Arjan Singh Ellingson

Watched Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)

2026-11-08T00:00:00Z

Liked Rewatch This review may contain spoilers. four lessons from this beautiful french cinematic masterpiece 1. boycott men 2. be lesbian 3. dont play with fire unless that fire is your heart 4. love is best learnt upon its loss

Watched You Can See Everything (2026)

2026-11-08T00:00:00Z

Liked the way she looks at people regularly is the way i look at people when im trying to be chalant

Watched The Godfather (1972)

2026-11-06T00:00:00Z

This review may contain spoilers. this felt like an extended of the one episode of the flash with the man who turns into green smoke and kills a bunch of dudes

At the Crossroads of Creativity and Cognition

2026-11-06T00:00:00.000Z

In a fit of fury and rage, in union with some serene overthinking and the reflection, I took an action that seemed a bit crazy, at least within my field of software development. After much deliberation, inner conflicts, and anger at the state of my field, I cancelled my Claude Code subscription.

“An absurd action”, one said. “Preposterous”, said another. A third exclaimed, “Unheard of”.

A lot of factors and related philosophies went into this, but, ultimately, it was a decision rooted in the humanistic ideals ingrained in me since youth. But it is when these ideals overpower the issues that come with new tools that new ideas and revolutions are born, and new schools of thought are passed down through generations, unmoored of the always changing toolset¹.

Rejecting Ease & Pursuing Hard Things

An alternate title for this entry was “Do Hard Things”. Throughout my experiences in education, in professional positions, and in my personal projects, the concept of rejecting the ease of things for the cognitive strain of hard tasks has arisen again and again. While I am not a psychology major (in another life…), I have learned that doing harder things creates beneficial resilience and has cognitive effects. In an age where software tools have a way of detracting from our autonomy, it often is the case that deliberately choosing ways around certain developments lead to cognitive strengthening, increased skills, and fostering human-centered thinking.

A direct case of this was the creation of Facebook². Those who saw 2010 film The Social Network know that it was originally created as a college directory for connecting students. As it became a growth-centered company, its initial vision was to foster the social humans experience to be apart of a community; to support the drive to be connected. As it went on, however, the opposite happened: people who spent more time on Facebook felt significantly less connected. Whether this is due to social comparison, the ramification of detracted human-centered interaction, the dopamine loop effects, decreased attention-spans, algorithmic content flows (wow… this list could go on and on), Facebook (and similar platforms) do not do what they intended to do. These platforms take away the difficult action of becoming yourself through interacting with individuals.

The same exact argument is true for AI (much to my displeasure). Now, I have had the both polar sides of the experience regarding AI usage. At certain points in my field, I have had to sit with and manage two-three different AI agents, all working on different features for systems at work. Being in the position of feeding different prompts and switching between 3 different chats, all of which “speak” in the same syntax of “Absolutely! Let’s take a crack at it, breaking it down step by step” or “its not a, its b” is not only psychologically deteriorating but also very much demoralizing at times³. The dehumanization of just sitting around and awaiting a new change to appear can be quite unfulfilling.

I have also often sat with coding problems when rejecting AI usage and become extremely frustrated, feeling the psychological strain deeply. I have sat with proofs like the Handshaking Lemma for hours on end, and, upon truly understanding the proof, I have felt much more passionate and satisfied about the work spent on it.

My programming skills have been compounded and expanded greatly by access to these tools like Claude Code would not have gotten me the jobs or allowed me to make certain things such as my website (which was initial factor to getting access to Claude Code). Still, as an individual who finds meaning in valuing the humanistic experience (or lack thereof), I feel such an innate evil by doing so and having had the ability to watch a vision come to life was incredible, yet entirely unfulfilling.

A third example of this is, while this is extremely “meta” and surreal, is the fact that I have a created blog. The two most psychologically rewarding activities to me, that I have found through depth of experience, are reading books and creating new writing. Being able to digest a high-quality classic and compile the millions of ideas that race through my brain from my lived experiences into a substantive piece of literature (writing about what I read is even more meta, and so incredibly helpful for attention span) are two ways, at least that I have found, to keep my mind fresh — to be passionate about what it truly means to be human.

Passion & Creation

Another up-and-coming notion that piqued my interest is the new Harvard Course Humanities 10a, often referred to as Hum10⁴ by the students. In short, Harvard’s newly released course Hum10 has a curriculum sequence spanning many classicists: Homer, Plato, Descartes, Shakespeare, Shelley, Kafka… the list goes on[^3]. The rigorous texts, technology bans, and intense Socratic discussions already cloud this course with extreme difficulty and suspense, not to mention the application-based enrollment into the class.

A picture from my high school Humanities class April Fool's Prank... felt appropriate.

What has drawn me in, as well as with many educators from around the country, is that this course had an interest list of more than double its enrollment cap of 90. Why would so many students want to deep dive into some of the hardest classics of the best two and a half centuries? Sure it is not the curriculum, right? While there is no true way to confirm, many of these students are becoming passionate about rebelling against the software that tries to master their minds.

Some students in the reporting describe wanting protection from shortcuts and fragmented attention. That is meaningful testimony about their experience.⁴

The ability to process these texts gives the students such a defense on ominous softwares of the world². With everything trying to steal their attention, these students are starved of making their own deliberate and disciplined choice of direct their focus.

I truly feel that it is honestly refreshing that students our day and age are recognizing the deterioration that certain digital tools can cause. Becoming overwhelmingly obsessed with a new project or an idea from the brain is the best defense against the existential dread the often comes in the moments of silence and emptiness. My own experience has led me to find that I am most passionate about life when I am creating, working on aesthetic projects, when finding beauty within the chaos⁵.

