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. 

Useless

"There are many souls who close their ears against Him because they prefer to speak and hurry through vocal prayers as if a task had been set them to say a certain amount everyday. Do not imitate them. You are doing more by occasionally repeating a single petition of the Our Father than by repeating the whole of it many times in a hurry and not thinking [or willing] what you are saying." --St. Teresa of Avila

The contemplative life has always been attractive, yet intimating for me. I am not a Type-A Martha by nature, always needing to "do." And yet, in the past I had always found myself unable to sustain periods of solitude for more than a few days to a week. I do not feel like I am a "spiritual" person, nor do I fit in with people who are preoccupied with interior castles and locutions and this and that spiritual thing. And yet, when all is said and done, the spiritual life is all that really matters. 

 So, I'm in this kind of limbo--I'm a beginner in the interior life, but having the desire and will to grow in it for the soul purpose of growing closer in relationship to Christ. Lately, I have been doing that alone with regular visits to the Lord. I signed up for an 11pm slot to be an Adorer at our local chapel as well, so that I would be more systematic and accountable in my prayer life. 

I also joined an contemplative apostolate, which I was really on the fence about. If it weren't for the nudging of a woman who had been praying for me, apparently, I probably wouldn't have considered it. After all, I've been pulling back from my own men's group in favor of more time alone, and in more focused and intentional prayer. I feel like there is this gentle pull to go "into the deep" in order to grow in intimacy with God.

Since I run in largely traditionalist circles, there is this tendency to "check the boxes"--the vocal prayers in the Missal, the Office, the rosaries, etc. The objective litmus's of a robust prayer life that you can point to and ennumerate. 

But for anyone who has been in love, you know that the "doing" is merely a secondary byproduct of the "being." When you are in love, you could be walking along the beach or reading together or watching your beloved clip their fingernails and it would all be Heaven. Because the physical "doing" is merely a receptacle for the ethereal "being." In other words, it doesn't matter what you do--your time together is a "waste" by objective standards. And yet nothing could be more desirable or important to the lover.

For me, this is why the act of adoration fits well in my spiritual life. It's largely "useless" time spent, "wasted time," time where you are not "doing" anything. But the absence of activity, of distraction, of achieving or checking things off or mastering or completing...all this is really, well, the point. 

Everyone knows the story of the farmer St. John Vianney encountered who replied, when asked what he did in the church looking at the tabernacle, "I look at Him, and He looks at me." Could anything be more true, more to the point, and more essential? Love is not complicated. But the heart of love is not in the window dressing, the wrapping paper...it is in the gift of itself--that is, the gift itself. 

But adoration, through the eyes of the world, really is both an act of faith and an exercise in absurdity. A friend recently mentioned when he was in campus ministry at a Jesuit institution that even some of the priests scoffed at the "cracker worship" taking place. Sometimes I wonder myself, were the Lord in the monstrance replaced with an unconsecrated host, how it would change my prayer. If I couldn't tell the difference, what does that say about my prayer life, or even what we are willing to worship? It's a strange thought. You wonder how Isaac could have mistaken Jacob for Esau, or how Jacob could have mistaken Leah for Rachel? Does the power of our prayer in Adoration depend on our belief in True Presence, or the presence of the True Presence? It's something to ponder.

I have also been more intentional about "clearing out" a lot of activity that keeps me from spending this useless time in adoration; just as we have been trying to clear our physical house of "stuff" to make more "empty space" (a kind of minimalism-lite). There is value in the "white space" as any musician knows--the space between the notes is just as important as the notes themselves. 

Largely, though, the time spent in this kind of "useless prayer" in which I produce nothing, say nothing, sometimes even feel nothing is, I think, well spent. I hope to grow in my spiritual life, but not for its own sake, but only that I can draw closer to the Lord who remains hidden, small, and silent. I don't have that engineer type brain that needs to constantly be optimizing or quantifying. Sometimes it's enough to just be, and love, and accept love and confess love.

When You Hate To Be Alone...Be Alone

"All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone." 

