For ten years, my favorite way of saying goodbye to the past 365 days was by making a straightforward list of every piece of cultural content I've consumed. I assembled them using a day-by-day formula inspired by Soderbergh's yearly "Seen-Read" listicles. In some years, I came relatively close to him regarding the final count as if it was a dick-measuring contest. But later, I realized that most of the positions I can barely remember long term. In the end, it looked like I was watching stuff to create the year-end list and congratulate myself for this idiotic achievement later. So instead, I became focused on definitive things that made this year memorable in one way or another. Distillation and a couple-words-analysis of a few cultural pieces are better than the blind write-down of many unselected things.

What has also changed over the years is that movies and TV series have started to occupy little to no space. So it seemed natural to expand the list and include basically everything from books and podcasts to personal stuff and health issues. Turned out it's quite lovely to look at a list like that after some time and evaluate what things affected you emotionally. It's also a convenient way of clearing my thoughts around the most significant pieces of popular culture, science, and worldwide events – and evaluating what truly mattered.

So, here's a list of TV shows, movies, music albums, video games, books, podcasts, Youtube channels, and personalities - and even stuff in my private life - by which I will remember this awful unbearable 2022.

Perhaps I should make the disclaimer: it's most certainly not the "Best of '22" kind of guide. Some items originated in '22, but I knowingly declined to ground this list within the boundaries of the creation time.

So let me talk a little bit about each one:

Dr. Huberman launched the central theme in my life this year – how to become healthier and live longer. Across the year, I've seen many people I love and care about getting sick for not properly taking care of their daily habits and quality of eating. Seeing how your peers fall victim to the illnesses you previously considered "something for old people" is painful. Now in my late 20s, I realize it's time to stop wasting your body's resources for good and start building the foundation for the future. This topic probably deserves a separate post, but I know I'm on the right path. The result of the decision to turn into the habit of the desire to treat my body right is the only positive thing that happened (for me personally) in 2022. I've never felt healthier in my life before. The daily routines, the fasting, the constant workouts. 2022 is the starting point of my future living in terms of longevity.

Video essays from YouTube's best came to life on a widescreen with Fincher's touch. Tony's (from Every Frame a Painting, which I miss so much) pieces are obviously fantastic – probably the only reason to check out this series on Netflix.

"This is somewhere to be. This is all you have, but it's still something. Streets and sodium lights. The sky, the world. You're still alive."

I wish all the best to ZA/UM in resolving the chaos that the company has collapsed into recently. The world will be a much more grim place if the sequel is abandoned in a court trial.

Saying goodbye to Ozark was a tough but immensely satisfying experience. Will revisit it in some time for sure. And I can't count how many times my partner and I gasped at how badass Laura Linney commanded viewers' attention on the screen.

This March marked my first grown-up moving from one apartment to another. By "grown-up," I mean U-Haul, movers, lots of containers, and all that jazz. It's funny to figure out a way to collect the items of your physical life inside a few cardboard boxes. And getting rid of things is now my favorite kind of meditative experience.

Lots have been said about Kanye this year, and I'm definitely not going to pour a little something of my own. However, jeen-yuhs follows the foundational period in Kanye's life, and that's a remarkable documentary series. For one, it speaks volumes of a person so confident that it pours on you from the screen – so much so that you want to support him with your dear life. Secondly, it's a valuable historical document of the 2000s hip-hop scene and the culture of selected gatekeepers who can make or break you. You can only imagine what could've been possible for Kanye to break through, let's say, during the Soundcloud craze days, but he was exceptionally good at navigating the power circles and knocking on the right [physical] doors. Jeen-yuhs is amazing. I left the viewing wondering how kind this world would have been if every person had an infinitely supportive mother like Donda.

Difficult to describe how much I love PTA, so it was the obvious choice. Saw it twice this year and will certainly see a couple more in the coming months. There's something deeply intoxicating for me when I watch PTA flicks. His made-up "families" are often full of complex, dynamic, and usually deeply troubled people – something that I relate to a lot and also, in a weird way, aspire to experience.

Yeah, 2022 will forever be a year of another stupid war. Just stop it already.

