I’ve been having some thoughts. Some questions I suppose.
Of what sort?
Well, I feel a bit stuck. Between two warring ideas.
Mmhmm, sure.
Rock and a hard place, really.
What is the rock and hard place?
Well,
Respectively.
Sure. Well, I know that lifting weights is good for me.
That’s how we became friends.
Right, yeah. I know resistance training and some general cardiorespiratory activity are necessary, especially in Chairworld. Deskworld, you know? It’s all I do.
It’s all we do, sit at desks. Chairworld. I like that. We just sit.
Right and then we take breaks from sitting at desks to sit elsewhere.
It’s just chairs. Chairs and more chairs.
It’s chairs all the way down is what I’m saying.
This is a break from chairs, too.
Right, but I sit here too. I’ll be sitting during a lot of this, even though it’s undoubtedly strenuous.
Mmm.
This is modern life. Sitting, I mean.
We just sit now is what you’re saying.
Right, that’s what I’m saying. And we didn’t use to just sit.
Life wasn’t always this easy.
I mean, we sat, but it was hard, dude. Life was difficult. You had to work. All our ancestors had to work. Build things, maintain them, and rebuild them.
With your hands, you’re saying. On your feet.
That’s right. That’s it. So now we need this exercise. We need to train if only not to atrophy into the shape of a chair. To be molded into a chair.
Flat butt.
Chairworld makes everything into a chair. It is chair, sees chair, makes chair.
Dude, yeah.
And so we lift. We do other things but mostly we lift. To avoid all the negative effects of Chairworld. To avoid becoming a chair.
Prophylactic and antidotal.
The antidote against chair poison, that’s right. And so we lift. We squat, press, deadlift, bench, and all their derivatives.
That’s right.
But we didn’t need to lift when we were carpenters hoisting huge timber frames or masons erecting stone churches. Or, you know, blacksmiths creating swords and spoons. It was all just one.
Part and parcel. Integrated.
Even being a cobbler.
Cordwainers too.
It was the whole thing, all in one. Life had this wholeness to it. The thing was cogent. We didn’t need to split everything up.
Whole and entire.
We get here early in the morning, then work from 9 to 5, do hobbies, work on a craft, and try to find some leisure time. Weekends are similar, just less of the 9 to 5 work.
Life: compartmentalized.
And leisure is completely devoid of its roots. It’s supposed to be the driver of culture. Leisure is supposed to provide us with a deep and abiding knowledge of reality, dude, but through active and passive modes of understanding. The passive is crucial here. To balance out the active.
Intellectus and ratio.
Yes, right. And, well, moderns proposed active mental effort as all that can constitute true knowledge, without the need for a purely contemplative space.
Utility. Through and through.
Right, yes, but the activity of work needs non-activity. The gift of contemplation apart from toil. This is leisure.
Moderns just don’t get it, brother. That’s the whole thing.
And today it’s even worse. I mean, leisure is just a synonym for laziness. Idleness. An excuse to passively consume entertainment. That’s all anyone talks about at the office. Did you see that movie — bro, did you catch that game — are you watching this series. This is the whole thing for my office.
Same.
And they aren’t shows anymore, they’re series. Have you experienced this?
Sounds more artistic than shows. Richer.
Less consumptive perhaps.
Mmm.
The worst, I think, is that guys look at you as if you’re an immature boy if you didn’t catch the game last night. Guys that never made it beyond their 8th-grade basketball team, if that, and their entire intellects are spent on memorizing “stats” to figure out who’s the best for their fantasy team. It’s a fantasy, man. It’s right there, it’s in the name.
Too busy memorizing stats. Aloof to the higher order. Can’t abstract above the here and now. Need more stats.
I had a job where the manager mandated jerseys when we worked on Sundays. Back before, obviously.
Right. Ugh.
But these men wanted to wear the names of other men. These men were so defeated, their tails so thoroughly stuffed between their legs that they blithely girded themselves with the names of better men. This is the man I think is better than me — who are you wearing today, bro. Their wives wear jerseys too. Imagine your wife—imagine being married and your wife wants another man’s na—eh, forget it.
I will.
But so my point is that it wasn’t always this way but now it is.
It is this way. It be like that, as the kids say.
They do?
I don’t know.
And so we’re sort of forced into this hyper-climate-controlled space of hard plastic, lightweight metal alloys, and compact carpet to exert ourselves. To simulate something like what we got before just by accident of the work needed to be done.
Erecting cathedrals that would last millennia.
That’s right. Now we come here. This sterile box with fluorescent lighting.
Climate-controlled sterile box. Speaking of, we should start getting warm.
Yeah, alright. And I’m not saying we come here to replicate exactly what they were getting. Medieval carpenters weren’t jacked. They were muscular, but they weren’t jacked.
Right. Sinewy.
Maybe a blacksmith or two had some seriously impressive forearms, but nothing too wild.
Of course.
