Prediction: Podcasts Will Go The Way of MySpace

I half-heartedly started the Rogan/Tucker Carlson interview (conversation? Idk what you call it these days) during a lull in my day. About half an hour in to the three-hour long thing, around the mark where Tucker is going full-redpill and equating UFOs with spiritual beings, I had an epiphany--

no one cares. 

Whether its Chris Williamson or Lex Fridman in the secular world at large cross breeding with various off-the-beaten-path internet personalities (Brett Weinstein, Elon Musk, Peter Attia, etc), or Matt Fradd or Kennedy Hall or Trent Horn or Taylor Marshall in the church world, these 30 minute to 3 hour dialogues have, I think, have been around for a bit but have (imo) peaked in popularity as a medium and are now simply trying to keep the hamster wheel spinning with the long-form talkitytalk gone stale. Talking ad nauseum. Peak leisure. 

I think there's some roots here when you start tugging on the stalks. Maybe it is that I don't trust anything these days--not the government, not the hierarchy, and not even the alt-talking heads pontificating for the algorithm or doing their conservative peacock version of virtue signaling. Lots of mentors, but not many teachers. Save one, of course:

Silence

Silence does not seek an audience. It does not charge a subscription fee and does not have negative side effects. Silence makes its home in the castle of humility and awe. Silence concentrates its lifeforce in potent tinctures. It wastes nothing and holds the DNA of truth in its marrow. It is only unsettling because it is a foreigner to us. It has everything to teach us and assigns no textbook. Anyone is free to audit its class.

But instead, we continue to insist that "the truth" is in these podcasts, which we play as white noise or background music. We get mentally greased up on the fact that this "truth" is suppressed in the mainstream, and so we enjoy a kind of Gnostic Delight in listening to this secret Spotify knowledge. Or maybe it's just the cringey banter that we are most comfortable with, back and forth for twenty minutes before talking about anything of substance. We squander the supreme gift of leisure to sit, be bored, daydream, and think for ourselves.

Not that there aren't things to learn from these exchanges. But I think their usefulness is waning. For one thing, our collective attention span has been highjacked by this kind of passive flacid listening over the active work of reading, not unlike the way we can't read maps anymore because the muscles in our brain have atrophied with the advent of GPS. When it's conversations for the sake of conversations with the circuit of internet personalities cycling through to feed the algorithm to pay the mortgage--well, maybe it's just my opinion but I think we're all getting--tired. Tired of the talking. Tired of the "dialogue." Tired of Professional Amateurs (TM).  Tired of the scrolling. Tired of the static. Tired of being fed.

I do miss the purer days of mySpace and early 2000 Facebook, though it had its day and that day has passed. I wouldn't be surprised if the quasi-novel podcast phenomenon sunsetted in the same way...with people just getting tired of it, when we look back and think, "man, I wasted a lot of time listening to people....talk with each other." 

Until, of course, something else comes in to hijack its place. 

Trending: The Obsession With 'Demons'

Let me first preface this by saying I do not put the word demons in the title of this post in quotes because I don't believe in them. Quite the contrary. I know they exist, that they hate God and they hate us because we are His creation. Like most of us who are trying to make it to Heaven one day, I have suffered spiritual attack at the hands of the Enemy (read compilation with imbedded links here). 

Let me also preface this post by saying as a person who has been diagnosed with a mental illness, I am sensitive to the fact that in my life and in the lives of others who suffer under such crosses, one needs to be especially discerning with being able to differentiate ordinary temptations and even obsessions from the defects of the mind wounded by mental illness. Not everything is purely psychological, but nor is everything ill-fated event initiated by a henchman of Satan. Over the past twenty years of treatment and ordinary spiritual practice (Mass attendance, rosary, Confession, etc), I have largely learned to distinguish what comes from my own mind and what comes from outside of it.

This is not always easy. In my past life, my mental illness contributed to sinful behavior, which in turn took me outside of the protection of divine grace (mortal sin), which in turn probably made me more susceptible to diabolical influence. There have also been times when I was fortified in faith and prayer and was still besieged by thoughts and temptations that went beyond melancholic ruminating and clearly came from "outside the self." 

For one thing, the Diagnostic Statistical Manual (DSM) specifies that one must experience symptoms of depression for at least two weeks for a diagnosis to be given. In my case, as least, I have lived through months of depression (as well as shorter but prolonged periods of mania) which "checked all the boxes." However, during times in which my mind was being leveraged against me by what I felt were forces foreign to it (I'm not talking about schizo-affective thoughts, but normal diabolic temptation), it was more akin to a sudden thunderstorm that came out of nowhere--fierce and violent, but dispelled rather quickly with intercessory and personal prayer. Depression tends to roll in slowly like a settling fog, and is not always dispelled so quickly, but is usually helped by medication and therapy like CBT. And clinical depression is NOT a "dark night of the soul" (which 99% of us non-mystics will probably never experience viz-a-viz St. John of the Cross)

I write all this as a precursor because I have noticed a trend in the past couple years of a kind of over-emphasis on the work of demons. You can't open up Catholic media or YouTube today without hearing an exorcist talk about them (obviously, because that is their line of work); but the fact that we are seeing movies about Exorcists and possession, weekly "Exorcist Diary" columns, and podcasts with exorcists seems like a kind of pendulum swing. For years, modernist theologians have been downplaying and poo-pooing the reality of evil and the demonic as literal forces in the world; now we seem to have gone the opposite extreme: demons are everywhere, and we need to bring these stories to light.

I don't think is a bad thing, per se. But it does make me pause and wonder why these topics on the demonic are generating so much interest. Is it a chicken-and-egg scenario that such content is being produced because there is an unmet need to bring it to light? Or is it because talk about demons are the content du jour. After all, the analytics don't lie, and if "GOOGLE:DEMONS" is getting mad hits, than why not capitalize on the interest?

Columnist John Clark made an interesting observation about this phenomenon which I stumbled upon tonight in his NC Register article:

"...As far as I know, no movie has ever been made — nor has any popular book been written — about the minor exorcism that occurs before baptism. Why not? If it is exorcism itself that attracts our interest, why aren’t more Catholics routinely attending baptisms?"

Which brings me to an interesting observation from my armchair, which is this: during my time on social media. the Facebook posts that generated the most "buzz" were not the quote-unquote "boring" posts on prayer, the sacraments, theology, instances of charity, etc. They were the spiritually salacious ones posted to stir controversy, incite a misguided zeal or "rouse the troops" (See my post Fifty Shades of Rage). These were the posts with 200+ comments, the ones that made bored Catholics say "Oooo, I wonder what's going on here?" and then add to the pile. 

These back-and-forth exchanges were rarely spiritually edifying, stoked unnecessary curiosity, encouraged juvenile sound-offs, incited pride and vanity and attention-seeking, and contributed to wasted time and energy that would have been better spent in the, yes, boring work of prayer or spiritual reading. I should know, because I often posted and took part in such things myself. It's one of the reasons why I eventually cut the cord with my engagement on social media: I didn't like the wolf I was feeding, in myself first and foremost, but also what I was contributing in the world of online Catholic culture.

When I hear someone say, "my AV equipment wasn't working because DEMON" or "I got a flat tire because...DEMON!", I don't discount that Satan can disrupt our lives and attempt to derail the good in these ways. Like I said, I've had times when both grace was apparent and undeniable (though from a skeptic's perspective, could have just been a matter of luck or timing), as well as instances of diabolic interference.  

But I also don't want to give the Devil more than his due. I like what Saint John of the Cross reassuringly says here:

"When the soul is clothed in faith the devil is ignorant of how to hinder it, neither is he successful in his efforts, for faith gives the soul strong protection against the devil, who is the mightiest and most astute enemy."

We don't spend a lot of time here in our household thinking or talking about demons. Especially for children, it is not always good to give undue emphasis to these things, given their impressionable imaginations and the potential susceptibility towards scruples. Yes, we have blessed salt and Epiphany water handy, and I have my copy of Deliverance Prayers for the Laity at my prayer station, and have found it effective in more than one instance with both myself and my children. But that was not because of the presence of demons, but the power of faith and grace. And remember--sacramentals are activated by faith. When our Lord couldn't work miracles in his hometown, it was due to a lack of faith. 

Faith, like a marriage, is grace...but it is also hard work. You have to tie yourself to the mast sometimes and just hold on in the dark night, not succumbing to the temptations to flee or violate your vows or throw in the towel. The ordinary things of marriage--the cleaning up after yourself, the being faithful, the deferring your preferences for your spouses' sake--these are the things that go unnoticed and uncommented on, which don't generate the viral hits but which constitute the daily instances of dying to self: the brick-by-brick foundation which is built up over time. 

