Month: July 2019

Anatomy of a Scene – The Letter

“For what it’s worth, it’s never too late, or in my case too early, to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, start whenever you want. You can change or stay the same. There are no rules to this thing. You can make the best or worst of it, and I hope you make the best of it. I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you are proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.”

-The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Sometimes, you can watch an entire movie and not feel moved by it. Whether it’s a stirring of your emotions or being introspective about your feelings, few movies will touch the viewer personally. Luckily, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is an exception to the rule, especially when it comes to the scene where the main character, Benjamin Button, writes a letter to his daughter, whom he barely knew in life.
With her mother on her death bed, the daughter finally opens and retrieves many letters from a father whom she barely knew and is startled to have a keepsake from someone who was rarely in her life.

Benjamin Button has a unique condition where instead of getting older like he the rest of us as he goes through life, the opposite happens to him and he gets younger and younger allowing him to experience life backwards. Still, despite this inconvenience he can live a full life and that is what this movie scene so special because he encourages his daughter to do the same. While he is not around to see her have her own adventures, he wants the best for her and wants to her to “live a life that she’s proud of.”

When we first are introduced to this scene, we see that Benjamin’s daughter realizes that he went to India and many other places years ago based on the kind of parchment that his letters are written on. There are many letters addressed to her from the time she was two years old and onward when he was not around to be with her. Despite the sadness and disappointed associated with that, she is relieved that he was writing to her and thought of her even when he was far away. For him to think of her while writing ‘the letter’ in such faraway places show that despite his curious condition, he loved her dearly and wanted to express that even after he passed away.

This movie scene is brilliant because it shows Benjamin travelling around India while narrating to his daughter that he wants her to ‘be whoever you want to be’ whether that’s a traveler or a janitor or a toll booth manager. You can make the ‘best or the worst of it’ as he states to her depending on your perspective on life, but he wants her to make the ‘best of it’ as he did. A father imparting this important message on to his daughter that it’s okay to ‘start over’ again in life is important for her to hear but also for the audience to understand.

If you find that you are not ‘living a life that you’re proud of’, then there is nothing wrong with changing it in order to finally be proud of. While he did a lot of travelling, there is still the humdrum of daily life involved such as cleaning your clothes, talking with the locals, and even drinking from a water hose. “There are no rules to this thing.” Sometimes, we tend to think of life as a narrow path when really there are going to be numerous zigs or zags, and when you become an adult, you have to make the rules for how you want to live, what is important to you, and what to care about.

“I hope you see things that startle you, I hope you feel things that you’ve never felt before…” This part of the scene is brilliant in showing the beauty of Benjamin’s travels and how he would sleep, brush his teeth, and move around by motorbike through beautiful mountain passes and rivers. Benjamin wanted his daughter to experience the world and for her to enjoy what it had to offer in her own life. Part of doing just that is adapting to the places you visit and to seek out the adventures yourself in order to make the most of it.

“I hope you meet people with a different point of view…” Benjamin encourages his daughter also to get to know other people, whether from another city or another country, and how it’s necessary to be open to them and to be kind. The locals help Benjamin fix his motorbike as he drives through their village on one of his journeys.
“I hope you have the strength to start all over again.” Benjamin’s last words to his daughter ask of her to be strong in not being afraid to change your life or decide that you want to live it a different way than before. The mother imparts at the end of the scene that “he had been gone a long time…”

Unfortunately, this scene shows both the beauty and tragedy of life in that sometimes, we can’t be there for the people we love but are with them in spirit. Benjamin could not be with his daughter in life but he wished that he had been there to wish her a happy birthday, to kiss her goodnight, to take her to her first day of school, to teach her to play piano, to chase away boys, and to be her Father. “Nothing he ever did would replace that.” Even after all the adventures that Benjamin had, the most important role he ever had was being her father and he wanted to make sure she knew that by leaving her with his diary.

