Francis Berger's Blog, page 125
May 7, 2020
Gold
If religion does not bristle with vitality, it is not religion. If you cannot sense God burning within you, igniting fury and fervor in your soul, then you are not with God. If you experience nothing but blandness and banality in your life, then you are not alive. If your spirituality stops at timid, non-offensive contemplation, then you are spiritless.
Real religion can no longer provide refuge for the weak and the tired; the limp and lifeless; the feeble and flat.
Real religion demands passionate intensity. Aggressive solemnity. Energy. Enthusiasm. Fearlessness. Danger. Real religion is cosmic fire. A binary orbit. Two stars dancing in the heavens, drawing ever closer to each other. The dancing stars meet and light up the sky. The blinding flash fades, but the evidence of the contact remains.
Gold.
Real religion can no longer provide refuge for the weak and the tired; the limp and lifeless; the feeble and flat.
Real religion demands passionate intensity. Aggressive solemnity. Energy. Enthusiasm. Fearlessness. Danger. Real religion is cosmic fire. A binary orbit. Two stars dancing in the heavens, drawing ever closer to each other. The dancing stars meet and light up the sky. The blinding flash fades, but the evidence of the contact remains.
Gold.
May 6, 2020
Hungary Eases Its Lockdown - Sort Of
Hungary went into lockdown mode about two months ago. Since then, the birdemic plague has caused a startling 3,111 infections and a staggering 373 deaths in the country. I have no doubt the government will use these low numbers to prove the astuteness of their lockdown measures. I mean, think about it. If they hadn't locked down the country, cases and deaths could have been double or triple the current number. The horror!
In all fairness, saving lives was not the lockdown's main goal in Hungary - at least that's what the government maintains. No, the chief purpose of the lockdown was to buy time to 'flatten the curve' to prepare the poorly-equipped and poorly-staffed Hungarian healthcare system for a potential, apocalyptic mass infection scenario.
Well, it took seven weeks, but Hungary has proudly announced that its healthcare system is now ready, willing, and able to handle anything the birdemic can throw at it. Seems like the perfect time to end the lockdown to see if the potential mass infection event really does happen. No worries though. If it does, Hungary is ready. If it doesn't, hmmm . . . then that means the lockdown worked gooder than anyone could have predicted.
If keeping people at home kills viruses, then I'm never leaving the house again. The problem is I can't do that anymore. You see, yesterday the government announced it was easing its lockdown measures . . . sort of. Though the capital Budapest remains in strict lockdown (I guess the hospitals there aren't ready yet), the rest of country can leave the house and get its butt back to work (if the work hasn't disappeared during the birdemic). I guess the rural hospitals are better equipped or something. Or maybe its a density thing. Or maybe rural folk are simply favored over urbanites because, let's face it, most rural people vote for the government while the lefty city types don't.
Though many non-essential shops, stores, and services in the countryside will be allowed to open and operate again, each will obliged to do so under a tangled knot of industry/service-specific rules and regulations. The bulk of the rules and regulations are arbitrary, contradictory, and confusing - so much so that even the government itself appears somewhat mystified by them. But logic be damned! Millions of Hungarians are still potentially at risk.
Schools will remain closed for the rest of the school year, but churches will open again, albeit with many catches and stipulations. No peace handshakes or communion or gossiping in groups after the service. Oh yeah, and everyone has to keep a two-meter distance and wear a face mask in church as well.
Apparently, face masks are now a mandatory fashion accessory - unless you have asthma. Qualification for this humanitarian exception requires a stamped doctor's note. The only way to get a note is to visit a doctor. You can't visit a doctor unless you are wearing a face mask. Apparently doctor's notes are fairly cheap. I may invest in one because my face is far too handsome to be covered by a surgical mask. If I wore a mask all the time, I would be depriving the world of beauty, and I simply refuse to be that cruel!
All kidding aside, the easing of the lockdown is happening exactly as I imagined it would - a return to normal with plenty of strings attached (conditions which, ironically, nullify any sense of normal). I suspect the same return normal with extra heaps of regulations and bureaucracy has occurred or will occur elsewhere. Hungary's problem is it does not possess the manpower to enforce the bureaucracy, especially not in rural areas, which might help explain why it is giving the countryside the qualified green light first.
Whatever the case, the country has its work cut out for it. All things considered, the economy was doing quite well before the lockdown. Now? Who knows? Two months of economic freeze is a long time. In addition, Hungary is not an isolated island. The country has an export-based economy that relies heavily on the viability of its trading partners. As far as I can tell, Hungary's trading partners are not doing too well, which means Hungary will inevitably not do well.
Nevertheless, the government has guaranteed it will replace every job the birdemic wipes out. Perhaps the bulk of those new jobs will be in the "making sure people follow the post-lockdown rules" industry because I can't for the life of me envision any other industry where workers will be in high demand after life returns to sort-of normal.
In all fairness, saving lives was not the lockdown's main goal in Hungary - at least that's what the government maintains. No, the chief purpose of the lockdown was to buy time to 'flatten the curve' to prepare the poorly-equipped and poorly-staffed Hungarian healthcare system for a potential, apocalyptic mass infection scenario.
Well, it took seven weeks, but Hungary has proudly announced that its healthcare system is now ready, willing, and able to handle anything the birdemic can throw at it. Seems like the perfect time to end the lockdown to see if the potential mass infection event really does happen. No worries though. If it does, Hungary is ready. If it doesn't, hmmm . . . then that means the lockdown worked gooder than anyone could have predicted.
If keeping people at home kills viruses, then I'm never leaving the house again. The problem is I can't do that anymore. You see, yesterday the government announced it was easing its lockdown measures . . . sort of. Though the capital Budapest remains in strict lockdown (I guess the hospitals there aren't ready yet), the rest of country can leave the house and get its butt back to work (if the work hasn't disappeared during the birdemic). I guess the rural hospitals are better equipped or something. Or maybe its a density thing. Or maybe rural folk are simply favored over urbanites because, let's face it, most rural people vote for the government while the lefty city types don't.
