinite health. I am also not saying that there is not the odd person that is just unlucky with respect to the genetic lottery. I am also not saying that pharmaceuticals can never help.
I am saying: If you are responsible for your own health or especially for that of your children you owe it to yourself and them to hold your healthcare providers to a very high standard. And you should question everything they say.
Doing from being
Most of us are deeply attached to doing. From a young age, that is what our culture teaches us.
When I was 23 I took a detour into being. I had a feeling there was more to life than just running from one empty achievement to another.
When all you know is doing, learning to be brings you a little bit closer to the truth.
However, when you then become too enamored with being, it can lead you down a route of nihilism and reckless self-sufficiency.
So what I am learning next is to do from being. And I know that is where it all comes together.
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Kanō Tsunenobu’s “Tiger Emerging from Bamboo” (1704-1713)
Conceptual fight or flight
Picture two chess players, each contemplating their next move. While sitting completely still. And yet their heart rate, in a high stakes moment, can easily clock in at 160-170 bpm. If you’ve played chess, you’ve experienced this.
But you need not be a chess player to be familiar with an elevated heart rate while physically still.
We are the only species that is capable of taking concepts, mere ideas, so seriously that they trigger a physiological fight or flight response. For better or for worse.
And we are not born this way. It is worth contemplating how we go from a bundle of potentiality to an organism so deeply immersed in concept.
When we do, we realize that we can let go of concepts where they no longer serve us.
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Ted Thai’s “Garry Kasparov” (1997-2002)
Parental renunciation of sanctimony
When we become parents, and we take the job somewhat seriously, we have to renounce most of our remaining tendencies towards sanctimony.
What I mean by this is that our children don’t seem to care much about what we say. They care about what we do. And it is what we do, that they eventually emulate.
This should be a concern to most parents whose actions are not yet up to par, i.e. all of us.
As an example my wife and I are realizing that the only way to have a chance at defeating the impending invasion of the smartphone into our daughter’s life, is to be the kind of people who don’t fill the unforgiving minute with mindless entertainment.
Could there be a more beautiful invitation to finally change?
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Michelangelo’s “Doni Tondo (Doni Madonna)” (1507)
This was going to be a post about Bob Dylan, but as the author of this humble publication I reserve the right to completely change my mind:
It is now a post about the greatest gift a serious dedication to meditation can give us: A profound sense that we will be fine, even if things don’t work out as we envision them, even if shit hits the proverbial fan.
This gift, of course, is founded on the recognition that who we think we are - an ego center with a bunch of problems - is not actually us.
Who we really are, our true nature, is sheltered from the storm the ego is engulfed by.
Have a great start to your week.
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Edmund Blair Leighton ”In Time of Peril” (1897)
Zero Tolerance
Our most important resource is arguably our attention. And other people, but especially corporations are increasingly and violently encroaching on it. We ought to have zero tolerance in the face of this entitlement.
Politeness is not the appropriate attitude towards someone who thinks they are entitled to sell you a product just because they have your number or email address or because you physically cross their path in the street.
If you want to defend your attention, you’ll have to be prepared to be unpleasantly clear about it. And to learn to block out the manifold, more sub-conscious bids for it from impudent advertisers.
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Richard Prince’s “Untitled (cowboy)” (1989)
History coming to life
Today I enjoyed a very private tour (no one else showed up) through the Met’s American Art exhibit, which, like most of the museum, is a true marvel.
Growing up I enjoyed reading about history, but somehow it was always a very rational pursuit. In short, I mostly took what I read as a story or an interesting fact. I found it difficult to identify viscerally with the events, to truly put myself in the shoes of the people that experienced them.
Today I’m reminded that history, at its best, makes past events come to life: Descriptions of the life of dutch settlers sharing the island of Manhattan with only 500 other pioneers from a multitude of nationalities and backgrounds, Washington’s men crossing the Delaware during a freezing cold Christmas eve, the extravagance of the Vanderbilt’s gilded age.
How can one not be in awe of the fortitude, the creativity and resourcefulness, the insanity and obsession of those that came before us?
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Emmanuel Leutze’s “Washington Crossing the Delaware” (1851)
The Woke Mind Virus - Part 2
In Part 1 I argued that while the social justice movement has an at least partially sound origin, its opponents are correct in characterizing it as a problem, or even a mind virus.