Do Less but Better

The idea of do less but better is one that has mesmerized my vision often. This idea was first introduced to me when reading Greg McKeown’s Essentialism⁶, a non-fiction book about the pursuit of doing fewer things to a higher quality level. It has been about four years since I’ve read this book, but I believe one of the core principles stands with me today:

Pick and commit to the top 90% of opportunities, let the mediocre ones pass even if it seems vital in the moment.

While I have a habit of overcommitting, reflection leads me to points of slowing down and ensuring that I am following this idea to best I can, and noticing when I am not. But when there is a choice, having less on the list leads higher quality creation.

Just as the industrial revolution and cars were sped up by assembly lines, AI is speeding up cognitive assembly lines³ (paraphrased from Cal Newport). It is so important to recognize that all of these creative ideas need an output, and it remains demoralizing to offload this creativity to AI tools or automated return softwares (like Canva or Figma or Powerpoint). Sitting there, supervising agents is a miserable, solitudinal approach to work, in my experience as discussed above, deliberately enforces a lack of creativity and instead creates a sense of dehumanization.

I recently was talked to by a well-respected professor of mine at Cal Poly who described the practice of Software Engineering akin to that of candle-making. Odd analogy, I thought, but as he explained, there are craftsmen who still remain today to be masters of candle-making. There are tools that allow for the wax to molded, carved, shaped into unique shapes, and dyed gradients that aren’t possible on the color wheel; the entire process of producing a candle can be automated start to finish.

Great, right? What about those individuals who are passionate about the creation of candles, those which put effort into their craft and practice to ensure the candle is made with love, carefully crafted, and intricately ordained with details. In software development, there may be some candlemakers — those who rise to their height of the craft while choosing to reject the notion of the new tools. The whole idea of token-maxxing (in short, optimizing the number of code changes per session) as a measure of valuable output to a project is an inadequate signal of closure to the brain. Taking time to fall in love struggle of a select problem, to me, is the best method pursuing a smaller number of high quality things⁷.

Case Study: In Color

The cinematic pop / alternative rock band In Color hit the music scene with their first single Headlights on Valentine’s Day of 2025. That song is currently their most popular song sitting close to 29 million streams on Spotify as of time of writing. As of November 2026, they have released 13 songs across one EP and a sprinkling of singles. While their online existence has not even reached its two year anniversary, I believe that their genre-breaking production is one that is shattering. Every single song they have released is filled with some of the highest-quality production on a track I have ever heard⁸ (it is quite hard to write about the quality of music…). This combined with their limited discography, for me, is a testament that they are choosing the “less but better” route of music production.

Conclusion

Out from the chaos comes, hopefully, a bit of order and learning. The three ideas circling this post — creativity and passion, do hard things, and do less but better — are ideas the circle my mind daily will continue to entrance my value-oriented goals once again.

I am not sure whether I am able to reject the usage of AI forever, especially when the field of Software Development is what consecrated is birth. It is quite conflicting being an individual valuing the humanistic order of life while being stuck in what I see as the AI epicenter. I do know, however, that I can make the harder choice to avoid such the numbing and depriving of dignity that comes with its ease³. In outlining my passions has led me to be passionate not about the amount of features I can push, but about how digital creation and cognition can intertwine to combat psychological deterioration.

See the footnotes for videos, ideas, and books that inspired these thoughts.

Read The Invisible Man — H. G. Wells

2026-11-03T00:00:00Z

Rated 3.5/5

Watched The Substance (2024)

2026-10-31T00:00:00Z

Liked Rewatch i think there is so much to take away from this film. was alot less gross on the second watch. very enjoyable to notice all of the shining references. remember, you are one. you cannot escape yourself.

Watched Hocus Pocus (1993)

2026-10-28T00:00:00Z

this was interesting i suppose. felt like a burton

Visited Hollywood Sign

2026-10-27T00:00:00.000Z

27 October 2026 — best when the world is *quiet*

Attended The Wldlfe – Long Way Home Tour

2026-10-26T00:00:00.000Z

26 October 2026 — The Roxy Theatre, West Hollywood, CA

Watched Solo Mio (2026)

2026-10-25T00:00:00Z

Liked this was chill :)

Watched Videodrome (1983)

2026-10-23T00:00:00Z

try not to say the name of the movie challenge

Watched Magnolia (1999)

2026-10-22T00:00:00Z

Liked captivating as fuck but also i wanna cry and die. also included tom cruise boosting the importance of a calendar and Julianne Moore looking at the camera more seductively than ever.

Attended almost monday — Thank God It's Almost Monday Tour

2026-10-19T00:00:00.000Z

19 October 2026 — The Castro Theatre, San Francisco, CA

Watched The Lost Boys (1987)

2026-10-18T00:00:00Z

Liked INSTANT top 5. the entire aesthetic ive needed in a movie. washing it down with a cold glass of Motley Crue and GnR.

Watched Carrie (2026)

2026-10-17T00:00:00Z

Liked a beautiful retelling of carrie, taking elements of our societal lives and placing them into the hands of a man who knows how to make you emotionally connected to every character in his work. foundational underline of words can hurt but social media and mob mentality can hurt worse. I enjoyed the addition of a spd through emaline. loved the final episode as always.

album review: THANK GOD ITS ALMOST MONDAY

2026-10-03T00:00:00.000Z

With the hectic workdays, overwhelming workloads, and strain from every which way, it is quite rare that I look forward to Mondays. At times, it is easy to fill that the monotonous course of life gets worse with every Monday that rolls around.