When your faith is fortified because it has not been built on the whims of sand and curiosity or trends, you shouldn't fear the devil because, as St. John of the Cross says, faith gives strong protection against the devil. This is true even when the devil is the mightiest and most astute enemy and you are....well, you. That is because we do not rest on our own power, but in the mantle of the Theotokis and sanctifying grace which comes from God, who has the Devil on a leash. 

Daily prayer, daily rosary, regular confession, reading of holy scripture, reception of the Eucharist...these are the "boring basics" we should be concentrating on building brick-by-brick into the foundation of our faith lives. It's not glamorous. It's not podcast worthy. It doesn't get the hits. But it doesn't mean we can't learn about how to engage in battle with the Enemy. Read The Spiritual Combat (Dom Scupoli), or Discernment of Spirits (St. Ignatius) for starters. Read the lives of the saints who have the scars and have come out on the other side. 

To the degree an interview with an exorcists aids one's building brick-by-brick the foundation of faith, then okay. But when it becomes simply an opportunity for content creation, or a 2nd-party revenue stream riding the coattails of cultural curiosity, then maybe that focus would be better spent getting "back to basics." 

Saying The Quiet Parts Out Loud

 

I really am not a fan of taking screen shots, but sometimes it's just helpful to have a bookmark for later. A couple things strike me about the posturing of this individual:

-Liberals often virtue signal all over themselves, but trads can do it too, and they wear it well for all to see. This is as good an exhibit as any.

-Zeal requires wisdom and temperance to be a complete protein. Unchecked, it's like trying to drink from a firehose.

-It's good to be ready to die for the faith, to have the right disposition. I'm not sure this is it, though. 

-I don't think this is theatrics per se (if the individual really would pull the trigger), but it is effeminately dramatic.

-It's brute tribalism.

-It backs you into a corner, serves as a kind of oath if you will. Nothing to do but double down.

-Just get off Twitter, online knight. Nothing good comes from it and it doesn't advance the cause. And I think people get self-goaded into posting this arm-flailing stuff because they know they have an audience and people are following them and so they have to 'stake their claim' to where they stand on x, y, z.

In one sense, though, he's taking the hardcore trad 'line in the sand' stance to it's logical end, so I'll give him credit for that. It only sounds outlandish when you go from A to Z without seeing the rest of the lead up in the middle of the alphabet. I just wonder how many other trads really think this way besides the 134 that liked the post.

I used to have a saying--don't be extreme in anything except charity. It's served me okay, and these kinds of tweets are a reminder to test all spirits (1 Jn 4:1). 

I sent this email to someone I know recently. I thought maybe it is worth publishing here (I never got a response) to share my own thoughts, which do not square with the individual above. Call me soft. We all have to make these decisions for ourselves when the time comes, and take responsibility for them. I've made a lot of wrong decisions in the past, but all we can do is work with what we have, continue to pray and ask for wisdom, and step out in faith. Not that I ever had a trad card in my possession, but I'll probably lose whatever I had with this revealing. Anyway, here it is:

I just watched the Michael Lofton video ("Can Pope Francis Ban The Latin Mass?") you posted on FB (my wife still has an account). I wanted to respond, as someone who is not a Traditionalist (in the strict sense of the term) but who has exclusively attended the Latin Mass for the past four years, has fallen in love with it, and has never had the desire to return to the Ordinary Form.

Since the last time I wrote you about a year ago in struggling with various attachments, I feel that God has been giving generously from the storehouse of grace and supplying me with what I need to grow closer to Him. Thanks be to God, I have cut out tobacco/nicotine (a very pernicious 25 year addiction, mind you), have committed to a minimum of twenty minutes of mental prayer a day, regular Adoration, and undertaken a variety of commonplace mortification to discipline the body (cold showers, fasting, etc). I still have a ways to go with service to the poor apart from personal charity and coordinating various volunteer opportunities at our local soup kitchen, but one thing at a time at least. Ironically, the Youtube video referenced above may be one of the last, as I'm trying to forgo that attachment (to Youtube) during the Lenten season.

I make note of the above because I hope it is clear that my intention in undertaking these things is to empty my hands, so that God can fill them. That includes physical attachments and minor comforts, but also attitudes and judgments. I know I have no good in me of my own, but that He is great enough to make me "as holy as I should be," according to His will--ie, that He desires me, as well as all his children, to become sanctitified. In other words, I want to learn to suffer well, so that I may see His face in Heaven and join the company of his saints, whether on earth or after death.

As mentioned, it is hard enough to navigate the interior life sometimes, so I try to keep it basic (scripture, rosary, Mass, confession, spiritual reading of the classics, state of grace, charity, etc). But just as difficult can be where my place in the Church is. I have an eclectic community which is comprised of both hardcore traditionalists and just plain good, faithful Catholics happy in the Ordinary Form. Watching the Michael Lofton video was somewhat over my head (I'm not an intellectual or an academic), but it also made me sick and angry. If it is true that Pope Francis has the rightful authority to abrogate the Traditional Mass, and if one does not assent to that authority and, say, goes off and continues to attend underground (Latin) Masses, or whatever....that this is an act of willful disobedience. Well, it's all very confusing. And my own community will completely fracture. It is almost too much to think about.

But I also realize my personal "preference" for a solemn liturgy in the Extraordinary Form may in itself be an attachment. I wrote a post a while back titled "Should You Have A Liturgical Plan B?" in which I had to really wrestle with these practicalities. It is heart wrenching to think that is may very well be on the horizon (and I have good reason to think it would be). 

But the fact stands--if God deigns to see fit that Pope Francis abolishes the usage of the '62 missal, there are some (most) in Traditionalist camp that call for resistance, a kind of "civil disobedience" of not accepting this decree. Others maybe not so invested will accept and not put up a fight, and revert back to the Novus Ordo. For people like myself and my family, it would be a great humiliation almost (perhaps that is not the best word, but it's all that comes to mind right now) to follow in that second path. 

But if it means a kind of spiritual humbling that can lead to greater sanctification, for however long, I am willing to undergo it. Even though everything in my natural faculties is screaming "No." As I write it, I see how cultivating detachment has a lot of trails still to undergo. 

I do feel it is a grave injustice, and I don't understand why the Holy Father seems bent on this. And to know that our dicocesan TLM community will completely fracture, we will lose everything we have grown to love (many will go to the SSPX or FSSP, if even the FSSP is untouched)--it fills me with grief and heart sickness. 

But our Lord was filled with grief and heart sickness throughout his ministry and on the cross. If we deign to imitate Him, follow Him, why do we think we can avoid entering into this state with him (being baptized in his death, as Paul says)? If God wills I crucify my desire for the TLM, I pray for the grace to shed it then in order to follow Him. I pray for a holy docility, a holy indifference, but it is so incredibly hard. And incredibly confusing times.

Anyway, I've gone on long enough. I don't know if you have any advice or insight, but I thought at least you might want to hear from someone pretty much all-in on the traditional liturgy who is still willing--through tears--to crucify it should it be in disobedience to continue to attend it (if that were even possible). I don't know what to do, but I pray God will give me the grace to discern when and if the time comes. Please pray for me as well. 

Big Tech Is The Next Big Tobacco

When I was in high school in the mid-90's, we would hit the local Perkins on a Friday night and order bottomless thermoses of coffee and smoke at our booths inside. Same for college--my dorm had a designated lounge (replete with commercial air filter) where we would hang out, pack tubes with Top tobacco on a little machine, and chain smoke. After college, some of the (dive) bars in Philly you could still smoke in, though others were starting to make you step outside.

Nowadays, I know very few people who smoke analog cigarettes. I don't think it's just my age. I work on a college campus, and I see very few students smoking either. It's just not cool. Vaping isn't really that widespread either, though. Most of the people I do see smoking tobacco are lower socio-economic class, and they're not doing it to be cool, but because they are addicted, and maybe it is one of the few precious things they can look forward to on break from their shift or whatever. 

I predict social media in all its forms is going to follow a similar trajectory. Myspace and Facebook were fun and interactive 15 years ago. People are starting to feel the dis-ease now, though, if they haven't already. They don't derive the same pleasure from it, find themselves wasting inordinate amounts of time on various platforms, realize their mental health and productivity is being negatively impacted; also, it's not really novel or cool anymore. The people who remain on it are eventually going to be like those shift workers smoking in the dirty alleys outside the restaurant or at the bus stop.