Though many non-essential shops, stores, and services in the countryside will be allowed to open and operate again, each will obliged to do so under a tangled knot of industry/service-specific rules and regulations. The bulk of the rules and regulations are arbitrary, contradictory, and confusing - so much so that even the government itself appears somewhat mystified by them. But logic be damned! Millions of Hungarians are still potentially at risk.
Schools will remain closed for the rest of the school year, but churches will open again, albeit with many catches and stipulations. No peace handshakes or communion or gossiping in groups after the service. Oh yeah, and everyone has to keep a two-meter distance and wear a face mask in church as well.
Apparently, face masks are now a mandatory fashion accessory - unless you have asthma. Qualification for this humanitarian exception requires a stamped doctor's note. The only way to get a note is to visit a doctor. You can't visit a doctor unless you are wearing a face mask. Apparently doctor's notes are fairly cheap. I may invest in one because my face is far too handsome to be covered by a surgical mask. If I wore a mask all the time, I would be depriving the world of beauty, and I simply refuse to be that cruel!
All kidding aside, the easing of the lockdown is happening exactly as I imagined it would - a return to normal with plenty of strings attached (conditions which, ironically, nullify any sense of normal). I suspect the same return normal with extra heaps of regulations and bureaucracy has occurred or will occur elsewhere. Hungary's problem is it does not possess the manpower to enforce the bureaucracy, especially not in rural areas, which might help explain why it is giving the countryside the qualified green light first.
Whatever the case, the country has its work cut out for it. All things considered, the economy was doing quite well before the lockdown. Now? Who knows? Two months of economic freeze is a long time. In addition, Hungary is not an isolated island. The country has an export-based economy that relies heavily on the viability of its trading partners. As far as I can tell, Hungary's trading partners are not doing too well, which means Hungary will inevitably not do well.
Nevertheless, the government has guaranteed it will replace every job the birdemic wipes out. Perhaps the bulk of those new jobs will be in the "making sure people follow the post-lockdown rules" industry because I can't for the life of me envision any other industry where workers will be in high demand after life returns to sort-of normal.
May 2, 2020
The Wrong Turn And Its Ending
The wrong turn the West took about two or three centuries ago is a subject I have addressed many times on this blog. By wrong turn I am referring specifically to the West's gradual and, eventually, sudden abandonment of the Divine in favor of materialism. It's difficult to pinpoint exactly where and when this wrong turn took place. In fact, it would be more accurate to think of the larger wrong turn as a series of smaller wrong turns spread over the course of many political, social, religious, and economic events beginning some time after the collapse of the feudal system and the waning of the Catholic Church's authority in the West.
Traditionalist-minded Christians are keenly aware of the spiritual/historical wrong turn the West took sometime during the Renaissance, and they quite correctly lament the de-spiritualization brought about by the abandonment of medieval hierarchy and authority. In light of this it is little wonder so many traditionalists hunger for a return to some kind of localized feudal structure held together and inspired by the unifying and stabilizing power of a strong church. And who can blame them? After all, despite its many flaws, faults, and shortcomings, medieval Europe was an inherently Christian society; that is, Christianity permeated everything and formed the foundation of all aspects of European civilization and culture, to the point that the term Christendom was not only accurate, but also made complete sense at every level of analysis. It is the loss of Christendom traditionalists lament most; and what many desire, above all else, is a return to a time of Christendom - the realignment of civilization and God. Achieve this, many traditional Christians argue, and re-spiritualization will be assured.
Though I am inclined to sympathize with visions of a revived Christendom, I believe traditional Christians who long for a return to such an arrangement are missing the bigger picture when it comes to the wrong turn and the cascading negative consequences it has unleashed. Christendom was thoroughly Christian, but this thoroughness had its limits and, to a certain extent, had already served its purpose by the time the first Renaissance blossoms flecked the medieval landscape.
Traditional Christians correctly identify the wrong turn, but the limits of the traditional Christian mindset become evident in how it defines the wrong turn. Feudal medieval Christendom was a civilization built upon the promise of salvation from sin through obedience to an external authority. For traditionalists, the wrong turn culminated in the rejection of external religious authority as the guarantor of salvation from sin. According to them, all modern sins can be traced back to that point when Western people turned away from the church, which was the guarantor of God's will and the implementer of God's plan for creation on Earth. By the same token, the sins of the modern world would be vanquished the very instant modern Western people repented their egregious material sins and willingly embraced external religious authority once again. Put simply, the only way forward would be a return to the past - to a rigid social structure stressing and enforcing the primacy of spiritual with the aim of mass salvation from sin.
Once again, I sympathize with this outlook to a certain extent. Given the choice between our modern, perverted world and Christendom, I would likely choose Christendom, but this choice immediately raises a very pertinent question: Where would that put us spiritually? Well, if my estimations are correct, it would put us right back at the point before we took the wrong turn, which means we would be facing the same dilemma our ancestors faced when they gradually but ultimately willingly chose materialism over the Divine - when they actively began turning away from the deeper promise of everlasting life in favor of the shallower promise of never-lasting life.
The problem of Christendom is a problem of freedom and authority. Traditionalists tend to idealize the stability and congruity of the past without considering the obvious limitations the past enforced on human freedom. Christendom's Christianity was mostly an enforced top-down arrangement in which being a Christian was largely a matter of default. Rigid social structures, the lack of social mobility, and limited material means to which most people had access created a civilization in which personal salvation was largely a matter of knowing your place and obeying the rules.
In this sense, Christendom was a phase of spiritual childhood, but it was a spiritual childhood marred by incessant physical and material limitations that made life difficult, grueling, and short for the vast majority of the population. As far as I can tell, Christendom offered no concept of spiritual maturity or development in this world. At the risk of sounding flippant I would argue Christendom's spiritual mission was to ensure all Christians remained good little boys and girls in this world in order to make it to the next world after physical death. Thus, as far as Christendom was concerned, spiritual adulthood was not a matter for this world, but the next. As a result, any return to Christendom would likely entail a step back into that spiritual childlike state - a veritable Never-Neverland populated by Peter Pans and other eternal kids whose sole purpose in life would amount to little more than making sure they did not end up on Santa Claus's naughty list before Christmas Day.