This narrative was flipped when the indie-pop trio almost monday released their second album THANK GOD IT’S ALMOST MONDAY on September 9th, 2026. On the surface, the album is just a trio pop rock band having some fun, but take a closer look; almost monday is creating music that can only be described as one thing: a sunny dopamine hit. Mondays are not confined to feelings of dread or anguish anymore; almost monday turns this idea into a renewed, positive experience.

This is exactly what influenced their album to skyrocket to my number one streamed album of the year at 4,700 minutes and climbing, shattering records within my personal charts and catapulting them to my 20th all time artist. Yet, not even four months ago, I had only heard whispers of their existence.

How did they get here? The trio, Dawson Daugherty (Vocals), Luke Fabry (Lead Guitar), and Cole Clisby (Rhythm Guitar & Bass), met through one of the biggest things Southern Californians¹ are known for: surfing. This mellowed out, chill, sun-kissed hobby definitely seeps into their music; their music is only inspired by good feelings and ocean vibes. They grew up playing music together and eventually released their first single parking lot view in January 2020, just before the global pandemic hit. They never let that stop them, they wanted to keep creating music without a tour and dropped 2-3 EPs over the COVID era.

Some of their hits from these days such as cool enough, broken people, and cough drops gained them major attention, and lead them to the first Lollapalooza event in 2021 post-pandemic. Since then, they have dropped their first album DIVE with hits like jupiter and can’t slow down, gaining them major appraisal. In addition, all of their music videos have been shot on 16mm film (really apparent in jupiter), allowing a unique vintage aesthetic to complementing their upbeat recordings. Before dropping AM2, they toured with major bands like The Driver Era, AJR, and most recently, The Band CAMINO on their NeverAlways Tour before TBC went on to tour with 5 Seconds of Summer, leading to me learning of almost monday’s existence².

With their drop of THANK GOD IT’s ALMOST MONDAY, the world has been graced by 13 new songs:

thank god it’s almost monday (instrumental intro)
delicate
class a
no more regrets
superprism
fade
losing streak
leaving is easy
buzz
skinny dip
enjoy the ride
french kids
better late than never

Thematically, the album takes a roller-coaster-dip-like nature. It starts off super high with the title track (it cannot help but make you smile), and leads into my three favorites delicate, which is the single that got me incredibly hooked, class a, and no more regrets; three tracks of which express the fleeting nature of beauty and serenity.

I can’t say, but I think that I was falling in love
I might pray, ‘cause I need it and I can’t get enough
Yeah, yeah, yeah, can’t get enough

Following those is superprism, which peculiarly, is inspired by Dawson’s vision problems and how his sight was refocused by a small element in his glasses, a prism³.

The album then takes a dive, pulling the listener from super high highs to an atmospheric and introspective feeling, but still embodying their good mood tones. Fade, losing streak, leaving is easy, and buzz are all top tier songs showing the more emotional side of almost monday. Fade, specifically, feels exactly like levitation would sound…

(I don’t care) I’d learn a language never spoken
(I want you here) Yeah, I would free-fall in slow motion
(I don’t care) I’d give you all of my devotion
(I just want you here) I’d do anything to fix whatever’s broken
Don’t walk away, don’t let it fade
My feelings, they could never change (x10)

Even with a deeper, more intimate song, they sound like they still belong on the album, a quality that is often neglected in modern pop. The album picks right back up with straight highs to the end, with skinny dip, enjoy the ride, and french kids, an album track that has become one of their favorites to play. They close the album with an extremely euphoric track better late than never, a single-released song that sets a nervous and intense tone in which every chord switch sounds like the hesitation the song speaks of, and the tempo echos like a heartbeat.

I kiss the sky, fly to the sun
I close my eyes, but I’m wide awake
She’s on the phone, she’s talking loud
Can’t hear a word, what did you say?
I call a cab, I take a drag
You wanna meet, I’ll find a place
I feel the rush and I hesitate
There’s always something in the way

Every song gives you something to unpack, providing you depth while instrumentally keeping you exhilarated. It’s a reminder that there are highs and there are lows, but it is important to always look towards the next high, the next Monday. The album specifically urges the pursuit of the highs, not just allowing them to happen. After 4,700 minutes streamed and reaching the status of #1 listener on every song, I think I am qualified to say that successfully reframed my entire week.

Cole Clisby had a friend who’s father who worked with Blink-182, and eventually, interned for a Blink-182 (also a southern California trio) studio operator, so they have been in the music scene since an extremely young age. ↩
originally, they aimed to be called the mondays, a band called the mondays already existed, so, playing off of that incident, they became almost monday ↩
behind our latest single: “superprism” ⭐️🪩🌈🕺✨💿 #almostmonday #superprism #AM2 #TGIAM ↩

To Annotate Is To Embroider

2026-09-09T00:00:00.000Z

In high school, I somewhat started my journey for depth through reading. One of the first books i found engaging on a psychological level was James Clear’s Atomic Habits. As an individual struggling with forming better habits and abandoning poor ones, I took a lot out of this book. While I do not have the copy on me currently, I in fact annotated the hell out of it. I wrote in in with pen, I highlighted in it, I sticky-noted sections to come back to — all in an effort to maximize my return from this book.

An Excerpt from James Clear's Atomic Habits.