And I'm not even talking about this platform or that app in particular. I'm talking about an existence of perpetual connectivity in general. Those in big tech obviously engineered smartphones and social media apps to exploit our psychological vulnerabilities. They don't let their own kids use it. The addiction is not an incidental; it is inherent. Cal Newport thinks that handing your kids a smartphone today is the same as handing them a pack of cigarettes. We were all guinea pigs in this massive social experiment. But all it takes is a few kids in the class to simply say, "Nah," to swing the pendulum. Suddenly being a neo-Luddite is nouveau riche. 

In the movie Idiocracy where a man of average IQ is suddenly the smartest guy in the world because everyone else has been so dumbed down, he only seems to be by comparison. Likewise, those who unplug from the Big Tech matrix and do adopt more neo-Luddite sensibilities regarding technology will eventually find themselves having better concentration, increased memory, sharper focus, less anxiety, being comfortable with boredom and solitude, and not being ruled by compulsion to the point that it will appear to be a superpower. 

I'm of the generation where I remember a time before internet, cell phones. I remember those times fondly. For the younger generation, though, it is complete existential paradigm shift, and just as existentially scary. We can't necessarily "go back" completely or put the big tech genie back in the bottle as a society--but why not at least try for a pro-scripted amount of time on an individual level and let the data speak for itself. Say, maybe, forty days? 

Lent is just around the corner, after all. 

Online Communities Are Not Real Communities

 Recently I joined an online community as a way to connect with other Catholics, hopefully deepen my prayer life, and have some support in my spiritual journey. After twelve years on Facebook, I deleted my account two years ago after experiencing a growing dis-ease with both the platform and online interaction as a whole. And so there was some vacancy for me, both in terms of mental space and new-found time, that I found I had after giving up social media. Maybe it was time to revisit the online space and get engaged again?

I went through a kind of module orientation (virtual, of course) for this particular apostolate, watched the videos, learned the rules and etiquette of this particular community as well as its charism, and was a approved as a new member. The website was very well-done, professional and interactive; I made a profile, and within a few days my inbox was starting to be populated with "New Activity" or "New Discussion" notifications--people posting asking questions about prayer, or sharing something they had read, or bringing up topics for conversation. I joined in on a few discussions, even, and attended a Zoom meeting with hundreds of people involved in the apostolate to discuss a spiritual book.

After a few months, though, I started to feel the lack of real-world connection. My inbox filling up each day with people posting this or that, lots of topical 'activity' but no real meaningful connection with individuals, and just feeling like it had the potential to be a repeat of my years on Facebook--posting, checking, dinging, engaging, scrolling, and feeling ultimately unsatisfied and sometimes even agitated at the end of the day. I tried to remember the original reasons I got off in the first place, and saw that this was just a differently packaged experience from the same type of factory. 

Before I got off Facebook, the people I did stay in touch with I connected with and got their phone numbers before jumping ship. Some of these people became real-life friends, who I have met in person and/or talk or text with regularly. There are a few, though, that I find it strange I have no idea what they even look like in person, having never met them and the fact that they never had an online photo of themselves. I go back to this question of "what makes someone a true friend?" and, by extension, "what makes a bonafide community?"

I know for some people who are isolated, introverted, or geographically remote, online-internet-virtual communities may be a lifeline to assuage loneliness and feel connected with others of like-mind, even if it's through a strand of ethernet cable. They look forward to waking up and logging on to their computer and getting down to the business of posting, discussing, and engaging. 

I've thought about this a lot, and I keep coming back to this Matrix-like situation in which a collective of individuals online (on social media, in chat rooms, in online-only apostolates, etc) feel like it's so real, so true, and yet--it's still a mirage of reality. Pardon the crassness, but sex with a condom comes to mind. So close to what's real and true, and yet still a counterfeit separated from reality and fruitfulness by a fraction of a millimeter of rubber.

For someone like myself who is searching for deep, meaningful friendships that are of course Catholic, but even go beyond the topical to a kind of 'communing of souls' that St. Augustine writes so elegantly about, it's a constant source of frustration and disappointment. It reminds me of that film Her with Joaquin Phoenix in which he falls in love with an Operating System (OS), A.I. that seems to know him more intimately than anyone else. And yet, it's still the latex hangover of waking up and realizing that those feelings of intimacy are "always real, but never true."

I think Tommy Killackey in "Talking At Each Other" (Fraternus/Sword & Spade) nails it here:

"Friendships of virtue, by contrast, require a much deeper commitment and investment than those of utility of pleasure. The facade of the screen might not just limit things like physical encounter, but it also helps us avoid the vulnerability required of true friendship. [Roger] Scruton [in Confessions of a Heretic] again helps us here:

"By placing a screen between yourself and the friend, while retaining ultimate control over what appears on that screen, you also hide from the real encounter--forbidding to the other the power and freedom to challenge you in your deeper nature and to call on you here and now to take responsibility for yourself and for him" (Scruton, 96).

Put simply, intimacy and control cannot coexist. Social media always renders us in complete control, and whether we choose to click, scroll, watch, reply, like, or close our tab, we individually always have the power within our fingertips. Scruton goes on to say, 

"Risk avoidance in human relations means the avoidance of accountability, the refusal to stand judged in another's eyes, to come face to face with another person, to live yourself in whatever measure to him or her, and so to run the risk of rejection" (Ibid, 108). 

We might call this Scruton's warning against the risk of avoiding risk. The "risky" friendships that "call us out of ourselves [to] take up our crosses" were not built online, nor could they exist there exclusively. We may still interact online, but the soul of virtuous friendship where we risk encountering another can only occur offline. 

Friendships of utility may exist on LinkedIn, friendships of pleasure may exist in double-tapping our friend's latest post on Instagram, but as long as we maintain perfect control over the encounter, we cannot truly share life, encounter, risk, accompany, and be with anyone behind a screen, full stop." 

The maintaining of control, the lack of vulnerability, the inability to read body language, the unwillingness to engage outside the platform, absence of accountability--these are all things that I think lend credence to the position that online communities are not real communities. Or rather, maybe better stated, online communities are real but not true communities.

When I was quitting smoking I attended a Nicotine Anonymous meeting. I tried to find one in my area in person, but the lady who ran them formerly said there just wasn't enough interest in it in person. I went to a Zoom NA meeting instead. I can't describe it, but it left a lot to be desired, and I quit on my own without going to another one. Post-Covid, I have come to loathe Zoom for anything but the most utilitarian of work meetings.

Have you ever asked yourself why people are more lonely, more socially stunted (especially Millennials), more disconnected, more despairing today? You don't think maybe, just maybe, this type of contracepted "social" internet space contributes to that? Like, that your body could really use a hearty loaf of good bread to satisfy your hunger but instead you are sitting down with a bowl of Fruit Loops instead because that's what's in the pantry? We need to admit this "era of social media" was the Vatican II of social engineering, an novel experiment that was bad for society, failing to delivery on its promises and better suited for the scrap pile of history.

I feel like I have enough years--decades almost--of skin in this game and experience in the online world to be able to reflect on it with some street cred. I've played the game and been around the block, and I have nothing much to show for it, kind of like past one-night stands and and hookups where I was looking for connection, love, and yes, gratification and afterwards left emptyhanded. Always real, and never true. 

I don't know where this leaves me currently, only that my time in prayer and time with my family has become deeper, more heavy and yes, lonely at times, but in a good way--not empty, but real and painful because we are not meant solely for life here on earth but Eternity. I'm less willing to settle for counterfeits and Pavlov-like distractions now that I know what they promise and fail to deliver on, and I'm less inclined to try to fill up that loneliness with discussion/engagement/zoom/distraction for the sake of feeling connected to a ethereal community. 

Fifty Shades Of Rage

 As an occasional consumer of online pornography in my twenties, I still remember the emotional/mental patterns and behavior that accompanied it.

First, the external use of pornography as a dopamine gorge was usually triggered by an inverse internal discontent—ie, you were stressed, bored, lonely, etc. That feeling is undesirable, so you are looking to counteract it with something else, a few byte-sized portions of virtual alternative.

Next you pull up a chair and sit down with the online menu in front of you and discern what fancies your palate that evening. The anticipation itself injects an excitement into your otherwise lackluster existence in that moment. Part of the excitement comes from the fact that you’re engaging in something you know is not very good for you. Hunger is the sweetest sauce, as they say. It’s titillating, and the fact that it’s wrong is just extra icing on the creme puff.

There’s an unspoken understanding as well between you, the consumer, and the unfaced supplier: you are looking for the eternal, while settling for the temporal. That’s okay—it’s written into the virtual contract. Each time you think to yourself, “maybe I’ll get more than I bargained for this time.” But each time you return to your own room, your own bed, your own self. You left for a bit…but you’re still here. 

