Life is a Single Player Game: A Lesson from The Menu (2022)
DogSnott
155,683 views
All copyrighted works shown here are used consistently with the principles of "fair use" as outlined in Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976. The material is used for critical and educational purposes. All rights are retained by the respective copyright holders, and no infringement is intended. If you are the copyright owner and have concerns about the use of your material in this video, please contact me directly.
I own a physical copy of The Menu, and I recommend that anyone viewing this video purchase a copy to view for themselves, the video essay presented here is for review and educational purposes and provides a mere snapshot of the movie, and is in no way a substitute for viewing the film for yourself.
This video is not monetized. It was made for critical and educational purposes, and it is my sincerest hope that it inspires people to purchase a copy of The Menu for themselves.
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
02:04 The plight of Chef Slowik
04:26 Why we feel the need to be understood
06:34 Applying Stoic insights to the life and work of Vincent Van Gogh
10:14 Stoicism can't provide you with purpose in life
13:16 Chef Slowik is trapped in Sartre's Hell
15:15 Sartre's Hell is one that WE trap ourselves in
17:34 Chef Slowik's futile search for external validation
21:29 Modern reinterpretations of Stoic insights
23:51 Life is a single player game
27:21 The value AND drawbacks of interpreting the world through stories
30:21 We can't relate to marble statues
33:35 How Naval Ravikant helped me understand what "the self" means in Eastern Philosophy
35:53 Ruining a classic work of art
39:06 Chef Slowik's brief flash of inner peace
40:47 Finding purpose and fulfillment through the lens of the self
44:46 Finding purpose and fulfillment through the lens of life as a pure experience
47:48 Outtro
#themenu
#videoessay
20 Comments
A once passionate career slowly dissolved through the non-stop pressures of the working world, compulsion to always perform at a high level, chasing status, the tedium and meaningless hoops one must jump through to hold their position, and awareness that he will always be held accountable primarily by people who truly understand nothing of what goes into his work.
It's relatable to so many who've found themselves losing the spark that brought them fulfillment in their work or creative endeavors, and emphasizes the importance of reconnecting, as well as being an indictment on those aspects of work that cause one to feel alienated from it
As a general update, after making this video I TRIED to get back to doing a game review on the other channel, but as I was playing the game(s) thoughts for videos I could do here just kept popping into my head, and one of them stuck, to the point I won't be able to think about anything else until I finish making THAT video. My next upload will be here, but just a heads up it will take me a while to make, as a bit of a "spoiler" its going to require me to rewatch at least a large portion of The Wire, and it will take a while for all of my thoughts to form, and for the editing to happen, etc. I'll see you all when I see you!
You forget the original topic. This was a banger no need to rush anything
The indifference would actually be a compliment to Slowik.
You also did not understand Erin showed an act of mercy at the end... Tyler, helped her realize the most important thing. Slowik was completely right. He wasn't wrong. These people only care about what the food says about them; obsessed with image and validation, they didn't connect with anything. They were all symbols of the people who had ruined what food was about for him. All pretentious. She doesn't disagree with him. She intelligently understood the situation, criticized his food [gave him the intelligent, non-egoic criticism he'd wanted, the mirror, that he was actually cooking with obsession and not love, showing him how it's his fault] and then demonstrated to understand, with an offering to make his life meaningful, by asking for a cheeseburger. Something he truly Loved to make.
That gave Slowik the chance he'd wanted. He let her go because she was the one person in the restaurant who actually understood what the point of it all was. That's why she "figured it out."
He just wanted an honest customer.
Life is a Single Player Game: A Lesson from The Menu (2022)
DogSnott
155,683 views
All copyrighted works shown here are used consistently with the principles of "fair use" as outlined in Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976. The material is used for critical and educational purposes. All rights are retained by the respective copyright holders, and no infringement is intended. If you are the copyright owner and have concerns about the use of your material in this video, please contact me directly.
I own a physical copy of The Menu, and I recommend that anyone viewing this video purchase a copy to view for themselves, the video essay presented here is for review and educational purposes and provides a mere snapshot of the movie, and is in no way a substitute for viewing the film for yourself.
This video is not monetized. It was made for critical and educational purposes, and it is my sincerest hope that it inspires people to purchase a copy of The Menu for themselves.
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
02:04 The plight of Chef Slowik
04:26 Why we feel the need to be understood
06:34 Applying Stoic insights to the life and work of Vincent Van Gogh
10:14 Stoicism can't provide you with purpose in life
13:16 Chef Slowik is trapped in Sartre's Hell
15:15 Sartre's Hell is one that WE trap ourselves in
17:34 Chef Slowik's futile search for external validation
21:29 Modern reinterpretations of Stoic insights
23:51 Life is a single player game
27:21 The value AND drawbacks of interpreting the world through stories
30:21 We can't relate to marble statues
33:35 How Naval Ravikant helped me understand what "the self" means in Eastern Philosophy
35:53 Ruining a classic work of art
39:06 Chef Slowik's brief flash of inner peace
40:47 Finding purpose and fulfillment through the lens of the self
44:46 Finding purpose and fulfillment through the lens of life as a pure experience
47:48 Outtro
#themenu
#videoessay