So, it’s not like we’re here to simulate hammering or sanding wood. This is much more than that. This concentrated effort with weights produces results. I’m not denying it or suggesting that carpentry would yield these delts.
I pick up what you’re laying down.
But there was an integration to the thing. To life.
Comprehensive cogency.
So anyway we are all but forced to do this, to be here, in the air conditioning, getting big.
Rejecting Chairworld.
That’s right.
But there’s something so off-putting about it.
Hamsters in wheels.
But we must be here. We must. We must improve our bust.
Or suffer the consequences. Is this the rock?
And well part and parcel of this whole thing is eating, though.
Big time.
Must eat, early and often.
All the time, really.
To make any serious progress here, we need to eat. Getting big by hamster wheel training and eating a lot, this is the rock.
If ever there was one.
But I also know that fasting is essential. The Apostle and all. It’s what we’ve always done, all the way down the line of the Militant. We just don’t eat sometimes.
Not at all.
And some of the really good ones barely ate.
Temperance off the charts.
Right. And there are lots of other virtues at work too.
Prudence. Fortitude.
Charity.
Charity.
And all the sub-virtues. The parts of the cardinal and theological.
Mmm. My set.
Of course. But long before all of this are the negative aspects. We fast to tamp down the flesh. Curb the appetites.
That’s why you start. How you start.
Right, you first fast to get rid of yourself. Your attachments. Make room and become devoid of content. No concepts.
Get out of your own way, really.
Most definitely. You start with the negative.
Via negativa, in its own way.
Yeah, right, in a limited sense. Almost an apophatic turn back into ourselves.
Ah, interesting. Keep going.
Not as if we turn away from God.
Of course. No nitpicking here. Free flow of ideas, you know that.
But we enter into God’s presence apophatically. Or I should say we empty ourselves and allow God in. I’m putting the cart before the horse. We empty ourselves to make room for all the Spirit this mortal coil can handle, then we turn back into ourselves to see how we can now build up.
Empty, indwelt, virtue.
Apophasis first, then virtue. Not that virtue is necessarily cataphatic.
Yes, but I think your point is that you must stop conceptualizing improvement.
Empty yourself first, right.
Empty, indwelt, virtue.
Of course, it is virtuous to empty oneself before God. The turn itself is virtuous.
Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for God is at work in you,
Both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Right, so it’s a gratuitous gift from God to even be able to turn to God in faith, but at once a virtuous fiat.
Simultaneous gift and virtue. The paradox.
…
…
Eh, we won’t solve that here. But yes, we must empty ourselves first is what I’m saying.
Then you might do good.
Might. And only then.
Clear the brush.
So to speak, yeah. Horizontal brush clearing, then we go vertical.
Horizontal precedes vertical.
And so you must fast. Scripture attests to when you fast, not if.
Cut and dried.
So I know that I must deny myself. Reject what is good to earn what is better.
In due measure. Fasting unto death is not virtuous.
Of course. Moderate what is good to achieve greater. Because food is undoubtedly good.
No doubt.
But all goods of this world must be moderated.
Concupiscence and whatnot.
So we must fast.
Mmm.
But we must lift.
And if we must lift,
We must eat.
And quite a bit. We have to lift to reject Chairworld; to avoid becoming chairs. Eat a bunch so that the lifting does anything at all, eating all the time really, but then we have to fast. We have to deny ourselves, take up our crosses,
Respectively.
And follow him. But here we are in this plastic and metal room, comfy cozy with full stomachs, working just as hard as we want to until we go home to eat again.
Hamsters.
But we must give it up. Deny ourselves. Sacrifice what is good in commemoration of that unfathomable sacrifice.
Given once and for all.
Rock and a hard place.
Yeah.
…
…
Doesn’t it all feel so silly, though?
Silly?
I mean in comparison with, you know, Saint Agnes.
Oh, yes. The power.
Saints Thomas More and John Fisher.
Beasts.
Saint Margaret Clitherow.
Brutal. Fortitudinous.
Saint Peter, crucified upside down because he didn’t deserve to die as our Lord did.
Mmm, Caravaggio.
… Caravaggio…
…
My cross today is what, climate-controlled Chairworld? it just feels so…
Absurd.
Yeah.
Absurd…
…
Are you warm?
Yeah, I’m warm. Wait, what time is it?
0755
We’ve been here for an hour? We haven’t even started.
Drat.
I gotta get ready for work, dude.
I think… I think I’ll just stay.
Really? Well, I’ve got to go. I’ll see you tomorrow.
See ya.
Channel Pieper much? This article verbalized a conversation I've been having with myself for years now: the absurdity of having to find ways to stay fit and healthy in the midst of a world of work that is not physically strenuous enough. Our ancestors had to worry about physically injuring themselves through activity. We worry about injuring ourselves from inactivity. 😂 Well done.
For consideration: "Train yourself in godliness, for, while physical training is of some value, godliness is valuable in every way, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come." (1 Timothy 4:7-8)