Concepts like spiritual childhood are largely a matter of consciousness. The Renaissance and the other subsequent movements away from Christendom reveal a shift of consciousness in the West. People were no longer content to be spiritual children. They began to sense they could do more in this world and that their lives in this world required more from them in return. This shift in consciousness is what traditionalists identify as the wrong turn, but I would argue that the wrong turn is not to be found in the consciousness shift itself, but in the choices made after the consciousness shift occurred.
The collapse of feudalism and fading of church authority marked the beginning of our spiritual adolescence. Like physical adolescence, our spiritual adolescence was marked by increasing personal autonomy, the desire to improve one's material situation, the inclination to explore the world, the eagerness to test newfound abilities, and the inspiration to reinterpret the meaning and purpose of life, both mortal and eternal. Part of this shift in consciousness entailed improving material conditions for the majority people in this world. The campaign to make the world more comfortable and livable was present throughout history, but the shift of consciousness out of spiritual childhood into spiritual adolescence provided the momentum needed to secure the complete alteration of human life. This alteration included the Industrial Revolution and all the political, social, and economic transformations that stemmed from it. Our spiritual adolescence vastly improved standards of living; Western people generally became richer and freer.
These developments suggest that the purpose of spiritual adolescence is mostly preparatory. Like physical adolescence, spiritual adolescence is an in-between phase during which the foundation for adulthood is meant to be created. In physical adolescence this includes biological strengthening and ripening (which is mostly innate and unconscious) and active preparation through education or the acquisition of certain skills that will allow for certain degrees of autonomy and success in the world. Our spiritual adolescence also contained a great deal of mostly innate and unconscious strengthening and ripening, but we have come up gravely short in terms of education and skills preparation. Material progress is perpetually condemned as the chief cause of Western Man's spiritual malaise, but I would say the fault lies not in the progress itself, but in our attitude toward the progress. That, in essence, is where the wrong turn happened.
When I look upon the massive improvement in the material living standards that occurred in the West with the advent of the Industrial Revolution, I see a force that wanted to improve physical conditions in an effort to improve spiritual conditions. I see a force that wanted to free people from material challenges, hardships, and suffering in the hope that the time and energy liberated from these developments could be invested into the higher spiritual purpose of attaining spiritual adulthood in this world. Simply put, I see a force that aspired to alleviate the pressing concerns of physical survival in order to deliver the time and focus needed to deepen our sense of spiritual survival. I see a force whose original aim was not to drive Western Man away from God, but a force that provided the material means through which Western man could move closer to God. In other words, the freeing from material concerns over the last two centuries should have led to an increased freeing for spiritually. What we have managed to achieve instead is a freeing from material concerns followed almost immediately by an imprisoning by materialism. We managed to build the ship we needed to get to our desired destination, but instead of sailing to that destination, we have decided, collectively at least, to imprison ourselves on the ship and set off on a seemingly never-ending, pointless, and destination-less pleasure cruise.
Our spiritual adolescence should have been a time of harnessing the material for the further development of the spiritual. Instead we have fallen captive to the material and have abandoned all notions of the spiritual. In this sense, we are now in a worse position than those who lived in the spiritual childhood of Christendom. Despite traditionalist arguments to the contrary, we cannot return to spiritual childhood anymore than we can return to physical childhood. Any attempt to do so would result in an absurd farce (imagine grown men and women wanting to do nothing more than recite nursery rhymes and play in sandboxes all day long). By the same token, we have lost the map that would have guided us to spiritual adulthood. As a result, we are stuck in the teenage wasteland of materialism with nowhere left to go but down.
Individually there may be hope for some, but at this stage our collective wrong turn appears irrecoverable. This phase of spiritual adolescence will not lead to spiritual adulthood at the collective level, nor will it continue on into perpetuity. This phase of collective spiritual adolescence, the wrong turn we have collectively taken will simply end.
And that will be that.
Note added: Dr. Bruce Charlton's recent post concerning the karma of materialism (Rudolf Steiner's phrase) offers some lucid insights into our current predicament. I highly recommend it.
Traditionalist-minded Christians are keenly aware of the spiritual/historical wrong turn the West took sometime during the Renaissance, and they quite correctly lament the de-spiritualization brought about by the abandonment of medieval hierarchy and authority. In light of this it is little wonder so many traditionalists hunger for a return to some kind of localized feudal structure held together and inspired by the unifying and stabilizing power of a strong church. And who can blame them? After all, despite its many flaws, faults, and shortcomings, medieval Europe was an inherently Christian society; that is, Christianity permeated everything and formed the foundation of all aspects of European civilization and culture, to the point that the term Christendom was not only accurate, but also made complete sense at every level of analysis. It is the loss of Christendom traditionalists lament most; and what many desire, above all else, is a return to a time of Christendom - the realignment of civilization and God. Achieve this, many traditional Christians argue, and re-spiritualization will be assured.
Though I am inclined to sympathize with visions of a revived Christendom, I believe traditional Christians who long for a return to such an arrangement are missing the bigger picture when it comes to the wrong turn and the cascading negative consequences it has unleashed. Christendom was thoroughly Christian, but this thoroughness had its limits and, to a certain extent, had already served its purpose by the time the first Renaissance blossoms flecked the medieval landscape.
Traditional Christians correctly identify the wrong turn, but the limits of the traditional Christian mindset become evident in how it defines the wrong turn. Feudal medieval Christendom was a civilization built upon the promise of salvation from sin through obedience to an external authority. For traditionalists, the wrong turn culminated in the rejection of external religious authority as the guarantor of salvation from sin. According to them, all modern sins can be traced back to that point when Western people turned away from the church, which was the guarantor of God's will and the implementer of God's plan for creation on Earth. By the same token, the sins of the modern world would be vanquished the very instant modern Western people repented their egregious material sins and willingly embraced external religious authority once again. Put simply, the only way forward would be a return to the past - to a rigid social structure stressing and enforcing the primacy of spiritual with the aim of mass salvation from sin.