Well, the legends are not lying: the power is in the hands of the unbanked. I live in a rural Slavic village with cut-off card payments access while at the same time:

• I stream music from Poland

• I listen to audiobooks from Bulgaria

• I shop at Amazon GB

• And I watch TV shows from Egypt

And don't get me started on how easy and fast it is to exchange currency with my peers around the globe. State oppression is no longer an endpoint for the information to reach you. So in that sense, I'm limitless. As tacky as it may sound, crypto frees. And we've yet to see anything genuinely groundbreaking. You'll never be able to witness the potential to revolutionise how we exchange value and conduct business until it becomes your only way to freedom.

One of my favorite albums this year.

Thank you, a beautiful Russian teacher and writer, for awakening my deep interest in studying history.

Surprisingly enough, I didn't care much about "Mr. Morale." As it turns out, I'm not the only one. But that sample and that music video (tacky, of course, but powerful) are not leaving my head. What a great song and performance, although, sadly, the tune didn't make it into the album.

Yuri Dud became a solid anti-war voice for the Russian-speaking audience. However, out of many interviews post-March '22, these two are the most painful. Both Tinkov and Solodnikov are controversial figures in Russia in vastly different social circles, which nowadays is almost a compliment. And both appear to be radically honest, sometimes painfully so, especially when confronted with past choices, figures of speech, and taken sides. The narrative of "let's look at how you behaved before February 24" became standard across numerous Russian media, where it's almost always a humorous effort. I started to appreciate that Dud can push with enough pain and empathy to let his guests confront themselves in a non-toxic way – and meditate on the past in real-time. That's a helpful exercise to figure out how to move forward.

What a ride.

The podcast of the year for me. I started watching select few episodes last year, and now I'm consuming every single one. Love everything about it: themes, guests, dialogs, problems, and, yeah, the length. A common joke in the comments section that Lex is a replicant of sorts, but in reality, he's one of the most humane podcast hosts and a fantastic listener.

"Funny, terrifying, and brilliant in equal measure."

I'm not going to put it more colorfully.

It would be stupid to describe what's inside the article, so I will lead you straight to the link.

The channel is not active now, so I'm deeply grateful that the final series of interviews turned out like that.

Cha Cha is a typically quirky indie dramedy from Sundance. Yet I found throughout the year the urge to come back to revisit the movie, which is rare for this type of indie stuff. I love its tonal mixtures, performances (particularly by otherworldly Dakota Johnson), conversations, and teasing chemistry between the characters. But, most of all, Cha Cha got me at the right place at the right time: when everything around me started to fall apart, and I lost track of things. Life kept moving, but I felt stuck. There are layers of depth behind Raiff's simplistic approach, which helped me realize that it's okay when you can't figure stuff out right away. And right here and then, I was free to explore.

I'm fascinated with almost every post, which I wait for like a Christmas miracle from week to week. The wit, the mind, the boldness, the intelligence. CryptoHayes is a badass.

This is a pure nostalgia shot. Only in Russian, sorry.

I wish they would release more Study-like playlists, but it's still one of my favorite tools this year.

I'm not sure I want to have kids anymore.

I'm now that person who geeks out around Matter devices, Xiaomi gadgets, and smooth Home App integrations. That's so fucking comfortable, guys.

My favorite limited TV series of the year. Full of love for people, their craft, and for cinema history.

This might get sentimental, and I hope I won't regret it later. There's a popular opinion that you must have a mentor to make life-altering changes (and quickly). A figure in your life must inspire you to create great things and guide you into the unknown. I've never had such a person in my filmmaking career. I'm not attributing my desire to end making films to the lack of guidance, but it certainly made me reconsider my beliefs on how the world will develop and what things will matter. Cut to last December when Tim Ferris "introduced" me to Balaji. As far as I became aware, it's 2020 that became a major public push for him across multiple podcasts and media appearances. For me, the introduction started with a 4-hour podcast that was so full of mental jams that it was impossible to pause (or, at that point in my life, even comprehend some issues). At that moment – deep into my final production project – I realized the need to move on from filmmaking and get closer to things that will matter in the future. Cinema stopped inspiring me and was no longer the answer to everything. The answers are never easy; that was the first lesson I learned from Balaji. If you want something so much – no one will make it easy for you, so educate yourself.

