I finally upgraded our family room TV to a 75” LG with a Sonos Soundbar, and had it all professionally mounted on the wall. Everything seamlessly connects with WiFi and is pretty much plug-and-play. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Plex - it all just works, like magic.

I often run into people in my travels who don’t watch TV, and have what seems like a disdain for the medium. It’s kind of a shame, because television, as an art, is better than it’s ever been.

My favorite shows in the past few years:

• Mr. Robot - a fourth wall breaking cinematic masterpiece exploring paranoia schizophrenia and modern society.

• The Expanse - a space opera exploring what Humanity’s colonization the solar system might look like.

• Legion - more schizophrenic mindfuckery that plays like a multi-season psychedelic music video.

• Watchmen - only a single season and the best DC Comics superhero adaptation out there.

• Westworld - a look at artificial intelligence and human nature in a dark dystopian symphony of beauty and violence. (My favorite is Season 3)

• Russian Doll - metaphorical representation of our lives. Repeating patterns, repeating days, repeating cycles of reality. Someday, hopefully, we get it right.

Obviously, my favorite genre is mindfuck science fiction that explores the nature of consciousness. The production quality, writing, music, and overall experience is pretty awesome. Science fiction is not really about the future, it’s about the present. Television is a mirror to our culture and helps to create insight into how to navigate this reality, if we allow it to.

Speaking of mindfucks, The Algorithm suddenly started showing me Infinite Brah Frank Yang on YouTube, and he was synchronically featured yesterday on The Stoa, another Substack newsletter I’ve subscribed to since it launched. His videos inspire me to get a 360 camera… and work out more.

Day 20: The Stoa #GivingChristmas