The Boy and the Heron (How Do You Live?)
Posted: December 31, 2023 Filed under: Movies, Society, Uncategorized | Tags: Hayao Miyazaki, how to live Comments Off on The Boy and the Heron (How Do You Live?)The Boy and the Heron is perhaps the most complex and enigmatic of all Miyazaki’s films. I was left wondering about its message and the symbolism after watching it a few days ago… I think that its original Japanese title How Do You Live? captures the essence of this film as Miyazaki’s reflection on life values. Faced with the choice of either saving the world or saving one human, the protagonist in the movie chooses the latter, and that choice feels right. This film made me think for a long time about the eternal question of “how to live”…
Eternal Endless Days
Posted: June 21, 2023 Filed under: Poetry | Tags: Boris Pasternak Comments Off on Eternal Endless DaysOn the day of the summer solstice, I recall the poem by Boris Pasternak “Unique Days”. It took me a long time to appreciate it, along with the realization of the existence of “eternal endless” days in one’s life.
The Two Popes
Posted: June 21, 2023 Filed under: Movies, Society, Uncategorized | Tags: Fernando Meirelles, personal change, spiritual Comments Off on The Two PopesThe Two Popes is a deeply touching story of two humans struggling with interpreting God’s will (or, in non-religious terms, doing the right thing) in the changing world. It is a movie about coming to terms with your own mistakes and personal change. I think that the dialog from the movie truly captures the ever-changing nature of life:
Pope Francis: Nothing is static in nature or the universe, not even God.
Pope Benedict: God does not change.
Pope Francis: Yes, He does. He moves towards us.
Pope Benedict: (…) Where should we find Him if He’s always moving?
Pope Francis: On the journey?
Parasite: Amazing and Deeply Disturbing
Posted: March 5, 2023 Filed under: Movies, Society, Uncategorized | Tags: Bong Joon-ho, parasite, reflection of society Comments Off on Parasite: Amazing and Deeply DisturbingBong Joon-ho’s Parasite is an amazing movie and a deeply disturbing reflection of modern society. It is like a magic mirror that shows the ugliness and the rot throughout all layers of society, hidden underneath the decorum of social norms.
Expressing One’s Soul in Art
Posted: February 24, 2023 Filed under: Art, Uncategorized | Tags: Art, Creating, Laura Marling, Performing, Soul Comments Off on Expressing One’s Soul in ArtArtistic creation is a process of expressing one’s soul. Creating artists expose their souls, performing artists mold their souls to express the souls of others… Performing your own art live is the apex of both, aptly expressed by Laura Marling: “When I play, I am very much in the space where I was when I wrote the music. You could slay me quite easily, I’m at my most vulnerable. (…) why is it that I get up on stage every night and open myself in front of strangers?”
Laura Marling performing “What He Wrote” in October 2012
Laura Marling performing “What He Wrote” in June 2020
Persona: Ingmar Bergman and Andrei Tarkovsky
Posted: February 20, 2023 Filed under: Movies, Uncategorized | Tags: flexibility, persona, plasticity, relationships, self, strength, weakness Comments Off on Persona: Ingmar Bergman and Andrei TarkovskyBergman’s Persona is undeniably an outstanding work of art: this movie makes you feel, think, and contemplate. After watching it, I found myself contemplating for a long time… about how we relate to others and the world, about the true nature of yourself and the plasticity of your persona… or maybe it is your true self that is flexible?…
Before too long, I found myself recalling the line from Tarkovsky’s Stalker: “Hardness and strength are death’s companions. Flexibility and softness are the embodiment of life. That which has become hard will not triumph.” Professor Borg’s personal journey in Bergman’s Wild Strawberries also came to mind.
What is strength, and what is weakness?… Do we get harder or softer as we move through life?…
To me, both Bergman and Tarkovsky evoke similar feelings, but, quoting Bergman himself: “My discovery of Tarkovsky’s first film was like a miracle. Suddenly, I found myself standing at the door of a room the keys of which had, until then, never been given to me. It was a room I had always wanted to enter and where he was moving freely and fully at ease. I felt encouraged and stimulated: someone was expressing what I had always wanted to say without knowing how. Tarkovsky is for me the greatest, the one who invented a new language, true to the nature of film, as it captures life as a reflection, life as a dream.” I agree, Bergman’s Persona feels somewhat crude compared to Tarkovsky’s later works, but it was created before Mirror, Solaris, Stalker, Nostalgia, and The Sacrifice, and Tarkovsky admired it. In the end, Persona is an impressive artistic achievement with an epic impact on many, including Tarkovsky.