And I did. I've been a curious fella my whole life, but it's 2022 that marked the first year of a self-proclaimed "never-ending education course" on everything that excites me: from LLMs and public policy to DeFi and space exploration. The more Balaji stuff I encounter, the more I realize how much there is to educate myself too. Foucault's "infinite library" became a reality in my household. During this year, I started to pile up books on subjects other than cinema and popular culture. I've been an avid reader, but now I have become vicious. I write, think and debate with others and myself a lot more. And what warms my heart is that I can see changes in my thinking. I actively reinvent myself from an entertainer behind-the-scenes to a thinker and builder. The latter role inspires me and gives me all the power to keep going despite an army of difficulties.

There must be an argument where I say it's all on me and my willpower to change. And that's a valid statement. But I would have only accelerated my thinking and desire to learn with such vigor after encountering Balaji first. He's the mentor I never had, although I doubt we'll meet in person one day. But, for the time being – he's out there, outspoken as ever, creating new and exciting ideas. He knows that people like me – in distant lands with totalitarian regimes but with internet access – hear him. So we take notes. And get smarter.

Writing about EA right now is shaky ground: the book and the movement suffered a lot after the FTX collapse. The desire to push the vast amount of SBF crimes toward the particular personal philosophy is great, although the approach may need to be revised. We still need some time to separate the shadow of EA from SBF and reevaluate the movement with a clear head without controversy. Nevertheless, as it stands on its merit, the book is a fine introduction to the limits of "effective altruism" for someone who previously heard these words without much context (I put myself on that list too). MacAskill is persuasive enough to convince you that in some parts of our future, the principles of EA will matter in one form or another. So it's better to get to know the basics.

YouTube knows you better than anyone. Right at the time I needed the kind of musical escapism to distract myself from the horrors of reality, I stumbled across Yamashita's illegally uploaded albums – only later to learn that it's the only way to listen to his music. What followed was my personal journey to the deep end of City Pop – funk, disco, smooth jazz, and pop-rock-induced mixture of sophisticated production and pure happiness. Many great articles are out there explaining why city pop gained traction in recent years, thanks to our collective nostalgia. Still, even when you put aside the pop cultural aspects, it's as simple as this: these tunes are fucking fantastic.

Okay, It's time for a sudden segway into the "Balaji was right" section. If I were to choose any single intellectual event on a pop-culture front that blew my mind this year, it would be a reconciliation with the ending of Limitless.

Let's take a quick look at how GPT-3 describes the ending:

In the end, Eddie is betrayed by his former friend and business partner, Vernon, who tries to kill him and take the NZT for himself. Eddie ultimately overcomes Vernon and destroys all the remaining NZT, realizing that he doesn't need the drug to be successful. In the final scene, Eddie is shown walking away from his former life and into a new future, free from the dangers and constraints of the drug.

That's ironic of the GPT to persuade you not to get too close to the sun. Here comes the thing I never fully realised until after the rewatch (and noting Balaji's observation) – Eddie never got rid of NZT. Instead, he improved it, building upon the existing foundation and eliminating all the side effects. He came too close to the sun – and became truly intellectually invincible. Limitless, in that sense, is an exquisite ode to the powers of engineering and overcoming natural difficulties. Humans do not have to limit us to the "powers we can't understand." On the contrary, the way we excel is to accept the challenge and engineer our way out of harmful side effects.

There're still many things I dislike about Limitless in terms of its creative quality, but the ending overcompensates. Even if, as it's the case with most art, in the end, it'll turn out that Neil Burger had a completely different opinion.

I've never revisited TP since it ended in 2017. My girlfriend and I postponed the rewatch for quite a long time until the reality around us pushed us to embrace it as the sweetest medicine. Boy, this hit even harder. RIP Angelo Badalamenti.

