I wanted to like Conclave. It won the Best Adapted Screenplay award at the Oscars. It is a beautifully composed film. The use of color and shadow, chiaroscuro, resemble a renaissance painting. At times, it delivers insightful dialogue, and its main monologue captures the exhaustion of our era and the concomitant longing for humility. The film is at its best when it critiques ambition, certainty, and egotism. However, Conclave is ultimately a parody of Christianity and uses it as a mask to import its anti-Christian ideology. In fact, Conclave takes ideology to be the antidote to ambition – erroneously. And for this reason, Conclave amounts to sophisticated, beautiful, well-acted propaganda.

Netflix’s Arcane is a modern myth, intertwining art deco aesthetics and alchemical symbolism to explore humanity’s eternal struggle with chaos and order. Central to this tale are Jayce and Viktor, whose journeys reveal the dangers of unchecked ambition and the duality of progress. Hex Tech serves as a metaphor for technological marvels that can save or destroy, depending on their wielders. While Jayce learns humility through his trials, Viktor’s transformation warns of losing humanity in the pursuit of perfection. Ultimately, Arcane urges us to embrace balance and compassion, reminding us that progress devoid of love leads to stagnation and ruin.

In Looking for Heaven, the author embarks on a profound exploration of “heaven,” stripping away centuries of dogma and cultural misconceptions. Blending personal anecdotes, theological critique, and psychological insights, the essay challenges the idea of heaven as a distant, metaphysical realm. Instead, it redefines heaven as an intimate domain of human experience rooted in consciousness, meaning, and connection. With references spanning mythology, modern psychology, and personal reflections, this work invites readers to rethink what it means to seek heaven in a world fragmented by materialism and postmodern skepticism.

The recently released film Everything Everywhere All At Once is one of the most fascinating and well-executed films I've seen in a long time! The film explores ideas from the multi-verse, purpose, and meaning in life. So let's tap into another version of ourselves and see what we learn from themes in the film.

Who amongst us is comfortable in our present moment, as our culture heaves beneath us and the certainties of our every-day splinter from the weight of chaos? I do not see true certainty. I do not see reliability. And who claims too?

About a year ago, I was in a political philosophy class in which “equality” was referred to as a royal decree, an absolute good proclaimed by God. Consider the differences in individual choices and their effects on income? “But, equality!”…

A meditation on how individuals are able to, or come to be able to, do horrible things. Relying on his own experience and the work of Stanford researcher and professor Philip Zimbardo, Joe Jackowski dives into the nature of evil.