Week 08

Looking forward to flying back home this week. I was supposed to pack this weekend, but in a classic case of ✨ me being me ✨, there hasn’t been any progress on that front. Hoping to spend some time in the mountains to reset, but at this point, just a change of scenery will suffice. Or maybe a chance encounter with the Dalai Lama while I’m in his neighborhood. You’d think I need it, considering I’m still not over my scarf being “taken,” but now, after having been to the climbing gym multiple times and checking for it each time, I’ve finally reached the acceptance phase of the seven stages. Besides, there’s no hope for its return, so I guess this is the final stage.

Speaking of flying, I have a few odd personal rules for flying, possibly stemming from way back when I was deep in the productivity/hustle culture cult. One, I never buy internet on flights. I think of flight time as sacred, productivity time (I know, it’s bad). Writing, reading, and coding (offline) are allowed. Movies and music are allowed, but only if they come from the in-flight entertainment options. I am mostly very strict with this. I find airports fascinating and “in-air” time rejuvenating. It helps that I’m not big on movies, and often I catch up on award winners when they’re available on long flights. More often than not, I go months without watching any. Then there’ll be a random stretch where I’ll watch three movies in three days at the cinema, like I did at the Stockholm Film Festival last year. I like going to the movies though, and some of the best movies I’ve watched were spur-of-the-moment picks at indie cinemas, but other than that, they don’t rank high on my list. This year, though, I’ve been doing one movie a week. It started unintentionally around the start of this weekly writing series, and I’ve tried to keep up with it.

This week, I watched A Real Pain, and it was a real treasure. The film is about two cousins who embark on a group tour in Poland to learn more about the home and heritage of their Jewish grandmother, who survived the camps and made it to the U.S. They join a group of characters and a guide who all have some connection to the Holocaust. In turn, we learn about the characters and their idiosyncrasies. We learn that they were “joined at the hip” when they were younger but have since drifted apart. We learn that Ben (Kieran Culkin) has some troubles and doesn’t seem to have a job at the moment, while Dave (Jesse Eisenberg) has taken the straight-and-narrow road of a job, wife, and kids and is an “awesome dude stuck in the body of someone always running late.” Without divulging much about the story (you should watch it!), I will say that the movie is subtle and doesn’t try to enforce any particular point, which I think is the real beauty of the film.

There is a melancholic undertone to the movie, given its subject matter, of course, yet it doesn’t feel the need to be overly dramatic. The script is stellar, and the soundtrack is carefully chosen (heavy on Chopin) and, at the right moment, it fades away, allowing the gravity of what has taken place to take center stage. Yet, there are moments of levity, joy, and sneaking onto rooftops for those memorable late-night conversations. Ben is the glue that brings people together and also pushes them away. He makes people feel, think, and question themselves. Dave is the counterweight—stressed, anxious, at times visibly uncomfortable, and often apologizing on Ben’s behalf. They love each other yet allow each other space. There is deep, deep sadness as well, both in seeing what humanity is capable of and in the characters themselves as they face their own fears, sometimes openly and sometimes not. Kieran Culkin is even better than he was in Succession, where he was already stellar. After I watched it, I read some reviews, and one said something like, “We all know a Ben in our lives.” This is true, but I think we all also know a Dave as well. I found both characters relatable—which, now that I think about it, is something I’ve never felt before with a Jesse Eisenberg character. Highly recommend.

I’m hoping to reset in India and think of a good project to work on when I’m back, especially around code. Meanwhile, this weekly writing is also starting to feel like a real pain recently due to the lack of structure and time to process what I’m consuming. Without any comments or engagement as well, it feels a bit like chipping away at a small piece of wood in the middle of a dense forest, without any clear direction, hoping to learn how to build a spear to show off to someone. But there is no one around 😅 Sometimes, I miss the conversations and comments that come with blogging on commercial platforms — something that can be a source of both engagement and inspiration. Still, I don’t really mind it. There is some poetic appeal as well in just doing the craft for the sake of doing.

Maybe the next post will be drafted in the “temple of sacred time” roughly 36,000 feet up in the air.

🥘 Food

• Penne a la Vodka
• This is the fattest semla ever:

📚 Reading

• Cezánne, by Ambroise Vollard