Once again, I sympathize with this outlook to a certain extent. Given the choice between our modern, perverted world and Christendom, I would likely choose Christendom, but this choice immediately raises a very pertinent question: Where would that put us spiritually? Well, if my estimations are correct, it would put us right back at the point before we took the wrong turn, which means we would be facing the same dilemma our ancestors faced when they gradually but ultimately willingly chose materialism over the Divine - when they actively began turning away from the deeper promise of everlasting life in favor of the shallower promise of never-lasting life.
The problem of Christendom is a problem of freedom and authority. Traditionalists tend to idealize the stability and congruity of the past without considering the obvious limitations the past enforced on human freedom. Christendom's Christianity was mostly an enforced top-down arrangement in which being a Christian was largely a matter of default. Rigid social structures, the lack of social mobility, and limited material means to which most people had access created a civilization in which personal salvation was largely a matter of knowing your place and obeying the rules.
In this sense, Christendom was a phase of spiritual childhood, but it was a spiritual childhood marred by incessant physical and material limitations that made life difficult, grueling, and short for the vast majority of the population. As far as I can tell, Christendom offered no concept of spiritual maturity or development in this world. At the risk of sounding flippant I would argue Christendom's spiritual mission was to ensure all Christians remained good little boys and girls in this world in order to make it to the next world after physical death. Thus, as far as Christendom was concerned, spiritual adulthood was not a matter for this world, but the next. As a result, any return to Christendom would likely entail a step back into that spiritual childlike state - a veritable Never-Neverland populated by Peter Pans and other eternal kids whose sole purpose in life would amount to little more than making sure they did not end up on Santa Claus's naughty list before Christmas Day.
Concepts like spiritual childhood are largely a matter of consciousness. The Renaissance and the other subsequent movements away from Christendom reveal a shift of consciousness in the West. People were no longer content to be spiritual children. They began to sense they could do more in this world and that their lives in this world required more from them in return. This shift in consciousness is what traditionalists identify as the wrong turn, but I would argue that the wrong turn is not to be found in the consciousness shift itself, but in the choices made after the consciousness shift occurred.
The collapse of feudalism and fading of church authority marked the beginning of our spiritual adolescence. Like physical adolescence, our spiritual adolescence was marked by increasing personal autonomy, the desire to improve one's material situation, the inclination to explore the world, the eagerness to test newfound abilities, and the inspiration to reinterpret the meaning and purpose of life, both mortal and eternal. Part of this shift in consciousness entailed improving material conditions for the majority people in this world. The campaign to make the world more comfortable and livable was present throughout history, but the shift of consciousness out of spiritual childhood into spiritual adolescence provided the momentum needed to secure the complete alteration of human life. This alteration included the Industrial Revolution and all the political, social, and economic transformations that stemmed from it. Our spiritual adolescence vastly improved standards of living; Western people generally became richer and freer.
These developments suggest that the purpose of spiritual adolescence is mostly preparatory. Like physical adolescence, spiritual adolescence is an in-between phase during which the foundation for adulthood is meant to be created. In physical adolescence this includes biological strengthening and ripening (which is mostly innate and unconscious) and active preparation through education or the acquisition of certain skills that will allow for certain degrees of autonomy and success in the world. Our spiritual adolescence also contained a great deal of mostly innate and unconscious strengthening and ripening, but we have come up gravely short in terms of education and skills preparation. Material progress is perpetually condemned as the chief cause of Western Man's spiritual malaise, but I would say the fault lies not in the progress itself, but in our attitude toward the progress. That, in essence, is where the wrong turn happened.
When I look upon the massive improvement in the material living standards that occurred in the West with the advent of the Industrial Revolution, I see a force that wanted to improve physical conditions in an effort to improve spiritual conditions. I see a force that wanted to free people from material challenges, hardships, and suffering in the hope that the time and energy liberated from these developments could be invested into the higher spiritual purpose of attaining spiritual adulthood in this world. Simply put, I see a force that aspired to alleviate the pressing concerns of physical survival in order to deliver the time and focus needed to deepen our sense of spiritual survival. I see a force whose original aim was not to drive Western Man away from God, but a force that provided the material means through which Western man could move closer to God. In other words, the freeing from material concerns over the last two centuries should have led to an increased freeing for spiritually. What we have managed to achieve instead is a freeing from material concerns followed almost immediately by an imprisoning by materialism. We managed to build the ship we needed to get to our desired destination, but instead of sailing to that destination, we have decided, collectively at least, to imprison ourselves on the ship and set off on a seemingly never-ending, pointless, and destination-less pleasure cruise.
Our spiritual adolescence should have been a time of harnessing the material for the further development of the spiritual. Instead we have fallen captive to the material and have abandoned all notions of the spiritual. In this sense, we are now in a worse position than those who lived in the spiritual childhood of Christendom. Despite traditionalist arguments to the contrary, we cannot return to spiritual childhood anymore than we can return to physical childhood. Any attempt to do so would result in an absurd farce (imagine grown men and women wanting to do nothing more than recite nursery rhymes and play in sandboxes all day long). By the same token, we have lost the map that would have guided us to spiritual adulthood. As a result, we are stuck in the teenage wasteland of materialism with nowhere left to go but down.
Individually there may be hope for some, but at this stage our collective wrong turn appears irrecoverable. This phase of spiritual adolescence will not lead to spiritual adulthood at the collective level, nor will it continue on into perpetuity. This phase of collective spiritual adolescence, the wrong turn we have collectively taken will simply end.
And that will be that.
Note added: Dr. Bruce Charlton's recent post concerning the karma of materialism (Rudolf Steiner's phrase) offers some lucid insights into our current predicament. I highly recommend it.
The Daves I Know
Earlier this week I announced I would begin renovating my chicken coop. In that post I also explained how the rhythm of physical work helps put me in the proper frame of mind to contemplate the deeper aspects of life.