In my view, this was the most discussed piece of visual content across multiple Russian-centric media. In the year of the war, the discussion of "how we ended up where we are now" is impossible to ignore — notably through the lens of Adam Curtis. Curtis is a British documentary filmmaker known for his distinctive filmmaking approach, using archival footage from the vast BBC archives to explore political and social issues. In TraumaZone he does what he does best: he focuses on how power, ideology, and historical trauma have shaped Russia into the country that it currently is. TZ features the best quirks of Curtis's work: ironic cutaways, non-linear narratives, and authentic musical acts (I'll probably never experience Anzhelika Varum's track the same way) to construct an atmosphere of a complete disaster that happened from 89 to 99. TraumaZone is not a comprehensive review of why the Soviet regime collapsed (for that, the Remnick book is a friendly complementary material). Instead, TraumaZone is a funny, painful, thought-provoking, challenging, and intellectually stimulating docuseries. And, somehow, with many details left on the table, it's honest about how my parents' generation viewed the collapse of the USSR.

Before this year, I never knew that CS50 – a popular introductory computer science course at Harvard University – is widely considered one of the best programming courses available online. So I won't be original in saying that it's simply the best programming course for a person who never considered learning to code in his life. David Mallan became my sole digital mentor in everything related to algorithms, data structures, security, and software engineering. And I can't express how appreciative I'm that this kind of information is available online. CS50 is why I gained a solid computer science foundation for my next career steps.

Sorry for being pretentious, but it's hard to love Top Gun this year. For obvious reasons, as you become accustomed to seeing how the country where you were born obliterates another country. The footage is nothing like Hollywood. The war machine is grim, inhumane, and excruciating. At first, I reluctantly decided to put Maverick away for a couple of years until I saw yet another tweet in the style of "omg Top Gun is amazing." That's a red flag for a person who used to see 300 movies a year after every single mention that something is considered "good" by some critic. But despite all my fears, Top Gun comes with the single thing I appreciate more than anything else – a gripping story and a fascinating cinema spectacle. I'm eager to join anyone willing to wrestle with mainstream critics for not including Maverick as the best movie of 2022. It's a cinematic experience on par with Fury Road and Avatar.

There was a time when I did all my work in noisy cafes, which was a productive environment. Not anymore. I would have continued to use the 1st generation if not for the infamous crackling sounds that started to appear in September. At first, it was bearable; just knocking an AirPod with a finger worked just fine to fix the noise. Then, the cracks became permanent. The 2nd generation is phenomenal in many ways, especially in improved noise cancellation and connectivity speed. Now I spend nearly all my waking hours with this thing (of course, except when there's a need to talk to people, not trying to be one of those "AirPods human"). That's a blessing of technology. And funny enough, the sound became much-much better.

In search of the music that would calm my mind and give me hope for a better time and place, I found Sade. With Adu's smooth, soulful voice and sophisticated blend of R&B, jazz, and pop, the band has created a unique and enduring body of work that is timeless, enduring – as the troubling times proved – may serve as a medicine for the soul.

No longer I'm confined to a tiny 13-inch screen of a laptop. The world became so big and beautiful. I'm using something from Xiaomi, hoping it'll serve well enough not to break next year.

I've heard a lot about Sagan's work, but I was blown away by this movie, primarily by how it explores the intersection of science and faith and the idea that the two can coexist. As many people struggle to reconcile their beliefs with something like ChatGPT, this aged exceptionally well.

My personal movie of the year. Don't try to persuade me that Lydia Tár is not a real person. The viciousness with which Blanchette plays this character is breathtaking and leaves you in awe. Also, I couldn't find a more potent and beautifully crafted commentary on cancel culture and "current things" by any modern artist. No one came closer to accomplishing this as Todd Field. 2022 should have happened only because of TÁR.

That's my most recent discovery, which aims to be the most consequential moving forward. The software that had changed my life for good. Hope to write a thorough review next month.

The consequence of my obsession with TÁR: I'm now trying to catch up with the world of classical music. And oh boy, it's a rich one. MEZZO is permanently blasting in the background, and since December started, the only gym music I've enrolled myself with is Mahler's works by Karajan. Still, I know practically nothing, so there you go, 2023, to explore further.

That's it. See you all next year.

