thinking out loud

How might we remain true to life and live in contact with the full, messy wholeness of being human in a world that constantly moves towards a more polished, optimized, simplified reality? Why is WALL-E a dystopia and not a utopia, and what does that tell us about what a human being actually is? And how might we see that being simultaneously unfinished yet perfectly whole is not a paradox? Episode...

This is a talk on Simone Weil’s ideas on attention, desire, God’s withdrawal, and self-emptying. I tie it to art, creativity, and addiction. It came from an event I co-hosted on her essay “Attention and Will”, which served as the starting point and a continual anchor of reference throughout. The talk stands alone, but you might get more out of it after you’ve read the short but very dense 3-5 page...

To know thyself is to know both your internal processes as well as the cultural waters in which you swim, and to let curiosity and boredom spurred by rigorous play (rather than willpower) guide you towards what’s actually yours to live. This is a part theoretical & part practical field report made from the middle of that process. This one's quite dense, so I've made an outline to hopefully help yo...

Most people don’t “get” modern art, believing it’s too abstract. I think it’s actually because modern art is, in some ways, *too* direct, touches too intimately on our direct perceptual and emotional experience. This is one of the great outcomes of the developments in the art world during the 20th century, and in this video essay I trace how it came to be so, and provide a way to encounter modern...