I began working on the coop two days ago and the work has indeed provided some periods of intense, immersed rumination. Nonetheless, the work rhythm has also conjured forth some fairly empty-headed reflections and memories.
For example, as I was repairing the exterior brick today, the incredibly dippy yet somehow still humorous song "The Daves I Know" by Bruce McCulloch of The Kids in the Hall fame mysteriously bobbed up to the surface of my mind.
I'm trying to have profound thoughts and what do I get? I get "The Daves I Know". I think God likes toying with me sometimes, albeit in a fun, good-natured kind of way.
So, here is the song ( if you don't already know it).
Enjoy . . . and sorry.
I began working on the coop two days ago and the work has indeed provided some periods of intense, immersed rumination. Nonetheless, the work rhythm has also conjured forth some fairly empty-headed reflections and memories.
For example, as I was repairing the exterior brick today, the incredibly dippy yet somehow still humorous song "The Daves I Know" by Bruce McCulloch of The Kids in the Hall fame mysteriously bobbed up to the surface of my mind.
I'm trying to have profound thoughts and what do I get? I get "The Daves I Know". I think God likes toying with me sometimes, albeit in a fun, good-natured kind of way.
So, here is the song ( if you don't already know it).
Enjoy . . . and sorry.
May 1, 2020
The Wisdom Of Youth
I embarked on two summer-long backpacking tours of Europe when I was a teenager; once when I was sixteen, and once again when I was eighteen. Adventure was the key motivator behind both trips, but it was not a hedonistic sense of adventure. That, unfortunately, came a little later when I was in my twenties. No, by adventure I am referring to all the classic go-to's like testing your individual limits, navigating your way through foreign lands, and experiencing new situations. Of course, I was also eager to see all the cities, towns, and sites I had read and dreamed about while I was growing up.
After I returned from my second backpacking tour, friends asked me if I thought I would ever regret spending the money on a vacation rather than on something more useful like a car. My answer? I told them I had a deep sense that I had to take those trips before the busy adult world began to interfere with my life. It turns out I was on to something back then. Sure, I have taken plenty of vacations and short trips since, but I have never engaged in anything like those backpacking tours again. Turns out I was a prescient teenager. Life did get in the way after I turned eighteen. There was always some responsibility requiring my attention, some schedule to keep, or some priority to uphold.
Another notion I had as a teenager is how I might change with age. Back then I thought I would always remain a romantic traveler forever inspired by the prospect of an faraway destination or an exotic land, but when I looked around at the adults in my life, I knew this was likely a misguided. After my second European tour, I was still inspired go on other backpacking adventures. I wanted to see Asia, Russia, South America, and Africa, but I never got around to any of them. However, as the years passed, my enthusiasm for seeing the world waned. By the time I turned thirty, the mere thought of backpacking through a foreign continent left me cold. Now that I am nearly fifty, the mere thought of going to an airport gives me a rash. All in all, I am glad I took those trips when I did. Though I was a fairly mediocre teenager, I was wise to the whole travel thing. My intuition had been spot on. If I hadn't taken those trips then, I probably would not have taken them at all.
Nevertheless, let's pretend I hadn't taken those trips, and that I was just as infected with the travel bug now as I had been back then. Well, the birdemic has made backpacking tours impossible. I couldn't go anywhere now, no matter how much I wanted to. I guess I would patiently wait for the world to open up again and for things to get 'back to normal', but the whole time I was waiting I would know 'normal' was a thing of the past.
Luckily, I have no inclination to travel anywhere at the moment, so the birdemic has not encroached upon my dreams in any way. But I can't help but think of others. Maybe a teenager out there somewhere who had been saving up for a backpacking tour of Europe this summer because he knew he would probably not get the chance to engage in anything like that later in life. For all intents and purposes, that teenager may never be able to embark on such a trip in his life. Well, that may be a bit much, but I hope you get my point.
I don't want to seem like a Debbie Downer here, but think about it. It could be a long, long time before anyone is able to travel the world freely again. And even if people are allowed to travel freely again, what will those journeys and experiences be like? I don't know the answer myself, but I can't help but think that anyone who believes our jet-set pre-birdemic world is going to kick back into high gear after the lockdown ends is probably in store for a set of rather unpleasant, mind-numbing surprises. This doesn't mean travel is necessarily over, but it will certainly be different.
Though I never could have imagined anything like the birdemic when I was a teenager, my intuitive drive to see the world while I still could has proven to be a surprisingly wise one - which is good because I was an utter mess back then otherwise.
Note added: I use the wisdom of youth in a tongue in cheek manner here. When I was young, I thought all the answers to life were out there. Now that I am older, I realize this isn't the case. Perhaps the prolonged curtailment of travel and other former 'luxuries' will get people focused on more important matters - on journeys that really count. One can only hope.
After I returned from my second backpacking tour, friends asked me if I thought I would ever regret spending the money on a vacation rather than on something more useful like a car. My answer? I told them I had a deep sense that I had to take those trips before the busy adult world began to interfere with my life. It turns out I was on to something back then. Sure, I have taken plenty of vacations and short trips since, but I have never engaged in anything like those backpacking tours again. Turns out I was a prescient teenager. Life did get in the way after I turned eighteen. There was always some responsibility requiring my attention, some schedule to keep, or some priority to uphold.
Another notion I had as a teenager is how I might change with age. Back then I thought I would always remain a romantic traveler forever inspired by the prospect of an faraway destination or an exotic land, but when I looked around at the adults in my life, I knew this was likely a misguided. After my second European tour, I was still inspired go on other backpacking adventures. I wanted to see Asia, Russia, South America, and Africa, but I never got around to any of them. However, as the years passed, my enthusiasm for seeing the world waned. By the time I turned thirty, the mere thought of backpacking through a foreign continent left me cold. Now that I am nearly fifty, the mere thought of going to an airport gives me a rash. All in all, I am glad I took those trips when I did. Though I was a fairly mediocre teenager, I was wise to the whole travel thing. My intuition had been spot on. If I hadn't taken those trips then, I probably would not have taken them at all.