For ten years, my favorite way of saying goodbye to the past 365 days was by making a straightforward list of every piece of cultural content I've consumed. I assembled them using a day-by-day formula inspired by Soderbergh's yearly "Seen-Read" listicles. In some years, I came relatively close to him regarding the final count as if it was a dick-measuring contest. But later, I realized that most of the positions I can barely remember long term. In the end, it looked like I was watching stuff to create the year-end list and congratulate myself for this idiotic achievement later. So instead, I became focused on definitive things that made this year memorable in one way or another. Distillation and a couple-words-analysis of a few cultural pieces are better than the blind write-down of many unselected things.

What has also changed over the years is that movies and TV series have started to occupy little to no space. So it seemed natural to expand the list and include basically everything from books and podcasts to personal stuff and health issues. Turned out it's quite lovely to look at a list like that after some time and evaluate what things affected you emotionally. It's also a convenient way of clearing my thoughts around the most significant pieces of popular culture, science, and worldwide events – and evaluating what truly mattered.

So, here's a list of TV shows, movies, music albums, video games, books, podcasts, Youtube channels, and personalities - and even stuff in my private life - by which I will remember this awful unbearable 2022.

Perhaps I should make the disclaimer: it's most certainly not the "Best of '22" kind of guide. Some items originated in '22, but I knowingly declined to ground this list within the boundaries of the creation time.

So let me talk a little bit about each one:

Dr. Huberman launched the central theme in my life this year – how to become healthier and live longer. Across the year, I've seen many people I love and care about getting sick for not properly taking care of their daily habits and quality of eating. Seeing how your peers fall victim to the illnesses you previously considered "something for old people" is painful. Now in my late 20s, I realize it's time to stop wasting your body's resources for good and start building the foundation for the future. This topic probably deserves a separate post, but I know I'm on the right path. The result of the decision to turn into the habit of the desire to treat my body right is the only positive thing that happened (for me personally) in 2022. I've never felt healthier in my life before. The daily routines, the fasting, the constant workouts. 2022 is the starting point of my future living in terms of longevity.

Video essays from YouTube's best came to life on a widescreen with Fincher's touch. Tony's (from Every Frame a Painting, which I miss so much) pieces are obviously fantastic – probably the only reason to check out this series on Netflix.

"This is somewhere to be. This is all you have, but it's still something. Streets and sodium lights. The sky, the world. You're still alive."

I wish all the best to ZA/UM in resolving the chaos that the company has collapsed into recently. The world will be a much more grim place if the sequel is abandoned in a court trial.

Saying goodbye to Ozark was a tough but immensely satisfying experience. Will revisit it in some time for sure. And I can't count how many times my partner and I gasped at how badass Laura Linney commanded viewers' attention on the screen.

This March marked my first grown-up moving from one apartment to another. By "grown-up," I mean U-Haul, movers, lots of containers, and all that jazz. It's funny to figure out a way to collect the items of your physical life inside a few cardboard boxes. And getting rid of things is now my favorite kind of meditative experience.

Lots have been said about Kanye this year, and I'm definitely not going to pour a little something of my own. However, jeen-yuhs follows the foundational period in Kanye's life, and that's a remarkable documentary series. For one, it speaks volumes of a person so confident that it pours on you from the screen – so much so that you want to support him with your dear life. Secondly, it's a valuable historical document of the 2000s hip-hop scene and the culture of selected gatekeepers who can make or break you. You can only imagine what could've been possible for Kanye to break through, let's say, during the Soundcloud craze days, but he was exceptionally good at navigating the power circles and knocking on the right [physical] doors. Jeen-yuhs is amazing. I left the viewing wondering how kind this world would have been if every person had an infinitely supportive mother like Donda.

Difficult to describe how much I love PTA, so it was the obvious choice. Saw it twice this year and will certainly see a couple more in the coming months. There's something deeply intoxicating for me when I watch PTA flicks. His made-up "families" are often full of complex, dynamic, and usually deeply troubled people – something that I relate to a lot and also, in a weird way, aspire to experience.

Yeah, 2022 will forever be a year of another stupid war. Just stop it already.

