Most contemporary music is instantly accessible. You can find the beat and identify the chorus with hardly any effort. The music is made to be enjoyed by as many as possible, and there are few barriers to entry.

The same cannot be said, however, of classical music.

For most people, there’s a bit of a learning curve that goes into enjoying classical music. You have to learn how to listen actively, and how to follow the development of a piece across multiple movements. Because of this extra effort, many people don’t take the time to truly dive into and appreciate this incredible world.

But that said, not all classical music is hard to get into. This article highlights five pieces that are readily accessible and perfect for a first-time listener.

If you’ve ever wanted to get into classical but don’t know where to start, this is the perfect place to begin (the links you need are below)…

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1) Saint-Saëns - Danse Macabre

Skeletal strings and haunting melodies provide a vivid example of musical storytelling in this piece. Here, Death is represented by a solo violin, and he calls out the dead from their graves to dance before him.

The back-and-forth, call-and-answer motifs you hear throughout the piece represent Death leading the souls through a danse macabre. Apart from being incredibly entertaining, this work of genius by the French composer Camille Saint-Saëns is an eerily soul-stirring — pun intended — piece of music.

2) Dvořák - Symphony No. 9 “From the New World”

Interspersing bombastic themes with intimate pastoral flourishes, this symphony has everything you could ask for. Composed while Dvořák was living in NY, it’s an incredible blend of European grandeur and American folk melodies.

Specifically, Dvořák was inspired by the Native American spirituals he discovered while working in Manhattan as a visiting professor. That, coupled with homesickness for his Czech homeland and simultaneous excitement at being in America, led him to create one of the most emotionally thrilling symphonies of the 19th century.

3) Strauss II - The Blue Danube

This is a piece you’ll surely recognize, perhaps for its prominent feature in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Swaying melodies and graceful rhythms take you on a journey down the Danube (or through outer space) and remain stuck in your head long after that journey ends

The Blue Danube is a timeless waltz that captures the elegance of 19th-century Vienna. It’s a must-listen for anyone who wants to tap into the spirit of Viennese balls and relive the beauty of a bygone era.

4) Shostakovich - Jazz Suite No. 2

This is an unforgettable piece of music. In it, Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich embraces the playful side of jazz with a surprising departure from his symphonic works.

This suite showcases a lighter, sultry side of classical music that you’re sure to love. It has catchy tunes, vibrant rhythms, lively brass. Be careful when you listen, though! Once the melody enters your head, it’s hard to get it out.

5) Holst - Jupiter, The Bringer of Jollity

This is best described as a vivid tapestry of musical grandeur, from Gustav Holst’s orchestral suite The Planets. It is a piece of bold brass, sweeping strings, and triumphant melodies. Here, Jupiter takes center stage, embodying the exuberant and majestic force of joy through the full might of the orchestra.

The rising fanfares and rhythmic drive you hear throughout represent the boundless optimism and vitality that Jupiter bestows, his regal energy lifting the music with each bold, swelling phrase. Apart from its undeniable brilliance, this piece offers a jubilant celebration of life’s vigor and splendor — perfectly capturing the essence of the king of the gods.

“ABANDON ALL HOPE, YOU WHO ENTER HERE.”

These are the words inscribed above the gate of Hell in Dante’s Inferno. As you pass through the gate to the other side, you expect to see scenes of untold horror, the punishment of souls confined forever to Hell.

Except that’s not what Dante portrays at all. Rather, he shows you something completely unexpected: the souls of the lukewarm, those who in life were rejected by both Hell and Heaven. They were neither “hot nor cold”, and thus are accepted by no one.

At first, this might seem like some consolation — at least they’re not in Hell! But what Dante reveals is that the worst thing you can be in life is lukewarm. He goes on to share a powerful warning against the sin of indifference, showing why you must never be “on the fence”.

What happens in the so-called “vestibule of Hell”, although overlooked by many in favor of other parts of Inferno, provides one of the most important lessons in the entirety of the Divine Comedy.

The only question is, will you heed its warning?

Into the Vestibule of Hell

As soon as Dante passes through Hell’s gate, he is met by a terrifying cacophony of sound. He is now in the “vestibule of Hell”, essentially the holding area before you reach Hell proper. Awakening to the horror around him, he describes the scene as follows:

There sighs and moans and utter wailing swept

resounding through the dark and starless air.

I heard them for the first time, and I wept.