Even in his absence, this scene shows us the power of a father’s love for his daughter and how he wanted the best for her and to live a life that would yield happiness and fulfillment for her. In one minute, this scene in ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’ has more of an emotional impact than many movies do in more than two hours. Breaking down this narrative and the beautiful cinematography and filmmaking of travelling at its most challenging yet most rewarding was quite an achievement by the film’s director and crew. Not only would this movie scene have an impact on Benjamin’s daughter by also on the rest of us watching in the movie theater or at home. If you have a chance, watch this scene to appreciate the scenery, the message, and the power of love between a father and a daughter. A powerful movie scene worth a watch and a couple of re-watches as well.

Downtown CDMX

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Camera: iPhone 8

Location: Mexico City, Mexico

Book Recommendations – Volume X

The Summer reading session is well upon us and there is no better time to dive into another edition of my book recommendations. Whether you are at the beach, at the pool, or lounging on a rooftop deck, you can take some leisure time to read a great fictional or non-fictional offering to indulge your mind or open your imagination. The three books I cover are all non-fiction, which is the category that my favorite books often fall under. I do hope to dive into some fiction books sometime soon, but I’ll save that for other post.

The three books I recommend vary from personal finance to progressive politics to self-help psychology, but they all are educational and thought-provoking in their own way. These books aren’t mindless reads, so you’ll have to pay attention and even re-read certain chapters twice or more to really get the gist of what the author is getting at. However, each of these three books have staying power and they would make an excellent addition to anybody’s personal book collection since the different lessons that these books impart are timeliness in nature. Without further ado, let’s discuss which books I enjoyed in this latest volume of recommendations.

1.) “Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hope” by Mark Manson

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Following up on the tremendous attention and success gained from his previous New York Times best-selling book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, which dealt with unconventional yet powerful self-help advice, Mark Manson is back with an excellent follow-up book in tackling how to apply similar lessons to humanity as a whole. Whether its today’s turbulent geopolitics, the growing climate crisis, or the negative effects of social media, everything can seem to be f*cked nowadays and hopelessness as a condition of these events seems to be gaining steam.

Manson uses the teachings of Nietzsche, Kant, and other prominent philosophers to denote why humanity is facing these systemic problems and how they came to be based on our collective psychology as a species. He argues that having hope in of itself is a paradox and that it’s best to deal with life’s uncertainties and foibles as they come. Wishing for a better, happier, wealthier, and safer future is unproductive if you do not take actions in the present to create that more hopeful reality. Manson breaks down complex topics such as politics, religion, and even the future of artificial intelligence into digestible concepts on how humanity has gotten to be where it is currently.

One of the aspects I like most about Mark’s writings is that he doesn’t sugarcoat anything, and he allows you to draw your own conclusions based on the evidence he presents and the stories he tells. My favorite parts of Everything is F*cked focus on why treating people as means to an end is a selfish endeavor and how our feeling brain has a lot more influence on our thinking brain than we have been told. Also, in accepting what is ‘The Uncomfortable Truth’, as Mark cites in one of the first chapters is part of recognizing our innate humanity and what drives us collectively. This truth, while uncomfortable to all, is the main reason why we strive to do what we do in life, for better or for worse, and how we tend to live our lives denying that truth when it is staring us right in the face.

Instead of looking to politics or religion to give us hope, which tends to have its own set of consequences, it should rather be our own individual actions of being kinder, gentler, and more respectful of others that carry the day. We should not wait around for other people to change for you or be better to you. This book, like Mark’s first, is well worth a second and third reading to grasp all the lessons he lays out for the reader. Posing deep existential questions and acknowledging hard truths rarely covered elsewhere in the self-help genre, Manson stands out as one of my generation’s best authors and a good example of how to live a better life, not just for ourselves but for others as well.

2.) “Utopia for Realists: How We Can Build the Ideal World” by Rutger Bregman

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I really liked this book by Mr. Bregman for several reasons. Whereas most books today examine problems and investigate how they came to be, Bregman describes the possible solutions there can be to these problems and how life in the 21st century should be different from the past. Given the rise of automation, how interconnected we have become globally, and increasing efficiencies in the workplace, Bregman dares to ask how we can make life better for vast majority of people in our societies based on these factors.

