A selection of nine films, articles, and podcasts that I couldn’t stop thinking about in january 2025.
It’s 11 pm on the 5th of February 2025. My head is too scrambled to continue working but also too awake from the post-dinner cup of coffee. I am finally putting words to these links I planned on sharing nearly a week ago.
- Venkatesh Rao on nomadism, society’s obsession with structure, and the nuances of being an illegible person.
- Cathal Dennehy’s profile of Eliud Kipchoge does not leave much to the imagination. It’s definitely my favorite profile of Kipchoge — and I’ve read a couple.
- William Zinsser’s on writing well is one thing to read and reread and try to live by everyday.
- This essay where the author is basically trying to make sense of what leaving social media means. In some ways it’s everything else that’s been said about social media, but by an everyday person who just did it — and less from the philosopher/tech doomer perspective. It’s just an everyday person trying to live better.
- The spectacular burnout of a solar salesman is my favorite piece from this WIRED issue on men, tech, and money. It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking the case of these occultic sales syndicates here happens in secluded extremism, but this is quite literally how capitalism and the hustle culture works. It’s also this reminder that we’ve practically made personal development inseparable from capitalist culture.
- It’s been six months since I last read Rebecca Solnit’s piece on slow change being radical and I’m asking myself again; how do I remind myself – in a world that is obsessed with speed and urgency – that it is fine for today to look very much like yesterday?
- I am just discovering the Memory Palace and I’d easily recommend every episode of the podcast, but this particular one is about the grandma whose hike made the Appalachian trail popular.
- This riveting profile of Lagos in light of Dapo’s own history and observance of culture. There’s a story about my grandfathers and the Biafran war that I’ve always wanted to work on, and after reading this essay I tried starting. I think history is beautiful and the history of one man in a group is the history of a group. The history of one man in a place is the history of a place.
- This brilliant, radicalizing documentary— if you have two and a half hours to spare. The makers of this documentary explore the history of corporations and a strong case for the complex, slow violence they perpetrate.
- Manufacturing Consent: Noah Chomsky and the Media. By the same makers of The Corporation – and also two and half hours-ish. I think it’s a must watch for anyone working in the media sector.
- Manspread is a short film about, well, the manspread. Much is said by saying almost nothing. Also, it’s just six minutes.