And so you return tomorrow, or next week, to the buffet once more (just once more!), hungry again, excited again, hopeful again, disappointed again…hungry again. And so on and so forth.

So, the funny thing is that having broken out of this cycle by God’s grace twelve years ago and never having returned, I see there are a bunch of cousins of sexual pornography still hanging around. They are a bit more dressed up, with a higher perceived degree of righteous moral standing, a little younger. But they still behave in the same manner—they still peddle in dopamine hits, still capitalize on our inner strife and malcontent, still promise things without delivering, still leave us feeling a little bit…hungry.

Louis CK had this brilliant diatribe on Conan I saw a few years ago that I think just captures the essence of what I’m talking about here:

“I think these things are toxic, especially for kids...they don't look at people when they talk to them and they don't build empathy. You know, kids are mean, and it's 'cause they're trying it out. They look at a kid and they go, 'you're fat,' and then they see the kid's face scrunch up and they go, 'oh, that doesn't feel good to make a person do that.' But they got to start with doing the mean thing. But when they write 'you're fat,' then they just go, 'mmm, that was fun, I like that.'

You need to build an ability to just be yourself and not be doing something. That's what the phones are taking away, is the ability to just sit there. That's being a person. Because underneath everything in your life there is that thing, that empty—forever empty. That knowledge that it's all for nothing and that you're alone. It's down there.

And sometimes when things clear away, you're not watching anything, you're in your car, and you start going, 'oh no, here it comes. That I'm alone.' It's starts to visit on you. Just this sadness. Life is tremendously sad, just by being in it...

That's why we text and drive. I look around, pretty much 100 percent of the people driving are texting. And they're killing, everybody's murdering each other with their cars. But people are willing to risk taking a life and ruining their own because they don't want to be alone for a second because it's so hard.

And I go, 'oh, I'm getting sad, gotta get the phone and write "hi" to like 50 people'...then I said, 'you know what, don't. Just be sad. Just let the sadness, stand in the way of it, and let it hit you like a truck.'

And I let it come, and I just started to feel 'oh my God,'and I pulled over and I just cried like a bitch. I cried so much. And it was beautiful. Sadness is poetic. You're lucky to live sad moments.

And then I had happy feelings. Because when you let yourself feel sad, your body has antibodies, it has happiness that comes rushing in to meet the sadness. So I was grateful to feel sad, and then I met it with true, profound happiness. It was such a trip.

The thing is, because we don't want that first bit of sad, we push it away with a little phone or a jack-off or the food. You never feel completely sad or completely happy, you just feel kinda satisfied with your product, and then you die. So that's why I don't want to get a phone for my kids.”

I used to see this in myself while on social media, and in some of my online friends as well—this unsettled need to stoke fires, to fling words, to get reactions, to indict others, to stir the pot. As everyone knows, negative/tragic/scandalous posts gets more hits, likes, comments, etc than the good-Samaritan type tales. And while liberals seemed to have their share of it, I really think it’s those on the right that are hooked on the rage sauce, the righteous indignation….the outrage porn.

And there’s no shortage of things to get outraged about in the Church and the world. But like sexual pornography, attention-seeking outrage porn numbs you after a while. You may not even realize it, until, like habitual users of porn find out, you suddenly have ED at 28 years old. With outrage porn, you just become flaccid to real tragedies, real injustices in the world. Because you’ve been soaking your dopamine receptors for so long in it, it’s harder to get your ire up due to overuse. We weren’t meant to take in all the injustices and tragedies across the globe in online sittings day after day, just like we weren’t meant to see thousands of pictures of naked bodies in our lifetime. 

Outrage porn can be addicting, especially for people to reach beyond the walls of their homes. It’s kind of like a warm compress—you get a little bored with the tasks in front of you, the people in front of you, the sad in front of you, so you “push it away with a little bit of phone, a little (proverbial) jack-off, a little food.” Essentially, a little distraction from what’s in front of you. And because it’s righteous and kosher and sanctioned, even though you know you have that kind of guilty pleasure receptor going off in the midst of shit-posting, you do it anyway. The way you tell yourself this is the last time looking at porn online, but you know you’ll be right back to it next Friday night. 

At least with sexual pornography, it’s clear it’s wrong and there’s no excuse for it. With outrage posting, everybody’s feeding it, and everyone is seemingly righteous, so it doesn’t really seem like it’s harmful or disquieting to the soul. It promises to accomplish something, resolve something, bring justice. And sometimes, when it’s done appropriately and responsibly, it can and does. 

Edit: I just came across the clip of Liv Boeree speaking on Lex Fridman ("Social Media Is Dangerous", 25 Aug 2022), a few days after I wrote this post and she says it brilliantly, so it's not just me noticing this it seems. Minute 16:00-18:00:

"All everyone is trying to do within the system is to maximize what's getting them the most attention because they're just trying to make money in order to keep their thing going. And it's not just about attention on the internet, it's about engagement (comment, retweet, etc). And of all the seven main emotions, the emotion that happens to be the most useful for the internet is anger. Because anger is such an active emotion...if someone is disgusted or fearful, they're less likely to engage. But if they're enraged by something, it taps into that tribalism mentality. The attention economy [to feed this Moloch] is rage." 

Outrage never sleeps, is never sated, always needs willing participants. But it’s also subtle. If you’re getting off on the interaction, feeding it, dinging receptors in your brain every time you see a red “1” reaction, feeling like you should stop but the outrage feels good and righteous…maybe it’s time to pause and take stock of what you’re doing and why. 

When you consider leaving porn, like St Augustine’s sirens trying to keep him from the shores of Continence, you think you cannot possibly live without it. Then you leave it, and you’re still alive. I think people addicted to outrage porn can trust they can and will live (and thrive) without engaging in it anymore. And maybe find that elusive peace in the process.

Apostasy: A Social Contagion?

 Have you ever thought it funny/weird that yawning seems to be totally contagious, especially in closely-bonded groups? One person in a group can literally set off a proverbial yawn-fest! 

Contagious yawning is one of those curious/quirky phenomenon, of course. But did you also know that divorce is contagious too, especially when it occurs among friends? That is, if your friends are divorced, you are 75% more likely to follow suit in your own marriage. Scary!

The fact that divorce among friends seems to spread as a kind of social contagion made me think of something my dad used to say: "you are the company you keep." I used to think he was just being overly-strict in regulating who we hung out with as kids, but looking back he was probably trying to stave off issues down the road. 

I was having a discussion via text with some of the guys in my men's group the other day. Half of the guys attend the N.O., and half the Latin Mass. We were talking about our kids and behavior, and I (and a couple other TLM guys) brought up the point that our kids fell in line pretty quick behavior wise when we started attending the Latin Mass. This is because, I think, of the sense of reverence, and that the other kids are for whatever reason, seem to be behaved and so the social contagion of good behavior spreads. I wrote about our experience with this here.

We are fortunate that we have strong, well-balanced friends of faith that our kids can play and grow with in their co-ops and our various local circles. All these kids, and their families, are what I would consider "good influences" for our kids. In contrast, my wife and I were talking not long ago about the class she went to high school with in Catholic school, and that virtually no-one practiced the faith any more in any serious way. The social contagion of "this is all bullshit" in Catholic school seemed to spread and settle, leading to eventual apostasy, essentially.

I think the spread of the mass-delusion of trans-everything among peer groups these days is also hard to deny:

"In 2016, Brown University public health researcher Lisa Littman was scrolling through social media when she noticed that a group of teen girls from her small town in Rhode Island — all from the same friend group — had come out as transgender.

Intrigued by the statistical unlikelihood, Littman began to study the phenomenon and, in 2018, published the results. She hypothesized that transgender identification had become one more peer contagion among adolescent females. Anxiety-ridden, middle-class girls who once engaged in cutting or anorexia were now wearing “binders” (breast-compressing undergarments), taking testosterone and undergoing voluntary double mastectomies

I have interviewed over four dozen families whose teen daughters became caught in this current. Their stories follow a pattern: A girl never expresses any discomfort with her biological sex until puberty, when anxiety and depression descend. The girl struggles to make friends. She immerses in social media and discovers transgender gurus. Or her school holds an assembly celebrating gender journeys, or hosts a Gay-Straight Alliance club pushing gender ideology. At first, she tries out a new name and pronouns. Her school encourages her, keeping all this a secret from her parents. Then, she wants more."