Here I want to suggest that this virus will not be stopped by trying to argue against it or by demonizing those who spread it. Viruses only become a problem when they encounter a weak host and bad ideas only spread when they fall on fertile ground.
Most radical movements in history have spread not for a lack of resistance but because they found support in a very frustrated population.
This movement is no different. Many people are deeply frustrated with their overall situation and a flawed social justice movement is one of their outlets. And an increasing number of people is encountering circumstances in their daily life that are not just frustrating but traumatizing, adding fuel to the fire.
This, the wounds and the trauma is what needs to be addressed. Not by giving in to every irrational and counterproductive demand. Not by arguing. But by proactively working on a new system that can hold and heal.
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Edward Hicks' "Peaceable Kingdom" (1832)
The woke mind virus
This is not a post about how wrong the social justice movement is about everything.
Unlike Jordan Peterson I think that postmodernism has merit. He who studies existence through contemplation must recognize that reality is in fact much more fluid than our culture would have us believe, that absolute truths and duality are difficult to come by and that the solid self does not hold up to scrutiny.
And yet, those who have succumbed to the woke mind virus have thrown the baby of meaning out with the bath water of meta-narratives. Meaning can co-exist alongside ambiguity just like content can exist alongside emptiness.
In order to exist in the world we need to engage with it as a solid self. And we need to agree to certain landscapes of meaning. Now, clinging to that solid self and being overly committed to one particular landscape is the source of many an ailment of our culture, but denying the existence of any such structure is just as harmful.
Once again, we need to dance on the slackline of paradox in order to “make sense” of it.
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William Frederick Yeames’s “And When Did You Last See Your Father?” (1878)
Life is not a dress rehearsal
Even if you’re not into motorcycles the film TT - Closer to the Edge ought to be on your watchlist.
It follows what must be one of the most dangerous races in the world, the Isle of Man’s Tourist Trophy.
The TT is not dangerous in the way other motorsport events are dangerous - it is critically and imminently lethally dangerous - since its launch in 1907 there have been 156 fatalities (6 of them in 2022 alone).
If you’re interested in how the existence of such a race can possibly be ethical, I’ll direct you to a read that goes into this difficult question much better than I could.
The reason I wanted to write about the TT race is due to a scene from the movie in which yet another casualty is reported and some of the spectators are interviewed about it. In one notable interview, a spectator addresses the question about whether this race should continue to exist with the answer:
“Life is not a dress rehearsal.”
Even for those of us who are not racing motorcycles, it is important to remember, from time to time, that we are going to die one day. And that this, right here, is it. This is opening night.
Have a great Monday!
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Jean-Michel Basquiat’s "Riding With Death" (1988)
Festina lente
Wisdom often consists of holding two opposing notions simultaneously. One example is the Latin proverb Festina lente - Make haste, slowly.
During my stay at the Japanese Zen monastery Antaiji I was able to experience the idea of festina lente first hand. Everything here had a place and time. And there were clear instructions for almost every task around the premises.
This made it easy to perform tasks or move between them swiftly but it also created an optimal and distraction-free environment to complete them mindfully.
The result was people who worked hastily, yet intentionally. Who rushed and who yet were mindful.
The result was flow, flow even during mundane tasks.
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M.C. Escher’s “Waterfall” (1961)
Say hi to my Dad, @yardbird, surely the first chess Grandmaster on nostr!? Hit him up for conversations about chess, riding a motorcycle through Italy/the Alps and tobacco. 😉
#introductions #chess
@ynniv
Markets are complicated but they're not that complicated. In the end it's supply and demand. And we know that a very large amount of #Bitcoin has recently been absorbed by ETFs.
Yes, there has been a lot of extraordinary selling on the supply side (including the German police, FTX, Mt. Gox etc.) but this has been the case every cycle.
I think that until all major custodians' holdings Bitcoin are audited, we as Bitcoiners should assume that another FTX (or even larger) is hiding in plain sight, thereby suppressing the price.
The only plausible way for so much incremental demand for #Bitcoin to not result in higher prices, is for a significant part of the supply to not be actual Bitcoin.
This is a real problem.
Time starts now
After my ode to Steve McQueen and Paul Newman a couple of days ago I am now rewatching some of their movies starting with Bullitt.
One of the best scenes in the movie occurs when Jacqueline Bisset’s character asks Frank Bullitt “What will happen to us in time?” and he just responds “Time starts now”.