Rutger Bregman does an extensive amount of research for this book and draws upon years and decades of datasets and public policy to make his three main ideas not only relevant but persuasive to his overall argument. Bregman’s ideas are not new and have been discussed before but in ‘Utopia for Realists’, he really examines each of his proposals individually from a public policy perspective and how the time is ripe to make them become a reality. Today, it seems like we have lost to the drive to implement big changes to both our economy and our society. Bregman asks his readers to think of the plausibility of the 15-hour work week, a Universal Basic Income for all, and an ‘open borders’ policy that would benefits people’s lives in numerous ways as he lays out diligently in each chapter of the book.

While some may not agree with these proposals politically, Bregman backs up his arguments with facts and evidence, as a good social scientist would. One of the things I did not know before reading his book was how close President Richard Nixon and the U.S. Congress came to passing a universal basic income in legislative form back in the early 1970’s. Giving people the chance to have basic economic security, the ability to live across borders without bureaucratic roadblocks, and having more free time for family life or to better themselves through personal hobbies, interests, or side businesses are related to his three main proposals. These societal changes, he says, would lead to greater fulfillment and happiness and benefit our collective mental health.

While his ideas may be unrealistic today, the way in which the job market is shifting and has become more efficient in terms of productivity over the past few decades, how automation and advanced Robotics may affect millions of jobs being lost, and how the demographic crunch in the Western world may lead to more liberal immigration policies to spur economic growth, the main proposals that Bregman focuses on could become a reality sooner rather than later. It’s not a question of if these utopian ideas could ever happen, it’s more about when they will happen and how they can be implemented successfully around the world.

3.) “I Will Teach You to Be Rich” (2nd Edition) by Ramit Sethi

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I will be the first to say that I have shied away from reading books on personal finance given that the advice given and the person giving it may not be reliable or trustworthy. However, based on the recommendations of other authors I like and how sensible his recommendations are from watching his videos, Ramit Sethi has delivered and recently updated one of the best personal finance books out there. For someone who is just getting started in thinking about optimal strategies for long-term savings and investments, Mr. Sethi breaks it all down from negotiating lower interest rates on your credit cards to how to find the best investment vehicles to deliver you a secure retirement.

If you are new to personal finance, this book is really meant for you. You don’t have to be an expert in 401ks, Roth IRAs, or index funds to make full use of this book. Ramit is not only an author but also provides an additional website, which offers a free blog, multiple courses to improve your finances, and career opportunities. His common-sense finance solutions garner millions of views per month and very positive media coverage. Ramit’s book does not make his readership feel guilty if they have made financial mistakes in the past. Instead, he offers tips and advice as well as personal stories from people he’s helped to get them out of trouble whether its credit card debt, student loan debt, etc. He wants his readers to figure out what exactly a ‘rich’ life is for them and what steps they can take to make it happen.

You are left reading this book feeling uplifted and ready to use his advice to improve your financial situation. You are also left wondering why Ramit’s book isn’t mandatory reading for high school students, given that we tend to neglect this kind of basic financial education for young people in the United States. Whether you are 18 or 28, it’s never too early to start thinking about your long-term finances. With Ramit’s well-written, digestible, and even humorous personal finance book, you are in good hands. He gives you actionable advice on how to greatly improve your finance in weeks instead of years and discusses in detail how many hours it will take you in setting up your savings, investments, and credit card debt payment options with as little of a hassle as possible. While Ramit can give you all the advice in the world, he leaves it up to you, the reader, to take actions yourself to improve your financial situation. Now that you have the knowledge based off his book, you’ll be ready to create a financially secure future for yourself and perhaps your family too.

National Museum of Anthropology (Mexico)

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Camera: iPhone 8

Location: Mexico City, Mexico

English Corner – Semicolons

Similar to commas, Semicolons are an important punctuation mark that plays a key role in many English sentences. When you think of a semicolon, think of it being a slight pause in a sentence between the two main clauses or parts that should be separated as you would do with a comma. You will want to use the semicolon in between two independent clauses within a basic sentence and this is especially true if there is no coordinating conjunction being used such as and, or, but, etc. A good example of when semicolons can be used is when you are writing a list of items or things that need to be separated from one another. This is probably the most important use of a semicolon, but it is far from being the only usage.