Shuddering din of strange and various tongues,

sorrowful words and accents pitched with rage,

shrill and harsh voices…

-Inferno, Canto III, v. 22-27

His mind “blinded by horror”, Dante asks his guide who these people are, and Virgil tells him that “this state of misery / is clutched by those sad souls whose works in life / merited neither praise nor infamy.” He adds that there aren’t just humans here, but angels too! They are the angels who, when Lucifer rebelled, “were for themselves alone, / not rebels, and not faithful to the Lord.”

Virgil proceeds to describe why these souls are envious of literally everyone else — including the people in Hell. At this moment, Dante suddenly glimpses the punishment lukewarm souls are forced to undergo. Spurred on by the stings of flies and wasps, they run around in pursuit of a white banner. Their blood mingles with tears as it flows off their faces onto the ground beneath them, where “loathsome maggots” gather to consume it…

Worms & Worthless Wretches

But what is the point of this punishment? And what does it reveal about the way these souls lived during their earthly lives?

According to Dante’s idea of contrapasso, each punishment in Hell is directly reciprocal to the disorder of the sin it punishes. It’s for this reason that the souls of the lukewarm are forced to march behind a meaningless banner: since they never stood for any cause in life, they must now do so in death.

It’s the same reason why they’re spurred on by the stings of wasps and flies. Having lived for nothing in life, they evidently lack internal motivation. This is “remedied” in Hell by external motivation in the form of painful stings.

Finally, the maggots provide a damning indictment of the worthlessness of these souls’ lives. To understand why, you must consider the symbolism of blood in Christianity: Christ’s blood is shed for man’s salvation, and the blood of the martyrs is considered the seed of the Church. To bleed — whether literally or metaphorically — for a worthy cause is a great act of love, and Jesus himself declares that “greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

But in the case of the lukewarm, their blood merely feeds maggots. “You shall know them by their fruits”, Christ says, but the only “fruit” the lukewarm produce is nourishment for worms. It is the final condemnation Dante offers of these “worthless wretches who had never lived”.

But why is it that Dante feels so strongly about the lukewarm?

As we shall see, his animus is partially rooted in personal experience. But more than that, Dante’s hate is used to offer an urgent warning to the people of his day — and those of our own, too.

Dante makes it abundantly clear that you’re likely far more guilty of being lukewarm than you realize. But how can you tell if you’re sufficiently hot or cold? It all comes down to one simple, life-changing truth….

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Homer’s Odyssey is one of the most action-packed tales of the Western world. From the showdown with the Cyclops to the slaughter of the suitors, the poem is replete with dramatic adventure. Yet among these many escapades, one in particular gets far too often overlooked:

The encounter with the Lotus-eaters.

What happens on the island of the Lotus-eaters isn’t glamorous, but it’s one of the most significant episodes in the entire Odyssey. Although it looks straightforward on the surface, it’s packed with hidden meaning and a prophetic warning about the dangers of our modern world.

And the craziest part? Christopher Nolan left it out of his film entirely.

Today, then, we travel to the far-flung island of the Lotus-eaters to explore the meaning of this misunderstood tale, and what Homer wants you to realize before it’s too late…

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Simply a Myth?

But first off, who are the lotus-eaters, and where is their island? You might be surprised to learn it’s not something Homer made up.

Roughly 200 years after the Odyssey was written, the historian Herodotus (5th century BC) was confident the island of the Lotus-eaters still existed. In his Histories, he describes the people and island as such:

A promontory jutting out into the sea from the country of the Gindanes is inhabited by the lotus-eaters, who live entirely on the fruit of the lotus-tree. The lotus fruit is about the size of the lentisk berry and in sweetness resembles the date. The lotus-eaters even succeed in obtaining from it a sort of wine.

-The Histories Book 4, Chapter 177

The later historian Polybius identified the modern-day Tunisian island of Djerba as the home of the Lotus-eaters. But more important than the location of their island is what the Lotus-eaters do, which is why Homer immortalizes them in his poem.

Lost to the Lotus

After drifting for nine days at sea, Odysseus and his men finally come across dry land. They go ashore to collect fresh water, and then sit down to eat their lunch together. After their meal, Odysseus sends three of his men to go see “what manner of men the people of the place might be”.