It’s all happening now. The past and future are an illusion. Worrying is pointless. And don’t you forget it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=aKg20DXBr-Qc8lmo&t=161&v=cWiljyh4NR4&feature=youtu.be
Force of nature
This is my first but will not be the last post dedicated to Steve McQueen and Paul Newman.
You don’t find actors like these anymore today. They were carved out of a different wood.
Having watched The Hustler, Cool Hand Luke, Cincinnati Kid and many of their other films countless times, I can say that no actors have inspired me in the way that these two have.
They were a force of nature. They created characters, believably, that did not take no for an answer, that were stubborn and fearless. Characters who were flawed but who, in their flawedness, were full of integrity and strength.
Oh how refreshing to be in the presence, albeit through a silver screen, of someone who takes no prisoners, who is unyielding and who does not compromise just to please.
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Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke (1967)
@LynAlden There is a retreat with Loch in Costa Rica in March of next year that I attended this year and highly recommend if you want to jump in at the deep end
- Zazen for simplicity and subtlety
- Dzogchen for quick insight (the greatest living teacher in the US has to be Loch Kelly)
- Cheng Hsin for purpose beyond awakening
No big deal
We make a big deal out of many things. Every once in a while it’s good to remind oneself not to make too big a deal out of whatever it is we’re currently making a big deal of.
We do not have to hold everything so tightly, we can loosen our grip just a little bit. And suddenly there is a feeling of greater spaciousness, greater possibility.
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Georgia O’Keeffe’s “Sky Above Clouds IV” (1965)
Unconventional wisdom
'Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. ' - Albert Einstein, maybe
Over the last couple of years I have had the very visceral realization that in order to change how I act in the world, I have to change who I am.
This may sound obvious. But at least to me it wasn’t. I was certain that I could just will myself to act differently in a given situation. Most people seem to be victim to this same insanity.
It does not work. In most situations we do not rise to our hopes and aspirational ideas, we fall to the level of who we are at our core.
And we can change. We can become a person that reacts differently to a certain stimulus. This is just not conventional wisdom.
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Completely agree. I want to raise philosopher kings and queens - children who understand that money can require hustle, but that at its best it is a by-product of being deeply dedicated to what you love doing.
The “mind over matter” fallacy
“Mind over matter” is a motivational platitude that does well for those who like to brute-force their way to success.
However, powering through life without an organic motivation that is holistically aligned with our being usually does not work in the long run.
In fact, mind is, everywhere and always, a phenomenon of matter and vice versa. They can not be disentangled.
So when people say “mind over matter”, they usually just mean “I’m overthinking this”.
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James (Künstler) Gleeson’s ““We inhabit the corrosive littoral of habit” (1940)
The “mind over matter” fallacy
“Mind over matter” is a motivational platitude that does well for those who like to brute-force their way to success.
However, powering through life without an organic motivation that is holistically aligned with our being usually does not work in the long run.
In fact, mind is, everywhere and always, a phenomenon of matter and vice versa. They can not be disentangled.
So when people say “mind over matter”, they usually just mean “I’m overthinking this”.
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James (Künstler) Gleeson’s ““We inhabit the corrosive littoral of habit” (1940)
Missing the forest for the trees
“Missing the forest for the trees” is a pervasive problem in our culture. With real consequences.
There is a reason for this. In brief, it’s a result of the objectification of our world: “I, the subject, am here. Objects are out there”. This false perspective leads to an unintegrated view of the world in which we struggle to see how everything is interrelated. Unless you’re moving in the quasi-perfect confines of experimental physics, simple cause and effect is actually pretty hard to come by.
The consequences of such an existence befall us every day. They include but are not limited to: electing politicians with no character and integrity, being dependent on dating apps to meet people, relying on drugs for our health, going to university primarily for the degree and electing a career path just for the money.
All of these are examples where we chose a simple, usually lazy solution at the cost of our long term physical, mental and societal wellbeing.
If we’re to overcome this, we need to zoom out, behold the whole forest and integrate.
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Barend Cornelis Koekkoek’s “Forest Scene” (1848)
Extending time
Our culture is obsessed with prolonging our time on this planet - with very mediocre results if judged by the stagnating or even declining life expectancy in the West.
One simple and underrated way to actually extend our time of being alive is to pay attention. Pay attention to each passing moment. Pay attention to each little distinction in our experience. Pay attention to the field of awake awareness.
