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I saw Avatar: Way of Water last night. I'm going to have to see it again in a couple of weeks, because it was really something else, despite the fact that I unknowingly signed on for a 3D screening, and I despise 3D movies.

The entire time, I was very aware I was watching a movie, and not only because I had to wear the silly glasses on top of my own eyeglasses. I will explain why in a minute, and then also tell you how this film pushed me over the ledge. But first, I have to complain to you about photographers.

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I am a very amateur photographer. I tend to operate my camera in automatic mode, because I cannot care less if my pictures are technically perfect. This helps me capture the world and all it's detail. I don't have to worry about being out of focus or underexposed or anything else.

A good friend was asking about my camera, what all the dials and buttons do, and so on. He's an ultra-rational guy, and has also known all the maths behind photography since he was a teenager. He starts rambling about apeture and shutter speed and focal length, and I just glaze over. Why does it matter, I ask.

It's all about the bokeh, he replies.

By now, the average person should be initimately familar with bokeh, even if they don't know the term or aren't otherwise into photography. When you switch your phone's camera into portrait mode, the intense blur you see is what photographers call bokeh.

Like I said, I don't really understand the technical matters of photography. I do know that among other things, it is dependent on the design specifications of the lens and imaging sensor. And i only know that because that portrait mode on your phone's camera is simulated with software because it's lens is too small to create that shallow depth of field. This matter is one I've made the choice to remain ignorant, but I'm sure Wikipedia has a good run down if you're interested.

Anyhow, bokeh is a prime example of a technical constraint being transformed into means of artistic expression. But unlike other forms of art, there is a technically correct way to use bokeh, and if you use it poorly, the results are objectively bad. And, subjectively, even precise use of bokeh yields unsatisfying images.

People still lean on it though. I'm no professional, but my guess is that isolating a sharp foreground against a blurred (bokehed) background allows a photographer or director to hide objects in the background. Remember that word, isolated, for it is the word that may tie all of this together.

In 2020, sports broadcasting introduced new camera rigs to it's field crew, and it was immediately noticed. It seems like most people applauded the change, but it uses very exaggerated bokeh, so of course I hate it. It's extraordinarily unrealistic, and has the hide the background effect in a wide open space, where the human eye has the capability to have a large scene in it's vision.

Because I believe crankiness is fine, so long as you can justify it, I will tell you why it's bad: it turns the image into an authoritarian medium.

By blurring the background, the camera is leaving out most of the detail from a frame. In sports, that means the reactions of other players on the field are obscured. Or, during a wedding, it means that you are unable to see the reactions of the bride and groom's loved ones as they participate in the big day. You lose so much detail, so much setting, behind the bokeh.

Even if you were interested in the scene in it's entirety, you are not allowed to investigate further, because the photographer has chosen to hide those details from you. (I'm just realizing that cable news networks use a shallow depth of field while reporting out in the field, because it can make a crowd of 20 look like 2000. Another strike against the photographic technocrats.)

Bokeh is authoritarian because it imposes it's will on you, the viewer. You must get in line, and see this image the same way as everyone else. No looks behind the bokeh for you.

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What's this have to do with Avatar, you're probably thinking. Well, remember I said I regretted seeing the 3D showing? That's because 3D movies are also a tyrannical medium, and that's really a shame with a film lauded for it's rich world-building.

Effectively, 3D is bokeh, but instead of blurring the background, the foreground jumps off the screen into the space between the movie and your eyes. And no matter how bad you might want to look at what is not 3D, it's impossible to do so. Whatever is popping off the screen is both metaphorically and literally in your face.

So, in Avatar, you can't isolate your own focus on the cute sealife around the edges of the frame, or stare off at the vivid landscapes behind Sully. Whatever James Cameron decided should pop off the screen is what you, the viewer, are seeing.

I realize that there are probably a lot of people who like this aspect of Cameron's filmography. I'm sure it helps some people stay focused on what the director thought was important to push the story along. Maybe there's a left/right brain split here, because there are equally polarizing views of another filmmaker who is the antithesis of Cameron: Wes Anderson.