- Blaise Pascal

Humorous memes float around the internet about the lack of alone time mother's experience and not being able to hear themselves think when their children are young. Whether it's a toddler's hand thrusting under the bedroom door, or a mother going to the bathroom with their kids on their laps, the sentiment is commonplace--"Can't I get a minute alone!" Even my wife and I had a funny marital exchange when I jokingly asked her, "Do you ever fantasize about me?" to which she replied, "I fantasize about being a hotel room by myself with no one needing anything from me." You get the idea.

For men, we often have the "luxury" of going to work each day and breaking out from the household. I'm sure at times our wives have envied the ease with which we can stroll out the door and leave our household responsibilities behind for 8 hours or so (while also realizing that none of it would be possible if we didn't work). Most men, I would imagine, work in jobs in which they interact with other people, or if they do work solo they still have labor they have to attend to. But intentional solitude is another thing altogether--and, especially, when it comes to time spend with our Creator in prayer.

Our Lord was very intentional when asked by his disciples how they ought to pray. He didn't give a lofty, enigmatic or parabolic answer: instead, he said, "When you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen" (Mt 6:6). And then he instructed them how they should pray--with the Lord's Prayer. It encompasses and distills the Christian life--justice, our needs, expectations, and desires--into a verbal prayer. When joined with a pure heart, it is a "complete protein" if you will. The Pater Noster is prayed during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as a community with hearts joined to God. But it is interesting that Jesus joins this prayer with solitude: a room, a closed door, and all things unseen.

My son insisted on having his own "War Room" (to use the Protestant phrase) when he saw mine; he and I set apart for him by clearing out his closet. In it, he put pictures of saints, the Ten Commandments, a crucifix, holy water, a green scapular, and a tiny skull (memento mori) and a hand drawn piece of paper that says, simply, GOD LOVES ME. It's good for every house to have a devoted place to pray in solitude, if possible, as our Lord tells us.

Getting away for retreats seems like a luxury these days, though I went on retreat regularly in my twenties. As an imperfect concession to get some of this intentional, stripped away time in, I'm getting ready to do a kind of "house arrest" retreat this weekend. We have a larger-than-normal master bedroom with adjoining bathroom where I'm hoping to confine myself this weekend as I attempt to get off nicotine and leave it behind once and for all. I need three days for it to get out of my system, and I know I will be irritable; my wife agreed to take care of the kids and leave me to do what I need to do.

But when I think about it, it is so rare I am alone--even in my own house--that it's a slightly uncomfortable thought. What will come up when I'm alone with my thoughts? I've gotten more extroverted as I've gotten older, and like being around people. I like "doing" things. I hope to get out for a run each day and maybe work outside getting the garden ready for the Spring, but largely I will be spent in a kind of self-confinement or posh immurement for getting myself into the mess of attachment in the first place. The cure for attachment, is detachment.

Solitude is a healthy but often neglected aspect of the Christian life.  It's funny, though, when you do a quick google search of "being alone," the vast majority of things that come up are related to loneliness. While some people crave solitude, others are scared of it. I'm somewhere in between--its uncomfortable, but like eating vegetables and exercising, I know it's good for me periodically. I know I face things in solitude that get pushed down when I'm in the midst of friends, family, or co-workers. Things about myself. Things I don't like.

My father-in-law has recently, as he approaches the end of his life, been very fearful of being by himself. Family members will often have to spend the night because he gets panicky that he will die alone. The closer one gets to death, the more (or less) prepared one is to face Judgment becomes apparent and our insecurities become harder to hide. No one wants to die. But the stronger we are in our faith, the more prepared we are in ridding ourselves of vices, sins, and bad habits in this life, the more secure we will be in coming before the Throne and leaving this world behind and the less we have to fear. 

Christ was alone in the Garden of Gethsemane where he prayed (Mk 14:32). He retreated frequently to lonely places to pray (Lk 5:16). He went out into the desert to be tested for forty days (Mt 4:1). He was essentially alone on the Cross when he died. And when he died, he was entombed for three days and rose again. When I think of how little I have suffered compared to what Christ went through, and how little I can bear, I can't help being embarrassed. But I also know no suffering, no matter how little or seemingly insignificant, is wasted when joined with the sufferings of Christ. So, please pray for my upcoming immurement this weekend--I'm sure there will be some battles to be fought, some demons to wrestle with, and some discomfort in being (somewhat) alone. "But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Cor 15:57). To Christ be the victory. Amen.