The best game in town
what is the best game in town? that would be a good title for a big no?
the best game in town is the one that involves you whole heartedly and frees from all fear and confusion. its found by challenging yourself outside your comfort zone and analyzing who are in the discomfort. the best game in town exists in the unknown. the board is the unknown. the pieces are the circumstances of your life. the dice is the roll of time. the stakes are the freedom of your mind and saturation of your heart in connection with all mortal and immortal beings.
the best game in town always rewards you even when you lose. and the best game you will lose a lot. you will lose your separation, your arrogance, your smallness, you will become an alchmeist and friend with these things so they ally and not master you through the best game in town.
theres a game happening right now, right in and around you. how did you areive here? what are you playing for? do you treat yourself as a player, with lightness and humor? or as an ancient statue, only made for cordoning of in a museum and respected from afar?
games are a good anology for the journey through the prison of the mind. everyone can relate.
the best game in town always surprises, and always takes you deeper to another level of a game within a game.
happy new year and i hope and pray to participate in the best game in town and to play it well.
Losing teeth
Here I am waiting for Melissa to finish with her root canal. Poor girl got depression and didn’t brush her teeth for a few weeks. Now we’ve gone all over the towns of Zipaquirá looking for an emergency dentist, open on a Sunday—the holy day in this Catholic region. After taking a little bus (buseta, sounds like bruschetta), we found a dentist open in a nearby town. Well, we met him at his home. After a couple of hours, he came into the office to greet us. In the meantime, we walked into a cafe next door—a “hobby cafe” it’s called—where they have games you can play for free. We were just getting started on a Casper the Friendly Ghost game, where you try to haunt the other players, when the dentist texted saying he was ready.
Now I’m sitting in the lobby, waiting for the oral surgery to finish. The door is ajar and I can hear the churning of the tools in Melissa’s mouth; the sound of the water tube burbling like a little ocean wave crashing on the shore, and the dentist talking incessantly in Spanish—perhaps a talkative attitude appropriate to social Sundays.
The day before, Melissa had arrived outside Cafe Francesca to meet her family and me for a night exploring the Christmas lights that had been arranged on the hill leading to the underground Cathedral of Salt.
Melissa’s long hair, curly and dyed orange, was covered in a black baseball cap where two fabric horns had been stitched on. She looked like a demon pixie. I asked her where she got the hat because I want one too. She made it, she said, and laughed. I asked if she’s ever been to a cosplay festival; no, but Bogotá does them. Indeed, her little sister Isabella had made an incredible costume of her favorite anime character—a young demon girl whose mouth is bound with a bit like a horse’s, to keep the demon girl from feasting on her innocent family.
It’s telling that both girls love demons.
I wonder what the cause of her depression had been, but the consequence was clear enough. Depression is all well and good until the effects create more pain than the pain which brought on the depression.
Depression to me is an anesthetic, one that dulls your senses and tells you to hide, to sleep, to stop—just like the instructions to a wounded animal. The psychological wounding leading to the dulled state of depression; surely it is the pain of unresolved tensions in the heart. Hate for those we love, sacrifices made that we now regret, the judgment of the world which wounds the judge, for she is powerless to enforce any justice.
But depression is surely a kinder response to these tensions than aggression. I wonder if the depressed sink into themselves out of empathy, and the aggressive—they dull their pain by unleashing it on others.
User adoption
How many players play your video game?
How many citizens vote in your elections?
What’s the reader sentiment of your latest book?
Focusing on user adoption can drive your results, so make it a priority objective to measure from the beginning.
But what about artists, those wild and primal creatures of the chaos regions? Won’t a focus on user adoption warp the creative process?
Only if adoption is the only thing you measure, but as an artist, you have to take other KPIs into accoint, like joy and flow when lost in your process.
Becoming a tourist
I lost my head in Antwerp Centraal Station. I thought my bag was lost and panicked — but No! It’s safely stored in Schipol airport. Duh!
I forgot about becoming a tourist; what a simple and profoundly comforting identity.
Pleasure and Fullfilment
A bit of a rant on the ideas of pleaaure and fulfillment. Comments welcome!