Semicolons are often used in the middle or towards the end of a sentence if apart of a multi-item list. You won’t see a semicolon being used at the beginning or the end of a sentence as you would with a period or a question mark. Semicolons, colons, and commas are all part of what is known as ‘internal punctuation’, which forms the backbone of a complete sentence. Semicolons can be used with other semicolons within the same sentence as it would be the case when commas are used with commas in a similar sentence.

Semicolons can be used interchangeably with commas as well within the same sentence depending on whether two different people, places, or things are being referenced separately. It is perhaps most common that the semicolon is used with another semicolon or more, but it can be used with other forms of internal punctuation. In addition, semicolons can be used with a colon (:) because the colon often precedes the semicolon(s) in a complete sentence in terms of usage.

Let us look at a few examples where semicolons are being used with a colon preceding it:

1.)   Jackie bought the following items from the supermarket today: Corn; String beans; Tomatoes; Bread.

2.)   James listed his worst fears for his teacher in the following order: Flying; Being in front of an audience; Heights; Spiders.

Let us look at how semicolons (;) can be used with commas (,) correctly within the same sentence:

1.)   George’s family included John, his older brother; Jenny, his younger sister; and Jerry, his younger brother.

2.)   There are McDonald’s restaurants all over the world including Istanbul, Turkey; Mexico City, Mexico; and Bogota, Colombia.

3.)   The astronauts had to decide about the countdown: Would they count from three, two, one; or one, two, three?

All these examples show how interchangeable punctuation marks are within a complete sentence especially when you are listing family members or restaurant chains in different cities. You can see how commas and semicolons can be used together, especially to highlight pauses within a sentence to show differences between places and/or people. Semicolons are not used as often as commas but they play an important role.

Let’s look at how semicolons are used to separate independent clauses especially when a coordinating conjunction is not being used in its place:

1.)   Tim goes to France; I go to Spain.

2.)   Jenny wanted to play tennis; I told her the courts were closed due to rain.

3.)   Jack has three dogs; Tommy has one.

4.)   I believe in UFOs; Jordan thinks I have gone crazy.

In these sentences, you are particularly going to use semicolons when the thoughts in each independent clause are opposed to each other or neutral to the other. When you want to contradict the previous clause, you can use a semicolon to highlight the difference between the two points of views instead of using a coordinating conjunction. To put it another way, coordinating conjunctions are used with independent clauses that are similar to each other whereas you use semicolons with independent clauses that are opposed or contradictory of one another. Sentences with semicolons tend to be shorter than those sentences that use commas or coordinating conjunctions, which do a better job of lengthening the sentence without making it a run-on sentence.

Lastly, a semicolon has an important usage in between sentences or within sentences when it comes to quotations. A comma can replace a period after a quotation and then is followed by a semicolon to link the two sentences together especially when the two people are in a conversation.

Let’s look at a few examples of how semicolons are used within a sentence where there are quotations cited as part of a larger story or narrative:

1.)   “I don’t want to do this,” he stated; “You have no choice in the matter.”

2.)   “Is this your home?” she asked; “Why don’t you go inside to your family?”

3.)   “Why do you look so upset?” he inquired; “What do you have to worry about these days?”

Unless followed by the beginning of a quotation or a proper noun or subject, semicolons are followed by a lower-case letter. You can see from these examples and the explanations given that semicolons are a key part of English grammar and punctuation. Whether its with connecting short independent clauses or bringing together a series of quotations, semicolons can be very useful in English writing. The most important use of semicolons remains making lists especially of different people and places along with their descriptive qualities. Please be sure to follow the example sentences I have given to form your own semicolon sentences. Keep practicing, do your best, and be sure to read this blog post again in the future to better understand this important punctuation mark.