When his men don’t return, Odysseus begins to worry. Samuel Butler, in his famous prose translation of the Odyssey, renders Odysseus’s retelling of the story as such:

[They] went about among the Lotus-eaters, who did them no hurt, but gave them to eat of the lotus, which was so delicious that those who ate of it left off caring about home, and did not even want to go back and say what had happened to them, but were for staying and munching lotus with the Lotus-eaters without thinking further of their return…

In order to get them back, Odysseus has to drag the men back to the ships by force: “though they wept bitterly, I forced them back to the ships”. He ties them down so they can’t escape, and commands the rest of his crew to board immediately. They set sail and speed away from the island, and Odysseus is all too relieved…

The Modern Lotus

But why? Why this much drama over a tiny incident involving just three men?

The reasons become clear once you understand the symbolic power of the lotus. Its danger is not in that it poses a physical threat to Odysseus and his crew. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. The reason the lotus is so deadly is that it overloads you with pleasure, taking away all sense of urgency.

In this state of pleasure and relaxation, you forget your mission and your purpose. Odysseus records that the men who ate of the lotus flowers completely “left off caring about home”, which is to say they forgot about everything of value in their life: their home, their family, etc. And it’s not simply that they didn’t care about them anymore, but that they entirely forgot about them. It’s as if their entire reason for living had disappeared.

This is the reason why Homer dedicates time to this small yet powerful story. In a poem full of action and adventure, it’s easy to think the monsters and beasts are the most terrifying threats you face. But because they’re so obviously dangerous and remind you that death is a real possibility, they alert you to the value of life, and remind you of why you’re fighting.

Homer suggests that actually, the real danger is a life so comfortable that you forget what you were trying to do in the first place. This is the reason why the lotus flower, far more than the Sirens or the Cyclops, is representative of the threats posed by modern society.

Statistically speaking, it’s highly unlikely you’ll ever go to war or die of famine. However, it is certainly possible that an addiction to your phone will derail you from your mission in life. An abundance of food, entertainment, and outsourced thinking (i.e., relying too heavily on AI) is far more likely to destroy your life than physical discomfort or abject poverty ever will.

Like Odysseus, you are called to your own kind of greatness. When properly developed and deployed, your unique gifts and talents can be used to heal the world and bring beauty to a culture in need. Along your path, you’ll certainly encounter difficulties, and at times find yourself trapped between Scylla and Charybdis.

But, if you are to take Homer’s advice, you’ll remember that these challenges are the least of your difficulties. The real threat, which you will need to fend off every day, is that of the lotus flower: a delicious indulgence that brings you immediate satisfaction, and makes you forget what you were even fighting for.

Want to follow in the footsteps of Odysseus? Flee the lotus at all costs.

John Milton’s Paradise Lost is considered by many to be the greatest epic poem in the English language. It documents Satan’s rebellion against God, the temptation of Adam and Eve, and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden.

But most shockingly, it does something that no other piece of literature prior had ever dared to do: it portrays Satan in a sympathetic light. His rebellion is cast with a noble veneer, and Lucifer himself is cast as a sort of romantic hero.

This revolutionary depiction, however, wasn’t actually intended to win readers over to Satan’s side. Instead, it is Milton’s way of tricking his audience into seeing things from a different perspective. Unfortunately, it might have been too good a trick, as still many readers today overlook Milton’s real message.

So what does the portrayal of Satan in Paradise Lost reveal about the nature of evil, and the capacity for evil that lurks within all of us readers? Let’s find out…

The Devil Before Milton

But first, let’s begin by comparing Milton’s depiction of Satan with those that came before him.

In the Book of Revelation, Satan is depicted as a dragon; an ancient serpent hurled down from heaven and destined for eternal defeat. As Christianity spread, there arose the tradition of Lucifer having been one of, if not the greatest angel in Heaven before he rebelled. Ultimately, however, his story was one of warning: Dante, for example, portrays him in Inferno as the underworld’s most miserable inmate, frozen in his own evil.

But why did Satan rebel in the first place? Tradition holds that it was because of pride, for Lucifer in his angelic splendor could not stand the thought of God elevating such a miserable creature made of mud, man, to such a high place of glory. Humans, after all, are inferior creatures compared to angels — not of less worth or dignity, but of a lesser order of being in the created universe.

If you’ve ever heard the phrase “pride is the mother of all sin”, it derives from precisely this tradition. Satan’s rebellion stemmed from pride, and that pride led to him setting out to corrupt humanity and prove to God that he was right. His influence in the world leads to evil — thus “pride is the mother of sin”.

In none of these cases is Satan viewed as a sympathetic character. The closest we get to that are depictions of Satan in medieval mystery plays, where he was sometimes portrayed as a comic character and someone to laugh at. Milton’s depiction, as we shall see, was far more revolutionary…

The Seduction of Evil

The Satan of Paradise Lost is unlike any other Satan prior. Here, he is a charming and charismatic rebel, a daring visionary undaunted by God’s tyranny. His battle cry is a rally for anyone looking to throw off the yoke of tyrannical authority:

“Better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven!”