Most people know the difference between pleasure and fullfilment.
Pleasure is a momentary sense of satiation, contentment, or bliss.
Fullfilment is a longer rampup of meaning and a sense of meaningfulness in one’s life. Meaningfulness, as in, confirmed impact on others and exchange of love with them.
Pleasure is consuming the fulfillment of others; fulfillment often can be offering pleasure to others. Maybe?
Candy, porn, gasoline, are obvious examples of products based on pleasure.
What products or services offer fulfillment? Sports classes, especially team sports; challenges overcome – bouldering, martial arts, etc.
Handwriting to text experiment
I wrote a few opening paragraphs of a short story in my notebook.
The OCR (handwriting to text) turned it into garbage that might get mistaken for sculpture in a gallery no one can afford to view:
The Distania dool loves no play laids, finger pur daisaad nine a a bachgonn
Phroughout Me
wolk Jag, ease cially in morh neongs winh moe chan
Shut up now too andit dora no que te will never short Croat, Go This is my option for animal buddy, What elso fougot.
tell ne”, Mito slama
Mito slama hia Landa on no agonna doch, no Jocila doch, coale ghouldn any phipitte looks aroundan though soreoce might se
But sLés
available…” He paines passio up ectas E Forn 1o
look, At ne oher and of his officera a gorgeous elf-pad,
porky ouesthinh shoren shieta fir 1o borst!
oxes waher S
J1001 atarol 0ut my ronqul El the ler
What no E was quat laddig haha no looh on porpre!
wh the hell wood
for coverhi new. nothin but cont
nochen bur arent you foolnow a denta demon, part of no scary of this
Shick, pust of ihe ad qua, te burocaliHou could fou bove
E couldnt caalle bur eva baile op anony
What rules have you bought into that diminish your life?
We all live by certain rules, some more consciously than others. Do I know what rules govern me? Sure, there’s the obvious ones like “stop at red lights” or “don’t murder” — but what about the rules that cause you angst, that chafe, or that dim your inner light?
Personally I’ve labored under many unwritten rules; rules I picked up and ran with from a young age. Maybe they serve me now, maybe they don’t. The problem is I never questioned them before.
Here’s some of my rules about what I won’t say in public, now written down and shared, ready for me to start questioning:
I don’t talk politics online
I don’t express anger
I don’t associate my ideas with my name
I don’t video record myself
I don’t fight the administration
I don’t add to the noise
I don’t research and share what ive researched
I don’t talk about sex
I don’t talk about my experiences with one taste with om with my addictions
I don’t talk about my depression
I don’t talk about drugs.
Should I drop out of school?
If I had known then what I know now—would I have dropped out of school as a teenager?
No. In fact, I would have done even better in school. I would have worked consistently and efficiently, focusing on achieving the best results with the least wasted effort. I would have applied proven study strategies to earn A’s, graduated with honors, volunteered, and taken on leadership roles. Leading a club, for example, takes little energy once you remove the friction of insecurity and stop worrying about what others think.
I would have time-blocked my hours outside of school and set a goal to create a minimum viable product using cutting-edge technology. I might have used an AI model to solve a real problem at school or leveraged modeling software and 3D printing to develop a functional prototype.
Back then, I was a dreamer who rarely took action. When I did, I constantly second-guessed myself. It was always three steps forward, two steps back.
Now I understand: the struggle wasn’t the action itself—it was the story I was telling myself about the action. The narrative was either, “Nothing I do matters, so why bother?” or, “If it does matter, then why doesn’t anyone else seem to care or support me?”
Today, I know better. Tell yourself—and others—the stories that support the actions required to achieve your dreams. The right narrative creates momentum.
The difference between Resignation and Acceptance.
When the world seems indifferent or cruel, it’s easy to ask, “Where’s the customer service in God’s world?” It can feel like there’s no one to lodge a complaint with, no fixes coming.
But here’s the thing: there’s a difference between resignation and acceptance.
Resignation is nihilistic — it drains you, focuses on what’s broken, what’s missing, and leaves you stuck. It says, “Nothing matters, so why try?”