Cholula and Puebla

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Camera: iPhone 8

Locations: Cholula de Rivadavia, Puebla, Mexico; Puebla de Zaragoza, Puebla, Mexico

Hay Vida En Las Calles

During my visit to Salento, Colombia, a beautiful town located in the foothills below the Andes Mountains and adjacent to the famous Cocora Valley, I picked up on a slogan that I found very endearing and memorable. “Hay vida en las calles” was posted on an advertisement on one of the vendors there who was dishing out ice cream, snacks, and other goodies. “Hay vida en las calles” translates to the English language as “There is life in the streets” and I found that to be a very positive sign and one that gets people out of their homes and into the parks, squares, and plazas where the basis of all community life is formed. While life in the streets cannot be found everywhere, I found this prevalent attitude consistent in many towns and cities during my travels in Latin America.

The emphasis on communal spaces and public gathering places is something I really admire about Latin culture and I find it to be a healthy feature of any society, which has strong communities and families. Being able to leave your homes every now and then to walk five minutes away to be in a public park or a town square should be natural and available to more and more of us.

As is well known in psychology and sociology, Human beings are social creatures and we want to be around other people even after we have had some alone time. In order to do so, responsible local, state, and national governments should provide that to their peoples in order to build more trusting and kind societies. In societies where people are isolated, lonely, and without opportunities to meet people and build new friendships, problems related to anxiety, depression, and even violence are likely to rise.

In countries such as the United States and other Western countries, statistics related to anxiety, depression, and loneliness are rising and part of the reason I think for the rise in these issues is related to not being able to gather and socialize in a public place. The atomization related to suburban living, the lack of public transportation options, and the decline of shopping centers all help to contribute to this rise in loneliness. I mention the closing of shopping malls because due to technology giants like Amazon, small businesses and large companies alike are closing their doors causing people to order anything from food to clothes to Amazon Echo from their homes.

While shopping malls and outlet stores aren’t an optimal way to build a sense of community, they still brought people together and were a place to hang out. The question remains regarding how will we replace these stores, strip malls, and outlet centers if they all go out of business? A revitalization of public places from small towns to big cities will not just be a prudent step forward but help societies deal with rising anxiety and loneliness rates. There should be life in the streets.

Whose responsibility should it be to encourage this kind of ‘life in the streets’? I believe it’s the local government combined with local businesses who can really make it work. Also, local community groups and organizations can play a big role in making sure everybody feels welcome and to promote activities, discussion groups, and issues in the community that need to be resolved. The average citizen living in the town or city can contribute to by hosting ‘block parties’ or contributing food or drinks. We ask our taxes to pay for roads, schools, and parks, but why not also a community gathering place, indoors or outdoors, where people can be social, discuss issues, and make new friends.

Without investing in our citizens by providing a ‘public square’, we are really selling ourselves short and it could hurt the fabric of our communities, towns, and cities in the long run. Without a way for people to interact and socialize with each other for free and without needing to buy anything, society as a whole can really benefit. It may sound like a ‘utopian’ idea to some but I think it makes a lot of sense in terms of the potential benefits to people’s mental health.

When I was in Salento, Colombia, for example, there were numerous food vendors, there was live music, and people were chatting with each other on benches. Children were playing in a nearby playground and the air was fresh and clean. The noise of the cars and the buses was off in the distance and it was a sea of calm where there were plentiful trees, flowers, and you could hear the birds chirping. People need that kind of space to gather, talk, listen to music, eat food, and watch their children play peacefully.

In my travels through Latin America in the past few years, I have seen this in multiple towns and cities where there is an emphasis on using the public squares for the public’s benefit. While this may not be a universal thing across the entire region, it is a priority here and one that I really appreciate coming from a culture where these gatherings are in decline. The good news should be that with greater effort and investment, we can bring the public spaces back again in the United States and elsewhere.