While this was all happening on my own time, I had an esteemed teacher in high school. This teacher was a professor of Greco-Roman Humanities, as well as teaching a deeper class on religion, culture, and worldviews of the East. I maintain to have a lot of respect for him; however, some advice upon showing him my copy of Atomic Habits was one I will never forget:

Never annotate more than 20% of a book.

This stuck with me, ticking in my brain like a metronome. Have I been reading wrong? I felt at a standstill, unable to continue my reading because of what I suspected were poor practices. I took it with a grain of salt, and made my own way through.

Fast forward to today, I LOVE to annotate my books. Not in the typical annotate for learning way, but whatever stands out to. While fiction and non-fiction differ, I have learned that I focus better on what I’m reading if I am actually taking notes in the margins, writing up the text, or even analyzing the issues at hand. I, in fact, wrote all over my physical copy of my Calculus book. This, too, was the best way for me to practice the problems at hand.

Additionally Ryan Holiday, author of The Daily Stoic and owner of The Painted Porch Bookshop, notes that the best way to honor an author is to write in your books. Reflect in them, note your thoughts, create new ideas. Watch this video for a few more tips.

While often highlighting and writing in books can be a necessary endeavor, it is one which allows you to intertwine your ideas with that of another. Highlight your favorite quotes, destroy the books, honor the author. To annotate is to embroider.

Attended Public Image Ltd. — This is Not the Last Tour

2026-09-04T00:00:00.000Z

4 September 2026 — Fremont Theatre, San Luis Obispo, California

Reading The Shards — Bret Easton Ellis

2026-08-31T00:00:00Z

Page 245 of 609

Read A World Without Email: Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload — Cal Newport

2026-08-30T00:00:00Z

Rated 4/5

Attended The Band Camino, 5 Seconds of Summer — Everyone's A Star Tour (AGAIN)

2026-08-28T00:00:00.000Z

28 August 2026 — Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View, California

On Chance Encounters

2026-08-23T00:00:00.000Z

Today was quite a beautiful Sunday in San Luis Obispo. I had a coffee (Lion’s Mane Mocha from the Tiny Cafe) and journal in hand ready to work on some individual reflection. Out of spontaneity, I chose to go do a “reading push” on Cal Newport’s A World Without Email downtown. In hopes to complete it by the end of August, I located a nice seated spot with bustling people around near some flowing water and a pleasant park.

I was reading about the improvements that Henry Ford made to the production line of the Model T when two guys approached me asking about my mode of transportation, the Onewheel. Being the first time I had even attempted to traverse it all summer, I was quite relieved. It was refreshing to talk about a passion of mine. Being some individuals with electric skateboards, the onewheel is the natural next step up. I was able to explain to them basic pricing, different board and tire options, terrain constraints, and portability. One of the guys even took it for a short spin — though he fell off quite quickly, dismounting with a bit of a jump. After the nice friendly interaction and providing some recommendations, I returned to my reading, getting lost in the urge for autonomy that Newport argues for.

A little while later, I was still deep in my reading when an older man asked if he could sit in the chair next to me. Similarly, he had just bought some very beautiful titles of his own: three books with picturesque places on the cover. I obliged and inquired what he was reading, and he happily talked about one of them: the area of Nepenthe & Big Sur. We had some beautiful conversation about his travels and his part-time lecturing at Cal Poly while he waited for his family to finish shopping. We connected on multiple different aspects including the importance of reading, the potential of AI in environmental management (AI is effecting everyone!), and disciplined lifestyles. I’ll happily engage with him when seen around campus.

I have thought and reflected on these two chance encounters. For me, they were some of the most engaging and meaningful encounters I have had all summer (given SLO has been quite the empty nest). I immediately wrote in my journal:

Its these one-off experiences that mean so much more than the stream of bytes I attempt to morph into meaningful connections.

I believe strongly that

had I chosen a more individualistic, secluded area of town (or rather stayed home and read in bed) or
been on my phone instead of reading while outside surrounded by people,

these chance encounters would never have happened. This is why reading outside seems to be such an integral part of life — the joys of new experiences, even if distracting you from the book at hand, are often the most special. While the sticky note marking my page moved less than I would’ve hoped, I regret nothing. I think it is the impulsive conversations with those around us that can often spark the most joy. Next time you take a walk or sit down to read, consider sparking up a conversation with someone — we all need it these days.

Reading The Myth of Sisyphus — Albert Camus

2026-08-11T00:00:00Z

Page 26 of 162

Experience Yourself

2026-08-10T00:00:00.000Z

French Philosopher Albert Camus famously wrote,

You will never be able to experience everything. So, please, do poetical justice to your soul and simply experience yourself.

This was from his personal notebooks, retrieved posthumously. However, based on the writing of his own experience reflected in his novel A Happy Death, written in 1938 but published posthumously as well, and I would gamble on the fact that this quote originated around the same time. Experience yourself one of the biggest ideas reflected in A Happy Death; as the main character Mersault rejects all relationships and material things to just live the final years of his life on the oceanside of France.

Published in 1971, 11 years after Albert Camus’s death, A Happy Death tells the story of a character named Mersault who commits a crime and lives free of guilt while finding happiness within himself. Though written before The Stranger, A Happy Death is often considered a precursor. However, it was written and left unfinished, abandoned while he moved on to begin writing in “cycles”, triptych sequences consisting of a novel, an essay, and a play. Reading A Happy Death is to experience firsthand what a prototype for one of the most groundbreaking philosophies, while blurring the intimate lines between Camus’ own life and the fiction of his protagonist.