There is a guy I know who used to be Catholic, and now I'm not sure what he is. But he maintains a big platform/social presence online, albeit with contempt and ridicule for the Church and all things Catholic. I still find him to be an interesting, smart and thoughtful guy, and I benefit in some ways from the things he writes. 

But I worry about this social contagion of his newfound agnosticism (for lack of a better word) among those who read what he writes--myself included. If I continue to tune in, will his contempt for the faith rub off on me? Make me question things? Force me to face unanswered speculations that don't get challenged in my Catholic social groups? I do see it happening in some of of his followers. Like, "I used to believe this nonsense, and now I'm enlightened to life on the other side." And it spreads like a yawn--a divorce from faith, if you will.

You could make the argument that these folks were maybe disaffected already by bad experiences in tradworld, or the larger Church, or trauma/abuse, or by doubt, and suddenly they are finding solace in the experiences of others that confirm they are not alone, not crazy for losing faith. In this way, the facilitation of leaving the faith (that this particular guy is greasing the slide of) is seen as a positive "throw off your shackles of mind-oppression and control" phenomenon. But if it's all true, all real, the world of heaven and hell, well...I wouldn't want to be this guy at the Final Judgement. 

As I wrote in Apostasy and the Casualties of War, 

"I was thinking about apostasy, the spectre that seems to hide in every closet, every corner, under every lampstand I encounter these days. The smell is nauseating and unnerving; it gets in your clothes like cigarette smoke. Faith in this age is under siege, and I'm not even talking about the collective faith of Catholics or Christians in America; in the heart of each and every man, his faith is under fire. Someone or something is seeking to wrench it from his being, cause him to lose heart or strip him of faith or consolation, hope and fortitude. My buddies and people I know are lying all around me, getting picked off by snipers, getting legs blown off, getting mowed down by machine guns, losing their souls one skipped prayer, one missed Mass, one self-justifying excuse, one innocent click at a time.

Why do people abandon the Faith? Who will endure to the end? Is it just a matter of time before I join their ranks? Will I lose my children to the age? A friend of mine, a once faithful Catholic and family man, stopped going to Mass. Family members too. People experiencing loss and suffering, instead of doubling down and tying themselves to the mast, gradually stop praying altogether and simply drift away or run aground. For some it's a sin they can't let go of, or a past, or a trauma, or a hurt, or a betrayal, or seeing too much of how the sausage is made. For some it's the old question of why bad things happen to 'good people,' or why God would allow someone they love to suffer, or some earnest but unanswered prayers. I feel like the guys to my left and to my right and in front of me and behind me are just being shredded by machine gun fire, and whose to say I'm not next, my family, my children."

I used the word 'spectre' because apostasy makes people of faith uncomfortable when they are faced with it. "How could so-and-so who was so faithful, had so many kids, believed so hard, was so invested fall?" It is unnerving. Maybe that is why the ancient Israelites expelled people from their midst, banned sinners from their community--to stave off a spiritual infection of the greater whole. Maybe it is the medicine St. Paul prescribes to the church to "not even eat with such a (immoral) man" (1 Cor 5:11), lest this spiritual contagion of immorality spread to the other members. Maybe it is why our Lord tells us to cut off the hand and gouge out the eye in a kind of spiritual amputation, that prevents the gangrene from spreading to the healthy parts of the body. 

Apostasy is a kind of divorce--a divorce from faith. It severs the bond and vow, voluntarily, when one "falls out of love"--that is, they "no longer believe any of this stuff." You could imagine a man or woman who built a life and had children with their spouse saying "I can't believe I ever loved you. What was I thinking!" So, they move on in a seeming fit of enlightenment, and like a yawn or divorce, spreads like a contagion among those they are close with. I don't know why this is, but it might be prudent for those who may be weak in their faith not to associate with such people for their own self-preservation.

"The Hardest Thing For A Person To Do Is Go Against Their Tribe"

I've been thinking about this for a long time. 

My family and I are 100% "in" on the Catholic faith. By extension, that means we are 100% in on the Catholic CHURCH, apart from which the Catholic faith cannot exist. 

But to lead with "we are 100% "in" on the Catholic Church" does not feel accurate or even appropriate. I have experienced enough insider baseball, abuse, dysfunction, manipulation, maleficence, obscurification, and ineptitude to say that I do not trust the Church with every fiber of my being. I give Christ my faith. He gives us the Church. For better or worse...til death do we part. But were it up to me, apart from Him, I would want nothing to do with this organization. I really can't explain it other than grace and perhaps, a kind of benevolent pair of blinders I've been gifted with.

But that's Big 'C' Church. Our little 'c' church is a healthy, thriving community for us. Our immediate parish, but also our larger Catholic community and fellowship of other homeschoolers, trads and non-trads, and everything in between. The faith is what binds us, the common thread that cinches us together. Were that to unravel for us, or lead us to some kind of dramatic apostasy, we may find ourselves 'on the outs' with our local IRL tribe.  

Maybe it is a spirit of self-preservation, but I tend to try to keep a healthy distance of investment in anything "too Catholic" the same way I don't engage too much with my immediate neighbors: we waive hi on the street, chit chat about this or that, watch out for one another, but there is a thick layer of insulating privacy there that keeps our relationship healthy. After all, we HAVE to live next to one another.

After hearing about the (what seemed to me to be) suffocating insularity of the lay Veritatis Splendor community and the unfortunate fall from grace in its leadership, I took it as a cautionary tale: I can say with pretty full confidence that I will never move my family to any kind of intentional/planned community, Catholic or otherwise. I've had some burns in the past, so maybe it is a degree of healthy skepticism/realism that it never seems to end well, and this unfortunate incident simply confirms that gut feeling. 

That being said, it's an incredibly confusing time for many people, myself included. I wish we would all just admit to one another that we're all just trying to figure things out and that no body really knows what is going on with one hundred percent certainty. I think because of that insecurity, many of us traditionally-minded Catholics find solace in our respective "tribes" of belonging. Where we can share what we are really thinking and feeling and working out, be supported and confirmed, and not feel so scared, crazy, and alone. After all, the world seems to be increasingly hostile to people of faith.

For the most part, I have been a 'floater' the majority of my life. In high school, I was friends with the jocks, the theater kids, the drug dealers, the poets and artists, the math whizzes; I floated from group to group, never establishing residency, as I was more comfortable not pledging allegiance. 

As I've gotten older, my "tribes" have changed, and are never set in stone. Though I will say I find great comfort and affinity with any brother or sister in Christ of good will who is a son or daughter of the Church, isn't a weirdo, and wants to do God's will. It is a healthy soil for potential friendships to take root. 

Social media gave me a false sense of belonging; I subconsciously tailored things I posted and said publicly so as not to make myself anathema. There was also that sense of selective-reinforcement of being bothered by dissenting push-back for something I might post among my liberal friends...and so I would prune and cut them out. As a result, my 'tribe' got tighter and more insular. I always kept an open mind about most things, though, so I was never especially dogmatic about many of my beliefs either. I was invested in the macro-items, but could take or leave the micro, or adjust accordingly. 

Then COVID happened, and I found myself straddling the aisle--not only trying to make sense of the world, the politics, and matters of personal and public health, but doing so in a compressed time period of instability where it was difficult to sift through all the facts and figures. I had to figure out who was full of crap, who had ulterior motives and agendas, who was playing favorites, who had vested interests. Sometimes, in trying to get straight and unbiased info, you find that some of the offenders may very well be members of your own tribe. "A man's foes shall be they of his own household" (Mt 10:36).

When the Dave Chappelle / trans thing blew up last month, Dave said something that stuck with me when was telling the story of his transgendered friend who stuck up for him even when s/he was getting raked over the coals on Twitter: "The hardest thing for a person to do," he said, "is go against their tribe." S/he eventually committed suicide in the wake of this public hazing (by her own "tribe"). How right he was.

I'm in a strange position as it relates to "the vax": I "got the jab" last year, not out of fear or even enthusiasm, but as a reasoned wager given our particular circumstances, using the best information I had at the time and knowing that I may or may not have made the best choice.  (Truth be told, I'm close to sick of hearing about it, and wish this whole issue would just go to die). 

The people I ended up trusting more were not always members of my "tribe." In fact, I felt quite a bit of shame and would keep quiet about my decision because I knew I was one of the only ones. I did consult with a trusted Christian MD/MPH who is also an epidemiologist and a man of integrity, as well as a level-headed Catholic buddy whom I had back-and-forths with over the phone. He, too, was getting confused and somewhat disgusted with the knee-jerk misinformation that seemed to be polluting our ability to make informed choices with solid data. 

