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Logocentric (adj). Regarding words and language as a fundamental expression of an external reality (especially applied as a negative term to traditional Western thought by postmodernist critics). Sometimes I just write whatever I feel like. Other times I respond to prompts, many taken from the following places:  "The Soundtrackers Group"  "Blogging Circle of Friends " "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" "JAFBG" "Take up Your Cross" Thanks for stopping by!  |
"Take up Your Cross" | November 22, 2024 ▼ I'm not sure that I see the concepts of contentment and "always trying to get more" as mutually exclusive. Contentment, to me, is about being in a state of happiness and satisfaction, while the desire to always have more can be either positive or negative depending on how much of a premium you place on it. For example, if ambition turns into greed or envy, and it's constantly convincing you that you don't have enough, or that you're not happy with what you have, that's definitely a problem and it jeopardizes contentment. If you spend all your time jealous about the fact that your friends and neighbors have better jobs, nicer cars, more attractive significant others, bigger houses, etc., then that's a deeply unsatisfying and disappointing life that you're going to live. But that doesn't mean that ambition has to become those things. Ambition on its own isn't a negative; it can be what inspires us to achieve more for the Kingdom, or to grow personally in any number of ways. If your ambition leads you to greater success in business and that connects you with more people you never would have met otherwise, is that discontentment? If you aspire to have more money so that you can buy a bigger house, but your intention is to use that house to welcome in people who are in need of a stable home, is that problematic? I think the real question is whether you can be both content and ambitious at the same time. Can you have larger aspirations or goals while at the same time being okay if you don't get those things? To me, that's the ideal place to find yourself; where your ambition spurs you to greater things, but you're secure enough to be content with what you have even if those ambitions don't ultimately come to pass. |
To qualify for my Watch List every month, the following has to be something that I've watched that's new to me. It doesn't necessarily have to be a current show, but it can't be reruns or rewatches of something I've already seen. So if I'm including it in this list, it means this month is the first time I've watched it. I'll put "DNF" (Did Not Finish) next to anything that I stopped watching and have no immediate plans to finish. Movies  The Garfield Movie Get Out Happy Death Day MaXXXine Pearl Us We Summon the Darkness What We Do In The Shadows XSince last month was Spooky Season, I decided to watch a lot of horror movies in October (plus The Garfield Movie, with my kids). Jordan Peele's first two movies (Get Out and Us) were solid; I can definitely see why people liked them. I don't think either one is perfect by any means, but I enjoyed both for different reasons and respect the fact that he has a different perspective and point of view in his filmmaking. I also had fun watching Happy Death Day which is basically what happens when you take the premise of Groundhog Day and apply it to a horror movie, where a character wakes up at the beginning of the same day, over and over again, always ending in them getting murdered by a serial killer. There's a sequel called Happy Death Day 2 U which I'll definitely be watching soon. We Summon the Darkness was a completely forgettable 2019 horror movie about a religious cult which goes undercover at heavy metal concerts to murder other concertgoers in order to increase "Satanic panic" and drive more people to religion. And Ti West's Maxine trilogy was just okay. X was a decent first horror movie in the series where aspiring filmmakers rent a room from a remote Texas farm to shoot a porn film and end up getting killed off one by one. Pearl was the sequel (and actually a prequel showing how the killer became a killer) and easily the worst of the three, and MaXXXine is the third and latest installment which was pretty fun, if for no other reason that it embraced a real eighties slasher vibe. The best movie I saw by far this month, though, was What We Do In The Shadows, a mockumentary by Taika Waititi and Jermaine Clement about a group of vampires who share a flat in New Zealand, and it's honestly one of the funniest horror comedies I've seen in a long time. There were so many great jokes and moments that made this an instant classic for me; definitely something I'm going to add to my annual October movie rotation. Television Emily in Paris (Season 4 High Potential (Season 1) The Irrational (Season 1) - DNF The Lincoln Lawyer (Season 2) So Help Me Todd (Season 1) - DNF Star Trek: Discovery (Season 1)Getting the bad ones out of the way first, The Irrational (Jesse L. Martin plays a psychologist who helps the FBI solve crimes) and So Help Me Todd (Skylar Astin plays a private investigator who goes to work for his mom's law firm), both of which came highly recommended from different sources of both of which I watched about a half-dozen episodes of, and then didn't continue with because they weren't all that engaging. The fourth season of Emily in Paris was something I did happen to watch all of, and I kind of wished I hadn't because it's just gotten really tedious and boring. On the plus side, the second season of The Lincoln Lawyer was pretty good (we watched it in preparation for the new season that's coming out), and High Potential is a good procedural that has an excellent cast. The best thing I watched in television all month was the first season of Star Trek: Discovery, which just finished it's five-season run and was the first show in Alex Kurtzman's and Bryan Fuller's reboot of the Star Trek franchise. Honestly, it was really great. The first episode is pretty wild, and the rest of the season builds off of it as a narrative foundation, which is really different for a Star Trek show (which usually relies on an independent, episodic format). I decided to start watching Star Trek and figured jumping into the "reboot" of the franchise was the place to start... and I definitely wasn't disappointed. I can't wait for the second season, and the other shows beyond that. TOP PICK: What We Do In The Shadows and Star Trek: Discovery (Season 1) (TIE) |
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