In the early books of Paradise Lost (there are twelve in total), Satan is portrayed as a bold leader and gifted rhetorician, inspiring his followers with his speeches. But even more novel, Milton pulls back the curtain on Satan’s interior life. He gives him a conscience and a sensitive side, showing how even Satan himself is conflicted by the destruction he’s wrought on creation. As a cultured lover of beauty, Satan is sorrowed to see creation’s beauty wither.

This doesn’t stop him, of course, from continuing on his path regardless. In this dogged persistence, the version of Satan we get in Paradise Lost hearkens back to figures from Shakespearean tragedy. The line “I am in blood / Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more, / Returning were as tedious as go o’er” sounds just as natural in the mouth of Milton’s Satan as it does in that of Shakespeare’s Macbeth (for whom it was originally written).

But why would Milton choose to portray Satan this way?

By the time he wrote Paradise Lost, revolutionary spirit was in the air in Europe, so it’d be easy to think he’s simply offering a critique of that. But actually, he’s pointing to something far more universal, a human flaw that threatens to ruin any attempt — from either side of the political divide — to establish a “perfect” world.

At first, Milton wants you to root for Satan: after all, why should one omnipotent God get to impose his will on everyone else? Shouldn’t a bold, visionary angel be free to forge his own path?

This is cleverly done, because the brilliance of Paradise Lost is that it forces you to confront the very same potential for evil that lurks inside of you — and you will soon learn the truth about rebellion, and finally see evil for what it really is…

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Two weeks ago, we explored some of the best short stories in the Western canon. Today, we continue on that theme, this time looking at a shortlist of history’s greatest novellas.

But first, what is a novella? The easy answer is that it’s something between a short story and a novel. While short stories can be read in one sitting, a novel can last you months, and include any number of characters or plotlines.

A novella, on the other hand, is far more concentrated: it typically follows one central plot with few characters, and can be read in 2-5 hours.

In this article, we look at five of the novellas that have most influenced Western culture over the past 150 years. They are presented in order of the average time it takes you to read them, beginning with the shortest (2-3 hrs) and ending with the longest (4-5 hrs).

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1) The Metamorphosis

Published in 1915, The Metamorphosis begins with one of the most arresting opening lines in all of literature:

When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.

From this absurd premise, Kafka builds a haunting allegory of alienation and guilt. Gregor’s grotesque transformation into a literal insect exposes the fragility of human dignity, and shows how quickly family affection can dissolve into horror and disgust when usefulness disappears.

Yet despite its overt strangeness, the story is more complex than it seems: it can be read as a metaphor of a man trapped in heartbreaking circumstances, or — if you don’t trust the narrator in the opening line — as a story about a man who becomes the victim of his own decay.

Interpretations are aplenty, but one thing is certain: you won’t be bored reading it.

2) The Death of Ivan Ilyich

Tolstoy’s classic novella is among the most profound meditations on mortality ever written. The story follows a high-ranking judge whose comfortable, respectable life quickly unravels when he becomes terminally ill.

As Ivan faces death, he begins to see how hollow his existence has been, and how it was defined more by social propriety and career success than by truth and love. Over the course of about 90 pages, Tolstoy strips away every illusion of modern life until only the essential question remains: how should one live?

Few works so succinctly capture the terror of confronting the reality of one’s death. But, in the words of Tolstoy, “In place of death there was light” — a metaphor for the transcendence that occurs when you come to peace with your mortality…

3) The Shadow Over Innsmouth

H.P. Lovecraft was a prolific writer who transformed the genre of horror by making it about an unspeakable, haunting terror somewhere out there. Just like in Stephen King’s It or the tv show Stranger Things, the horror springs from something that is mysterious, foreign, and beyond human comprehension.

Knowledge of these hidden realities often leads Lovecraft’s characters to madness, as they succumb to an overwhelming sense of cosmic dread. Nowhere is this better on display than in his novella The Shadow Over Innsmouth, one of the main installments in his famous Cthulhu Mythos.

The story follows a man sent to investigate strange reports about the inhabitants of Innsmouth, and the saga of encounters that follows keeps you on the edge of your seat throughout. From the investigation to the discovery, the terrifying pursuit, and the tale’s tragic end, there is no shortage of exhilarating material.

