David Pennington

Most of modern life is designed to get you out of your deepest self and into your head, where you are more vulnerable to anxiety (the grease between the wheels of technocratic capitalism).

he stories you can tell in a film are a fraction of what you can do in a book. What's irritating is that you then do these things, and films have their own kind of structure. The thing dictates certain paces, no matter what you do. That's only because we're trying to make a film that reaches people; I mean I don't try to make a film for me -- I... See more

What would happen if you did a Zoom call with the people who follow your work? Or if you planned a small dinner with other creative people in your orbit? Say we use the internet as a tool to make the plans, and then we close the laptop and build with the handful of people in front of us - then what? What could we do that we’re avoiding because

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I concluded that what we call “intelligence” is as much about virtues such as honesty, integrity, and bravery, as it is about “raw intellect.”

I personally think it makes people less attractive, authentic and worth connecting to. Anything that strips us of our imperfections is missing the point. The AI images, music and video are another. Of note, I actually think the meme uses are fine (it’s entertainment, not art, and that’s something else).

The happiness that someone like Mark misses is unreal and unhealthy. He needs to learn to want a different type of relative happiness – that is, a state of reasonable contentment, with intermittent joy and pain, which, unlike the myth of a permanent bliss, can potentially be achieved. Switching from one goal to the other will involve a process of... See more