The Last Thoughts of a Busy Mind

A day before this chapter was made, Sir Patrick Stewart passed away. Earlier in the week, Walter Koenig passed away as well. Both actors do have storied careers, but they will always be entangled with going where no man has gone before. With their passing, one has to look inward. Aging is a cruel concept. When one's personifications of entertainment, those who have made impressions on a young...

Content warning: I do get a little bit overboard when discussing the possible continuation of the Iran war, so, beware that it will get heartless and maybe some comments will get a little too intense. The world is uncertain, and with that uncertainty comes a feeling of uselessness. It feels like no matter what you do, it amounts to nothing. There's a hidden catch though. The world becomes much...

When working on a project, the more communication happens between different aspects of the project, the better the end result is going to be. This especially shows itself when one aspect of a project starts working against another aspect. Whether through incompetence, or active malice, when an element of a project feels like they have been set up for failure, what ultimately fails is the end produ...

Nowadays there are apps and sites to log everything. There are apps to log what shows you've seen, what movies you've watched, what games you've played, what books you've read, what foods you've eaten, what exercises you've done, and what new flavors of vape you've inhaled in a common area. Through this incessant logging, sometimes the logging itself becomes the point o...

It's the start of something new. It's the start of a new season. One's hiatus comes to a crashing close as one needs to stand behind the microphone again and speak from the mind and the heart. This ritual has been happening for better part of a decade, and has been happening for at least a baker's dozen times. It's happening again. To some, this has meaning. To most, this has n...

In this episode, we once again meet up in person to talk in length about everything and nothing with Mehdi. We met through gatherings that discussed Doctor Who and then we got closer through more gatherings until I asked him to do editing and color correction for my movie, a seemingly never-ending process at this point. With Mehdi's prowess as a videographer and editor, and our similar tastes...

Life in Iran is hard under the best of circumstances, and it's been 'not-the-best-of-circumstances' (to put it mildly) for a long long time. When the threat of annihilation looms over one's head, and when the breaking of one's spirit is imminent, it's become harder and harder to survive, let alone live. Sadly, that is true for people who live in most of the world as well, a...

Originally recorded on 30 May 2026 On February 28th, 2026, United States and Israel attacked Iran in what has been dubbed "Iran War 2026". It has yet to reach its final conclusion. These are the episodes that were recorded in the midst of that war and the internet blackout that it caused, waiting for an opportunity to be shared. They are a reflection of the time they were recorded in. Th...

Originally recorded on 23 May 2026 On February 28th, 2026, United States and Israel attacked Iran in what has been dubbed "Iran War 2026". It has yet to reach its final conclusion. These are the episodes that were recorded in the midst of that war and the internet blackout that it caused, waiting for an opportunity to be shared. They are a reflection of the time they were recorded in. Th...

Originally recorded on 9 May 2026 On February 28th, 2026, United States and Israel attacked Iran in what has been dubbed "Iran War 2026". It has yet to reach its final conclusion. These are the episodes that were recorded in the midst of that war and the internet blackout that it caused, waiting for an opportunity to be shared. They are a reflection of the time they were recorded in. Thi...

Originally recorded on 2 May 2026 On February 28th, 2026, United States and Israel attacked Iran in what has been dubbed "Iran War 2026". It has yet to reach its final conclusion. These are the episodes that were recorded in the midst of that war and the internet blackout that it caused, waiting for an opportunity to be shared. They are a reflection of the time they were recorded in. Thi...

Originally recorded on 25 April 2026 On February 28th, 2026, United States and Israel attacked Iran in what has been dubbed "Iran War 2026". It has yet to reach its final conclusion. These are the episodes that were recorded in the midst of that war and the internet blackout that it caused, waiting for an opportunity to be shared. They are a reflection of the time they were recorded in....