Well, the legends are not lying: the power is in the hands of the unbanked. I live in a rural Slavic village with cut-off card payments access while at the same time:

• I stream music from Poland

• I listen to audiobooks from Bulgaria

• I shop at Amazon GB

• And I watch TV shows from Egypt

And don't get me started on how easy and fast it is to exchange currency with my peers around the globe. State oppression is no longer an endpoint for the information to reach you. So in that sense, I'm limitless. As tacky as it may sound, crypto frees. And we've yet to see anything genuinely groundbreaking. You'll never be able to witness the potential to revolutionise how we exchange value and conduct business until it becomes your only way to freedom.

One of my favorite albums this year.

Thank you, a beautiful Russian teacher and writer, for awakening my deep interest in studying history.

Surprisingly enough, I didn't care much about "Mr. Morale." As it turns out, I'm not the only one. But that sample and that music video (tacky, of course, but powerful) are not leaving my head. What a great song and performance, although, sadly, the tune didn't make it into the album.

Yuri Dud became a solid anti-war voice for the Russian-speaking audience. However, out of many interviews post-March '22, these two are the most painful. Both Tinkov and Solodnikov are controversial figures in Russia in vastly different social circles, which nowadays is almost a compliment. And both appear to be radically honest, sometimes painfully so, especially when confronted with past choices, figures of speech, and taken sides. The narrative of "let's look at how you behaved before February 24" became standard across numerous Russian media, where it's almost always a humorous effort. I started to appreciate that Dud can push with enough pain and empathy to let his guests confront themselves in a non-toxic way – and meditate on the past in real-time. That's a helpful exercise to figure out how to move forward.

What a ride.

The podcast of the year for me. I started watching select few episodes last year, and now I'm consuming every single one. Love everything about it: themes, guests, dialogs, problems, and, yeah, the length. A common joke in the comments section that Lex is a replicant of sorts, but in reality, he's one of the most humane podcast hosts and a fantastic listener.

"Funny, terrifying, and brilliant in equal measure."

I'm not going to put it more colorfully.

It would be stupid to describe what's inside the article, so I will lead you straight to the link.

The channel is not active now, so I'm deeply grateful that the final series of interviews turned out like that.

Cha Cha is a typically quirky indie dramedy from Sundance. Yet I found throughout the year the urge to come back to revisit the movie, which is rare for this type of indie stuff. I love its tonal mixtures, performances (particularly by otherworldly Dakota Johnson), conversations, and teasing chemistry between the characters. But, most of all, Cha Cha got me at the right place at the right time: when everything around me started to fall apart, and I lost track of things. Life kept moving, but I felt stuck. There are layers of depth behind Raiff's simplistic approach, which helped me realize that it's okay when you can't figure stuff out right away. And right here and then, I was free to explore.

I'm fascinated with almost every post, which I wait for like a Christmas miracle from week to week. The wit, the mind, the boldness, the intelligence. CryptoHayes is a badass.

This is a pure nostalgia shot. Only in Russian, sorry.

I wish they would release more Study-like playlists, but it's still one of my favorite tools this year.

I'm not sure I want to have kids anymore.

I'm now that person who geeks out around Matter devices, Xiaomi gadgets, and smooth Home App integrations. That's so fucking comfortable, guys.

My favorite limited TV series of the year. Full of love for people, their craft, and for cinema history.

This might get sentimental, and I hope I won't regret it later. There's a popular opinion that you must have a mentor to make life-altering changes (and quickly). A figure in your life must inspire you to create great things and guide you into the unknown. I've never had such a person in my filmmaking career. I'm not attributing my desire to end making films to the lack of guidance, but it certainly made me reconsider my beliefs on how the world will develop and what things will matter. Cut to last December when Tim Ferris "introduced" me to Balaji. As far as I became aware, it's 2020 that became a major public push for him across multiple podcasts and media appearances. For me, the introduction started with a 4-hour podcast that was so full of mental jams that it was impossible to pause (or, at that point in my life, even comprehend some issues). At that moment – deep into my final production project – I realized the need to move on from filmmaking and get closer to things that will matter in the future. Cinema stopped inspiring me and was no longer the answer to everything. The answers are never easy; that was the first lesson I learned from Balaji. If you want something so much – no one will make it easy for you, so educate yourself.