But the most Lovecraftian aspect of all is the story’s conclusion, where the narrator comes to an unexpected and shocking revelation (sorry, we can’t give too much away!). It is textbook Lovecraft in that the line between worlds and cosmic realities is blurred, and in the end, you’re not sure which side is worse to be on…

4) The Old Man and the Sea

A cursory overview of this famous novella’s plot leaves much to be desired: a man goes out to sea and catches a giant fish, but then sees it eaten by sharks on the way home.

The deeper themes of the story, however, reveal a profound reflection on the nature of man’s dignity and the value of perseverance. “Man is not made for defeat,” Hemingway writes. “A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”

The true meaning of the novella is summed up in these lines, as ideals of courage and resilience define the (seemingly) futile conflict between the old man, the marlin, and the sharks. On top of this, Christian imagery permeates the novel in ways that are hardly perceptible. Though Hemingway refrains from making the story a religious allegory, attentive readers can’t help but notice the small details that render this novella something far greater than the sums of its parts.

Hemingway's final masterpiece offers an important insight into what success really means, and how we can strive to live out our own lives in the relentless pursuit of something meaningful. Your life's purpose, Hemingway instructs, will not be found in shallow waters, but in the task that you were made for.

5) Heart of Darkness

Before Francis Ford Coppola and Apocalypse Now, there was Joseph Conrad and Heart of Darkness, the inspiration for Coppola’s smashing box office success.

Conrad’s original novella takes place not in Vietnam but in Africa, where riverboat captain Charles Marlow is sent into the continent’s interior to confront Mr. Kurtz. The latter, an ivory agent who has gone beyond the bounds of civilization, has gone down in culture as a symbol of what happens when conscience collapses under the weight of violence and unchecked power.

But while Apocalypse Now makes that moral disintegration visible, Heart of Darkness instead implies it subtly, leaving the full scope of horror to the mind of the reader. Yet in both film and novella, the question remains: how thin is the line between man and monster, and what happens when the jungle overtakes the soul?

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Fyodor Dostoevsky is one of the greatest Russian authors of all time. His novels such as Crime & Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, and The Idiot are all set against the specific backdrop of 19th century Russia, yet they convey timeless and universal truths. The sweltering streets of Saint Petersburg could just as easily be replaced with those of modern-day Miami, and little would change.

So what is it about Dostoevsky’s work that makes it resonate so strongly with readers today?

To answer that question, I’ll follow Dostoevsky’s own method, and attempt to communicate the universal by rooting it in the deeply human and individual. What follows, then, are five of the main lessons that I myself have learned by reading Dostoevsky.

My hope is that these reflections on faith, evil, and the gravity of conscience, although specific to my own interpretation of Dostoevsky, can help you connect with how his work might resonate with you.

Does Dostoevsky deserve his reputation as one of the greatest authors of all time? Let’s find out…

1) Evil Is Not “Out There”

Today more than ever, it’s easy to point the finger at all the evil in the world around you. Everything that’s going wrong seems to stem from this political party, that group of activists, or so-and-so economic policy. But while this is a comforting (and often politically expedient) fallacy, the actual story is far less palatable.

The uncomfortable truth Dostoevsky forces you to confront in his writing is that true evil isn’t somewhere “out there”. It dwells inside you. By itself, this isn’t such a radical statement — most people would agree with the idea that you should work on yourself before critiquing others.

But when Dostoevsky asks you to wrestle with the fact that evil dwells inside you, he’s not asking you to pay lip service to the idea. He wants you to genuinely consider: what if you lived like you’re the most evil person you know? What would you do differently? How would your gaze turn inwards?

Dostoevsky recognized that we all have a tendency to make hierarchies of evil in our minds. Of course you’re not as evil as a murderer or a human trafficker, you tell yourself. But it’s precisely for this reason that Dostoevsky asks you to seriously consider the fact that you have a far greater capacity for evil than you imagined.

Because for as much as you want to fight the evil “out there”, Dostoevsky knew the battle can only be won when you fight just as fiercely on the personal front. The best way to combat the misdeeds of others is to first confront the evil insider yourself.

2) Redemption Comes From Where You Least Expect

Dostoevsky is lauded for his quote “beauty will save the world”, yet the settings of his stories are often far from beautiful. His novels unfold in seedy taverns, squalid back alleys, and under the sweltering heat of the Saint Petersburg sun. Drunkards, despots, liars, libertines, nihilists, and narcissists fill the pages of his novels.

