On Attending to All Controllable Variables

Gideon Yutzy1 Comment

The people we call authentic are often the ones capable of identifying their weaknesses and talking about them in an honest way. That’s good, in a way. In another way, the fact that humans are unpredictable and flawed doesn’t mean we cannot strive for character. Growing in character is, after all, of more benefit to us than anyone else, though the people who have to live with us probably aren’t going to complain.

When we speak about authentic politicians, we often mean they are authentic to their baser impulses such as fearmongering and name-calling. But couldn’t a politician also be authentic to their nobler impulses? Why are we more likely to call such a person boring, elitist, and, well, inauthentic.

At heart, nobody likes to live in constant dysfunction. At the end of the day, feeling dysregulated isn’t all that sexy. Going off on reactive outbursts might feel good in the moment, but what then? Who’s left to pick up the pieces? So I tweeted something off my chest – how am I now going to replenish myself with the nutrients that produce stable, flourishing humans?

In our inalienable right to pursue happiness, perhaps we also ought to look after the basics sometimes. Sleep. Exercise. Water. Regarding water, I remember a quote from a comedian: “Sometimes I panic and think I need a new religion, a new profession, and a new spouse, but then I realize I just need a tall glass of water.” Also, there was a stodgy preacher from the Midwest who once stumbled upon an excellent point. He said something along the lines of, “You can be as spiritual as you wish, but if you aren’t getting your rest and a proper diet, you aren’t going to be a good Christian.” In the many sermons I heard from him, that’s the only thing I remember.

We replace stress with rest, so we can speak gently to our spouse and children. We plan our day so we can have a robust medley of productivity and relaxation. We make the effort to stay in touch with friends and family even if we feel misunderstood or slighted by them. These are viable ways to live, and I’m just going to say it, authentic ways to live. Yes, being human means making mistakes, and members of our race are hard to live with. We will inexorably do things we regret and those around us abhor. But there is nothing inauthentic about learning to space out our failings. There is nothing inauthentic about being 0.01 percent less of an asshole this month than last month.

There is nothing inauthentic about attending to the variables within our control.

How to Stay in the Same Faith as JD Vance

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With much of the Christianity you find online, it’s good to steer as wide a berth as possible. That includes the brand of Christianity associated with the current Republican Party in America.

Vice President JD Vance recently wrote a book about his journey into the Catholic Church. I’ve watched a few bits and pieces of his promotional interviews. Now, I know Christians ought to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, but somehow it’s hard to see this conversion as genuine. Vance insists that Mr. Quiet-Piggy Trump really is a virtuous man after all, despite calling him Hitler a few short years ago. And that rounding up vulnerable people Gestapo-style as if they’re cattle is simply ‘enforcing the law.’ Vance’s entrance into the church was convoluted at best and politically motivated at worst, and the only miracle I see is how he has managed to scrupulously avoid any real contact with the Christian faith.

But hey, we must remember the parable of the wheat and tares, and the old truism, ‘Christians don’t get to choose family.’ Let us go outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured, amirite. But I could almost develop an ulcer if I think too long about how that slippery, smiling man seems to drag Christ’s name through the mud at every turn, how he weaponises the Christian faith to create divisiveness, and not the noble divisiveness that comes from a politics that serves ‘the least of these,’ but rather the kind that furthers his shallow political ambitions and agenda.

And yet I know it’s easier to criticize than build. If I reject the Christianity associated with the current religious right–and I do reject it, roundly–then what form of Christianity do I espouse? I remember Tony Campolo’s story about eating at a greasy spoon restaurant in Hawaii during one of his many speaking tours. Unbeknownst to him, the little diner was located at the entrance of a brothel. A prostitute was talking to her colleague (if that is the correct word) and telling her it was her 40th birthday. Impulsively, Tony Campolo planned an impromptu party and had a cake brought in. The burly chef, seeing Tony with the cake, along with ‘wall-to-wall prostitutes,’ wiped his hands on his dirty apron and gave him a look of utter disbelief. ‘I thought you were a preacher!’ he said to Tony. ‘Say, just what kind of church do you belong to?’

Tony said that in one split second, the Holy Spirit gave him the exact right response: ‘I belong to a church that throws birthday parties for sex workers at 2 o’clock in the morning.’ I’m not sure if JD Vance would be throwing birthday parties for the down-and-out, probably not the Haitians in Ohio anyway. Unless the Holy Spirit has been working on him more than what is public knowledge, and that certainly is not outside the realm of possibility given the mischief the Spirit can get up to.