Nevertheless, let's pretend I hadn't taken those trips, and that I was just as infected with the travel bug now as I had been back then. Well, the birdemic has made backpacking tours impossible. I couldn't go anywhere now, no matter how much I wanted to. I guess I would patiently wait for the world to open up again and for things to get 'back to normal', but the whole time I was waiting I would know 'normal' was a thing of the past.
Luckily, I have no inclination to travel anywhere at the moment, so the birdemic has not encroached upon my dreams in any way. But I can't help but think of others. Maybe a teenager out there somewhere who had been saving up for a backpacking tour of Europe this summer because he knew he would probably not get the chance to engage in anything like that later in life. For all intents and purposes, that teenager may never be able to embark on such a trip in his life. Well, that may be a bit much, but I hope you get my point.
I don't want to seem like a Debbie Downer here, but think about it. It could be a long, long time before anyone is able to travel the world freely again. And even if people are allowed to travel freely again, what will those journeys and experiences be like? I don't know the answer myself, but I can't help but think that anyone who believes our jet-set pre-birdemic world is going to kick back into high gear after the lockdown ends is probably in store for a set of rather unpleasant, mind-numbing surprises. This doesn't mean travel is necessarily over, but it will certainly be different.
Though I never could have imagined anything like the birdemic when I was a teenager, my intuitive drive to see the world while I still could has proven to be a surprisingly wise one - which is good because I was an utter mess back then otherwise.
Note added: I use the wisdom of youth in a tongue in cheek manner here. When I was young, I thought all the answers to life were out there. Now that I am older, I realize this isn't the case. Perhaps the prolonged curtailment of travel and other former 'luxuries' will get people focused on more important matters - on journeys that really count. One can only hope.
April 29, 2020
Feeling Cooped Up? Renovate a Chicken Coop!
I am not in the mood to write about the Coup today; nor do I feel inspired to rail on about the lockdown and its negative effects on humanity. I mean, it's good to do those things, but I don't want to talk about the Coup today; today I'd rather talk about my coop.Before I get to that, just let me say that I now spurn anyone who even dares to explain the necessity of the lockdown, or attempts to outline various justifications for the lockdown, or insists on arguing against anyone who questions the lockdown. Most of these lockdown apologists obsess over health and safety and security and speak of models and predictions and vaccines. Well, they can keep their lockdown, their models, their predictions, and their vaccines. None of it will do them any good in the end. Just wait and see.
I'm not too bright, but I know enough to recognize that the lockdown and everything related to the birdemic is fundamentally spiritual warfare. A great many don't see this. They only see material events in a purely material world and quickly adhere to some material explanation or other. And that's how you get events like the birdemic. When you believe in nothing but the material, you put your faith in science, politics, and economics until you get to the point where you actually believe there is nothing essentially wrong with a lockdown. And you believe this wholeheartedly - even when said lockdown refuses to make sense at the most basic scientific, political, or economic level.
Anyway, since this is spiritual warfare, I have spent the bulk of my free time focusing on spiritual matters. I can't focus on spiritual matters much when I'm teaching online, but I also struggle to get in the right frame of mind during my free time. I have never been and will likely never be one for quiet meditation. Sitting in a room and concentrating on the deeper aspects of life has never been my forté. On the contrary, I tend to have the deepest thoughts when I'm out walking or fixing up the house. This means I have spent much of my free time during the lockdown staying active
Fortunately, staying active is not difficult for me. I live in the countryside, which means I can walk for hours if I so choose. Thankfully, people don't call the cops on each other out here. I also have a fairly big backyard with a garden, and these ensure there is always something needing to get done. The more the needing-to-get-dones, the more I can contemplate matters of spiritual importance, which is why I recently launched into a little renovation work called Project Renovate Chicken Coop (see photo above).
As you can see, my yard contains a brick chicken coop - one that is a little, well, dilapidated. It was in poor condition when I bought my house four years ago and has deteriorated quite markedly since then. Though I knew I would eventually get to fixing it up one day, I usually tended to find more pressing matters requiring my attention. Well, those pressing matters have evaporated; thus, my sights are locked on the coop. My intention is to make it look somewhat new again without spending a great deal of money to do so. I plan to replaster the walls, replace the door and windows, and fix the leaks in the roof. No big deal.
But it will relieve the mild cooped-up feeling I have sensed lately and provide the sort of physical activity that helps me think about spiritual matters.
And that is a big deal.
Getting More Obvious
I rarely post memes, but this one jumped out at me the other day. Seems to sum up the here and now fairly well. Of course, the obvious has become oddly relative these days; so this meme faces certain limitations.
April 28, 2020
While My Baroque Lute Gently Weeps?
A George Harrison song on the baroque lute? Hey, why not?
April 27, 2020
The Greatest Totalitarian Coups Are The Ones That Don't Exist
The EU recently announced it would need around one trillion (twelve zeros) euros to pay for the economic fallout the birdemic crisis has caused. Well, I guess there's a price to be paid for locking the majority of the world population down for nearly two months. So, how will this price be paid?
Why through debt, of course! No big surprise there. But the debt being suggested now is not your average run-of-the-mill debt. No, this new-and-improved debt, and it is being explicitly marketed as 'perpetual' - and yes, that's a good thing. Just ask this Establishment frontman (warning: news-related link) extraordinaire; he'll be more than happy to provide details about the wonderful world of perpetual debt.
Most people believe they would recognize a totalitarian coup if it happened to them. I imagine they would regard soldiers marching through the streets endlessly stomping on people's faces as a sure sign of a hostile, authoritarian takeover. Some Stalinesque-looking, mustachioed strong man with countless military honors pinned on his chest demanding he be deified as an undisputed god-leader would probably also be a clear tip-off for most modern people as well.
Yes, these types of totalitarian coups have occurred in the past, but what we are witnessing now is a coup of a much subtler and far more sinister variety. Hate the mustached man all you want, but people tended to understand his in-your-face approach. Past dictators liked simplicity. Flagrancy marked everything they did. The tyranny they spawned was lucid and comprehensible. People generally knew what was going on - and they also knew where they stood.
