Also, they could have made the fish guy way hotter.

Here’s the thing about this beautiful, fanciful, fairy tale about seeing beyond the surface of a person, misfits banding together against conformity and fascism, and accepting your weirdness as something that can be loved.

I totally wasn’t into it.

I realize on paper that it has those messages, all of which I’m for. Aesthetically, it did all sorts of things I tend to love. But The Shape of Water left me totally tepid.* And now it’s getting all this award season buzz up against movies that I absolutely understand why everyone loves.

*my best guess for why: the creature never intentionally does anything to make Elisa fall in love with him; it just happens because of what he is. so there’s no wooing, no courtship, no earning it, no “falling” in love, just a woman in love with an idea, which makes for an unsatisfying romance.

Some of my favorite critics loved this movie. I just don’t feel it. I almost feel guilty about not feeling it. It’s the kind of thing that makes me question how my own brain works.

What’s something lots of people love, that you just don’t get? What is it about that thing that keeps you from loving it?

What does not loving that thing say about you — or about why everyone else is wrong and you’re not?

Simpler question: why is this so clip so satisfying?

It’s been almost a year since this fateful incident. Debates around rallies and racism, the alt-right vs antifa, have swirled for all of 2017.

And I still haven’t decided 100% where I stand on punching Nazis.

I’m anti-violence, generally. I’m anti-Nazi, definitely. I essentially subscribe to the view that intolerance is the only thing we can’t tolerate if we want a chance at evolving as a species of thinkers (as illustrated in this little quotation/comic — original here, translated from Spanish below):

So the role of punching in all of this is certainly worth thinking about.

When is it ok to punch someone other than in self defense?

What would make you personally not just want to — but actually punch someone?

All those moments will be lost in time… like tweets in rain.

There is a constant tension between our desire to live every day like it’s our last — to maximize our impact on this world and the joy we find in it — and our tendency to do the opposite, by frittering away precious time doing mundane, pointless, unfulfilling things. Well, there’s an app for that.

“Five times a day for the past three months, an app called WeCroak has been telling me I’m going to die. It does not mince words. It surprises me at unpredictable intervals, always with the same blunt message: “Don’t forget, you’re going to die.”

…

As I scroll through Instagram or refresh Twitter, WeCroak interrupts with the sobering reminder that it is not just my attention these other apps are consuming, but chunks of my life.”

The simplicity is beautiful, if potentially morbid. And don’t count out the fact that it may have the opposite effect on the more jaded among us, who find the comfort of an inevitable end a source of relief.

Would you get anything out of an app like this?

How might these reminders affect your daily behavior?

What other “tech” with such a clear and simple purpose do you wish existed?

Like any car crash, it’s hard to look away.

Hello there. Been a while.

If you’re like me, in the last year you spent way too much time reading about politics. Some more time spent reading about politics can be useful and educational. The amount I — and I suspect many of us — spent gawking at the disaster that has been the last year was probably unhealthy.

One of the things that suffered most in my life was the time I spent reading other things. More substantial, wide-ranging or thought-provoking things that, say, might spark new ideas or even motivate one to write something themselves. Case in point, you may notice the last week this site was updated. Mostly I stared at the burning wreckage.

But hey, new year, fresh start and all that.

What have you spent less time doing than you used to, now that the world is a never-ending political circus you can’t stop watching and talking about?

Are you better for it and going to continue? If not, what are some of the things you’ve sacrificed to follow the nonsense that you’re looking to get back to?

The battle of the sexes is over; they are clearly smarter than men.

A quick, if loaded, topic as we approach the election: FiveThirtyEight posted data (above) showing that if only women vote, Clinton wins in a landslide. If only men vote, Trump becomes president. And this Atlantic piece shares data that the old truth that households, particularly married couples, tend to vote together is becoming less and less true.

How important is it for you to agree politically with your significant other?

What degree of difference is acceptable, or even beneficial? Where do you draw the line?

Is the trend of politically diverse households good or bad for society?