Further automation and loss of jobs in the retail and manufacturing sector is a tragedy and one worth acknowledging. My hope is that the loss of these retail and commercial spaces can be put to some good use and even lead to different kinds of jobs to take root, ones that are more social and that benefit people more, especially young children and the elderly. Being able to revitalize certain neighborhoods with greener public spacers where people can gather, eat, play, talk, and even dance would help curb the loneliness epidemic that we are seeing in Western societies. If there is life in the streets, people will show up and they will be better for it.

Part of the beauty of travel is seeing how other cultures value family and community life and make it a high priority. I believe that you can take these positive values from other cultures and place them within your own. It must involve buy-in though from the people themselves and they have to feel that it was the next step forward in improving their community. With the rise of automation and the closing of large shopping centers, we may be at the point in time where we can turn these empty buildings and useless parking lots into real gathering places in the future.

Without social interaction and a sense of community, people will suffer as a result mentally. This has been shown in many studies and in many surveys. I think it is part of who we are as social animals and being isolated in our homes and in our cars for 90% of the day will not make us healthier. For what I saw in Salento, Colombia a few years ago and what I have seen in other towns in Latin America, placing a high value on social life within these communities will make people feel a sense of togetherness and cohesion. A greater emphasis on community gatherings and social spaces would create a large ripple effect that would drastically improve the greater society, the country you’re in, and the world.

Teotihuacan

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Camera: iPhone 8

Location: San Juan Teotihuacan de Arista, México State, Mexico

‘Limitless’ – Film Review and Analysis

What if there was a special pill out there that you could take once a day that would suddenly allow you to tap into all your brain’s potential? What if you were able to recall everything you had ever learned, every language you had ever studied, and every fight move you ever watched? How would your life change if you able to fully actualize your abilities to your full potential, both physically and mentally? Now, you may think of these as silly questions but Limitless as a film does so in an entertaining and thought-provoking manner.

Instead of working hard, taking risks, and pushing ourselves to be better people, Limitless proposes a fictional scenario where a special pill, taken just once a day, can make all the difference. You don’t have to do any heavy lifting as the pill you take while unlock all your hidden potential allowing you to be free to pursue your dreams and goals. Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? Well, Limitless lets the audience decides if this illustrious pill is worth the risk involved and whether you would even truly need a pill to become the best version of yourself.

Released in 2011 by Director Neil Burger, Limitless is a mixture of genres blending together to be quite a unique concoction including science fiction, drama, and even some action. The star actor in the film, Bradley Cooper, plays Eddie Morra, who is a struggling author living in New York City who is going through a serious case of writer’s block. Eddie is your typical Average Joe kind of character struggling to make his dreams and goals a reality. The viewer of the film is meant to feel a bit bad for Eddie’s situation since he seems to be doing his best to become a successful author.

However, from Eddie’s unkempt appearance including shaggy hair and heavy bags under his eyes, one’s sympathy for Eddie is undermined by the fact that he can’t even take care of himself physically let alone his apartment, which is a mess filled with strewn about clothes and dirty dishes. The main problem that we learn about Eddie is that he is a well-meaning guy, but he looks for shortcuts and is undisciplined to the point where he is behind on rent payments and his girlfriend is about to leave him.

Instead of changing his ways internally by looking at ways to make himself have more self-discipline and willpower, he instead looks for a shortcut to get himself out of his career, relationship, and financial woes. Eddie runs into Vernon, the brother of his ex-wife, who deals him a strange, new nootropic drug named NZT-48, which Vernon says will help Eddie unlock his brain’s capacity at 100%. Eddie is skeptical at first until he takes one pill and realizes that it is not just a joke and that he is now able to remember everything through enhanced memory and is able to write for hours without losing his concentration. He can also clean his messy apartment, befriend the landlord’s wife, and start to get his life in order.

Because of what this one pill did for him, Eddie goes back to Vernon for more NZT to keep his peak mental capacity going. Horrifically, he discovers Vernon murdered by people also looking for the NZT as well. Eddie is able to find Vernon’s secret stash, which allows him to keep using the nootropic drug to make his life bigger and better. While concerned about what just happened, Eddie becomes addicted to the NZT because of how effortlessly it improves his life and how much more successful he can be without really putting hard work into it.