And I did. I've been a curious fella my whole life, but it's 2022 that marked the first year of a self-proclaimed "never-ending education course" on everything that excites me: from LLMs and public policy to DeFi and space exploration. The more Balaji stuff I encounter, the more I realize how much there is to educate myself too. Foucault's "infinite library" became a reality in my household. During this year, I started to pile up books on subjects other than cinema and popular culture. I've been an avid reader, but now I have become vicious. I write, think and debate with others and myself a lot more. And what warms my heart is that I can see changes in my thinking. I actively reinvent myself from an entertainer behind-the-scenes to a thinker and builder. The latter role inspires me and gives me all the power to keep going despite an army of difficulties.

There must be an argument where I say it's all on me and my willpower to change. And that's a valid statement. But I would have only accelerated my thinking and desire to learn with such vigor after encountering Balaji first. He's the mentor I never had, although I doubt we'll meet in person one day. But, for the time being – he's out there, outspoken as ever, creating new and exciting ideas. He knows that people like me – in distant lands with totalitarian regimes but with internet access – hear him. So we take notes. And get smarter.

Writing about EA right now is shaky ground: the book and the movement suffered a lot after the FTX collapse. The desire to push the vast amount of SBF crimes toward the particular personal philosophy is great, although the approach may need to be revised. We still need some time to separate the shadow of EA from SBF and reevaluate the movement with a clear head without controversy. Nevertheless, as it stands on its merit, the book is a fine introduction to the limits of "effective altruism" for someone who previously heard these words without much context (I put myself on that list too). MacAskill is persuasive enough to convince you that in some parts of our future, the principles of EA will matter in one form or another. So it's better to get to know the basics.

YouTube knows you better than anyone. Right at the time I needed the kind of musical escapism to distract myself from the horrors of reality, I stumbled across Yamashita's illegally uploaded albums – only later to learn that it's the only way to listen to his music. What followed was my personal journey to the deep end of City Pop – funk, disco, smooth jazz, and pop-rock-induced mixture of sophisticated production and pure happiness. Many great articles are out there explaining why city pop gained traction in recent years, thanks to our collective nostalgia. Still, even when you put aside the pop cultural aspects, it's as simple as this: these tunes are fucking fantastic.

Okay, It's time for a sudden segway into the "Balaji was right" section. If I were to choose any single intellectual event on a pop-culture front that blew my mind this year, it would be a reconciliation with the ending of Limitless.

Let's take a quick look at how GPT-3 describes the ending:

In the end, Eddie is betrayed by his former friend and business partner, Vernon, who tries to kill him and take the NZT for himself. Eddie ultimately overcomes Vernon and destroys all the remaining NZT, realizing that he doesn't need the drug to be successful. In the final scene, Eddie is shown walking away from his former life and into a new future, free from the dangers and constraints of the drug.

That's ironic of the GPT to persuade you not to get too close to the sun. Here comes the thing I never fully realised until after the rewatch (and noting Balaji's observation) – Eddie never got rid of NZT. Instead, he improved it, building upon the existing foundation and eliminating all the side effects. He came too close to the sun – and became truly intellectually invincible. Limitless, in that sense, is an exquisite ode to the powers of engineering and overcoming natural difficulties. Humans do not have to limit us to the "powers we can't understand." On the contrary, the way we excel is to accept the challenge and engineer our way out of harmful side effects.

There're still many things I dislike about Limitless in terms of its creative quality, but the ending overcompensates. Even if, as it's the case with most art, in the end, it'll turn out that Neil Burger had a completely different opinion.

I've never revisited TP since it ended in 2017. My girlfriend and I postponed the rewatch for quite a long time until the reality around us pushed us to embrace it as the sweetest medicine. Boy, this hit even harder. RIP Angelo Badalamenti.