Acceptance, though, is something else. It acknowledges what’s hard or unfair, but it doesn’t stop there. It turns your attention toward what does work — what you can grow, heal, or love. It’s not passive; it’s active. Acceptance says, “Yes, this hurts, but I’m still here. So what now?”
In a world without clear customer service — from the universe, from God, even from brands — maybe we are the ones meant to be kind to each other and to ourselves. That doesn’t fix everything, but it gives you a place to stand. And from there, you can build.
Pep talk and poetic advice for the midlife crisis
I don’t need to concoct a midlife crisis in order to remake myself.
Admit my life doesn’t work. I don’t control what I thought I did.
I’ve fallen into the space between two solid identities. I’ll relax with the free fall.
I’ll listen for the feel of my desire for who I wish to become. I’ll wear my desire like a pair of wings.
A crisis is the place of remaking.
And I’m remaking my relationship with the unknown.
Devil May Cry Review & Analysis – Episode 1: Infernal
SPOILERS! | NSFW!
Summary
The Netflix show Devil May Cry anime exposes the fantasies of middle-aged men who get an erotic kick out of saving women and their civilization from the evils of demons and foreigners. Proof-points:
- The hero is a mimbo who defends the status quo for no other good reason than “because”. Women of all fantasy types worship him or provide him an entertaining, but not maturing, challenge.
- The villain is by far the most interesting character: a radicalized orphan who uses his genius to tear down oppression, embrace taboos, and destroy the status quo to free both the oppressed and oppressors from political lies.
- All the other characters — Mr. Vice President, Enzo, etc. — are symbols of the erotic fantasy of the hero or the political nightmare of the villain.
Main Post and Warnings
This post contains spoilers and discussion of sexual content and politics. If you don’t want to know what happens, watch the show first and then come back here to read the review.
And if you’re shy of sex, definitely don’t read on. Much of my analysis will be about how the show draws on sexual themes to satirize the characters and by extension the audience whom the characters represent.
I don’t have a copy of the script. I don’t know some of the official names of the characters. Everything I’ve taken from the show — dialog, screenshots — are intended to help flesh out the review and provide evidence for an analysis.
My goal is to convince you that the show brilliantly uses storytelling techniques to sharpen tension, keep us the audience on the edge of our seats, seduce us with fantasies of power and eroticism, all while satirizing American politics and society.
One more note on my approach:
I’m going to do the best I can to go scene by scene through the show. I might skip around a bit, but each scene seems carefully curated to contribute to the themes and goals of the show. So it’d be a shame to skip anything.
This particular post will get us through the Diner scene in Episode 1 – Inferno; the next post will cover the rest of Episode 1.
With all that now out of the way, let’s dive in!
Scene 1 – The Vatican Heist, Intro of the Villain
Wow, we are starting off with a bang! (Literally!) So much happens in this short scene — let’s break it down:
A special forces team uses bombs, hacking devices, and guns to take out the guards who hold poleaxes and wear flamboyant colors.
From the modern versus the medieval weaponry and uniforms we are immediately shown one key theme:
This story will clash the modern world against the ancient one, albeit with a very special twist, for — a moment later — a supernatural being, a myth made flesh, beheads the special forces team leader, representative of the power of the modern world, using a single slash of an ancient sword.
Side note: losing one’s head is symbolic too. The power of the White Rabbit is to cause men to lose their heads, literally and figuratively. Not only does he cut off their heads, he challenges the ideas and the thinking of his adversaries.
Special Forces Thief 1, says “What the fuck is that thing?”
Special Forces Thief 2 responds, “Doesn’t matter. Kill it!
“Americans,” the Rabbit says, “The most dependable of your species. Anything that doesn’t fit your narrow understanding you shoot bomb or burn without hesitation.”
In one sentence this villain sums up the entire flaw of the protagonist and the regime he represents. Although we haven’t met the hero yet, we already know that this show is about expanding your narrow understanding of your world.
A story must have conflict to incite interest. In this first scene several conflicts are set up through the battle we’re watching but also the symbolism and arguments made by the combatants.
