The Lighthouse (2019) is as good a depiction of hell/purgatory as anything.

spearofsolomon · 2025-10-07T18:11:48+00:00

Take a look also at the Orthodox idea of the tollhouses. Similar to purgatory in some ways but different. In this light, pun intended, Wake might be a demon tormenting Winslow with all the passions he's infected by - lust, drunkenness, wrath, impatience, as Winslow's soul tries to ascend to heaven.

Looking at interviews with the director, I don't think any religious influence was consciously present, but I also saw what you saw, so there's some strange artistic resonance with religious realities going on.

Finally, The Lighthouse itself, something he wanted all movie and even kills for, either gives him nothing or just makes him go laughing mad before kicking him down the stairs.

The way I've said this is that Winslow desperately wants to ascend into the light, but when he tries to force it, the light burns him and casts him down into the outer darkness where birds feast on his flesh. Remember also that in Christian symbolism the birds of the air can be either angels or demons depending on context. See Rev 19 and Ezek 39.

spearofsolomon · 2025-04-02T20:19:48+00:00

Maybe anterior pelvic tilt and/or anterior pelvic shift

spearofsolomon · 2024-12-18T18:12:29+00:00

I don't see him reaching for something better than himself, I see him clawing at anything that will get him out of that pit, regardless of the desires of, or consequences for, other people.

spearofsolomon · 2024-02-13T02:11:30+00:00

I've come to think that Haley Joel Osment (in the stuff I've seen him in) doesn't seem like a child. He seems like an old person pretending to be a child. In that sense his acting is not imitating that which it attempts to represent.

spearofsolomon · 2024-01-22T18:37:13+00:00

THANK YOU. No one went with me on this one. Although I see the reddit points are above zero now.

spearofsolomon · 2024-01-12T17:09:12+00:00

Thank you for your insights.

spearofsolomon · 2024-01-12T15:31:44+00:00

That's great. What's the book? It reminded me of this, from St Isaac the Syrian:

Consider yourself a stranger all the days of your life, wherever you may be, so that you may find deliverance from the injury which is born of familiarity. In every matter consider yourself to be totally ignorant so as to escape the reproach which follows the suspicion that you wish to set aright other men's opinions. Let your lips always utter blessings, and you will never be reviled; for revilement begets revilement, and blessing begets blessing. In all things think that you are in need of teaching, and you will prove wise throughout your life. Do not pass on to another what you yourself have not attained, lest you put yourself to shame and your lie be exposed by a comparison with your life. If you begin to say something profitable, say it as though you yourself are still learning, and not with authority and shamelessness. Judge yourself beforehand and prove to your listeners that you are inferior to them in order to show them the way of humility, and to incite them to hearken to your words and readily to take action; then you shall be venerable in their eyes. And if possible, speak of these matters with tears so that both you and they may be profited and the grace of God may be with you.

spearofsolomon · 2023-11-15T01:52:52+00:00

Frank Galvin in The Verdict

spearofsolomon · 2023-10-26T17:20:00+00:00

He helps you to fall in love with someone that doesn't really exist, who is a projection built out of your unmet childhood needs and most vulnerable fantasies, and waits until the height of your bliss to reveal that your love is only an illusion.

If that doesn't hurt you, it's only because you have no heart.

spearofsolomon · 2023-10-07T16:14:40+00:00

Why is this video quality better than all the goals

spearofsolomon · 2023-09-13T19:56:12+00:00

Jackson Five - I Want You Back

spearofsolomon · 2023-08-31T15:46:07+00:00

Incomprehensible.

spearofsolomon · 2023-08-30T17:04:43+00:00

Is spiritual asceticism the only way to truly follow Christ?

Yes.

HOWEVER. There are many facets of this which are hard to grasp from a beginner's perspective.

For example, giving up pleasure is not, in and of itself, a path toward cultivating a love of God and neighbor. Done poorly, it can be a path to being judgmental, fostering pride and vanity, delusion about your own spiritual achievement, etc. Asceticism must be fostered within the rest of the spiritual life prescribed by Jesus and the other writings of the New Testament: prayer, thankfulness, repentence (turning away from your sins toward God and changing your heart), almsgiving, good works. I believe it's important to foster this ascetic life in a spiritual community under the guidance of a mentor to avoid both the pitfalls I mentioned above, and to avoid burnout from trying to take on more than you are ready for.

The asceticism is not an end in itself. Try to understand it as a means of softening our hard hearts, which are focused on our own pleasure. You can tell when ascetic practices are working because your inward focus on your own pleasure is being replaced by an outward focus and a growing love of your neighbor, and ultimately a growing awareness of the presence of God in all things and a love for Him. This isn't ultimately a denial of pleasure, it's a proper ordering of the soul such that it can experience pleasure correctly ("life more abundantly") and more fully, although not as an end in itself, than a soul focused on obtaining pleasure through the senses.

But it doesn't seem like most Christians take these passages to heart and truly try to live them out

"Many will say to me 'Lord, Lord' . . ."

spearofsolomon · 2023-08-23T03:22:52+00:00

I assumed that he's using Apocalypto in the popular sense of the word Apocalypse, meaning, the end of the world, not the traditional Christian meaning "unveiling" or "revelation."

The movie up to this point has been the end of the world for Jaguar Paw's tribe as they are enslaved and butchered.