The quirky director of Grand Budapest Hotel fame is celebrated for his incredbile attention to detail. His sets are immaculately crafted, and the choreography between actors and cameras creates a dynamic interplay of characters and environment. I very much enjoy these movies because you, the viewer, have free reign to spot these details. Each time watching his films is like a game of Where is Waldo, always finding something new.

I do, however, find it interesting that Avatar, being an animated movie, was also created from scratch, with every detail meticuloudly placed in frames, but the 3D technology it's creator loves hides all that effort. And unlike a photographer's use of bokeh, I doubt that Cameron is using isolation to hide undesirables from the frame. That's because he spent tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars rendering Pandora as the set for his story.

And that's why I have to see the movie again before it leaves the big screen. I must see all that was hidden by the tyrannical auteur name James Cameron.

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This meditation has helped me realize that I want to become a liberating auteur. I want to create capsules of fiction and fantasy to help humanity learn to see itself a little bit better, to help those I love and those I don't know find there way through both the beauty and suffering of life. And really, more than anything, I think I myself just want to feel OK.

There was a line in the midst of Way of Water's climax, where father told his troubled teenage son I see you. Of course that brought me to tears. All anyone wants is to be seen by others and be able to see themselves in others.

Story, I think, might be the only way to do that. So I must tell some of my own.

Remember those old Verizon commercials, with the nerdy guy out in the field testing cell coverage? The call quality bar used to be so high. It could just be my imagination, but I feel like cell phone calls used to be so clear before we started adding the Gs to the network names. I assume a big barrier to early cell phone adoption was legibility of the calls. If you can't hear someone on the go, why not just wait until you're both home?

Of course, today we're more often than not. But still, we balk into the phone can you hear me now?! GERALD YOU'RE BREAKING UP; WE CAN'T FOLLOW! Despite gigabit internet speeds and voice over IP, our calls still suck. Sure you've got hundreds of megs coming to your house, but your router is from 2009 and struggling to push signal to your machine. And your kids are in the next room, all three of them streaming separate cartoons in glorious 4k. Not to mention your shitty $10 chinese airpod ripoffs adding a lot of noise to the signal chain.

So despite all the technology bringing all this power into our homes, we are unable to have a comfortable conversation over the telephone. Have you talked on a landline recently? The things are crystal clear, working flawlessly on decades-old technology. The phone rings, you answer, and it sounds just like you're in the room together. It worked like that for decades, perfectly fine, until we sold ourselves on a future that's turned out to be no good.

Hello, this is the future calling, and we want to tell you the grass isn't greener here. And while we've got you, sign up for a landline with your local telecom operator!

11:08 PM. The cursor blinks. I get up to sip some water, start the dishwasher, and return to my throne. Still blinking. I alt-tab over to the bird app, where user @simonsarris asks: "what influenced your life outlook the most?" And in response to a clarifying question in the replies, he says he's looking for "the things you tripped over on the way."

Interesting question. I was shuffling some books around my library today. I keep all of the books that have changed my thinking stacked on top of each other, and took a gander at the pile for a minute. At some point in the last year, I culled this pile, realizing that some of the books in it turned out to be rather insignificant after some time.

Was that the right thing to do? It was a response to embarrassment, really. I'm not sure what I have to feel bad about, seeing that I'm the only one who understands the structure of my library. I suppose I felt some shame, that I fooled myself at one point to thinking those books were important. Which ones that remain will one day be released back into the commons? What kind of guilt will I feel then?

But stepping back, this re-writing of my own history is far larger a mistake. I can move those books, but I cannot deny that they were an important part of my life. Many were gateway books, introducing me to new ways of thinking, and pointing me in the direction of other, more suitable books. There is a geneology of my own thinking which has bred to the exact way I think today, and that lineage should be celebrated, even if just quietly to myself.

Further, this metaphor can be extended to cover every event we've ever lived. You may cringe at your past taste in music or movies or (wo)men. But all those choices led you to where you are today, and inform how you make your choices tomorrow.