The conflicts challenge assumptions of the modern world of the show, a world that assumes:
- The modern world is better than the premodern
- Science overrules superstition
- Good guys are good and bad guys are bad
- What we don’t understand is bad
- “Us” and “Them” are different, obvious, clear, separate.
The White Rabbit continues: “Hell has always been the true heart of human religion. You can curb the worst of your savageries only through collective fear and hatred of another world.”
The rabbit is saying that what you think of as opposites are actually an intertwined whole. Most people think of hell as the opposite of Heaven, and that the heart of region is the inspirational and saving figure of a God; but the rabbit sees the argument of an inspirational God could not be made without the deplorable example of something to fear, just as religion inspires you to run to God and from Hell. The rabbit speaks again and again to the intertwined nature of reality. And really, can anyone blame him? Does he not make the most sense of any character? There’s really no better argument than the Rabbits throughout the story of Devil May Cry, and you’re asked to ponder who can make a better point than that people’s lives are intertwined, the world is bigger than you think.
One more point:
The rabbit combines all means of force – he uses a sword, bombs, and seemingly magic as well to defeat his enemies. In the framework of a narrow understanding of good and evil, using all types of weapons symbolically shows that this character has no rules, and for that reason, he is evil. His villainy stems from the argument that you should expand your thinking, and he shows it through all of his actions and words.
In addition, he says that he came to the heist in his Easter best — since Easter celebrates the rise of Jesus Christ from death, the Rabbit’s clothes, no, his very being, makes mockery of Jesus’s rebirth. But that’s the point – to pair opposites and show through the pairing that they were never opposites to begin with, but two ends of the same whole.
“This world is about to become much larger,” he says.
The rabbit embodies the prejudices of xenophobia and the status quo. In the light of the anti-immigrant sentiment sweeping the United States and many other democracies, the rabbit’s words are timely. They are a damning critique of border control, euphoric recall of a national mythological past, and self preservation of a narrow way of life. As we shall see, the white rabbit is the vigilante who has arguably more heroic traits than the hero.
Scene 2 – Meeting the Hero, Dante
The opening image is a setup for a totally different fantasy.
For just a few seconds we see a billboard showing a risque shot of a roller skater. The angle is the same used in upskirt erotica. The advert is for a stereo casette player “runplayer”. So, we’re immediately setup to envision the 1990s or early 2000s at the latest, but most likely a fantasy of the peak era of cassette tapes, when the walkman symbolized the freedom of movement in the mid 1980s.
Why the 1980s? I think there’s a running theme that becomes obvious as the scenes unfold. Again and again, the erotic and power symbols suggest that the fantasy portrayed in the show is for a man who was a kid or adolescent in the 80s, and, so watching the show now, is middle-aged.
But this is just the opening image. Next we’re taken down to street level…
We see a mom with pinup proportions in blond hair and pink clothes, pushing a stroller with a baby holding a toy.
Few points:
- The camera angle shows the baby directly in front and slightly above us, implying the dominant driving position of the baby. How often do kids hate the newborn baby, when they lose mom’s attention and hear the whining attention grabbing of a new child? I think we are getting setup here to buy-into the animosity and distrust an older brother has for a new young sibling. This tension – showing the baby in a dominant position when it’s actually the weakest being around — foreshadows the revelation that the baby has been replaced with a demon.
- The mom is drawn and shown to be an erotic fantasy:
- She has the proportions of a PlayBoy model and the dress of a working woman.
- The pink is repeated in many of the erotic 1-dimensional female characters; pink symbolizes love, since it’s a combination of the purity of white and the passion of red.
- She’s clearly overworked, tense, and a stranger bumps into her. She is the damsel in distress. A perfect opportunity for a good boy to help his mom and a grown man to impress his mate.
- From the point of view of the erotic fantasy, the guy who bumps into her, who she calls an asshole, is a perfect stand-in for a loser step-dad, absentee dad, or other loser rival. These male roles morally justify the hero’s intervention.
With all these erotic symbols set up, the hero now has his stage to dance for his mate. He takes down the three demons in flamboyant fashion, showing off all of his virile skill.