Of course paying attention is not something we just decide to do because someone on the internet tells us to. Like everything else it requires dedication, practice and the creation of the right circumstances.
Joining clubs that don’t want me as a member
“I Don’t Want to Belong to Any Club That Will Accept Me as a Member.”
Groucho Marx’ famous quote rings both funny and true. Most people would like to be accepted to only clubs that are more prestigious and higher status than themselves.
However, I’m personally finding this quote accurate and insightful from a slightly different angle: I am seeking out experiences, clubs and products that are not actively looking for members… not because they are secretive but because they are relentlessly focused on quality rather than marketing.
Let me give you an example. When I lived in San Francisco, I would frequently play Tennis on the Dolores Park courts on weekends. Often after our match, my Tennis partner and I would relax in the park for a little bit. On one particular day, we saw a group of people practicing acrobatics on the grass, one of whom stood out with some incredible manoeuvres. We walked up to them and found out that he was teaching the rest of the group in a discipline he referred to as movement practice.
What was remarkable to me about the encounter was that my friend and I clearly showed interest in joining his class but rather than being keen on getting us onboarded, he was barely forthcoming with any additional information. He clearly was not interested in selling his product and neither was the very basic and bland website he had set up. Instead he was clearly focused on his craft first and foremost.
And yet he clearly had an avid following. This combination was what convinced me to try out his class and it ended up being one of the most enriching experiences of my time in San Francisco.
Over and over in my life, I have found these rare clubs and products, the ones that don’t advertise but just focus on quality, among the most worthwhile. And so I will keep pursuing clubs that don’t want me as a member.
The lost art of pandiculation:
If it is meant to be sustainable, physical movement and exercise ought to be intuitive.
The average training consists to a great extent of “mind over matter. This only gets us so far as it usually results in build-up of muscular tension, poor posture and eventual breakdown.
What does intuitive movement mean? I would define it as movement that 1) is associated with a corresponding feeling sensation and not performed unconsciously and 2) expresses an intentionality of our being.
There are many approaches and modalities to re-embrace more intuitive movement including for example the Feldenkrais method, Qi Gong and Tai Chi or movement practice.
One simple and underrated way to regain a more intuitive physicality is pandiculation. Pandiculation is simply the process of stretching and yawning after waking up. It’s a lost art. And it is critical for sending biofeedback to our nervous system, thereby recalibrating the level of muscular contraction and avoiding build up of tension.
If you want to try it, don’t start by taking a “mind over matter” approach of checking pandiculation of your to-do list. Instead, just take the time in the morning for a few minutes to feel into what your body actually needs and what movements feel natural. Instead of creating another habit, try getting out of your own way for a moment.
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Wassily Kandinsky’s “Composition VII” (1913)
Wimbledon — order & passion
Today marks the beginning of Wimbledon. It has to be, without a doubt, the greatest sport event to attend in the world. The football World Cup, the Olympics and even other Tennis Grand Slams simply pale in comparison to the level of satisfaction and excitement experienced by visitors of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club.
Why is this? To credit it merely to the lush grass of SW19, the Strawberries and Cream or the Royal Box would be missing the point.
The best way to summarize the magic of Wimbledon is order & passion.
Wimbledon is perfectly ordered. Its order of play and patent-worthy system for queueing are among the most British documents you’ll ever read. The flawless choreography of the ball boys and girls, the pin-drop silence as players are preparing to serve, the white ballet on the court as a rally is underway — these all contribute to coherence and harmony.
Unlike many other great traditions, however, Wimbledon is not ossified and rigid. Its order is not procured at the cost of passion and enthusiasm. It serves them.
There is a learning for all of us here. When we organize our days and hone our habits, it is ok to want order. But it should never be an end of its own. Instead it should serve the purpose of creating space for and revealing our passion.
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George Bellows’ “Tennis at Newport” (1919)
Does having a “stealth” startup mean that you have no idea what you’re doing? If yes, then I think I may have some use for this term in the near future
My favourite quote of the day comes from my seat neighbor at a Maryleborne Café this afternoon:
“The only thing that graduating from Central Saint Martins [a prestigious London arts and design school] has given me is ADHD”
This is an equally funny and insightful statement. Too often do we treat mental disorders as something intrinsic, rather than something inflicted on us by our circumstance.