Yet the true beauty in Dostoevsky’s writing originates precisely here. The author is at his best when he documents how the seeds of grace and redemption are planted and sprung even in the most sordid of soil. Oftentimes, he does so borderline ironically; in ways his characters can’t themselves fathom.

One such example comes with the famous line:

Even today, this quote is mainstream in the online world, and is often used to pile onto those who have made fools of themselves publicly — a fact which Dostoevsky himself would find quite ironic!

The quote originates from Crime & Punishment, and is delivered by Raskolnikov as he admonishes Sonia for turning to prostitution to support her family. The great irony, however, is that he accuses the innocent of that which he himself is guilty. For while Sonia temporarily became a prostitute to stave off destitution (i.e., not “for nothing”), Raskolnikov murders a pawnbroker to steal her money, but then hides the money and never uses it.

In other words, he is the one who truly destroyed and betrayed himself for nothing!

Dostoevsky uses this scene to pave the way for Sonia’s later role as a redemptive force in Raskolnikov’s life. Through her example and encouragement, he musters the courage to confess his crime and submit to the punishment, thus opening the door to an eventual future of true love and happiness — none of which would be possible, of course, were it not for the humble prostitute who served as the conduit to his redemption.

But how is it that Raskolnikov got himself in such a mess in the first place?

It all comes down to him ignoring the most immediately practical of Dostoevsky’s lessons…

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In many universities today, education has become little more than economic training. Real thought and debate are often censored, and the concept of forming minds and souls holistically has been almost entirely abandoned. More often, the goal is simply to produce productive cogs in the machine.

In the midst of such chaos, one idea in particular has been hailed as the key to saving education: the study of the great books. But what if this proposed remedy is actually the reason we find ourselves in today’s predicament?

After all, today’s reign of relativism and the destruction of the liberal arts were both brought about by ideas contained in the great books. Many students of the great books don’t become model citizens, but merely well-read relativists.

To simply read these texts, then, is not enough.

This is because at the heart of the great books is a massive paradox: you turn to them to teach you truth, yet you are to judge them by whether or not what they teach is true. How are you ever supposed to square such a circle?

Fortunately, there’s a time-proven path you can follow to make sure that you read the great books in the light of truth, and not the other way around. Follow these five points to free your mind and approach any work with confidence…

1) Reclaim your Education

First, it helps to begin with an understanding of how the “great books” canon evolved in the first place.

In 1952, Robert M. Hutchins wrote: “We are concerned as anybody else at the headlong plunge into the abyss that Western civilization seems to be taking.” In order to “recall the West to sanity,” Hutchins and his associate editor Mortimer Adler compiled the fifty-four volume Great Books of the Western World series, which comprised primary texts from the greatest intellects in Western history.

Hutchins and Adler saw all these authors — from Homer to Freud — in a “Great Conversation” that gave the West its distinctive character. These authors, especially the ancient and medieval ones, had contributed to the rise of the liberal arts and to the belief that the liberally educated man was one who had disciplined his passions in pursuit of the good. As Hutchins observed, “the aim of liberal education is human excellence.”

Yet as Hutchins wrote, he perceived that the West was undergoing a practical book burning. The great books were being removed from Western education, and with them, any semblance of a true liberal education. College graduates were no longer expected to be “acquainted with the masterpieces of their tradition” nor the perennial questions into truth, beauty, or goodness. They were made deaf to the “Great Conversation” and cut off from the great treasury of their intellectual inheritance.

In light of this, the great books provide an opportunity to reclaim your education. They are a remedy to the privations of modern education and a salvageable substitute for our lack of a robust liberal arts formation. As Hutchins advocated, in reading the authors of the great books “we are still in the ordinary world, but it is an ordinary world transfigured and seen through the eyes of wisdom and genius.”

But of course, that’s not the whole story. Because there is a latent danger in the great books…

2) Avoid the Errors of your Age

Proponents of the great books claim that by reading them, you will better see your age for what it is. In other words, the great books can inoculate you from relativism and its ills by exposing you to truth. To a large extent, this is accurate: great thinkers like Aristotle or St. Boethius, for example, can readily challenge your modern presumptions and stretch your imagination to encompass new perspectives on reality.

But at the same time, there’s an issue: how can the great books lead you to truth when the authors of the great books disagree on what truth is? In fact, many of the great books became “great” by rebelling against Western tradition. Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau all present new and conflicting anthropological myths. Machiavelli rebels against Western ethics, and Marx rewrites the totality of how history should be considered.