The Establishment, our modern totalitarians and the governments they control, are also rather brazen, both in actions and in words, but unlike strongmen of the past, barely anyone seems cognizant of the ever-constricting tyranny the Establishment has implemented and is implementing around the world. This is rather curious, to say the least.
Healthy people are locked up within their homes for two months for public health reasons (figure that one out); barely anyone complains. Small businesses, family enterprises, entire industries are obliterated; barely anyone considers the obvious ramifications. The need for increased micro-surveillance and state intrusion into private lives is demanded; barely anyone resists. Churches in the West are shuttered; barely anyone - including most of the clery themselves - raises spiritual concerns. The entire planet is being primed and re-tooled for perpetual, enforced debt slavery; barely anyone raises an eyebrow, let alone anything else.
I guess most people won't notice anything until the soldiers and Big Brother show up. Without soldiers and Big Brother around, there's really nothing to worry about, is there? Thank goodness for democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.
You could argue that our contemporary totalitarians have learned a great deal from their predecessors; that they have mastered the art of the totalitarian coup to such an extent that barely anyone even noticed it when it occurred. Nevertheless, this unseen coup has much more to do with the general public's dullness than it does with the Establishment's ingenuity.
To me, it seems that modern people have become increasingly incapable of perceiving evil, even when it is staring them in the face.
In light of this, I suspect the Establishment must have binge-watched The Usual Suspects for years before they attempted this current coup. They must have. I mean they essentially made a mission statement of the film's most memorable line - "the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."
Well, mission accomplished. On all counts.
Why through debt, of course! No big surprise there. But the debt being suggested now is not your average run-of-the-mill debt. No, this new-and-improved debt, and it is being explicitly marketed as 'perpetual' - and yes, that's a good thing. Just ask this Establishment frontman (warning: news-related link) extraordinaire; he'll be more than happy to provide details about the wonderful world of perpetual debt.
Most people believe they would recognize a totalitarian coup if it happened to them. I imagine they would regard soldiers marching through the streets endlessly stomping on people's faces as a sure sign of a hostile, authoritarian takeover. Some Stalinesque-looking, mustachioed strong man with countless military honors pinned on his chest demanding he be deified as an undisputed god-leader would probably also be a clear tip-off for most modern people as well.
Yes, these types of totalitarian coups have occurred in the past, but what we are witnessing now is a coup of a much subtler and far more sinister variety. Hate the mustached man all you want, but people tended to understand his in-your-face approach. Past dictators liked simplicity. Flagrancy marked everything they did. The tyranny they spawned was lucid and comprehensible. People generally knew what was going on - and they also knew where they stood.
The Establishment, our modern totalitarians and the governments they control, are also rather brazen, both in actions and in words, but unlike strongmen of the past, barely anyone seems cognizant of the ever-constricting tyranny the Establishment has implemented and is implementing around the world. This is rather curious, to say the least.
Healthy people are locked up within their homes for two months for public health reasons (figure that one out); barely anyone complains. Small businesses, family enterprises, entire industries are obliterated; barely anyone considers the obvious ramifications. The need for increased micro-surveillance and state intrusion into private lives is demanded; barely anyone resists. Churches in the West are shuttered; barely anyone - including most of the clery themselves - raises spiritual concerns. The entire planet is being primed and re-tooled for perpetual, enforced debt slavery; barely anyone raises an eyebrow, let alone anything else.
I guess most people won't notice anything until the soldiers and Big Brother show up. Without soldiers and Big Brother around, there's really nothing to worry about, is there? Thank goodness for democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.
You could argue that our contemporary totalitarians have learned a great deal from their predecessors; that they have mastered the art of the totalitarian coup to such an extent that barely anyone even noticed it when it occurred. Nevertheless, this unseen coup has much more to do with the general public's dullness than it does with the Establishment's ingenuity.
To me, it seems that modern people have become increasingly incapable of perceiving evil, even when it is staring them in the face.
In light of this, I suspect the Establishment must have binge-watched The Usual Suspects for years before they attempted this current coup. They must have. I mean they essentially made a mission statement of the film's most memorable line - "the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."
Well, mission accomplished. On all counts.
April 25, 2020
Saying Goodbye To Pleasure Island
Two months ago, the world was a veritable Pleasure Island - a whirling, kaleidoscopic wonderland of potential thrills, amusements, comforts, and gratifications. The Establishment actively encouraged and endorsed enjoyment as the ultimate source of purpose and meaning of life. Subsequently, nearly all modern people adopted this ultimate purpose as the central moral imperative in their own individual lives. Mortal life adhered to the materialist mantra of "here for a good time, not a long time" - the pursuit of short-term gratifications trumped everything, especially long-term considerations. In many ways, our modern world mirrored the "Terra Magica" in Pinocchio; it had become a wonderland of endless indulgences freed from the constraints of all responsibility, moral or otherwise.In the Pleasure Island chapter of the Pinocchio story, a sinister figure known as the Coachman tempts wayward children (in some version only boys) into abandoning their families and responsibilities for the promise of a life of perpetual fun and bliss. The Coachman takes the children to a vast paradisiacal amusement park and encourages them to totally abandon themselves to all the pleasures the glittering utopia offers. The children happily dive head first into the seemingly endless ocean of unrestrained gratification. Life becomes an endless stream of fun, fun, fun without any threat of anyone taking the T-Bird away. Nevertheless, this world of bliss turns out to be a cleverly laid trap. Before long, the children mysteriously transform into donkeys. The Coachman rounds up, imprisons, and sells the child-donkeys into lives of enslavement and hard labor in salt mines, farms, and circuses.
Like the Coachman in Pinocchio, the Establishment and their demonic controllers understand the power of pleasure, and have used this power to tempt, misguide, and ensnare modern people in much the same fashion the Coachman used Pleasure Island to lure children into lives of slavery. The Coachman's prime objectives behind Pleasure Island were material in nature - he gained power over the child-donkeys and through this power was able to sell them into slavery for a profit. Though profit and power incentives are certainly inherent in the Establishment's own Pleasure Island aims, the prime objectives of officially sanctioned hedonism are spiritual - more specifically, soul damnation.