The old adage of ‘Be careful what you wish for’ is prevalent throughout Limitless as Eddie increasingly puts himself and his girlfriend, Lindy (Abbie Cornish), into greater and greater danger. By needing to use more and more of the drug, Eddie gets addicted to both the potential and the power he gains from enhancing his mental abilities. He become stubborn enough to put himself in harm’s way all to risk it for a chance to becoming a powerful, successful, and wealthy man. Despite being at odds with an finance and investment tycoon, Carl van Loon (played by the legendary Robert De Niro), and being chased around New York City by loan sharks affiliated with the Russian mafia, Eddie’s life is doing a complete 360.

Because of the NZT, he has no shyness or doubts in his interpersonal skills. He gets Lindy, his girlfriend back into his life, he picks up multiple foreign languages including Italian and Mandarin Chinese, and he is able to build up his body through working out and martial arts. In addition, he can concentrate for hours on end and remembers everything he’s ever read, seen, or heard making him a mathematics whiz and an investment genius overnight.

The accumulation of wealth, power, and status can take a lifetime for some people with most never achieving the level that Eddie does in the film. NZT allows him to do it overnight but at a seemingly great risk to his health and survival. The NZT pill is wanted by van Loon and the Russian mafia with Eddie standing in their way. The climax of the film focuses on whether he will be able to use the pill and its abilities to outsmart those around him who would take it from him and leave him to die.

Eddie Mora is a flawed character who is seduced by a powerful nootropic that slowly but surely takes over his life. Actions have consequences and Eddie started mixing with the wrong people. Due to his frustrations with his life and not wanting to suffer to reach his goals, you could argue that he took the easy way out and it could cost him dearly. Had he persevered with his writing and started to take personal responsibility for where he was in life, perhaps he would have never gone to a drug dealer for the NZT in the first place.

This movie may not be one of the best movies of all-time but it is entertaining and carries a few nuggets regarding how any of us should not look for shortcuts in life when things get hard. Taking the easy way out comes with unintended consequences that may be more severe than we realize even when the payoff is really tempting. Eddie, instead of doubling down on his goals and becoming more disciplined and utilizing greater willpower in order to better his life, took the easy way out because he was not built of strong moral fiber. As a result, Eddie gets mixed in with the wrong people and risks his life for a drug that he can not live without.

Any of us, if we are not careful, can be seduced by quick wins and five-minute solutions when true personal development, both mentally and physically, takes years and even decades to get to a high level. While luck can help us along the way to shorten the road to success, it is perseverance, willpower, and the right mindset that can take us further in the long run.

You don’t need any kind of pill to produce a novel (strong shots of espresso maybe), to learn multiple languages, or to get into great physical shape. What’s holding you back are your excuses and your lack of action. With consistent effort and hard work, the goals that Eddie achieves because of NZT in this film can be achieved by the average person without needing what he needed. First, you need to believe in yourself and then you need to write down your goals and come with a plan of action to become successful. As mentioned earlier, true progress in personal development does not happen overnight but can take months and even years. With sustained effort and hard work, you’ll reach your goals and you’ll do it in the right way.

While far from a perfect film, Limitless is entertaining and thought-provoking regarding human nature and what the average person will do to change their lives by taking the easy way out. The story of ‘Limitless’ is a referendum on hoping for a magic pill to solve your problems rather than working through them by your own grit, sweat, and toughness.

The character of Eddie Morra fell to his own short-sighted belief in wanting success by any means necessary but I hope you, if you watch this film realize that it’s far more satisfying to achieve your dreams and your goals through your own hard work rather than looking for an easy fix in the form of a magic solution peddled by others, which may not work or get you into trouble.

I do want to recommend Limitless for the impressive visuals, the acting by Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro, and the important life lessons that it imparts on the audience by the time the final credits of the film begin to roll.