It’s interesting that there are three demons, all similar, all attacking in an alley, and all doing so through physically manipulating the damsel — just as a gang of rapists would.
And once the fighting is done, where is the mother he’s saved? On the ground, facing him, in the same pose used for a blowjob.
So of course the first words out of the hero’s mouth are a joke about his faulty wit and the sexual innuendo, “This never happens to me I swear.”
As everyone knows, “This never happens to me, I swear” is the cliche line guys use when they cum too soon or get ED.
So the young hero who uses this sexual language about his wit – since he couldn’t think of a snappy one-liner to say to look cool – is a joke that alludes to the action-hero genre and a gag about sex. The show wants you to see Dante as likeable, not too arrogant, although it plays up his arrogance a lot. He has the arrogance of youth and the self-deprecation of age.
Finally, Dante says “Man, Skeletor did not hold up since the 80s.”
Another reference to the 1980s. And a joke that would be said by dad in his 40s. Are you seeing a pattern yet?
It’s no surprise then that the baby turns into a demon and the hot mom / wife blames the hero for trying to kill it. Isn’t this just like the frustrations a potential mate would face trying to court a single mom who already has a kid, and a kid who wants to get all the approval and attention from a mother figure, but is denied that by the presence of sweet, innocent, greedy baby?
Once the mom runs away with the baby and disappears, Dante curses out “Dammit,” which can mean a concern for the danger of the woman he just helped… or a complaint that he got excited and left without finishing, a kind of blue balls hero ordeal.
Scene 3 – Intro Music
Not much I’ll say here except that the music is the song Rollin by Limp Bizkit, released 2000.
We’ve got the cassette tape that finally went out of fashion in the early 2000s, all the 1980s references (walkman, roller skating, Skeltor) and now Limp Bizkit. The shows creators definitely became teenagers in the 2000s or earlier and are in middle age now. Or at least playing to the fantasy of those in middle age, by using all the props of their youth to incite that feeling of being young and powerful again.
Scene 4 – News Spreads Like Wildfire
Some recurring themes and new ones are quickly introduced here in a series of :
We see news footage, drawn with a grainy picture just like the television technology of the 1980s. Maybe I should start counting how many allusions we have to the `80s?
The live news show “Fact News Channel” has pugnacious pundits arguing, all completely devoid of facts, decrying the Radicalized Left using the incident as a reason the US should step down from the role of global policeman, and another pundit blaming the Russians.
Now we switch into J-cuts and L-cuts as we see radio talking heads and audiences around the world listen in the story as its developing. The point is to draw the tension tighter upon the question of what is true, who is in charge, what’s real, and to show an underlying sense of anger and violence from those who have a strong opinion on the matter.
Of course the joke is that the crazy disc jockey, who has the appropriate prompts — white trach coloring with a southern accent and broken tooth — gets it the most right. And meanwhile, the snobby intellectual Conan O’brian stand in snears at the idea of terrorist demons from Hell.
These counterpoints amp up the tension:
- Fact News Channel says nothing about facts
- A radio rube (country bumpkin) who is supposed to know nothing has the correct facts
- The ivy-league host of the Late Night Show dismisses the true explanation of events out of contempt and ignorance
Scene 5 – War Room at the White House:
This scene has so many gems and golden nuggets of storytelling charm that I can only cover the highlights. Maybe I’ll write a longer exposition frame by frame one day. If you’d like that let me know!
Now onto the analysis…
The war room white house scene confirms that the attacks were made by a “sophisticated network of terrorist demons.” Key symbols and strategies of the show:
Introduction of key characters:
The generals. Although they play a minor role and say little, one line of dialog stands out — one of the generals says “our Rampart boys were in there…” Of course it’s common for men to use a term of endearment like boys with each other and for a commander to say that of his soldiers. But this is one of those hooks that the show drops, intentionally or not, that starts to continues to draw tighter the lines of a theme about manhood and masculinity — who are the men, who are the boys, what’s the difference? Since the show goes to such lengths to make the hero Dante into a teenage fantasy, it’s important to keep a lookout for any allusions to growing up, or not growing up, by any character.