Pleasure has always been problematic for Christians. Some regard it as an inevitable necessity; others as a grave temptation to sin that must be shunned at every opportunity. In my mind, pleasure can be divided into two simple and distinct categories: pleasure that aligns with God's Divine Plan and Creation, and pleasure that opposes God's Divine Plan and Creation. The former is good because it adds fullness and richness to Creation, while the latter is evil for the simple reason that it cheapens and denigrates Creation. Good pleasure appeals to our higher senses while evil pleasure tempts us to surrender to our lower impulses. Put another way, Good pleasure is creative, purposeful, and meaningful; evil pleasure is destructive, pointless, and meaningless. Good pleasure aligns with Truth, Beauty, and Virtue. Evil pleasure aligns with Falsehood, Ugliness, and Vice. Good pleasure should be nurtured; Evil pleasure, avoided. If not avoided, it should be repented.
It goes without saying that the Establishment has utilized pleasure primarily for destructive purposes, which can be evidenced by its perpetual inversions of Good forms of pleasure, particularly in matters of sex. Religion is the strongest motivator in humans, but sex runs a close second. If religion is abandoned, sex becomes the prime motivator. The Establishment knows this and has made sex the foundation of its own "Terra Magica" since at least the dawn of the sexual revolution.
The consequences of the demonic agenda's success at inverting the pleasures associated with sex pretty much speaks for itself, so I won't bother wading into any detail about that here. Sex is a primary weapon of Evil pleasure - but the Establishment's incitement of destructive gratification extends beyond sex to all areas in which the potential for Good creative human joy exists - the arts, literature, sports, family, friendships, money, comfort, food, and so forth. The endorsement and encouragement of Evil pleasure has been one of the demonic agenda's most successful weapons, all but guaranteeing the self-chosen damnation of countless souls. Like the Coachman in Pinocchio, the Establishment has successfully used pleasure to effectively sew people into their own skins.
Evil pleasure has been an incredibly successful tactic in the demonic agenda's spiritual strategy of soul damnation. The malevolent formula has been so efficient that it's perpetual fortification and continuance seemed pretty much guaranteed. As far as soul damnation was concerned, nothing else appeared to be required. Like the wayward children in Pinocchio, all the Establishment had to do was introduce modern people to Pleasure Island. Once there, people would do most of the heavy lifting associated with soul damnation themselves. True, the scheme was not flawless. Some people managed to resist the temptations of Forever Fun Park, but for the masses, Evil pleasure was became devastatingly difficult to resist.
Yet, for all intents and purposes, Pleasure Island has been closed. For whatever reason, the Establishment and its demonic controllers have suspended the Pleasure Island strategy for the bulk of humanity. The potential thrills, amusements, comforts, and gratifications that provided modern people purpose and meaning in life have essentially evaporated. Yes, some minor destructive pleasures and distractions such as online pornography, media, television series, on-demand movies and so forth are still accessible, but the lights of the vast funpark of Evil pleasure have been shut down. When and how the suspension might be lifted remains to be seen, but it isn't too difficult to imagine that many former gratifications may never recover or will be but shadows of themselves if and when they do.
I am not sure what the motivation behind the abandonment of the Evil pleasure strategy might be. Perhaps the demonic powers are shifting from damnation based on sins of greed and lust to an even sweeter damnation based on fear and despair. Then again, Divine Intervention may have played a role in the sudden and seemingly unimaginable termination of Pleasure Island. Perhaps the Divine has offered modern people one last chance to become aware of their sins and repent them. At this point, it's difficult to tell. It's worth noting that the closure of "Terra Magica" has had an adverse effect on Good pleasure as well. Though Good pleasures - the Scriptures, good books, good films, the enjoyment of nature (however curtailed), music, and so forth - are still accessible, a great deal of what qualifies as Good pleasure has also disappeared (the closure of concert halls, libraries, museums, parks, book stores, etc.)
When all is said and done, our current situation has limited access to all pleasures - that is, it affects all people, not only those enamored by Falsehood, Ugliness, and Vice. This is where awareness of the potential shift in the demonic agenda's strategy becomes vitally important. Modern people who allowed themselves to be hypnotized by Pleasure Island's flashing lights have become braying donkeys in the darkness. The continued denial of inverted pleasure can lead to three possible outcomes: awareness and repentance (possible but not likely); anger and impatience (the demand the vulgar pleasures be returned as soon as possible in the name of liberty, etc. - quite possible and likely); despondence and despair (a feeling that life has become meaningless and pointless - once again, quite possible and likely). Nevertheless, modern people who did not fall under the spell of Pleasure Island could still face the same risks their donkey brethren face. Put another way, prolonged deprivation of some higher forms of pleasure could adversely affect serious Christians as well.
And I believe this is where faith, hope, and love once again come into the equation. Modern people who harbor materialist mindsets could have an exceedingly difficult time navigating the post-Pleasure Island world. Almost everything into which they had misguidedly invested their faith, hope, and love has been taken from them. Serious Christians, on the other hand, did not invest any faith, hope, or love into these evil pleasures and may already be immune to the curtailment of these pleasures. Nevertheless, the closure of Pleasure Island has also curtailed the enjoyment of many Good pleasures as well. Serious Christians must not allow this curtailment to lead them into negative territory.
In the end, it all comes down to the fundamental definition of pleasure and its role in human life. For most modern people, pleasure - in the form of material hedonism - is a moral imperative. It is difficult to predict how the currently diminished opportunities to live out this moral imperative in the world will play out.
On the other hand, I imagine most serious Christians already know pleasure, even of the Good variety, cannot serve as the fundamental moral imperative life. This does not mean serious Christians should eschew Good pleasures. Nor should they passively embrace the forced reduction of Good pleasure in the world. Nevertheless, serious Christians should be able to find purpose and meaning even in the absence of most Good pleasures, and they can find this purpose and meaning primarily through faith, hope, and love.