The image is from the YouTube channel by Gabriel Gomez.
Days of Heaven
Posted: February 19, 2023 Filed under: Movies, Uncategorized | Tags: days of heaven Comments Off on Days of HeavenI had wanted to watch Days of Heaven for a very long time… I finally watched it in October 2022, and it did not disappoint!
It is one of those rare movies where the visuals and the atmosphere are more important than the outward narrative of the story. It captures that unique and fleeting feeling of “days of heaven” when you feel truly and utterly happy, disconnected from the whole world in your own happiness. It also conveys the intangible feeling of the flow of fate and how little power we sometimes have over it. It deeply resonated with me on so many levels, consciously and subconsciously. There are no other movies like it, a true masterpiece!
Unorthodox: Escaping your own eruv of personal preconceptions
Posted: July 31, 2020 Filed under: Movies, Uncategorized | Tags: personal transformation, purpose in life, Unorthodox Comments Off on Unorthodox: Escaping your own eruv of personal preconceptionsI watched Unorthodox as soon as it was released on Netflix three months ago, but I could not immediately put my finger on what exactly resonated so deeply with me… Given, the lead actress, Shira Haas, was astonishingly good, but the “escape a cult” storyline was hardly unique, and it did not seem that special on the surface…
It took me some time and self-reflection to realize that we all live in our own eruvs of imaginary rules, dogmas, preconceptions, and general ways of thinking about the world. We don’t even notice being enclosed by these personal eruvs as long as the reality fits the confines of our own eruvs. We mistakenly think that the world operates according to the rules of our eruvs, refusing to take an open-minded view of the world. Unorthodox is not about escaping a cult but about escaping your own eruv of preconceptions about the world… And the more rigid your own imaginary rules and preconceptions are, the harder and the more painful it would be to escape that eruv… In the end, Unorthodox is about personal transformation and how painful it can be…
I conclude with the quote from Unorthodox:
“The rules are imaginary. The eruv wires around the neighborhood aren’t electric, there’s no moat (…) filled with crocodiles. Their power is just in your head.”
… followed by the response from Esty:
“The Talmud says… If not me, then who? If not now, then when?”
The Future of the Global Economy: One Step (ahem, Year) Ahead
Posted: April 6, 2015 Filed under: Economy, ETFs, Finance, Hedge Funds | Tags: alternative investments, economy, ETFs, hedge fund cloning, hedge funds, investments, return replication, smart beta Comments Off on The Future of the Global Economy: One Step (ahem, Year) AheadWho can tell the future?
Most people are not that good at predicting the future of the economy and the stock market, but there are quite a few pretty talented people who are. Most importantly, they are willing to bet their money (and a whole lot of it) on their vision of the future, instead of just yapping about it on television with no real consequences to themselves (think Ben Stein or Jim Cramer). These people are hedge fund managers, especially those who follow directional global economy based strategies.
Hedge funds are run by smart guys. They strive to generate attractive risk-and-return patterns for their investors through a wide variety of investment strategies. Broadly speaking, these strategies could be classified as “search for alpha” (e.g. “equity market neutral”) and “bets on beta” (e.g. “global macro”). Alpha strategies aim at generating returns patterns that are not related to the market or any known economic risk factors. Beta active strategies, on the other hand, generate returns by taking positions driven by underlying economic factors. The best beta active hedge fund managers are pretty good as a group in anticipating which of the economic factors would deliver superior performance in the future. If we could only see these positions, we would’ve been able to peek into the future (as perceived by a group of really smart hedge fund managers)…
Pyramid Leverage
Posted: March 30, 2015 Filed under: Economy, Finance, Politics, Society | Tags: economy, finance, government policy, pyramid leverage Comments Off on Pyramid LeverageIt is commonly accepted that “true” economic growth is the growth driven by technological innovation, and it is roughly approximated by a country’s GDP per capita growth. However, as I argued in an earlier post, short-term economic growth numbers could be distorted by monetary and fiscal policy choices. For example, a government may boost short-term GDP numbers by borrowing money through the sale of its long-term debt (say, twenty year bonds). By doing so, it employs the fundamental “time machine” feature of finance, which allows for the exchange of an uncertain future payoff for a certain payoff today. Ultimately, the repayment of the long-term government debt would be driven by the overall economy twenty years from now, i.e. people working, producing, consuming, and paying taxes then. Some of these people may not even be born today – how can we know for sure the number of workers and how productive they will be twenty years from now?
Mental Kaleidoscope 