Camus’ writing maintains a sense of introspection and shoegaze in a way that is unlike any other author I have read, and the quotes included have been scattered across sticky notes and journals alike for reflection

In Part One (Natural Death), the first chapter begins with the crime, and traverses back a few weeks or months (a technique named in media res from the Latin, and seen famously in literature Tartt’s A Secret History or films like Nolan’s The Prestige). He meets with his friend Zagreus, a wealthy friend but a cripple. He proceeds to shoot his friend, stage it like a self-inflicted death, and move swiftly on, going to take a nap for the rest of the day. He is to inherit the rest of Zagreus’ money. The rest of Natural Death backtracks a bit to outline Mersault’s day job as a shipping clerk in a monotonous but seaside office.

A craving for freedom and independence is generated in a man still living on hope. [25]

He has a lover, Marthe, who was one of his erratic and unfaithful partners, likely modeled after one of Camus’s own. At one calamitous point of one chapter, Marthe learns that she is easily able to make Mersault jealous of her former lovers. This occurs when she has an interaction with one such lover in a theatre he had been accompanying her to. Eventually, it is revealed that a man named Zagreus was her first lover turned intellectual companion. He becomes annoyed at their persistent relationship, and becomes avoidant within his own. He goes to meet Roland Zagreus, an amputee who believes money buys time, and time is of direct relation to happiness. Accepting that his wealth is wasted, he orchestrates a plan for his own murder, allowing Mersault to escape financial burden in a search for existential meaning and true happiness.

This part acts as a catalyst for the protagonist and leads into the events of the second part. In Part Two: Conscious Death, our character avoids a slow costly life by opting to rid himself of all material things, and simply experience himself. He secured financial freedom to travel Europe and experience the beauty found in the women in Prague, Breslau, Vienna, and Genoa. Expectant to find his true happiness while living nomadically, he instead feels alienated, isolated, and ill.

He was flooded by a dreadful pleasure at the prospect of so much desolation and solitude. To be so far away from everything, even from his fever, to suffer so distinctly here what was absurd and miserable in even the tidiest of lives showed him the shameful and secret countenance of a kind of freedom born in the suspect, the shady. [59]

Even surrounded by the beauty that is Europe, he was unhappy at its devolution from a landscape of beauty and nature to the bustling townships that surrounded him. He lacked the connectivity privy to all of human existence:

The rushing river with its burdens of shouts and tunes, the fragrance of gardens, full of the coppery glow of the setting sun and the twisted, grotesque shadows of the statues on the Charles Bridge made Mersault barely conscious of his desolation: a solitude in which love had no part coming to a standstill as the fragrance of leaves and water reached him, he felt a catch in his throat and imagine tears which did not come tears to be for a friend or for open arms. But tears gave away to the world without tenderness in which he was immersed. [68]

He proceeds to move in with three younger women in an attempt to find an atmosphere joined in social acceptance and greater happiness. The move on to a group house, one referred to as The House Above The World. This is where Camus concepts begin to feel disjointed. He never fully explains what it is to the readers or how it integrates with the absurdity of existence. However, we do know from context that it was a sort-of purgatory transition state for Mersault (and likely Camus himself) from his travels to his absolute isolation.

In the sky, night showed them its shining face”, radiant and secret. The lights passed far below in the harbor, and the screech of trains occasionally reached them. The stars swelled, then shrank, vanished and were reborn, drawing evanescent figures, creating new ones moment by moment. In the silence, the night recovered its density, its flesh. Filled with twinkling stars, it left in their eyes the play of lights that tears can bring. And each of them, plunging into the depths of the sky, found that extreme point where everything coincides, the secret and tender meditation, which makes up the solitude of one’s life. [101]

These four individuals look down on the world, rejecting societal drama and acting as rebelling, detached observers of the world. Yet, he leaves due to its safety; Mersault must confront the uncertainty offered by the world. He opts in for a shoreside country villa.

Here, he has more connectivity to his neighbors and bustling township, but also a sense of independence and ability to be one with nature. He ends up marrying a woman, one of his affairs, not out of passion but out of a need for shared silence. Additionally, his health quickly declines, much like Camus’ own battle with Tuberculosis.

He goes on for many pages on our protagonist’s death, reflecting on his acceptance and lack of regrets in life. He treats his deterioration as the most natural thing to come, just as the tides wash over the sand. He remains completely conscious and lucid, willingly dissolving into the physical world. He dies with the absolute certainty that he successfully mastered his own existence.

Just as there is a moment when the artist must stop, when the sculpture must be left as it is, the painting untouched–just as a determination not to know, serves the maker more than all his resources of clairvoyant–there must be a minimum of ignorance, in order to perfect a life of happiness. Those who lack such a thing must be set about acquiring it: unintelligence must be earned. [121]

What I truly connected with was the ability for Camus to depict the few moments we often get lost in, unable to crawl back to reality for just a moment.

Sometimes he picked up his watch and stared as the minute hand shifted from one number to the next, marveling that five should seem so indeterminable. [120]

Mersault rejects the idea of laborious work, of a bustling life, and of trying to fight the void that is death as it approaches. He takes meaning in the aesthetic beauty around him, such as the women

Something inside him claimed for the gestures of women, for arms that open, and for warm lips. From the depth of painful nights in Prague, amid smells of vinegar and sentimental tunes, the anguished countenance of the old Baroque world which had accompanied his fever mounted toward him. Breathing with difficulty, seeing nothing, moving mechanically, he sat up on his bed… Tears burst from his eyes. Inside him widened a great lake of solitude and silence above which ran the sad song of deliverance. [70]

Mersault befriended the idea of solitude. Not solitude in the sense of Superman’s fortress or abandoning all connection, but the ability to sit with yourself, to understand the tears that don’t come, the moments that feel too large for our own existence. Those are the moments one must not avoid. He also begs for living intensely, with passion in the moments that can be harvested.