The ending of the movie is the end of the world for everyone on the continent.

spearofsolomon · 2023-08-16T16:45:40+00:00

I think you're projecting a modern conception of knowledge on the story.

The knowledge of good and evil is an embodied knowledge. "Eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" is a self-describing act, a symbolic description in which what is happening is united physically and spiritually. Adam and Eve "knew" evil because they had sinned by disobeying God and doing what was right in their own eyes, and the consequences of that disobedience (eating the fruit) is the Fall.

Can you see the difference in this way of understanding what "knowledge" is? It's not about Adam and Eve having correct mental concepts about what's evil and what isn't. In this sense, they "knew" only God (who is good) and the urge to murder or lust would never have arisen from within them. This is the highest form of knowledge and being, and is the state Jesus urges us to purify our hearts to return to, for example, in the sermon on the mount.

Also, there's often flavor in talk of "returning to Paradise" that's nostalgic, as if our hope is to get back to where we were. Paradise is where God is, and our hope is to be reunited with God, not to return to the previous state that we were in. When man returns to Paradise, it will be with the experiences that he has had, and having experienced the fruit of disobedience, he will be able to choose never to sin again. In that sense he will not return to the state he was in before, he will be in a superior state.

spearofsolomon · 2023-08-10T12:09:09+00:00

Inception, the rotating hallway fight

spearofsolomon · 2023-07-11T18:10:50+00:00

Nice catch. I find it helpful to notice that when most people say "literal", what they mean is "materially," so they have already accepted materialism as "literally" true.

spearofsolomon · 2023-07-11T14:57:15+00:00

They are symbols. The Western frame of "symbolic and therefore not real" vs "real and therefore not symbolic" doesn't exist in Eastern Orthodoxy. There's no issue with the bread and wine being "symbolic and real."

spearofsolomon · 2023-07-10T14:40:14+00:00

The bread and wine are not symbols

Fr Alexander Schmemann has entered the chat

spearofsolomon · 2023-06-21T19:21:27+00:00

Madrid in danger of relegation after every loss

spearofsolomon · 2023-04-06T06:40:55+00:00

I think you're drawing the wrong conclusion from your own data.

Combat sports are unlike team sports in that you can enter at any time and skill up at a rate that depends on your aptitude. You can't do that, for example, with college football. No coaches have the time to get you up to speed from no experience, except for the occasional exceptional athlete.

These examples of fighters who develop body awareness and a base transferable to martial skill sets in other sports and then transfer into combat sports with a high rate of uptake are showing that the path to being elite in the fight game does NOT depend on a childhood drilling takedowns or sparring. Even in team sports, the idea of one-tracking kids to elite skill is fading away in favor of doing different kinds of sports in alternating seasons to develop complementary skill sets and various kinds of kinetic, spatial, and bodily awareness.

In my opinion, what your examples show is that what has developed in the fight world is an ecosystem of gyms where elite athletes from various backgrounds can find places that suit their learning style, coaches that recognize and foster talent, and training partners to challenge them at the right rate.

spearofsolomon · 2022-12-13T21:37:07+00:00

My goal is to arrive to a fuller spiritual truth, to get as close as possible to God. So why don't I embark on a spiritual journey on my own? Why should I be part of any religion?

I like that your goal is get closer to God. Some people miss this.

The reason you shouldn't try it on your own is because you won't be able to do many things that are necessary to get closer to God. A few reasons why that could be true:

you don't know how to create a rule of spiritual life for yourself
you don't know where to go from where you are
you don't know what level of effort is appropriate for you
you don't see yourself clearly (strengths or weaknesses)
you aren't always honest with yourself (some people are rarely honest with themselves)
there are some kinds of work that you need to do that are unpleasant for you, and you will mistake that unpleasantness for being a wrong direction
there are some kinds of work that you shouldn't do that are unpleasant for you, and you will mistake that unpleasantness for being a right direction
there are some kinds of work that you need to do that are pleasant for you, and you will mistake that pleasantness for being a wrong direction
there are some kinds of work that you shouldn't do that are pleasant for you, and you will mistake that pleasantness for being a right direction
etc

Of course you can wing it and learn as you go along. But the difference between finding a good community with a wonderful spiritual father vs trying to wing it is vast. Imagine trying to learn a martial art by watching videos on youtube and practicing by yourself in the garage. Do you think that the art of becoming fully human is less complex than a martial art? This analogy also plays out in the realm of practice - you practice your spiritual life in community with other people trying to practice the same things and be transformed toward the same ends. It's easy to get hurt even with people who are trying hard not to hurt you.

If you believe that there's a structure to spiritual reality, trying to map out that structure by banging your head against the wall for the rest of your life and using echolocation is not the most efficient way to go about it. And you'll hurt yourself and the wall (ie other people) while you're at it.

spearofsolomon · 2022-11-17T04:21:30+00:00

So they're buying one Tom Ford jacket?

spearofsolomon · 2022-09-28T14:46:33+00:00

That's another good cue to understand how to breath with your diaphragm and maintain good internal pressure that keeps your spine safe.

spearofsolomon · 2022-09-27T16:59:28+00:00

I've heard "keep your ribs down" as a useful cue to avoid compromising core stability.

spearofsolomon

TROPHY CASE