Originally recorded on 18 April 2026 On February 28th, 2026, United States and Israel attacked Iran in what has been dubbed "Iran War 2026". It has yet to reach its final conclusion. These are the episodes that were recorded in the midst of that war and the internet blackout that it caused, waiting for an opportunity to be shared. They are a reflection of the time they were recorded in....

Originally recorded on 11 April 2026 On February 28th, 2026, United States and Israel attacked Iran in what has been dubbed "Iran War 2026". It has yet to reach its final conclusion. These are the episodes that were recorded in the midst of that war and the internet blackout that it caused, waiting for an opportunity to be shared. They are a reflection of the time they were recorded in....

Originally recorded on 4 April 2026 On February 28th, 2026, United States and Israel attacked Iran in what has been dubbed "Iran War 2026". It has yet to reach its final conclusion. These are the episodes that were recorded in the midst of that war and the internet blackout that it caused, waiting for an opportunity to be shared. They are a reflection of the time they were recorded in. T...

Originally recorded on 28 March 2026 On February 28th, 2026, United States and Israel attacked Iran in what has been dubbed "Iran War 2026". It has yet to reach its final conclusion. These are the episodes that were recorded in the midst of that war and the internet blackout that it caused, waiting for an opportunity to be shared. They are a reflection of the time they were recorded in....

Originally recorded on 21 March 2026 On February 28th, 2026, United States and Israel attacked Iran in what has been dubbed "Iran War 2026". It has yet to reach its final conclusion. These are the episodes that were recorded in the midst of that war and the internet blackout that it caused, waiting for an opportunity to be shared. They are a reflection of the time they were recorded in....

29 is an odd age. It is the last year of a decade of life, that is also often conflated with recklessness and experimentation. When one reaches that odd age of 29, one tends to get introspective. Looking back at everything that one did in the past decade, and planning for the future. Though, living in constant turmoil of life outside of one's grasp, those plans may seem like the follies of a f...

2025 was an almost apocalyptic year. It had shown each of the four horsemen of the apocalypse with great vigor. It had shown war, and pestilence, and famine, and death. The year 2026 has started for a while now, and though it seems that the specter of these four horsemen are still looming and their handiworks are still being seen, one needs to look for that little ray of light in the darkness; and...

2025 was an almost apocalyptic year. It had shown each of the four horsemen of the apocalypse with great vigor. It had shown war, and pestilence, and famine, and death. The year 2026 has started for a while now, and though it seems that the specter of these four horsemen are still looming and their handiworks are still being seen, one needs to look for that little ray of light in the darkness; and...

Life is an unpredictable mess. Things go awry when you full expect it and when you least expect it. Planning for the future, though an essential part of life, is one's attempt at organizing an untangled mess of webs. That unpredictability becomes much greater when one is part of a world as chaotic, as brutal, as depressive and as oppressive as life in a country like Iran. There are moments in...

In this episode, we go back to the online roots of The Last Thoughts of Two Busy Minds and we're having a long conversation with Arash. We met each other online on a social media platform because we had some mutual friends, and hit it off due to our mutual love of cinema and movies. Arash lives in Italy, and has been there for a few years, and recently got his graduation; so our talks did incl...

With a season coming to an end, introspection and retrospection is sometimes needed. When that season has a theme such as Misunderstanding Iran, it's important to bring it to a close with a clear point. What can be done to help Iran, now that we have a better understanding of its history, culture, issues, and different political landscapes? This is the answer to that question, as best as it ca...

With the current regime of Iran facing more and more scrutiny, there's also a loud voice in the room claiming that the only way to return to any sort of stability is by returning to the olden days of Monarchy. This is the prominent voice behind propagandists and many of the older diaspora. Yet, this is also the voice that carries with itself an uncritical view of all the problems that rise wit...

Iranian Culture is old, historied and incredibly complex, which is why it is oftentimes easier for people who are not aware of it to bundle it up with the whole of the Middle East and create an Orientalist view of the region. Though there is need to untangle that mess and look at Iranian Culture as its own thing rather than a monolith, it is as important to look at its shortfalls and problems. By...