All that being said, I did not make any kind of admirable choice, or "did it for the sake of others, the loving option." I know full well I conceded, in a way, in what I felt was a roll of the dice. I experienced no side effects. I guess time will tell if I will "die within two years." My rationale, right or wrong, was to place myself on a kind of pseudo-trial, being asked the simple question: "Why did you decide to refuse the shot?" (which is what I initially wanted to do) and realized my reasons and testimony were not convincing, to me at least, and did not feel like they would hold up in court as I couldn't articulate in a convincing way why I would refuse it. 

And yet, the large majority of my friends, and the men in my men's group, have come to a different conclusion, and as a matter of conscience, feel strongly that they do not want to take this vaccine for various reasons. Some are concerned about long term unknown effects, some feel it is too compromised morally as the cell lines were tested with abortion-tainted cells, others just stand on principal and don't feel that the threat of COVID warrants taking it. I can respect all that. That wasn't how things played out for me in my imperfect line of reasoning and decision making. But for them, they came to different conclusions. 

“A man with a conviction is a hard man to change,” Festinger, Henry Riecken, and Stanley Schacter wrote in When Prophecy Fails, their 1957 book about this study. “Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point … Suppose that he is presented with evidence, unequivocal and undeniable evidence, that his belief is wrong: what will happen? The individual will frequently emerge, not only unshaken, but even more convinced of the truth of his beliefs than ever before.

“You spread stories because you know that they’re likely to be a kind of litmus test, and the way people react will show whether they’re prepared to side with you or not,” Boyer says. “Having social support, from an evolutionary standpoint, is far more important than knowing the truth about some facts that do not directly impinge on your life.” The meditation and sense of belonging that Daniel Shaw got from Siddha Yoga, for example, was at one time more important to his life than the alleged misdeeds of the gurus who led the group.

Shaw describes the motivated reasoning that happens in these groups: “You’re in a position of defending your choices no matter what information is presented,” he says, “because if you don’t, it means that you lose your membership in this group that’s become so important to you.” Though cults are an intense example, Shaw says people act the same way with regard to their families or other groups that are important to them.

(The Atlantic, This Article Won't Change Your Mind, 13 Mar 2017)

I have no desire to change anyone's mind about anything except with regards to the moral imperative of Christ for those who do not know him. Even that, I try not to be heavy handed with, but present the 'evidence' of faith (and reason) that warrants belief. In the matters reserved for prudential judgment--whether you drive a F150 or a Prius, whether you are devoted to this or that apparition, whether you eat meat or don't, etc--I try to respect the freedom we have as children of God to "love, and do what you will" (St. Augustine).

But this vax thing is tough, tiring, and contentious. I know for a fact I don't have all the answers. I also know I love my friends. But I am not afraid to follow in a different way on matters of conscience, as long as it is not sin, because ultimately I do not have to give an account to them--I must give account to Christ. 

I try to remember that Peter and Paul (both saints) almost came to blows over certain matters in the early Church. Yet they loved with a fraternal love each other, and loved Christ above all. I pray for their intercession in navigating these confusing times, when we all need our tribes...but not at the expense of being true to ourselves in conscience. We can sometimes do things to stay in other people's good graces, even when it goes against that still small voice inside of us that shouldn't be so swayed. 

The need to belong, the desire to belong, is so strong, I think we underestimate it sometimes. Rejection packs a hell of a sting. But tribal belonging is not what we were made for; it's simply a nice byproduct. We were made to know God, to love Him, and to do His will...in this world, and the next. 

An Open Letter To Steve Skojec

*Note, I do not know Steve in real life, and have only corresponded with him by email as it related to my articles that were published by him when he ran One Peter Five. This is not a hit-piece but a letter of fraternal concern that I don't expect him to ever receive or respond to. It's mostly for my benefit to get it off my chest and for the benefit of the readers here.

Dear Steve,

Although I don't have a Twitter account, you are the only figure I follow on the platform. I find a good number of the things you post to be interesting, eclectic, and off the beaten path of usual commentary. I also appreciate that you have a skeptic's mind (though I imagine this may be a bit of a cross as well) and challenge existing narratives both inside and outside the Church by looking at things from other angles. I also check in on your Substack to get a different perspective on Church matters outside the tribal narrative.

There are times I want to comment and I have even entertained the idea of opening up a Twitter account to do so. But seeing the nature of the platform, and what it has done to a number of otherwise good and healthy, balanced people, I decided it wasn't worth the cost to one's psyche. My blog is really my only medium of communication these days. Which is why I'm writing here.

We are roughly around the same age, have probably been writing for the same amount of time, and came into the Church from different entrances and dealt with our own forms of trauma over the years. I admired your undertaking of starting 1P5, though I think I expressed to you by email a few years ago that it may be your personal undoing. I don't fault you for that--I wouldn't have wanted your job. I tried to contribute as I could with a handful of articles, because even if you weren't completely on board with the preservation of Catholic tradition near the end of your tenure, many people who read 1P5 were. It was an exciting time, but as often happens, there is always that threat of disillusionment in the end.

Truth be told, I always wanted to have a bourbon with you (I think I tried to put it out there to get together when I was in Phoenix last year, but you never responded), but you seemed to have a wall up where you were more comfortable behind a screen and kept a short list of IRL interactions. I don't fault you for that. I imagine you may be dealing with the fallout from your announcements in "Crippled Religion"  of distancing yourself from the Church and may be regarded in some circles as a social pariah. I'm not here to judge you. Part of me even saw this coming and wish I could have warned you in some way more than I did. Like a car crash happening in slow motion that you're powerless to stop.

I see you as a very intelligent, inquisitive, and self-reflective person. From my limited vantage point on Twitter and Facebook (when I was on it), there seems to be a wound somewhere deep that reflectively shoots down anyone trying to reach out and help and/or encourage you to keep the faith. In all honesty, with the number of followers you have, the curt responses don't surprise me. It can be tiresome to deal with the "You don't leave Jesus because of Judas" pat responses to what I'm sure you regard as a true crisis of faith and unbelief. It also comes from complete strangers on the internet, so the currency rate of the comments is proportionate. 

The one thing I think you are honest about is that you are no model of anything, whether in faith or life, that should be emulated. I'll concur with that, and there's some benefit there: we shouldn't be putting people on pedestals. I've been hurt a number of time by people I put stock in, only to see them lose faith or leave the Church or defect in other ways. Joseph Sciambra was one man who kind of broke my heart in that way, though I don't fault him for it. It is a tough time of battle for all of us, and we shouldn't be surprised by such things in the end. 

I found you to be adept at the things of life, but you seemed to have an arterial blockage to the heart with regards to the things of the spirit. It was as if you could only see the darker sides, the doubt, the human error, and it threatened to consume you. I kind of backed up at that point in the event the black hole bleeding out would swallow my own faith as well should I follow you any further. 

Though I found you to be an honest inquisitor, the lack of charity could be abrasive at times. You admitted to dealing with issues of anger in your life; that is not my issue, but I'm sure it's no peach to deal with. You tended to shoot people down, which I guess is just what you're forced into on platforms like Twitter and Facebook, in the interest of time. You wouldn't be alone or unique in that sense. I've also found you critical of things that other people hold close to them--the teachings of certain saints, for example. Again, it's your platform. I don't think anyone is holding you up as a model of faith or virtue. And I'm sure it's hard to divest yourself of the decades or belief and involvement in this kind of ecclesial community, both in person and online.  

I'm not going to offer platitudes with regards to the Church. I'm sure you've dealt with a lot of betrayal and deception that can be hard to walk back from. Maybe I don't have as much baggage as you, or maybe I'm just more naïve. My spiritual:human ratio can be skewed towards seeing behind the veil more these days, so I don't get as bogged down with the human error within the Church and outside of it. 

If I had any advice for you (not that you asked for it), it would just be used your new found time away from 1P5 to sit in Adoration before the Lord as a blank slate. I never got the impression from your writing or pronouncements that you spent solid time in prayer. Maybe I just wasn't seeing it, of course. But that never came through. You seem like you love your wife and care well for your family. I do pray for you that the fissure wound that may be keeping you from intimacy with the Lord in these ways is healed over time, and that you find your way. I think you're trying to figure it out at this point (aren't we all?). Being in the public eye can, I'm sure, be a tiresome thing. I hope you will take the time you need to find your footing and healing. I'd still love to have that bourbon sometime.

You Shall Not Die The Death

After a week of detox from nicotine, I think I'm beginning to round a corner and at three am, felt ready and able to write again. Thanks for bearing with me. 