Mr. Vice President:
Red glasses, black gloves, blue suit, white hair, gaunt and stern countenance. He’s clearly a figure that crosses all the rules and combines passion, purity, purpose, and death. Interestingly, his hair is white — meaning his ideas are pure; his glasses are read — meaning he sees with passion and intensity; his suit is blue — meaning he carries authority in the world and in all settings; and his gloves are black — his actions bring death and destruction.
The US President:
He speaks after Mr. Vice President. So, he’s slower and takes his lead from the Vice President. A rundown of his characteristics that make him a caricature:
- Cowboy hat that’s slightly too small
- Big muscular frame with the macho hair and virility of a playboy
- Orange hair coloring with a dark purple suit. Wow what a combo. The orange hair suggests zest and vitality while the dark purple suggests luxury and royalty. But the clash with the other patriotic symbols shows what a buffoon he is.
- Hat band and tie in the color of the American flag, suggesting an over-the-top patriotism
- The too-small-hat, over-the-top patriotism, larger-than-life virility, idiotic misquotes of cliches, all suggest a buffoon.
The first thing the President says is “Let me wrap this around my brain”
A Deliberate misquote of the click “let me get this straight” or “help me get my mind around this” or “let me wrap my head around this.” So clearly, the President, the leader of the American people, is a virile, macho, physically powerful but not truly powerful buffoon, one most likely manipulated by others with real power.
Ok back to the dialog…
Dr. Fisher says the demons are the colloquial term. The show again presents the idea that there are multiple interpretations of reality, one colloquial, one more accurate and therefore true.
The true interpretation of reality is that the demons are a “related but separate” (sounds like “separate but equal” doesn’t it?) evolutionary branch of Homo Sapiens. In other words, they are more like us than we care to admit. They are natives of another world, just as we are. And they are the descendants of a common ancestor to Homo Sapiens.
Dr. Fisher and The White Rabbit both know this truth — that Heaven and Hell are colloquial terms for worlds that are artificially kept apart. However, the Rabbit would disagree when Dr. Fisher says “Mythology exists to explain reality.” Instead, to the Rabbit, mythology exists to blind you to reality and prop up the powerful. If mythology said to the people of Heaven that the inhabitants of Hell are essentially your brothers and sisters and you can help them by simply opening the door for their escape, then the door would have been opened a long time ago instead of staying slammed shut.
The President is the first one to crack after seeing the footage from the bodycam of the decapitated “Rampart” boy soldier. He acts the perfect clown — bemoaning his fate, playing the victim, making the whole ordeal about what he is forced to deal with, as though he isn’t responsible for navigating and leading people through tough times.
The Vice President is the true leader, or true villain as it were. He is willing to respond to the situation with grave intent.
“This is no longer a matter of religion. It’s science. The word of the lord has been proven beyond dispute.”
I love this wonderful overlap of paradoxes. He’s both a businessman and a fanatical prophet; a vice president and true leader; a technologist and medievalist declaring the start of a Holy War. From his clothing to his speech everything about the Vice President shows what true power in the show is — embracing multiple worlds and combining them into something new, a syzygy of types. So, is a hero or a villain? A good guy or a bad? Clearly the question no longer matters since we are beyond good and bad, hero and villain, into the terrain of strange and influential “Unions” of pairs of opposites.
The emerging world of Unions is emphasized with a joke when the show has the Generals look to the President for direction and the President looks down, disliking being made to state the obvious, that everyone should do what the Vice President said.
Scene 6 – DarkCom Capturing Demon Hunters
I’ll quickly say here that we have more symbols:
The DarkCom outfits are twists on the Vice Presidents. Pink glasses (showing less passion and a bit more care); blue and white uniforms for authority and purity of purpose; gold belt buckles for prestige and honor.
Importantly the gloves are not overtly black like the Vice President’s are, suggesting less ominous death even though they are the footsoldiers actually doing violence. Nonetheless, no one’s killed in this scene despite the high-tech and over-the-top weapons and the bruised and bloody faces of the captured demon hunters.
