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In my last piece, I commented on how the more one looks under the hood of modern life, the more it seems nearly everything is not just poor quality—it’s anti-functional and even deeply fake. Without using the phrase, I was essentially pointing out how ripe the world is for “deep fakes” and how much of what we are presented with on a daily basis seems like a “deep fake”—from poisonous toilet paper to viruses, from radicalized U.N. relief services to doddering Joe Biden. That left us with the question: “What can and should we do about it?”
My dad shared with me something he once heard:
The only things you can be sure of in a world of uncertainties are the things you handle with your hands, the people you know in person, and the arguments you have thought through from principles to conclusions. Even these can sometimes fail, but they are pretty solid because they are within your immediate range and scope.
If we keep this piece of common sense in the back of our mind, it comes as no surprise that flourishing communities of Catholics have several general characteristics in common: a renewed interest in working with one’s hands and farming; face-to-face community unmediated by digital technology; and a revival of the Church’s intellectual tradition (often in the form of studying the Liberal Arts and “Great Books”).
Orthodox. Faithful. Free.
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There are lots of things to worry about in our world. Unfortunately, not only is it impossible to do anything about them but we often can’t even know what exactly the nature of the problem is. For example: questions regarding the threat of nuclear war are almost impossible to answer. I have no way of answering whether any state would seriously consider the use of nukes or if nukes are merely theoretical threats on a political chessboard. Whatever a military’s capabilities and policies, they desire to keep these secret from the enemy—and, all too often, from ordinary civilians.
I could despair, or travel down perpetually contradictory internet rabbit holes on these topics. But an alternative course of action in this world of uncertainties is to look around at the things at hand—my garage (in the process of being transformed into a woodworking shop), my lute, my cupboard full of cooking ingredients, my bookshelf full of interesting volumes.
Consequently, in order to turn my focus from the all-too-human cloud of unknowing which is the modern world mediated via the internet, I have chosen a few refocusing activities. Despite plentiful bytes of information, the web doesn’t seem to bring us consistently and reliably closer to the truth. Therefore, I’ve sworn off YouTube for this year (not having any social media accounts, that’s where I’m likely to waste the most time). Instead, I’ve decided to ensure that I read for at least one hour every day. (And this was a decision I made before finding out about Matthew Walther’s strategy for reading 100 pages a day.) And, having acquired the necessary tools, I plan to learn how to make wooden smoking pipes this year. Whether pipe-making remains a hobby or turns into a side business, I don’t know. Either way, it’s an uncommon yet not too difficult craft.
Another project of this new year is planning proper weekend camping expeditions with my friends. I love hiking, and so do they; but we often fail to plan ahead, then get busy, make other commitments, and find ourselves shaking our heads and wishing months hadn’t gone by without camping or hiking. In reality, we just need to plan better. After some research, I created a plan for hiking or camping in twelve different locations in my beautiful state of Wyoming. Driving times, general campsites, whether or not it would be backpacking proper or just car camping, and attractions—such as fishing, mountain peak attempts, or canoeing opportunities—are all listed as well. I’m continuing to improve my gear collection: recent Christmas additions include a hand-pump water filter, a Finnish fish-filleting knife, a crank-powered light, a floating fishing hat (in case you can swim as fast as the current), and flannel-lined canvas pants.
These are mostly small steps (except for steps involved in peak attempts—which I might wish were smaller and fewer in the moment), but they focus me toward a common denominator: living a red-blooded life, a full life, with as few digital regrets as possible. Malcolm Muggeridge titled his autobiography Chronicles of Wasted Time. And that was before the internet took off! Should we not try to avoid a life in which my autobiography and yours would have to be given such a deflating title? (Muggeridge didn’t actually waste lots of time; but he felt, in the light of eternity, as if he had done much less for God and mankind than he could have done—which is a sentiment that probably every man with a conscience will feel at the end of his life.)
The un-faking process sometimes seems slow. Sometimes it will be confusing, discouraging, or lonely. While I never promised it would be easy (and neither does anyone else—if they do, regard them with suspicion!), there are a few things that can make it more accessible. Paramount is finding companions who have greater experience with the real world. To this end, I recommend that readers explore the excellent Hearth and Field journal, the School of the Unconformed Substack, and the Catholic Land Movement (contact them and find your closest local chapter; they are now active in almost every U.S. state and in some other countries as well). Run by beautifully down-to-earth people, sites like these offer excellent resources on how to select chicken breeds, break up with the internet, or keep bees.
Ultimately, reclaiming reality has similar tenets wherever you look: decreasing the digital, increasing the incarnational, loving the land, prioritizing the people, pondering the prayers, and hiking the hills.
It’s nothing new, and that’s the point: it’s as old as the earth, as old as mankind, and that is why we know it works. The world is ready for you to reclaim it for reality this year. Don’t disappoint yourself or those around you by failing to notice not only the “glories streaming from heaven afar” but the glories speaking to your heart from the splashing water, waving trees, blazing sun, delicate moon and stars—and from the pages of a good book or a Great Book. Get out of the cloud of the fake into the light of the fullness it hides. The light is waiting; the dirt is waiting; and whether you know it or not, so is your soul.
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