It's been an incredibly hard week, physically and psychologically, and I found taking that break to focus on, well, surviving it, was a good reset. I couldn't write even if I wanted to--I felt like I was in a fog and my brain was re-calibrating to find a new equilibrium sans nicotine dependency. Someone who had also quit years ago wrote to me as I was going through it that it can take a week to deplete your brain's nicotine receptors--but that it only takes two puffs from a cigarette to re-saturate them. That was high stakes and sobering. Because I really don't want to have to go through this week again if I can help it.

If anything could be gleaned from this special hell week, though, it's the gift of knowing a lie. 

Our whole history as fallen man starts in the Garden with a lie that we didn't recognize, the consequence of which we are still working to reconcile today. The serpent in the garden told Eve "you shall not die the death" were she to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil which she was commanded not to eat from. She eats it and endures the very banishment and death the serpent promised she would not have to endure.  

The lie I was faced with this past week wasn't "You shall not die," but rather "You will die (without x)". In other words, persisting in extrication from something I had grown so dependent on felt like a terror, because I had been conditioned for so long to believe that I could not actually live without nicotine. Like anyone who has lived through suicidal ideation, you have to almost cling to a kind of blind faith that you will in fact continue to exist in spite of the feeling that you cannot continue to bear to live in the current suffering, and that it will not be forever. It's made harder by what I referenced earlier--in the case of nicotine, two hits and all this suffering can go away, and you can return to a comfortable slavery. But I didn't want to go back. Sometimes avoiding our crosses brings us more suffering than picking them up. Even though it felt like I was going to at times, I didn't die. I didn't need nicotine either. It was all a bald-faced flipping lie. 

What else was I being lied to about? Having deleted my Facebook account in disgust back in January at the weaponized envy and leveraged vanity I was engaging and being engaged in, I knew (but only in retrospect, after a similar detox) that the social media bullshit machine is, indeed, "risky behavior" as one analyst put it. I believed the lies that people on my friends list cared about me or were there for me in times of need in any meaningful way, when really that number could be counted on one or two hands. I believed the lie that I needed to know everything that was happening in the world and the Church or risk being existentially 'lost in space' where no one knows I exist anymore. 

I got caught up in a lot of misinformation and tribalism and outrage culture that seems to be a feature, not a bug, of the social media matrix. I couldn't deactivate or simply not use the app; it was too pernicious, so personally I had to cut ship altogether and delete my account. But I have seen people take extended breaks and then come back with a vengeance engaging in the same bullshit that led them to take the break in the first place. I don't know if they missed the attention or the false sense of connection with other isolated moms or the self-reinforcing pavlovian like-share generation, but it can be a tough drug to kick. If anybody asked me my opinion, I would tell them it's a bloody plague and get off as soon as you can unless you like being hooked up to the Matrix or you enjoy fooling yourself into thinking your too important to live without it.

One of the nice byproducts of eliminating this has been how living the present moments and the investment in the local have really increased as a result. I didn't need social media to live my life; it was a lie that told me I couldn't live without it, or if I could, that life wouldn't be worth it due to such a loss. What happened instead is our on-the-ground friendships deepened and we started doing more--hosting events at our home, having dinners at other people's homes, getting families together more and putting out energies into building up that Catholic fellowship not in a "virtual" or "online" sense (faux-community) but in real life. I became more present to my family. I was able to weed out the people who really do care about me from those who wouldn't notice if something happened to me. 

One unfortunate byproduct of the age we are living in is I don't believe anyone or anything anymore. Everything is camped up to be a false dichotomy, whether it's politics or masks or covid or vaccines or Tradition or whathaveyou, and everyone is a self-appointed expert. And the people who dig in like bulldogs and refuse to be corrected if they were wrong is only exasperated by having to have a public opinion about every damn thing so that you can be herded into Camp A or Camp B. It's actually a rare thing for someone to have the grace and humility to admit error, but I always appreciate it when I see it; tribalism has a way of keeping us in our camps though. 

I've written about all this stuff before. But like I said, opening your eyes after thinking and feeling like you're going to die and that you can't live like this is really, idk...empowering. You wake up and realize, 'hey I didn't die. God preserved my life. And in fact, I feel pretty damn good.' Like, what other lies have I been believing that have kept me chained for years, things I was told I couldn't live without? 

“Just Who Do You Think You Are?”

At our men’s Bible study this morning some of the guys were talking about Fr Mike Schmitz’s Bible In A Year podcast, and though I haven’t been tuned into it, I said it really seems to be an awesome thing that are steeping Catholics in scripture and learning the word of God. 

My buddy who I’m visiting was at a family picnic and Fr Mike Schmitz was there. Now I haven’t listened to him much but I know Fr Schmitz is a handsome dude with great charisma and a big following, but seems pretty grounded as well. My buddy mentioned that Fr Schmitz had a friend of his who kept him in check and one day gave him a zinger to bring him down to earth if he was starting to float. “Who do you think you are?” he asked Fr Mike, “some kind of celebrity priest?”

We need these kinds of people in our lives, trusted friends who can call us out in charity and keep us grounded when we start to think too much of ourselves, when we think we’re more than we really are. Not “Yes Men,” but trusted advisors who take on the role of helping us to counter pride and vainglory through setting up check-points. It could be as simple and direct as the zinger Fr Mike’s friend hit him with to bring him down to earth, even if it’s preemptive to the temptation. 

Fr. Schmitz doesn’t have the luxury of keeping a low profile, whether or not he would prefer that or not. God is calling him to be out there in the world working for the Kingdom. We all need a Nathan in our lives, not to necessarily affirm us, but to call us out when we need to hear an admonition rather than adulation. Those friends are worth their weight in gold, especially if you have any kind of following or are involved in public ministry. The ones who in charity ask us the question we should all ask ourselves from time to time when our heads swell a little, when we forget that we are simply ambassadors for Christ, “just who do you think you are?” 

 

The Vigano Effect

 One thing I struggle with constantly is the battle for affirmation. It's my "love language" and I'm sensitive to it, thrive on it. It's part of the reason I got off Facebook to not only free up some mental energy and brain space, but to try to extricate myself from the constant need for affirmation of what I was putting out there.

One nice thing about doing that is it has in fact freed up a lot more energy to just focus on writing. It's almost like a "if a tree falls in the woods" Zen koan though--if a writer writes and there's no one to read his words, does it make a sound? Does it serve any purpose, and what are my motivations? My wife posts my recent blogs to her Facebook for me to kind of let people know there is a new post, but otherwise it's just kind of existing in internet space. Some days, I wonder if it matters at all.

Honestly, I have wanted to quit many times--of course I don't make my living off it by any means, and so I'm not forced into it. It's not that it's unenjoyable either, and I usually don't spend more than 45 minutes tops on any one post, so it's not a huge time suck. I always want to make sure I'm writing for the right reasons, and always figured if it helps just one person out there somewhere come closer to Christ, it's worth it. Even though I try to quit and pull back, feeling like I'm writing too much, I feel the words of Jeremiah very acutely, "Then I said, “I will not make mention of Him, nor speak any more in His name.” But His word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones; and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not hold back." (Jer 20:9) 

I try to "stay in my lane," and just write about what I know, what I have experience with, and consider what I can offer anyone who finds it of benefit. I write mostly about faith, family, manhood, marriage, chastity, struggles, and trying to cultivate the virtues necessary to live an authentically Catholic life. My first blog (I've been blogging for about 15 years or so) wasn't all that successful because I just wrote about anything and everything; it lacked focus and direction. Now that I've been doing it a while, I find that I'm most comfortable and it seems best for those reading that I stick to the aforementioned, which is fine by me. Always plenty to write about on those topics. I think one thing that one who writes always has to be cognizant of is who their audience is, and to be true to your voice without being so self-focused that it serves no other purpose than for the self. You also have to be willing not to write just to garner likes, but to speak to the heart of others using whatever God has given you to do so. 

Related to the title at hand--I remember when Archbishop Vigano came on the scene, it was a very tantalizing message and scenario. He was "in hiding" and delivering these letters to warn people of things that were pertinent to the situation at hand. Seemed pretty solid, albeit sometimes unbelievable if you're not familiar with the rot in the Church. 

I think at some point people started to latch on to him. The merchandising and things ("'V' coffee mugs, etc) started to kind of make me say "Hm." Though this is just my personal speculation, I imagine he may have begun thinking "the message I have to deliver is so important that people simply must hear it." He sent a letter to President Trump. I read the letter, and I'm not a fan of buzzwords ("Deep State," etc.) so I was pretty turned off and felt like it undermined anything of substance he may have to say. He became like a Sydney Powell with a clerical collar. The message became diffused to the point that he would write warnings about all sorts of things, with more frequency, and I'm thinking to myself, "maybe he knows he's getting attention now, and feeling like he's someone important." 

