First of all, I want to say thank you for joining this substack. It is good to have you all along for the ride. Together we can hopefully find a way to negotiate these dark times in a new/old way. I think it is going to take all we have, and surely far more than we think we even have the ability to offer.
I have only been at the monastery a bit shy of two months now. In that time though, I have grown more hopeful for our prospects in this dark time. This doesn't mean what we will go through is going to be easy, or even pleasant. I am fairly certain the way in front of us will be dark, and difficult and it will often seem as if we are completely lost. But there is light in the darkness, and the darkness does not comprehend it.
It is my belief that we have the opportunity to stop shoring up the Imperium, and put away our allegiance to the utopia of control, even though it may seem to benefit us. In many ways it does, but at what cost? And can it possibly be sustained? What will the Metamachine Algorithm have to become, and more importantly, what will we have to become, for this current dispensation to continue?
What are our options? The standard answer is that it is either this “progress’ or a life that is nasty, brutish, and short. I firmly reject this false dilemma. What I do think is that what is in the works for us to get us through this convergence of catastrophes—should we make it that far—is technological transhumanism, whether we want it or not.
By that is meant, I think AI, genetic manipulation, cybernetic biotechnology, social engineering, and all the rest. In short, to continue on our current path of “development” is to relinquish humanity as we have known it. Some may say good riddance to what we’ve been—and maybe for good reason—but I don’t think it is likely to succeed.
As T.S. Eliot so aptly framed the utopian impulse:
They constantly try to escape From the darkness outside and within By dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good. But the man that is will shadow The man that pretends to be.
The idea of creating a system so perfect one doesn’t need to be good is the very thing we must put away, once and for all. Instead, it means, as T.S. Eliot also phrased it, we can find a “condition of complete simplicity”, but parenthetically warns us, that it will, alas, “cost no less than everything.” Are we willing to choose it?
Perhaps we need to propose a kind of transhumanism of our own. A Transhumanism that, finally, can allow us to be radically and fundamentally human. Call it seeking the Way of Return. Call that the return to the Original Harmony. If the survival of the human species means ending the same by turning us into controllable hybrid, networked machines, I say no thank you. Instead, we can follow a new/old path, knowing it can never be a utopia. But rather, truly, the best we can ever hope for on this beautiful earth. Can we learn to accept what we are and the life we have? Because if we do, it is something far greater and far more beautiful than we have been told to believe.
I hasten to add that this alternative is itself no age of Aquarius. The hope for a “final solution” to the mortal human condition is always a dangerous temptation. And it leads where it has always led. Rather what lies before us is a path out of the darkness of control and consumption, through it, and into different darkness. Into what I will call, without apology, A New Enlightened Dark Age. The age of theosis.
I think at this point, given the current trajectory, it is a far better path. It may be the only path. We can’t avoid what’s coming, and it is vanity to think it is going to wait for us1.
Let us proceed…
My hope for this substack is to have a conversation about the times we are in. A practical conversation, ultimately, but not only that. I am absolutely sure that everyone has something to contribute to this. I invite you all, should you be so inclined, to join the conversation.
If this substack is successful—an outcome still yet to be determined—it will necessarily render itself obsolete. The hope is to find a better way to live and to live it. May God make it so.
Thank you. I hope this finds you all well.
-Jack Leahy
A paraphrase from No Country for Old Men, by Cormac Mccarthy. Probably from the movie version.
I began reading your Substack articles only yesterday and they are some of the most honest pieces I have read. My own story is strange and mysterious.
I came back to the Catholic Church in 2017 after 40 years away because of a miracle:
https://lapsedcatholicreturns.wordpress.com/2018/04/20/a-miracle-brought-me-back-to-the-catholic-church/
Ever since then I have felt a great urge to join a convent but my state in life (married) prevents me from doing so. I realized after a lot of thinking and reading the lives of saints that everyone is called to live a sanctified life and a sanctified life doesn’t mean a life free of worries, troublesome neighbors or illness. There are saints who were kings and queens (St. Louis X, King of France and St. Elizabeth, Queen of Portugal), as well as soldiers (St. Martin of Tours). Many people think that retiring to a monastery is an escape from what’s bothering them, only to discover that what’s bothering them isn’t external, but internal, and now it’s with them in a tiny cell 24/7.
It’s possible to live in the world and not be OF the world, but one has to be very vigilant. That means no TV, spare use of social media and the Internet, daily examination of conscience, prayer and meditation, and spiritual reading. This is something a lay person can do in addition to fasting and alms giving. It’s nothing new and people who lived before the “age of progress” knew this.
I’ve never spent any time at a monastery, but I wonder if some of the things you are experiencing there might have some applicability to people’s everyday lives, for instance the structure and rhythms of the monastic pattern of life. I don’t know if that might be something you were considering for a future article. I recall Rod Dreher has a chapter on this in the Benedict Option (based on his visit to the Norcia monastery). In my own life, and that of my family, trying to maintain a sense of unity through a common rhythm of activities and focus has been important, and a stabilizing force against the constant sloshing of liquid modernity, which seems intent on keeping everybody off balance. But it’s a never-ending effort to maintain even the simplest common structures, like mealtimes, prayer, etc.