Those trips and stumbles are important. They need not be impressive or sexy or otherwise polished. It's perfectly fine to look back and chuckle at the kid you used to be. Always remember: it only has to make sense to you.

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I've referenced this many times before and will reference it many time more:

From Tim Urban of Wait But Why fame

https://twitter.com/waitbutwhy/status/1367871165319049221

Today I heard the line "he didn't live long enough to be bad". I can't remember who said it, and whom they said it of, but the idea is that we sometimes lose brilliant artists well before their time, and all they left behind were their masterpieces. They never had the chance to produce anything questionable.

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More interesting to me, though, is the artists who last well beyond six years of chart-topping hits to create a body of work that spans six decades. After all, in a world obsessed with youth, the Rolling Stones still sell out stadium tours and Martin Scorcese directs blockbuster movies, and all those guys are doing that well into their seventies.

There's much to be said about nostalgia (I think it's bullshit...a rant for another time) but there's no denying that so many of the 20th century's greatest artists weren't just periodically great, but canonically great. This cohort started in their 20s and hasn't really stopped yet. The funny thing is I'm not so sure that any artists that have come since will be able to touch this longevity, let alone greatness. But time will tell.

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I watch a lot of live shows on the internet, and some of my favorites are recent shows of the Stones and Clapton and Pink Floyd, absolutely shredding into their late seventies. It's helped me realize that growing old is beautiful. Those guys are playing songs that are decades old, situations they lived, and have the song as an artifact of where they came from. You can see it on their faces and hear it in their voices: they're moved by their work.

I'm going to write much, much more about this, but for now I'll leave you with one of my all-time favorite videos:

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/K1ijcpo1Ep8?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

There's a copy of The Abolition of Man on my desk. On the shelf above it sits a stack of books I think are broadly spiritual: Dark Night of the Soul, The Denial of Death, The Three Apologies, and the Doors of Perception, among others. Somewhere in my library sits a special edition of the bible, you know the kind with the gilded pages. I think it sits next to Thomas Jefferson's bible, which is the regular one absent of all the Jesus-as-magician stories.

In my deepest moments of despair, I found solace in existential works of fiction and philosophy. You know, the whole life is meaningless, you must find your own reasons schtick. I think it's no coincidence that I was pulled into these works over conventional religious texts.

Existentialism emerged in the face of 20th century totalitarianism. It often warned of tyranny and showcased the depraved capacity of humanity. If we're capable of such horror, how can there be a God?  How can we trust that there's an singular being responsible for our destiny if he's letting this happen? How am I supposed to live if God, the raison d'etre, is dead?

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It's not clear to me when my adversion to authority began. I was borderline teacher's pet growing up, and all the adults validated that I was a good kid, so I tended to appeal to their authority to keep that stream of compliments coming. In short, I was a rule follower, all day every day and twice on Sundays (not at church, though).

I think my libertarian streak began brewing in 10th grade English class and was cemented in junior year literature class, where the same teacher had us read the anti-authority classics: 1984, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, and many others. This built up my preference of freedom, but I was still too young, too inexperienced, to understand the spiritual implications of tyranny.

About a decade later, in the midst of crisis, I found comfort in the writings of existentialism, which took my anti-authority tendencies to their logical conclusion: if you are free, truly free, there is nobody who can grant you that which you most seek.

Man's Search for Meaning and The Myth of Sisiphus really moved me, among other books and videos, like a certain someone's lecture series on Existentialism, which dissected the works of Nietzsche and Dostoevsky. Combined, whatever bits I gathered from existentialism helped me keep it together, and I'm better off for it.

Still, I'm not satisfied. Existential works appeal to my temperament, but I don't have confidence that they'll ever help me defeat my biggest enemy: nihilism.

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If the propositions of existentialism are true (and I'm mostly inclined to agree), it's easy to take life for granted and immediately ask what's the point of it all? Why do I seem to suffer endlessly FOR NOTHING whatsoever?