The DarkCom soldiers here are almost portrayed as toy soldiers; although doing real damage to these demon hunters, they have no actual impact on the the world or the story. No one dies.
Next scene – The Diner
7am breakfast to 10pm breakfast at The Diner.
A hot waitress with red hair donning a pink maid’s outfit has Dante’s breakfast (of ice cream) ready and writes her number with a lipstick kills on a napkin for him.
What a fantasy!
A fantastic amalgam from the yearning mind of a child, a teen, and a man:
- The weary husband coming home from a long day of work and wife has food ready. He says “Thanks, I need it today”, with the tired voice of an aged old worker. Total satire.
- The sexy maid’s outfit suggests another object of pleasure; coming home to fuck his kid’s babysitter; or, the teen who lusts after the babysitter.
- And all of this with the kid’s food fantasy of a breakfast of icecream.
Then what does Dante do?
Wipe his mouth with the napkin that has her number written on it. It’s another fantasy. The fantasy of not giving a fuck; of having so much, that you disdain all women’s attempts to play into your erotic desires. So the biggest desire of all is to be so powerful than you can reject the very fantasy you need the world around you to be.
Suddenly Dante like Spiderman becomes aware of the gasoline truck on a trajectory to fly through the windows of the Dinner. He saves everyone who are too slow to react and for a moment stares in shock at who would attack in such a devilish way. What does he see?
A vision of his dead brother emerging out of the fiery wreckage, triggering a flashback of traumatic scenes.
His brother symbolizes so much. He looks slightly older, more handsome, and more refined.
How appropriate that the brother draws another thread in the tightening strings of tension.
A brother whom you both miss and hate; miss because he’s lost and abandoned, allowing the fantasy pleasure of sympathy offered to the grief stricken; and hate because of the competition inherent in twins determining their own character from the choices they make in life.
The knowledge that Dante had a brother who died grounds the erotic fantasies of the story, but they are still part of the fantasy. They highlight Dante’s character, his almost innocent brand of cool, his intersection of teen virility and angst. And they set it against the refined, debonair character of this vision of his brother.
The knowledge of the dead brother plants the seed to question Dante’s choices. The fact that this vision of the brother turns out to be an illusion cast by the demon who before had played a baby, implies that Dante will simply reaffirm his own decisions, double-down, instead of learning anything from his brother, or anyone else for that matter.
That’s it for now! Stay tuned for the next post in this series — part 2 of Episode 1: Inferno!
When the Scene Ends
Parents send kids off to college. CEOs retire. Champions hand trophies to winners of the next round. Actors play their role’s final scene.
When your day is done, do you remember that you’ve ended the arc of a character in a play, but that it’s not the end for you?
It’s so obvious that we aren’t our roles, and yet how we grip onto them anyway.
“I’m holding onto dear life,” one might say, or, “The two most dangerous days of your life are the day you are born and the day you retire.” Really? Does retiring need to be so dangerous? Apparently so, at at least for some.
If I could chose one lesson in a philosophy about how to live, it might be to start by encouraging us all to see endings and beginnings as sacred rewards.
Your reward for finishing the role of a lifetime — as parent, as teacher, as businessperson, as fill-in-the-blank — is to receive the unhurried breathe of those who know their true nature. To receive the lightness of being when one of your masks falls away.
Whether you remove the mask gracefully or resist until it’s torn off is entirely up to you.
Either way, that nature unmasked is one of play and change, not cement and stagnation.
As Toni Morrison said, “Definitions are for the definers, not the defined.”
What will you define yourself as next?
With an attitude of freedom toward our own definitions we might become a society of players, joyfully contemplating the masks of our identity, rather than clinging to the end of things with all the fear that we bring to the end of life itself.
So don’t take yourself so seriously.
After all, who you think you are is probably just another role and one that you are bound to outgrow anyway.
What People Get Wrong About Minimalism
I noticed some friends getting into influencers who talk about living a minimal lifestyle. I’m all about this, but watching their content I found an issue — a surface understanding of minimalism that in the end leads to a rigid, unsustainable way of life.