Leaving A Happy Death unpolished is ironic and quite fitting. The radical acceptance that comes not from understanding life, but from accepting that understanding may not come at all. Camus’ death fits the sort of irony; he died in a car crash when his friend veered off an icy road, dying instantly with no explanation. In his pocket was a train ticket: the car ride from his friend was a last-minute, inexplicable decision.

Read A Happy Death — Albert Camus

2026-08-09T00:00:00Z

Rated 4/5

On Slow Technology and Intentionality

2026-07-26T00:00:00.000Z

New is not Always Better

One show I grew up watching (and still love to this day) is How I Met Your Mother. One character, the eccentric and slick Barney Stinson, would always emphasize repeated catch phrases and rules. He often would say “I only have one rule”, and then say some far-out saying that often was illogical or a hot-take.

One of his most notable rules was simply

New is always better

This was used to arguing the destruction of a famous landmark in the show, but he applies it when stating that the new Star Wars films were better than the old and that Guns and Roses’ Chinese Democracy was better than Appetite for Destruction.

As our modern technology continues to progress, I often find that this extreme generalization seems to be a misconception. With the computing power present in our pockets and the plethora of entertainment, media, ad boards, and mass production present in our world, we seem to have lost the ideas of mindful and deliberate consumption. Some of the choices of device use I have made recently have helped me reject this modernity and embrace intentionality. This idea is called Slow Technology, and is an idea popularized by many digital ethicists. There is a wonderful podcast episode on the embrace of Slow Technology here which I often go back to for a kick of inspiration.

Appeal of Blu-Ray DVDs

Recently, as recent as spring 2026, I bought a blu-ray player. To me, this felt like one of my first absurd purchases. Why, in the age of streaming and mass-media consumption, would one purchase a blu-ray player?

In my opinion, there are obvious benefits. Firstly, the concept of owning physical media is one that is unparalleled. People have been deemed “collectors” for centuries. In recent years, it seems collectors of the dying form of Blu-Ray seems to make owning them recursively more valuable,

The ability of holding an entire cinematic universe in your hand with its reflective neon blue case staring back at you an elevated, evanescent feeling. The act of inserting the disc into the player, the patience exercised during the duration of handpicked trailers of movies from the same year, and the physical selection of a PLAY option seems to keep me more grounded.

On a deeper level, there is a sense of termination of the movie. Films have a start, the trailers run and then you watch it, and it the credits roll up. There is a fixed start and end point of the film; there is no “starting in 30s” follow-up content as would be present in streaming services.

Vintage and Vinyl

When I first started collecting Vinyl records in 2022, it was out of response for an aesthete purpose — I wanted to be one of those superficial vinyl collectors that valued the older audio form for its retro and vintage look over its form and function. Vinyl records offer a more unique modality of listening to music: grooves and lines engraved on a 12 inch discus would produce some of the highest quality tones possible as it spins at around 0.75 revolutions per second.

As I transition towards embracing more ancient technologies, I began to realize the obscured value of records that many fail to recognize. The strength a record offers is in its invariant and consistent sequence of steps. You must pull the record out of its sleeve, place it on the turntable, turn it on and set the needle at the very edge, and start it. What follows is on untouched retirement from managing the record; all that remains is to enjoy the record without a bombardment of distraction. There is a preordained order in which the album is ordered, leaving you bound to the artist’s designation.

A shot of Luke Hemming's solo EP boy on my personal vinyl player. Source: me.

Compare this to streaming services such as Spotify (not to be degrading, I am a frequent Spotify user). Vinyl does not give you the option of fade-in/fade-out transitions, there is no skip song, no ad break, and occasionally, little blips or imperfections on the record that make you appreciate the nostalgic format so much more. The other obstacle with records that is absent in streaming services is the need to rotate record over for larger or deluxe albums, which became increasingly popular in the 70s and 80s, and still remain common today.

With this thought, I want to recollect a treasured reminder of these primitive media days that the world once used to be in. In Tom Petty’s deluxe album Full Moon Fever, Petty included an addendum that has stuck with me since childhood. In the last 30 seconds of the hit track Running Down A Dream, the final song of the album, he added the following¹,

Hello CD listeners. We have come to the point in this album where those listening on cassette or records will have to stand up or sit down and turn over the record or tape. In fairness to those listeners, we will now take a few seconds before we begin side two. Thank you. Here’s side two.

Growing up with this song on loop through streaming services, I would always get a bit peeved, just wanting to hear the next song on my playlist. As I have matured though, I have come to appreciate this message. Petty stays considerate of those listening on all forms of media, and remains true today. While CD listeners would have no action to take, vinyl listeners have to take the beautiful action of interacting with their record and switching it to another side. It is a purposeful yet ornamental album of adding a personalized touch to the record.

Friction from the Flip-phone

A recent change I made in my life has allowed me to be more intentional with my technology usage: I have switched my sim card to a flip phone. And, to my surprise, the friction here has truly made me a lot more present and happier in the moment.