In my view, this was the most discussed piece of visual content across multiple Russian-centric media. In the year of the war, the discussion of "how we ended up where we are now" is impossible to ignore — notably through the lens of Adam Curtis. Curtis is a British documentary filmmaker known for his distinctive filmmaking approach, using archival footage from the vast BBC archives to explore political and social issues. In TraumaZone he does what he does best: he focuses on how power, ideology, and historical trauma have shaped Russia into the country that it currently is. TZ features the best quirks of Curtis's work: ironic cutaways, non-linear narratives, and authentic musical acts (I'll probably never experience Anzhelika Varum's track the same way) to construct an atmosphere of a complete disaster that happened from 89 to 99. TraumaZone is not a comprehensive review of why the Soviet regime collapsed (for that, the Remnick book is a friendly complementary material). Instead, TraumaZone is a funny, painful, thought-provoking, challenging, and intellectually stimulating docuseries. And, somehow, with many details left on the table, it's honest about how my parents' generation viewed the collapse of the USSR.

Before this year, I never knew that CS50 – a popular introductory computer science course at Harvard University – is widely considered one of the best programming courses available online. So I won't be original in saying that it's simply the best programming course for a person who never considered learning to code in his life. David Mallan became my sole digital mentor in everything related to algorithms, data structures, security, and software engineering. And I can't express how appreciative I'm that this kind of information is available online. CS50 is why I gained a solid computer science foundation for my next career steps.

Sorry for being pretentious, but it's hard to love Top Gun this year. For obvious reasons, as you become accustomed to seeing how the country where you were born obliterates another country. The footage is nothing like Hollywood. The war machine is grim, inhumane, and excruciating. At first, I reluctantly decided to put Maverick away for a couple of years until I saw yet another tweet in the style of "omg Top Gun is amazing." That's a red flag for a person who used to see 300 movies a year after every single mention that something is considered "good" by some critic. But despite all my fears, Top Gun comes with the single thing I appreciate more than anything else – a gripping story and a fascinating cinema spectacle. I'm eager to join anyone willing to wrestle with mainstream critics for not including Maverick as the best movie of 2022. It's a cinematic experience on par with Fury Road and Avatar.

There was a time when I did all my work in noisy cafes, which was a productive environment. Not anymore. I would have continued to use the 1st generation if not for the infamous crackling sounds that started to appear in September. At first, it was bearable; just knocking an AirPod with a finger worked just fine to fix the noise. Then, the cracks became permanent. The 2nd generation is phenomenal in many ways, especially in improved noise cancellation and connectivity speed. Now I spend nearly all my waking hours with this thing (of course, except when there's a need to talk to people, not trying to be one of those "AirPods human"). That's a blessing of technology. And funny enough, the sound became much-much better.

In search of the music that would calm my mind and give me hope for a better time and place, I found Sade. With Adu's smooth, soulful voice and sophisticated blend of R&B, jazz, and pop, the band has created a unique and enduring body of work that is timeless, enduring – as the troubling times proved – may serve as a medicine for the soul.

No longer I'm confined to a tiny 13-inch screen of a laptop. The world became so big and beautiful. I'm using something from Xiaomi, hoping it'll serve well enough not to break next year.

I've heard a lot about Sagan's work, but I was blown away by this movie, primarily by how it explores the intersection of science and faith and the idea that the two can coexist. As many people struggle to reconcile their beliefs with something like ChatGPT, this aged exceptionally well.

My personal movie of the year. Don't try to persuade me that Lydia Tár is not a real person. The viciousness with which Blanchette plays this character is breathtaking and leaves you in awe. Also, I couldn't find a more potent and beautifully crafted commentary on cancel culture and "current things" by any modern artist. No one came closer to accomplishing this as Todd Field. 2022 should have happened only because of TÁR.

That's my most recent discovery, which aims to be the most consequential moving forward. The software that had changed my life for good. Hope to write a thorough review next month.

The consequence of my obsession with TÁR: I'm now trying to catch up with the world of classical music. And oh boy, it's a rich one. MEZZO is permanently blasting in the background, and since December started, the only gym music I've enrolled myself with is Mahler's works by Karajan. Still, I know practically nothing, so there you go, 2023, to explore further.

That's it. See you all next year.