When minimalism resembles a diet plan, you know something has gone terribly wrong.
The problems start when people apply minimal attention to the idea of minimalism.
At the heart of minimalism is a realization of a simple truth: the way you relate to one thing is the way you relate to everything. In other words, your relationships to many things and in many areas of your life spring from a single source — a root belief.
So, minimalism invites you to question your root beliefs underpinning your relationships with possessions.
The philosophy isn’t a set of rules; it’s not a cult where you are spoon fed answers to your life, even if some influencers might wish to do that for you; it’s not a safety blanket to hide from the world or a panacea to solve all your problems.
Instead, it can be a reminder to wake up your unconscious relationship with consumption.
Think of the philosophy like a gym training who asks you to do push ups before each purchase. Slow down and ask yourself a series of questions to ensure what you’re about to do aligns with the life you want to live.
Minimalism is simply asking you to place more attention on what you consume and what you surround yourself with. It’s really a practice of intention and attention. What is the impact of this thing on you? What is the cause-and-effect relationship you have with your environment—and with buying this product or that product?
The minimalist attention routine consists of inquiry, such as:
- What is the cause that motivates me to spend money?
- What’s my attitude toward my environment and what I add to or remove from it? And then, what is the effect of having that item there?
- Is the motivation wise with healthy intent—or founded in fear and the need for approval from others?
- Does this purchase enhance my life, or does it create more stress?
Minimalism simply asks you to slow down, think, and consider: what is the cause and what is the effect? It’s a way of life. It’s not a rigid rulebook saying “buy less.” The idea that minimalism is a strict set of rules about how much to buy or what to buy completely misses the point. Those who think minimalism is about a list of rules will end up breaking every one of them. And they’ll want to.
They want a nice, secure, safe world where someone else leads and gives them all the answers. It’s the same mindset that leads people to ask for a diet—and then constantly break that diet. It’s rooted in fear of the unknown and a weak relationship with one’s own awareness and attention.
Roots and Wires
Culture seems to follow the instructions of my favorite yoga instructors:
In any pose they may say, “Stretch in opposite directions! Feel the length along your spine, all the way from the tips of your toes to the soles of your feet.”
Doesn’t this dictate of oppositional stretching resemble a dance of opposites we see across society today?
I noticed this irony when I was getting suggestions for good organic foods from my AI Assistant.
The opposites here are obvious: the most advanced, cutting edged ethereal cybernetics — AI — is used to explore the most basic building blocks of human organics, in other words, what I put in my all-too human mouth.
Dickens of today might say, “It was the most [virtual] of times; it was the most [real] of times,” or, “It was the most [cyber] of times; it was the most [solid] of times.” You get the picture, surely Dickens would have found a comparison with words that only need one syllable.
At the same time we are exploring our cybernetic future, we are also reconnecting with our ancient, animal past. Therapy teaches people to listen to their bodies: Sleep, food, anger, community—these basic needs, inherited from our tribal history, remain vital today.
It is both fascinating and, perhaps, inevitable that both cybernetic innovation and animal self-awareness are advancing hand in hand. As the momentum of the Luddite movement deepens, the march toward the singularity grows just as fast. Alongside our embrace of smart homes, AI, and driverless cars, we see a flourishing interest in organic food, survival skills, and pet companionship. Who among us doesn’t smile at the sight of a playful dog or a curious kitten? Our popular culture echoes this dual focus, with films like The Hulk, The Wolf Lord, and The Legend of Ochi exploring the power—and peril—of our instinctual selves.
Are these twin explorations related? Almost certainly. In fact, it is likely they are not merely parallel but causal. Our pursuit of cybernetics, remarkable as it is, is still limited by our physical form. Flesh demands understanding. And to better understand ourselves, we turn to advanced tools—DNA research, bioengineering, and beyond.
Rather than a clash, this is an opportunity. We are witnessing a full-spectrum evolution: machine and human, instinct and intellect, all growing together. By honoring both our primal roots and our technological aspirations, we are building a future where wisdom deepens, possibilities expand, and the best of both worlds can thrive.
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