Again, this is something I struggle with personally. If something is not worth saying or doesn't have any value, I try not to say it. But the temptation towards thinking you're someone important, that the world cannot live without whatever message you have, can crop up from time to time, and keeps me on guard. It goes back to that affirmation thing. I also take very seriously that I never want to lead anyone astray in the faith; I try to stick to the saints and the Catechism to keep from doing so, and qualify any personal stories as my own experience. I still don't call myself a writer, more just "a guy who writes some things." 

I watch YouTube videos, and Jordan Peterson is another one who came on the scene whom I was impressed by for his stand for free speech and not being bullied into using language inconsistent with reality. A university professor of Psychology at the time, when he was outed, he took to speaking engagements and publishing books on ways to live more authentically. He always had a kind of stoic bent, and seemed sympathetic and even close to the edge of belief, but stuck to the mythological narrative of Christ as the perfect man and always stopped short of would be a relatively straightforward profession: "Jesus Christ is Lord, and I believe He is the Son of God." 

But he hasn't done that, and that's fine. Maybe he is on a journey. But he took the Vigano route as well, in pumping out videos and doing interviews on every topic under the sun in a kind of self-assured manner that "if one just does x, y will happen." Again, his background is in psychology, not philosophy or theology, and has has a bent towards Stoicism. He is a smart man, and he knows it. Is he open to more? To being corrected? I think so, but it must be a challenge when you're that smart. I wonder if it's kind of an issue of getting your name out there and hitting the circuit to pay the bills, now that he is not a professor anymore? In any case, it seems he has something to say about every topic imaginable. I still like some of his videos (I was watching his "Epic Rant" on YouTube last night about why there aren't more women at the top in corporate America), but the diffusion makes me think it's just about being a figure now that perhaps regards himself as more important then he really is. 

Consumer culture is tough. It's tough for the faith, it's tough for religion, and it's tough for anyone to stay relevant for too long. Things change so fast. People's tastes change, and consumers have all the power to simply tune you out. It doesn't lend itself to slow, steady consistency or depth. You have to manipulate algorithms and use click-baity titles to keep people tuning in. That's not a way to invest in "building up the health of the soil" when you don't have time to self-reflect because you're always pumping out letters or videos to stay in the public eye. 

It's always hard to keep our motivations pure. I think what's important for the person of faith who has been gifted with whatever God has given you--whether it's athletics, or comedy, or math, or whatever) is to use all things for the glory of God. We shouldn't be afraid to use our gifts and we shouldn't bury them, but we shouldn't get carried away by big heads either. If you do, you'll feel it, because the fall is swift. It would be good to pray for the intercession of St. Thomas, the Angelic Doctor, who regarded his voluminous writings and work as nothing but dross when compared to the glory of God. We do not live for ourselves, but for Christ! 

Navigating The Catholic Culture War

 There are two things I appreciate about our informal Catholic men's group we formed a few years ago: it developed organically and is not an Official Parish Program (TM) or tied to a particular parish; we meet In Real Life for prayer, service, and fellowship, and have no real online component except for an email listserv. 

Because the men (ranging in age from early thirties to mid-forties) run the spectrum--from slightly more progressively-minded to more conservative, and from charismatic to traditionalist--we have a healthy mix of perspectives and viewpoints. Some of us attend the Latin Mass, while others do not. Some of the guys are on Facebook, others are not. But the meat and potatoes of our existence is in person. We get together for a weekly early morning Lectio Divina, have lent muscle to the local Little Sisters of the Poor in clearing downed trees, and during this Holy Week, met at a church for midnight prayer on Good Friday.

The more I contrast this with my past experience on social media, the more appreciative I am that we are not tied or bound by such a medium. We are able to exist together, in part, because we don't cancel or attack each other, even if there are things we may not agree on. There's a healthy respect, kind of the way you don't get too deep into anything with your next door neighbor, because if it goes south...well, you still have to live next to them. 

When I contrast this with the tunnel-vision one acquires online, where one can cut ties with little sense of loss, it's that these IRL relationships are more forgiving, with some 'bend' so as not to break; kind of the way an expansion tank on your hot water heater serves to absorb and release some of the pressure so the main tank doesn't blow up. I've found myself interacting and becoming close friends with guys who didn't vote for Trump, who may be more COVID-cautious, who aren't traditionally-minded when it comes to liturgy, and who may be more sympathetic to Pope Francis than I am. And they are all good, solid guys. It feels...I don't know...healthy to have the opportunity to have this kind of cross-section of Catholicism, as long as we can agree on the fundamentals. All of us "belong" in this group in the sense that we are men, and we are Catholic.

Though our family attends the Traditional Latin Mass exclusively, I would not consider myself a traditionalist. Maybe trad-sympathetic is more fitting, if we are doing labels. I will generally avoid going to the Ordinary Form unless I have no other option, but I would not necessarily walk out in protest if it was in fact my only option. I don't think Vatican II led to the kind of renewal it envisioned, but I don't write it off as an invalid council either. I don't really listen to much of what Pope Francis has to say in the news, but I try very hard not to disparage either out of respect for the Chair. Honestly, I don't know what the technical qualifications would be to be considered a traditionalist in the formal sense, and I'm probably not one anyway because I haven't cared enough to find out.

Somewhere along the line, the whole COVID anti-masking thing became conflated with traditionalism, and the social media conjecturing became for some a parrot of leftist virtue signaling (posting photos in masks, photos of one getting the vaccine, etc). Which gets a little confusing I imagine if your in that Venn-intersection of points. Most of the traditionalists I know are also staunchly against masking as a matter of principal. It would be strange, really, at least in my sphere, if someone was adamantly pro-mask and a traditional Catholic, kind of like a non-sequitur. This may tie in with the idea of a globalist New World Order in which mandatory masking is part of the overall global agenda to vaccinate and depopulate, and that to participate in it makes one complicit in ultimately undermining liberty and personal autonomy.

Once again, I find myself just right of center on the issue: I reluctantly mask when I have to (though using it as a chin cup whenever I can) because I think they are disgusting and for the most part ineffective, and never really for extended periods of time thankfully. I hate that I can't see people's smiles or expressions. Am I willing to go to jail over it? Probably not. Call me unprincipled. 

But does it undermine my Catholicism? Not that I was ever in da club the first place, but does traditionalism extend beyond the liturgy into these peripheral spheres, I wonder. Does one gain something from a traditionalist's standpoint for not wearing a mask or choosing not to get vaccinated? Or if something the Pope does is given a sympathetic gesture, does it undermine their street-cred? Is traditionalism about traditional worship and living out the virtues, or the principled peripheral items that determine one's standing? How does one make these determinations for themselves, and what if they come to a conclusion that goes against these cultural norms? 

The people I know in real life, whether traditionalists or otherwise, bless me with a lot of grace and bend. One of the nice things about IRL is that we don't live by caricatures or quick denigration, but through respect, boundaries, and nuance. I can be of a different mind on a host of topics and still be able to have a comfortable drink together, and even some spirited debate when warranted. 

What I do have sympathies for, is new traditionally minded Catholics who may not want to or be prepared to navigate all these peripheral issues of masks and which-bishops-are-the-good-ones and politics. What they may simply want, is Jesus and the One True Faith. As in the Mystery of the Finding of the Child Jesus in the Temple, all that matters in the moment is WE HAVE TO FIND JESUS. 

I had the privilege of witnessing a 26 year old young man come into the Church by way of the TLM last week. The relief and sense of gratitude for finding that lost coin upon returning to his pew after being confirmed took me back to that Beginner's Heart attitude that can get lost in this kind of stupid Catholic Culture war--who is or isn't trad enough, who is a heretic, who needs to be canceled or put in their place or enlightened with a barrage of articles and websites. One of the nice things now is that we can plug him into some community with our IRL men's group, hopefully, to walk with him in his faith and support him.

My wife and I will be hosting a large gathering at our home for every Catholic family of every stripe that we know next month. We wanted to give the opportunity to have these kind of things--cross-sections of otherwise disconnected local Catholic families across parishes to meet each other and have some good food and company to know they're not alone and completely on their own--whether their pro-mask or anti-mask, traditionalist of Novus Ordo, liberal or conservative. I'd ask for your prayers for good weather, since there will be almost a hundred people with kids and we'll be outside in our backyard. It should be a fun example of Venn Diagram Catholicism at it's finest!