Finding Your Flow State

What’s one thing that all professional athletes, musicians, artists, writers, and anyone devoted to their craft have in common? They have all achieved a ‘flow state’, which is difficult to relate to unless you are fully immersed in terms of what you are pursuing and truly enjoy what you are doing. The flow state is elusive for most people because they either haven’t found their passion in life or haven’t put the time in yet to get better through consistent practice or play. The flow state is a higher state of being because for a point in time, your concentration is matched with your intensity producing a beautiful result.

When you can put other thoughts or other concerns out of your mind to focus on your craft regardless of what it is, you are utilizing your full potential and will be able to achieve a better result for yourself. To outside observers, the flow state looks nearly impossible to accomplish but when you are devoted to art, to music, to sports, or to writing, the final result is nearly guaranteed because you have put blood, sweat, and tears to produce something meaningful.

To me, the flow state is the most optimal state of mind that you can be in because it requires you to be at your best and to perform at the highest level. It’s requires being in a state of movement and using your body in some way to produce an action. You are putting your energy, your concentration, and your focus into a singular goal and it’s inspiring to those people who get to benefit in some way from what you were able to produce. It’s better to be a doer than to be an observer but it can inspire others to find their flow state when you see them do theirs and to do it extremely well.

For example, I was at a popular Jazz club in Mexico City recently and the headliner was a talented Danish guitarist along with a group of local musicians backing him up on the saxophone, the drums, and the Jazz bass. Every one of them was talented at what they do and were in sync generating a group kind of ‘flow state’ that is even more powerful. The thing with a good Jazz group is that you start to yourself get into the ‘flow’ of enjoying the music and moving your body to the rhythm as well.

As someone who played trumpet for 11 years straight and enjoyed the feeling of togetherness and comradery that playing in a Jazz Ensemble can bring, it is impressive to see a group working well together and nailing their parts to achieve their flow state together. To play a musical instrumently proficiently on your own is tough enough, but to work together with different musicians to produce a catchy tune without making any mistakes is as near to a modern-day miracle as it can get.

Musicians thrive off the energy and the drive of others as well as professional athletes and even politicians. It is much harder to achieve a flow state on your own in the solitude of one’s house especially if your craft requires some sort of public attention. Writers and artists tend to be more introverted on average and don’t need the attention of others to achieve an individual flow state. However, there’s something to be said for achieving a group flow state when you’re cheering on a ruthless dunk from a professional basketball player or listening intently in an arena to a Presidential candidate’s stump speech.

People want to believe in the achievements of others, and I know that we prefer to lift each other up rather than to tear each other down. While it’s beneficial to take part in watching other people reach and show off their flow state, you should be trying to find yours every day. You will get much more satisfaction out of life when you are in that mode where you are merging with your craft whether that’s art, music, writing, sports, etc. While it’s fun to cheer others on and take part in their joy, you should always be trying to create a little bit of your own.

Intense concentration and effort is not easy to achieve, but it is extremely rewarding to put your worries and anxieties aside to focus on a singular goal that you want to achieve. It may take hours, days, weeks, months, and even years to get to where you want to be but there is joy to be found in putting away all distractions and devoting yourself to a craft that you enjoy and are able to put serious time into. Our individual potential will not be able to be achieved unless we are able to reach a flow state relating to a kind of creative or intuitive pursuit.

Do your best to try different activities out and see what you like. If you find an activity or an interest you enjoy, continue to add more time to it and you should start to see results. Don’t start to look for monetary rewards or personal fame to keep you going with this pursuit but you should be doing it for yourself primarily and for your desire to reach that state of flow where you can fully immerse yourself in the activity whatever it may be.

You should find happiness and joy in what you do and become the best that you can be at it. If you can enjoy the activity, you’ll eventually find your ‘flow’ with it and be able to do it effortlessly. While you will have a lot of frustration and stress with practicing and doing the activity, if you like it and find it worthwhile, you won’t mind the downsides when the upsides can produce such an intense ‘flow’ where you are in the zone and are able to produce a beautiful result that others will appreciate. Being able to inspire others to reach their own ‘flow state’ creates its own ripple effect allowing our society to become more creative, intuitive, and productive as a result.