This is a question I keep asking myself, a single man with no children and no particularly strong attachments to god or country. For the longest time, I was fixated on non-existence (but not suicide). How in the world do you find something, anything to keep you going, especially when the things that you want are merely your imagination talking?

I think one of the biggest mistakes I've made, and others make too, is trying to find that gestalt of things that matter, that will get you out of bed in the morning. You find things that are interesting and make you feel a certain kind of way, and you commit to them. Perhaps it's a lover, or your kin, or maybe a hobby. And for a while, these things work. You assign great meaning to these things, and view the challenges they present as problems to solve on your way to happiness.

Until one day the mirage is broken. Your lover leaves you, the kids go off to college, and an injury keeps you from running that marathon you'd set your sites on. You feel the doubt creep in, and then you feel like a fool for tricking yourself into thinking you could find indefinite happiness.

This mistake you and I made is what's called playing a Finite Game, from James Carse's book Finite and Infinite Games. The gist is that playing to win the game puts you on the happiness hamster wheel, always chasing something you think will fulfill your deepest Desire. Instead, we should seek to continue the game forever. Yes, yes, you will find that which you most seek in the game itself, not at the end of it.

You must see the possibility in all things, even those undesirable things that have been set on your doorstep. All of life is play, and that is precisely why we live: to see if we can handle whatever comes next.

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This is where my path leads me back to a previous point in life which I did not mention earlier. Despite my sourness towards religion, I've never felt like there wasn't a god at all. That sort of discussion is irrelevant here, and everywhere really. But it's important because when I struggled early in life, my reaction was often wow I'm terrible I should really read the bible. That's what people do, right? I never went so far as to go to church, because of course I didn't need some old fart who lived apart from the modern world to tell me if I was good or bad. I just wanted to be able to tell myself I was OK.

I forgot about that for many years, while I was trying to outsmart spiritual tradition. But in recent times I've come to learn about rich traditions that rejected organized religion but celebrated the individual's capacity for a relationship with god.

And that's where I am today, trying to figure out how to incorporate Spirit into my existence, and how I can create my own religion.

Perhaps CS Lewis or St. John of the Cross or Chesterson or Huxley can help?

I saw a few dozen fresh faces running along the banks of the Ohio this morning. Some young and some old. Some thin and others round. You can pick these people out of the crowd: they're overdressed, breathing heavy, and are moving in ways that are sure to bring them knee pain, if it isn't already. One girl even appeared to be livestreaming the first day of her newest pursuit, something you don't really see from a habitual runner.

There's something about new year's resolutions that have always puzzled me. Like most, I've tried and failed every single time. Perhaps you make it two or three weeks, but eventually the wheels fall off and you're right back to where you were on the new year's eve.

We know, this but for some reason we still find ourselves participating in our own well-wishing. I tilt towards nihilism, and some years I swear off resolutions. How stupid, I say, to believe that this turning of the calendar will somehow bring change. But the overwhelming volume of optimism is contagious, and even if I tell myself I wouldn't, I secretly make a pact to do something, even if it won't stick.

I've come to realize that this ritual, even half-assed, is symbolic of our fight against time. We cannot, will not, roll onto our backs and let the reaper scratch our bellies with the tip of his scythe. No, today we resolve to fight back, if even for a day.

So establishing control over our lives, and therefore time, is always on our minds. I could go on and on about why we do or don't maintain that control, but I'll save the lectures on Desire for another time.

Instead, I'd like to offer some thoughts on maintaining control, something I've been grappling with for nearly thirty years.

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To me, the biggest problem with resolutions is that they're framed as growth, which means that they must be quantified, like a pediactrician charting the weight of an infant or an accountant tracking the money in the bank.

This is evident in both the self-help section of your local bookstore and much of the academic research carried out by scientists. Get 1% better every day, the story goes, and you will be superhuman in just a year's time. The focus is on the destination, even in a world dominated by the platitude it's all about the journey. (Maybe this is the year you'll realize that people never mean what they say).