This is where it helps to remember that many of the “great books” were chosen for their impact, and not principally for their truth. It is a vital distinction. Forget this, and you can easily become a well-read relativist: you study the greatest minds of the West, discover these minds disagree, and then walk away believing there’s no reasonable expectation of truth.

Many academics now believe that this problem of relativism — rooted in the great books — is what originally sparked the crisis of modern-day academia. As Dr. Patrick Deneen observes in his essay, “Against Great Books,”

I have come to suspect that the very source of the decline of the study of the great books comes not in spite of the lessons of the great books, but is to be found in the very arguments within a number of the great books.

…the broader assault on the liberal arts derives much of its intellectual fuel from a number of the great books themselves.

So how can the great books save you if the great books are part of the problem? We can certainly see that in many regards, the great books can be a remedy. But when applied incorrectly, the remedy for our failing liberal education becomes part of the disease.

The great books can help you avoid the errors of your age, but only if you don’t approach them through those same errors. Approaching the great books as a cosmopolitan relativist bears a contrary purpose than that of the traditional liberal arts. If the great books are our answer to the collapse of the liberal arts, then the great books must echo the true purpose of the liberal arts — of true education.

But what is the purpose of true education?

3) Conform Your Mind to Reality

In his 1946 classic, The Intellectual Life, the French Dominican A.G. Sertillanges lays out the simple purpose of study: “The order of the mind must correspond to the order of things.”

He is drawing from St. Thomas Aquinas, who teaches that “truth is the conformity of the mind to reality.” This is the purpose of the liberal arts, of the great books, and of all study: the understanding of what is true.

Your task, then, is to work to conform your mind to the contours of what is real; so that the order of reality and that of your mind harmonize.

Why is it important that you understand the purpose of study? Well, all things are judged good or bad according to their purpose (or telos, as the classical Greeks called it). You know a good knife must be sharp and a bad knife must be dull, because you know the purpose of the knife is to cut. Knowing the telos of something allows you to understand its quality, to judge it according to its end. Moreover, because you know what a good or bad knife is according to its purpose, you also know what is good or bad for the knife. A whetstone, for example, would be good, because sharpness helps to fulfill its purpose; whereas dulling it on concrete would be bad.

The same is true for education.

The telos of education is truth, the holistic formation of the whole soul to what is real. For education to be good, it must achieve this purpose. Many would argue that there is no better education for conforming the mind to reality than the liberal arts (i.e., classical education). And to the degree the great books are supposed to remedy our culture’s failing liberal arts, the great books too must be judged according to how they share truth.

Like a whetstone to the knife, a true great book will sharpen the mind’s understanding of reality. It is in obedience to this telos that you, like Sertillanges, judge your study and the study of the great books in particular. Not all great books meet this standard, as some labor to know what is real, while others labor for what unreal. As Sertillanges teaches, “books are signposts” on the movement of the mind toward truth. Approach such authors as a student approaches a teacher — ready for a tutelage in what is real.

If you are to help reclaim what was lost when the liberal arts fell, then the purpose of studying the great books must be the pursuit of truth. It was not relativistic dialogue that led Alcuin of York and Emperor Charlemagne to rebuild the West. Nor was it relativism that nurtured St. Thomas Aquinas or Dante. You are an inheritor of a robust pursuit of truth.

But how does one judge what is true?

How do you turn to the great books to teach you truth, yet also judge the great books by whether what they teach is true? Are you the arbiter of what is real? What was the principle of truth for the liberal arts?

The Christian answer to this riddle is, of course, rooted in a careful reading of the New Testament…

4) Become a Student of the Logos

In his architectonic 2006 lecture at the University of Regensburg, Pope Benedict XVI proclaimed, “not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God’s nature.”

His address submits that there is a profound harmony between Greek reason and Hebrew faith. The zenith of this harmony, as explained in Do Christians owe a debt to Homer?, is St. John’s use of the term Logos to describe the Word. The Logos is the ordering principle of all creation, the account of all things. To understand the logos of something, like justice for example, is to understand its essential qualities; but to understand the Logos (Christ), is to understand the account of all things.

The claim that Christ is the Logos helps explain why Christians believe Christ is not just a form of truth, but the Truth itself. To understand the logos of a thing is to know the truth of that thing, but if you can come to know the Logos of all things (Jesus), one encounters the Truth itself. If Jesus is the divine ordering principle of creation, and every created thing has its own logos, this means that reality has a discoverable, rational order.

