I now have a cat. His name is Pepito. On the morning of December 28th, I heard desperate meows in the stair hall outside our apartments on the second floor. I went outside and, behind some plants, there was a tabby cat with a brown collar.

We don’t know where he came from. We asked around our building, but nobody knew anything; nobody claimed him, and nobody put up a missing pet flyer. There was some conjecture that he was left behind when a nearby family moved out before Christmas, but it remains just that: a conjecture.

In any case, we gave him asylum, and 30 days later he is still here. And while I write, he stole my office chair once again. As all cats do, Pepito added a large amount of chaos: early wake-ups when someone meows for food at 6 a.m., and I always worry that our tiny apartment is not enough for him. But I am happy he came. The Cat Distribution Systems know what it is doing, so I think he came here for a reason.

Anyhow, January is that weird month that, in my mind, begins only around the 10th day. So this edition I kept repeating, “Wow, was this this month?” I was surprised about everything, and in some sense this is the reason why I keep up with these monthly logs.

Housekeeping

This month I quit Mastodon after another feudal-fight. I don’t need that drama in my life.

Finally, I wrote about the hyperdigestion of media: that is, how we have the urge to have strong opinions on every piece of media we consume.

Reading

This month I completed only one book, but it was a long and challenging one (600 pages written in tiny characters).

• Subtle is the Lord by Abraham Pais. This is the most acclaimed biography of Albert Einstein. Published in 1982 by one of his students and biographers (Abraham Pais), it is still the go-to book to go deep on the life and work of the famous German physicist. I would not recommend it to the general public, though. It is a challenging read, with a lot of math in it. But if you know your math and physics, it is really interesting. Some parts are a bit outdated (like all the digression on gravitational waves), but it is still well worth the effort.

Watchlist

Faust (1926)

Faust is one of the masterpieces of German director Friedrich Wilhelm “F. W.” Murnau, better known for 1922’s Nosferatu. While Nosferatu, though, was a quite minimalist opera, Faust is a wildly maximalistic and melodramatic one. You don’t have to watch it all: go on YouTube and watch the opening. It is probably one of the most baroque and epic openings of a movie ever. The composition, the backgrounds, the costumes: it made me fall off the chair.

As often happens, at the time the movie was destroyed by the critics, accusing Murnau of not following Goethe’s original material (we never change with this silly critique, do we?). In fact, the plot takes a lot of liberties, but I will argue that it does so for a good reason. They cut the cruft and keep the core of Faust’s philosophy.

In the end, it is a tragedy, and a brutal one. But, in all that tragedy, there is a teaching on the redeeming power of love.

Fun fact: Mephistopheles’s actor, Emil Jannings, was a literal Nazi. He worked with the regime on propaganda movies and went into disgrace after the war.

The Killing (1956)

The Killing is one of the early works of Stanley Kubrick. It is a tightly paced noir narrating the story of a group of men planning and executing the “perfect robbery” of a horse racetrack vault.

Probably this is not the best Kubrick movie, but it remains a great noir. I found the ending a bit forced, but it works. The characters are well assorted, the non-chronological narration keeps it fresh, and I cannot spoil the ending because that would be the real robbery.

Slow Horses (Season 1)

I know. Slow Horses, the Anglo-American series with Gary Oldman as the head of an MI5 agency of misfits, is now at Season 5. But you know, I am slow. I only recently caught up with season 1 and, after a couple of confusing and slow episodes, I finally get why people are so enthusiastic about it. I only heard good things about it.

What I enjoyed most about these six 1-hour episodes is that everything is a shade of grey, or, to say it better, the story constantly challenges your expectations: assholes are not assholes, good guys are not good guys, bad guys are not bad guys. They are just six episodes, but they are dense.

I am eager to move to the next seasons… even if I have a never-ending queue of things to watch. I already said it: I am slow. You have to accept that. But if this season taught me anything, it is that even slow horses can get somewhere first. So there is hope.

All the Rest

• Home Alone (1990) Mandatory holiday season rewatch.
• For Your Eyes Only (1981) I am continuing with my 007 (re)watch. This one has a really dumb opening, but it is not terrible like Moonraker.
• Jurassic World Dominion (2022) I wanted to catch up with this franchise. This is simply horrendous. Why the hell did you use GIANT BUGS as a plot device for a Jurassic World movie?
• Jurassic World Rebirth (2025) The only good part is that the agony of catching up with this franchise is over.
• People We Meet on Vacation (2026) A bland romcom I watched with Gioia. It feels incredibly plastic and fake.
• The Rip (2026) This is Netflix’s movie with Ben Affleck and Matt Damon… I like it. It is simple, grim, and entertaining. Given Netflix’s standard, it is a good product.
• Notorious (1946) An Alfred Hitchcock classic. A spy story with a love story, or a love story with a spy story. It was really nice.
• Never Say Never Again (1983) The non-EON remake of Thunderball with Sean Connery that we didn’t need. The action scenes are way better, and Barbara Carrera is wonderful in this. But overall it is quite bland. On the other hand… You do get James Bond throwing a vial of his own urine on a henchman, and there is a funny minor role for a young Rowan Atkinson. So… there is something.

Music

Lunatic Soul is the side project of the Polish vocalist and bassist Mariusz Duda. He started it as a way to explore different genres that he could not perform in his main band, Riverside. In the end, he didn’t fall too far from that tree. Lunatic Soul is still progressive rock, even if less heavy, more ambient, and more electronic. Nevertheless, it is a worthy project with its own peculiar feeling.

I think the entire discography is worth a pass, but today I’ll focus on the latest release: The World Under Unsun, published at the end of 2025. With its 90 minutes, it is also the longest album in his discography-probably too long. While it is not considered his best work by the critics, it is the one I played the most. I find it very sweet, melancholic, and thoughtful.

The World Under Unsun is the story of a man trying to free himself from repetitive patterns and who is constantly struggling with habits, guilt, and his dependence on instantaneous gratification. It is about loss, reflection, acceptance, and a never-subsuming fear of change.

In the end, the thing that matters most in music is how it resonates within ourselves.

I thought this land yearned for the sun
That freedom would be understood the same by all
But everywhere I look - fire burns
And no morning comes

Gaming

Like the previous month, not a lot of video gaming. However, I am in the middle of a TTRPG era, and I am enjoying that a lot. For one, I am DMing a D&D campaign in a homebrew universe‑merging setting (last session we were in a haunted mansion with Luigi). I also bought and replayed many solo TTRPGs, such as A Thousand Years Old Vampire, Delve, Ex‑Novo, and more. I already talked about some of them; I will probably do another article about solo RPGs in the future.

In general, there is a strong link between solo TTRPGs and writing. It is a bidirectional flow: I use ideas from writing to build stories in my TTRPG sessions, and I use TTRPG techniques to explore paths in writing (e.g., when I don’t know where the story is going, I use dice and prompts). Therefore, it seems like a productive time (or, at least, this is what I tell myself).

Other Interesting Things

• 📝 Golfing Is Not Rowing - This is a short article I saved in my “Interesting Article” folder. It is a warning against linear incrementalism. Some tasks work well in this setting; others (such as writing) do not. And part of any success lies in distinguishing between the two cases.

Conclusions

And with this, the first month of 2026 is gone. I am probably still processing 2024, so I don’t know what to say. I need to stop and reflect.

My wish for 2026 is that I will build courage and true internal honesty. Not being able to be honest with myself and not having the courage to accept the consequences of my desires is what makes me feel stuck. As Pepito reminded me, life is changing; life is growing. Being still is no life at all.

But this is a story for another time.

See you next month!