It’s an important distinction. If ADHD is something intrinsic, then we need to treat the symptoms. And we do. For many children and from a young age. With amphetamines.
If instead we recognize it for what it is: a condition delivered to us by a very unnatural environment, then we create a possibility and a responsibility: A possibility to actually address the root causes of ADHD and many other conditions instead of creating more problems by drugging our children. And a responsibility for all of us to change the environment we live, study and work in.
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Marc Chagall’s “I and the Village” (1911)
Psychedelic movies
Movies are amazing. They can change how we see the world over the course of 2 hours.
To do so, it has to be a movie that takes us out of our comfort zone. If your comfort zone is a circle with radius r=0, this is not difficult to achieve.
However, if the movie is in a whole different orbit than your heliocentric comfort zone it may miss the mark.
So the art is in picking a movie that is far enough out there to influence you in a meaningful way, but not too far to be obtuse.
Below is my selection of great movies on scale of 1 (mainstream psychological) to 5 (psychedelic):
Mainstream Psychological:
The Matrix (Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski)
Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)
Fight Club (David Fincher)
Psychological Mystery:
Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa)
Shutter Island (Martin Scorsese)
Poor Things (Yorgos Lanthimos)
Iconoclastic:
Contempt (Jean Luc Godard)
Mother! (Darren Aronofsky)
The Dreamers (Bernardo Bertolucci)
Existentialist:
Pierrot le Fou (Jean Luc Godard)
2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick)
Easy Rider (Dennis Hopper)
Psychedelic:
Enter the Void (Gaspar Noé)
The Tree of Life (Terrence Mallick)
Mulholland Drive (David Lynch)
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Technique is everything:
This may not be news to most but when it comes to exercise, technique is everything.
I used to not pay too much attention to this. My approach was to perform an exercise by meeting its general criteria and increasing the number of repetitions over time.
Squat? Lower my upper body while keeping my heels on the floor, done.
Downward facing dog? Hands on the floor, feet on the floor, lift the hips and try to approach the floor with the heels, done.
Rowing? Just pull the oar towards you and push it away by using both legs and arms, done.
Over time I realized there is much more to every exercise I’m engaging in. In fact there is a whole internal landscape to be explored. Small feelings and sensations that deserve attention and that can make all the difference when it comes to performing an exercise efficiently and safely.
An exercise not done with the correct technique is an exercise not worth doing. In fact, it may be counterproductive in the long run as bad habits eventually accumulate and cause injuries.
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Helmut Newton’s “Lisa Taylor and Jerry Hall” (1975)
Sick has become the new normal:
I’ve been listening to this excellent podcast conversation about Ozempic between athlete and podcaster Rich Roll and author Johann Hari.
The conversation perfectly summarizes two diametrically opposite views of our current healthcare system:
On the one hand have you have Hari, who has been studying (and ingesting) the Diabetes-drug-turned-weight-loss-drug-turned-panacea and is a proponent, though, to be fair he also cautions about some of the side-effects and general enthusiasm.
Roll, on the other hand, is a former alcoholic and fast-food enthusiast who has turned his life around to become an ultra-marathon runner and is a proponent of a holistic and preventative approach to health.
The most telling moment in the conversation occurs when Hari talks about the benefits of Ozempic, goes on to call a healthy lifestyle “the alternative” and Roll calls him out on it.
Our assumption has become that it is no longer possible to be mostly healthy and that we all, from a young age, must rely on medication to live a tolerable life. Living a healthy lifestyle has become a secondary, far distant alternative, not really accessible to most of us.
In some sad, matter-of-fact way this is true because many of our fellow citizens are now effectively socio-economically locked out of a healthy lifestyle.
But when we talk about aspirations for our health and that of future generations, we have to aim much higher than a dystopian world in which we are all hooked on medications for life.
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Jacques-Louis David’s “The Death of Marat” (1793)
Perfect Days:
We’re all trying to do a lot. And we need to take responsible for filling every waking minute with activity.
In his new film Perfect Days Wim Wenders reminds us that this is not necessary.
He convincingly depicts how a toilet cleaner in Tokyo is enjoying a simple life, yet one full of meaning. Many of us could take a page from his book.
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the comparison to bitcoin keys is flawed. Even if you lose your bitcoin keys, you usually have a backup and can transfer it to another amount.
The same is not true for your nostr identity. Once it’s compromised you can never transfer it elsewhere.
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Notes by arcticorangutan | export