As this is a growing revolution, I’d like to note some of the effects, both positive or negative:

Time passes faster. I’ve noticed how much more dedicated I’ve been able focus on the present moment, and avoid searching for distractions. Whether at work, reading a book, or watching a movie, the passing of time has felt a lot quicker due to the increased ability to just be able to exist in the moment. No broadcasting what I’m doing, no avoidance of what is at hand, just solitary being with my thoughts.
More selective about shared thoughts. As someone always searching for a way to broadcast my thoughts, activities, or experiences, switching to the antiquity a flip-phone has locked me out of what I thought was human nature. Somehow, I’ve gradually adjusted to being more present, more considerate about what I feel about needing to tell other people, and ultimately, saving these thoughts for more synchronous modes of communication. As an alternative, I carry a notebook on my person at all times, and make note of any reminders of conversations to refer to in the future.
Return to Offline Era. Less than 20 years ago, people navigated their cities, their trips, and their daily lives with paper maps, analog clocks, CDs, and FM radio. In my efforts, I have reverted to this nostalgic time. A lack of Wi-Fi in my current housing forces me to spend more time intentionally out of the house. I dismissed my Google Pixel Watch due overwhelming distraction, and switched to a 2010s Fitbit. I downloaded the offline digital map of San Luis Obispo for navigation, but prefer relying on my own pathfinding (leading my astray in some cases) and relying on landmarks for pinpointing my location. After putting in some manual effort, I fixed my cars’ CD player and have devoted my commutes to utilizing on the CDs I own (a similar feeling to the Blu-Rays discussed above).

Conclusion

All of these ideas are united by one core pillar: intentionality. A conscious usage of online activities fosters presence. Returning to an age where individuals didn’t have the world at their fingertips might be a radical notion, but one that fosters deliberate choices about time. Noise doesn’t have to be an ever-present battle; it wasn’t 30 years ago.

A quote from French author Albert Camus that wrote in 1930s somehow remains present in the individualist technology battle today

You will never be able to experience everything. So, please, do poetical justice to your soul and simply experience yourself.

Tom Petty- Runnin' Down A Dream ↩

Attended The Band Camino, 5 Seconds of Summer — NeverAlways / EVERYONE'S A STAR! Tour

2026-07-22T00:00:00.000Z

22 July 2026 — Mystic Lake Amphitheater, Prior Lake, Minnesota

On Arrival (2016)

2026-07-14T00:00:00.000Z

I had the absolute pleasure of watching a showing of Arrival (2016, dir. Denis Villeneuve) at the Palm Theatre in downtown SLO a few nights ago.

Dare I say, Masterpiece. Coming from a person who dislikes space and alien movies.

At first glance, I was under the impression I was walking into an overdone film trope of aliens’ first arrival to Earth. But then, why would this be one of the highest acclaimed movies to abdicate my watchlist?

Major spoilers below, so please go watch the film if you have not already!

At its heart, Arrival is a film about language and the importance of communication. As English speakers, the majority of US individuals are raised learning to speak before writing. We hear the word read, then learn what it means to read, and then are able to spell it r-e-a-d. In Arrival, the aliens, referred to as heptapods (originating from the Greek — hepta for seven and pod for legs), communicate a different manner.

They seem to make these very heavy bass reverberation sounds, none of which Louise (splendidly played by actress Amy Adams), an educator in linguistics, could recognize any pattern of. Louise, whose daughter develops a disease at the beginning of her film, is brought on to a military base camp translate the alien sounds. Eventually, upon making contact, the aliens begin depicting via symbolic communication; their words were represented by circular-esque icons, created from ink splotches sprayed out of their tentacles and separated by a barrier.

The symbols from which the heptapods used to communicate with Louise. Source: TMDB

Theoretical Physicist Ian (played by Jeremy Renner) finds a mathematical way to connect these symbols. He develops an algorithm to detect the intricacies of the splotches and maps them to words. Yet, there is still little correlation between the symbols and the sounds produced simultaneously.

Quick tangent, author Cal Newport talked briefly this week about how his theoretical computer science background had heavily influenced his ability to write and speak clearly. The ability to perform mathematical proofs had been integral to his success as a writer. He has been able to evolve his writing into a formulaic process, derived from his doctrinal background. Enlightening.

The film twists when Amy is taken up to the giant orb shuttle and communicates one—on—one with the heptapods, barrier omitted. She is chosen to be given their power. It is not that they were here to attack. It was not their intention to act as a weapon, as all the nations thought. The heptapods arrived as a vessel to transmit a gift. This is when Louise shouts “WHO IS THIS CHILD?”, after being plagued by visions of her future daughter, and the immense soundtrack crescendos — upon realizing the storyline, I burst into tears. Their language was time, and she was given the gift of seeing her future, past, and present simultaneously. In return, the heptapods asked help from humanity in the future to come.

Intertwining with a non-linear sequence and orchestral score, Louise narrates

Despite knowing the journey… and where it leads… I embrace it. And I welcome every moment of it.

Louise accepts the future and embraces the journey, and chooses to have her daughter Hannah in light the future. Regardless of how we can perceive time and understanding, she chooses not to change anything; she accepts the hardship with the evanescent beauty.

This contrasts Kierkegaard’s idea of

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.

Regardless of the existential burden the future and impending weight of uncertainty, Kierkegaard continues living in spite of it. In a sort of juxtaposition, I choose to view Louise’s situation as an almost harder leap — to continue her path in spite of the certainty.

Linguistic communication is not only from our mouths, our words, our texts or phrases, it originates from our perception. What may seem to us like a collection of disjointed circles is the entire language of the heptapods.

