- Philosophical Ramblings #17: The Wings of Rebellion
A constant rebellion is necessary, because as soon as revolutionary elements come to power, corruption begins to set in. The desire to surrender to the most basic impulses is always present. Therefore, a process of continuous self-overcoming must govern every moment: every decision, every action, every breath.
Yet mere self-overcoming is not enough. It is not simply a matter of discipline or restraint, but of a transcendent conquest of oneself and one’s world: a revaluation of morality, societal conventions, and inherited beliefs. Most importantly, it is the mastery of one’s own mind, one’s desires, fears, and aversions, until they become fully subject to conscious will. But not the final conquest of the self, but the refusal to ever stop transforming and changing.
- Endure
Very good book. I really liked how it interweaves various stories about endurance while maintaining the overarching question of how it might be possible to run a sub-two-hour marathon. The author’s own story and the motivation that led him to write this book are also fascinating.
The book is packed with really interesting science, presenting many different theories that all attempt to explain what endurance actually is. It examines the concept from a wide variety of perspectives, ranging from physiology to psychology.
Personally, I found the model of perceived effort the most convincing. It captures both the physical and the mental aspects of endurance. Your physical training certainly influences perceived effort, but so do psychological and situational factors such as how well you slept, your stress levels, your motivation, and many other variables. It provides a more holistic framework for understanding endurance than purely physiological models.
- Bitter Christmas (2026)
Watched this as a sneak preview, meaning you watch a movie that is currently being released but don’t know in advance which one it will be.
The movie is about a writer who writes a screenplay about a writer writing a screenplay. Its main theme is the ethics of using real-life events as inspiration for stories, although it could also be interpreted more broadly as being applied to any creative process.
Here’s what I think: the screenplay within the screenplay is intentionally terrible. From the final dialogue, where someone criticizes the writer for it, it seems like the creators were fully aware of that. Just to name a few examples, the character Bonifacio is introduced but then nothing is ever done with him—he is simply forgotten for the rest of the movie. Something similar, but in reverse, happens with another character, Santi, who is introduced much later and also goes nowhere. Overall, the screenplay feels poorly written, lacks a clear point, and never develops into a complete narrative.
It seems like this was done intentionally so that the last ten minutes could become a discussion about how bad the screenplay is and how the writer became so obsessed with creating something meaningful that they ended up producing something terrible.
But that leaves me wondering: did I really need to watch over an hour of a bad movie just to make that point? You intentionally make 70% of the film bad, only to criticize it in the final ten minutes. That doesn’t make the earlier parts any more enjoyable.
Another issue is that almost all of the movie’s meaning is explained in the final dialogue. It feels like the film has to stop and tell the audience what it was trying to say instead of showing it naturally. “Show, don’t tell” exists for a reason. If your movie isn’t communicating its ideas well enough that you need a character to explain everything at the end, then something has gone wrong.
I liked the music selection.
5/10
- Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction
Personally, I wasn’t a fan. It’s too condensed, there’s simply too much content packed into too little time. By the end of the book, I came away with only a general sense of what the philosophers were about, most of which I already knew: individualism, freedom, choice, overcoming oneself, and similar themes.
The story about the French existentialist feud was entertaining, though. They all worked at the same literary magazine and constantly fought with each other because of their differing attitudes toward communism and anarchism. Meanwhile, Heidegger seemed to be watching from the sidelines, not even wanting to be called an existentialist. But that’s politics, who cares.
- Strange Darling (2024)
I liked the opening. Movie has some really cool shots. In general, it felt very cinematic, with great cinematography. I also liked the way it was split into chapters; it felt very Tarantino-esque. The music during the opening chase scene annoyed me, though, and the dialogue was rough. Tarantino wouldn’t have written dialogue this bad. If you ignore the dialogue, it’s a 9/10; with the dialogue included, I’d give it a 6/10.
I2P