I also remember the great Richard Foster’s seven streams of Christianity. I don’t remember all of them but I think they included missional, sacramental, contemplative and doctrinal. Maybe, given the alarming rate at which the broader church is fragmenting, it’s worth considering which stream of the church we are going to draw from for our sustenance. To me, the stream of Christianity that challenges and questions has always seemed the purest, though I am also aware of how important it is to stay grounded in the faith. You have to know what the basics are before you become too provocative and experimental. Just as all runners need rest and healthy food, so all Christians have to commit to the basics. You have to say your prayers, do penance, recite the creed, receive the eucharist.

Of course. I grant all that. But I also think there is a viable stream within Christianity that sometimes appears divergent to those in some of the other streams. I honestly did not set out to join that stream, but it is, shockingly often, the one I feel most at home in. I have never been able to feel at home in a certain brand of Christianity. I don’t quite know how to describe it other than it’s a little campy and they like to ‘own the atheists’ and toss shibboleths around in order to suss out who else is in their tribe. It’s always felt alien to me. So it seems good and right to put into writing where my allegiance lies: to Christianity, yes, but more specifically the stream that flows turbulent at times. Why should a Trump sycophant get to determine what the faith looks like? If JD Vance can be so bold about his understanding of the Christian faith, perhaps the rest of us can, too. Perhaps it’s our only real hope of staying Christian.

Gurus Are A Symptom of Our Fragmented World

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Not to sound all Robert Putnam-esque, but it’s less likely now that we belong to a bowling league, or any other league or club, than it was before Steve Jobs made his famous ‘dent in the universe’ by strongarming through the invention of the smartphone.

Since then, a plethora of idiocies and banalities have competed to fill the vacuum created in the wake of that dent in our universe. Among these is the rise of online gurus, some of whom have reeled in millions of followers. It reminds me of the dynamic between the current U.S. president and his more ardent followers: no matter what their guru says, it is divine decree.

With gurus, even if they blatantly contradict themselves, it can still somehow be spun as pure brilliance, if we as their followers hold the crystal ball under the light in just the right (wrong) angle.

One explanation I’ve heard for the rise of gurus is that we crave certainty. Amid the exponential fragmentation of our world, we like to return to solid ground sometimes. It doesn’t help that we’ve become cyborgs. Literally everyone has grown an appendage on their hand overnight. We can now access billions of brains instantly rather than just our own boring (but still usually trusty) brain. We might remove our bionic limb for a few slots of our day, but only fitfully it seems, and seldom as a clean, surgical break.

The danger is that we are vulnerable to some charismatic guru hacking us. Something about our primordial biology tends to believe information for its own sake, no matter how irrational or ill-founded it might be. If something is said confidently enough, we tend to believe it unless we willfully reverse the inertia of trustingly taking everything in as fact, particularly if it is said in a sleek studio with an army of sound producers and cinematographers working behind the scenes.

And all of which causes one to muse: what, practically, can one do to mitigate the effects of con-men. I remember Kipling’s line in If: “if all people count with you, but none too much.” If some media figure has us eating out of their hand and we tune in to almost all their new content, it just might be a good idea to wrench ourselves away from their orbit occasionally. It has surprised me more than once how a fresh, new take can reframe a situation. We owe it to ourselves to find that new perspective. As Richard Feynman said, “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.” Well, Mr. Feynman, what with the entire body of past and present knowledge at our fingertips, we have less of an excuse now than ever.

I have a proclivity to swallow whole what some charismatic online gurus say. Despite that embarrassing reality, my smug brain wants to whisper that my gurus are more sophisticated and less rabid than other people’s gurus. But that thought is in itself an indictment on how much guru Kool-Aid I’ve drunk. One remedy is to talk back to people on podcasts, literally talk, out loud, as I listen to them on headphones while I cut the grass or jog. It’s surprising how often they suddenly start sounding a lot more foolish, or at least less wise, when I do respond to them. I also like to float what they say to flesh-and-blood humans (novel idea, I know), and notice how they respond, as someone who didn’t get caught in the spell of the technologically advanced media production. I find that people around me who are less invested can be pretty objective, and even ruthless critics, especially my daughters.

That, and also the idea of a True North. A late afternoon plunge in the Irish Sea always has a way of stripping away the BS my mind might have accumulated throughout the day. Beyond blue pills, and beyond red pills, there is our true mother, the sea. I will meet you there. Additionally, the communion service Esther and I have started attending on Wednesday morning anchors us. The priest holds out the wine, uttering the quasi-cannabalist incantation, The blood of Christ, keep you in eternal life, and in every pore of our being, we seek to agree. It’s a bizarre little ritual, but I can tell you it’s been around longer than podcasts, and it is also perhaps the most impregnable defense against overweening gurus that I currently know of.