The future is and always will be unknown, and existence continues in spite of it. I believe Arrival was a nod to deterministic universes, one in which the entire course of a life is preplanned. She uses her future knowledge to fully save the universe (or maybe it already saved…) Despite all of that and her new perception on life, she embraces her future with a focus on the beauty and wholesome moments, while also enduring the harder ones.

A film I walked into questioning its relevance I left with answers I never would’ve expected.

Read Hiking with Nietzsche: On Becoming Who You Are — John Kaag

2026-07-10T00:00:00Z

Rated 2/5

Breakaway

2026-07-07T00:00:00.000Z

Been thinking a lot about habits. It takes discipline to know what is the most right for yourself, and maximum discipline to act on it, regardless of your state (emotional, physical, mental, etc).

What builds the best habits is replacing something innate and addictive that one would consider a bad habit with something of an addictive nature that would be a good habit.

The other way to breakdown bad habits, that I’ve found, is not increasing friction gradually. Screen blockers and rule presets and family controls don’t work on humans whose psychology is hellbent on finding the path of least friction. For example, leaving my phone in the car is ideal for deep focus. However, the minimal things like grabbing a phone for taking a photo or a security code often leads to drastic derailment in focus and momentum. The safeguards never seem to be enough¹. I believe it is time to strike at the very root cause: eliminating having the world at my fingertips.

While 90s kids had it difficult, they didn’t have the addictive nature of the cell phone; the leading cause of death was not car accidents and self-harm, it was heart disease and stroke. Were they in a better time? Unsure. We can only state the fact of the mental health decline, technology addiction, and ultimately, loss of pursuit of knowledge.

Are archaic devices better? Subjective². But, they allowed individuals to cultivate focus better, and provided experiences that prevented addictive nature.

We must be willing to reject convenience³. If you stay tied to what-ifs, focusing on the worst situations, it will never be possible to breakaway. Another point (often made by Cal Newport, but also from my experience): the more you reject convenience, the stronger the relationships that you maintain become. You work harder to keep the connection with those who value you as equally as you value them. Case in point: when I got rid of Instagram, I watched friendships I thought I had deteriorate, as if they turned to ash and crumbled. Now, the reason I believed they were strong was due to the social media superficiality I had become to be reliant on; the likes, shares, comments were how I learned to understand my value.

Attended The Maine

2026-07-03T00:00:00.000Z

3 July 2026 — Alameda County Fair, Pleasanton, California

Read The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession — Michael Finkel

2026-06-28T00:00:00Z

Rated 5/5

Attended Patton Oswalt — Effervescent Tour

2026-06-13T00:00:00.000Z

13 June 2026 — Fremont Theatre, San Luis Obispo, California

Visited Madonna Mountain

2026-05-30T00:00:00.000Z

30 May 2026

Reading The Secret History — Donna Tartt

2026-05-18T00:00:00Z

Page 170 of 578

Visited Santa Cruz, CA

2026-05-01T00:00:00.000Z

May 2026

Read Notes from Underground — Fyodor Dostoevsky

2026-03-17T00:00:00Z

Rated 4/5

Read Train Dreams — Denis Johnson

2026-02-16T00:00:00Z

Rated 4/5

Read Wuthering Heights — Emily Brontë

2026-02-12T00:00:00Z

Rated 4/5

Read Into the Sun — C. F. Ramuz

2026-01-31T00:00:00Z

Rated 3/5

Read The Prestige — Christopher Priest

2025-11-28T00:00:00Z

Rated 5/5

Arjan Singh Ellingson

Watched Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)

Watched You Can See Everything (2026)

Watched The Godfather (1972)

At the Crossroads of Creativity and Cognition

Rejecting Ease & Pursuing Hard Things

Passion & Creation

Do Less but Better

Case Study: In Color

Conclusion

Footnotes

Read The Invisible Man — H. G. Wells

Watched The Substance (2024)

Watched Hocus Pocus (1993)

Visited Hollywood Sign

Attended The Wldlfe – Long Way Home Tour

Watched Solo Mio (2026)

Watched Videodrome (1983)

Watched Magnolia (1999)

Attended almost monday — Thank God It's Almost Monday Tour

Watched The Lost Boys (1987)

Watched Carrie (2026)

album review: THANK GOD ITS ALMOST MONDAY

Footnotes

To Annotate Is To Embroider

Attended Public Image Ltd. — This is Not the Last Tour

Reading The Shards — Bret Easton Ellis

Read A World Without Email: Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload — Cal Newport

Attended The Band Camino, 5 Seconds of Summer — Everyone's A Star Tour (AGAIN)

On Chance Encounters

Reading The Myth of Sisyphus — Albert Camus

Experience Yourself

Read A Happy Death — Albert Camus

On Slow Technology and Intentionality

New is not Always Better

Appeal of Blu-Ray DVDs

Vintage and Vinyl

Friction from the Flip-phone

Conclusion

Footnotes

Attended The Band Camino, 5 Seconds of Summer — NeverAlways / EVERYONE'S A STAR! Tour

On Arrival (2016)

Read Hiking with Nietzsche: On Becoming Who You Are — John Kaag

Breakaway

Footnotes

Attended The Maine

Read The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession — Michael Finkel

Attended Patton Oswalt — Effervescent Tour

Visited Madonna Mountain

Reading The Secret History — Donna Tartt

Visited Santa Cruz, CA

Read Notes from Underground — Fyodor Dostoevsky

Read Train Dreams — Denis Johnson

Read Wuthering Heights — Emily Brontë

Read Into the Sun — C. F. Ramuz

Read The Prestige — Christopher Priest