Just like when you tell your boss that you failed to meet your sales target or hit that production quota, the pressure builds. It feels like a lot is on the line, even though you got along fine last year while carrying that extra 20 pounds or spending 5 hours a day on TikTok. You like the idea of being in shape or spending your time doing more valuable things, but as soon as the journey gets real, you turn around and head back home to the you of years' past.

Yes, this is the nihilist in me (and probably in you, too) talking. But you didn't think I'd be here, writing an essay on new year's resolutions if I didn't at least have an ounce of hope in me?

Of course I too am sitting here, thinking what needs to change, because I am stubborn and will not let Father Time do me dirty. Nope, not this year brother.

My stubbornness makes life a real challenge, but it comes in handy, because I refuse to give in to entropy, to continue doing things even though I know they don't work. I've failed enough to know how and why I've failed, so here are a few tricks up my sleeve for this year.

Don't make public proclamations of your resolution.

It seems like if other people know, you'll feel some sort of obligation or accountability for your resolution. Newsflash: nobody really cares.

People close to you want the best for you, but they 1) have their own stuff to deal with, and 2) don't really have the spine to hold you accountable even if they had the time. You're going to have to muster up enough Will to stick to your guns, all by yourself.

It's also good to keep your resolutions private because you can recalibrate without shame. Perhaps one of the biggest reasons for quitting on your new habits is the realization that your goal was too lofty, and it's easier on our psyches to give up entirely instead of admitting that we aren't as good as we thought. And remember: nobody cares anyways.

If all goes well, you let the Work you resolved to do speak for itself. Maybe by 2024, you've lost fifteen pounds (instead of twenty) but put on some muscle mass, or become a scholar of medievalism after reading Feudal Society when you simply set out to read fifty books.

Incorporate margins of error

I really, really don't like quantifying things, but this year I'm going to try to be smart about it. I've got a few goals in mind which require me to try to practice some habit at a particular cadence. But there are 365 days in a year and 52 weeks. Life happens: you get sick, go on vacation, and otherwise prioritize other things.

I have several goals in mind (I'm not going to tell you, see above) which require daily effort. I've done this before, and as soon as I miss a day or two I give up. Not this time.

Instead, I'm going to give myself some slack by creating goals that along the lines of 95% of days I will do X and do Y  during 75% of weeks. Knowing that I have free days and weeks to burn should prevent me from churning from these habits.

Make the buy-in low, with room to raise

In addition to margins of error, you can set the barrier to entry laughably low, knowing that some days you'll barely have the energy to satisfy the requirement but many days you'll have the energy to triple the work. Basically, just show up to work most days, and eventually you'll get things done. If you're struggling to even be there, perhaps this thing wasn't all that important and you should recalibrate, or maybe quit having learned that you liked the idea more than the practice.

In practice, I'm probably going to use some sort of color-coded calendar, where a blank day or week means you didn't do it, a yellow square means I did just enough, and green, blue or other colors indicate I doubled and tripled the bar today.

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Over time, I've developed the understanding that the creation of goals is mostly about building a sustainable routine. You shouldn't aim to be high-achieving because that's really hard to do, and even hard to continue doing over the course of years and decades. Instead, resolutions should be intended to make the average Tuesday in 2028 more enjoyable than it was in 2018.

Can you set yourself up to feel less pain and more energized, to feel more in touch with your soul, to feel more connected to the world around you? At the end of the day, that's what goals around fitness, spirituality, and family are trying to address. If you can make space for full days, and figure out how to manage them over months, years, and decades, I think you'll be much more satisfied with the life you've lived than if you'd set huge goals and fail.

I'd like to write some more, but I tend to ramble on and struggle putting a bow around my thoughts. So I'm going to give you this hastily wrapped box and resolve to fix this bad habit (😉).

Happy new year. Love, Bryan.

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You might be wondering, "What's the deal with the peacock?"

As I often do, I was reading the wiki page for new years resolutions, and medieval tradition involved something called Vow of the Peacock, which was an opportunity for people to state their commitment to chivalric values. I thought this was fun, and I had to pull myself out of that rabbit hole to press publish here. But, rest assured, no peacocks were harmed in the creation of this essay.