This, then, is what underpins the fundamental idea that truth is able to be found, whether in philosophy or the empirical sciences. This is the great inheritance of the West: the belief that reality is ordered and truth is attainable. To abandon this belief is to forsake one of the richest treasures of our tradition.

The Logos is at the heart of the liberal arts tradition. Whether it is the logos of rhetoric or the logos of music, all logos is an imprint, an aspect of the Logos — the order of all reality.

So, the liberal arts must be understood as a pursuit of the Logos: a disciplined order of knowledge that moves the intellect into conformity with reality. The medievals understood this well, as the trivium (grammar, logic, and rhetoric), the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy), and even the higher sciences of medicine and law were subservient to and perfected by the queen of the sciences, theology. The liberal arts, with its formation of the whole person, was both rooted in and oriented toward God.

And it was the Logos that gives reality its order that makes such study possible in the first place.

5) The Purpose of the Great Books

The liberal arts, made possible by the Logos and God’s ordered reality, thus led the soul to a holistic formation in the truth. Today, however, the liberal arts have largely collapsed, and education is now an economic training.

It is amongst the debris of what was such a time-tested tutelage in truth that many have turned to the great books. But what if not all great books teach what is true? How should they be approached?

Many Christians structure the great books in the “ancients versus the moderns.” Though not monolithic, the authors from Homer to Dante build upon one another toward a beautiful, ordered cosmos. One may think of Aquinas’ Summa Theologica or Dante’s Divine Comedy that attempted to weave together diverse traditions into an ordered whole, into wisdom.

We, however, live in the age of the anti-Logos. If the ancients built up a great study of reality, then the moderns tore it down. The second half of the great books, “the moderns,” from Machiavelli to present, largely represents a deconstruction of belief in an ordered whole of creation. While Christians would certainly point to a number of modern thinkers who buck this trend, such as Cardinal Newman or Pope Leo XIII, the main trait of the modern age is rejection of that idea.

Man no longer turns to God, revelation, nature, or history for guidance, but rather these become malleable to man’s creative will. Each man becomes his own god, his own “Logos,” who believes reality should conform to the “truth” of his own imagination. Man now makes his own reality and demands others adhere to it — the dictatorship of relativism.

The great books, rooted in the Logos, serve to tutor you in what is real and what is unreal by inviting you into the great dialogue of human history. The goal is not to become a well-read relativist but to conform your mind to reality — with Christ, the Logos, as the standard of truth.

Thank you for reading!

This is a piece that we recently published on our sister publication, The Ascent.

There, we are diving deeper into theology, mysticism, and ancient texts — please join us if that interests you! You’ll get one free article every Tuesday, and longer essays like this every Friday for paid readers…

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We are the most entertained people in history, but might we be the least creative?

Nowadays, it is frighteningly easy to spend the best part of a day consuming the creations of others: listening, streaming, scrolling. For most of us, the ratio of consumption to creation has never been more lopsided — and yet, the tools of creation are more accessible than ever.

Let us establish at the outset that consuming art is itself a worthy pursuit. But if this is all you do, what are you giving up?

G.K. Chesterton once wrote that a culture has become decadent when its people prefer to pay others to dance for them, rather than a whole room of people doing the dancing for themselves.

This matters because creation is not just a joyful addition to human life, but the defining feature of it. This is an argument made by several great writers, from Ruskin to Chesterton to Tolkien: that created beings are designed to create things themselves.

This article examines why — and importantly how — we must all pick up a pen or a brush, and bring into the world something of our own…

Learn to See

At the foundation of why creating things matters is the following: you never really notice the world until you try to reproduce some part of it.

Anyone who has tried their hand at sketching, for example, knows this. You thought you knew what a tree or a bicycle looked like, and then you sat down with a sketchpad and realized you had never truly looked at one.

English polymath John Ruskin believed this so fervently that he set up a rudimentary drawing school in Oxford to encourage others to learn how to see. He wasn’t concerned so much with the actual art they produced, and never sought to train artists — he merely hoped to prompt ordinary folk to “see greater beauties than they had hitherto seen in nature and in art, and thereby gain more pleasure in life.”

To Ruskin, drawing was the process by which you educate the eye, and come to consume the world more meaningfully. Where many think the creative act is about departing from the world to imagine something entirely new, it is really about the creative process that brings you into fuller participation with what’s already there.

Fight Cognitive Atrophy

Writing is another form of creation, perhaps the most important of all.

Just as sketching a tree branch helps you to see the tree, composing words about something confers a new understanding of the thing you are communicating. You can see a concept anew by forming your own words about it.

When you log into ChatGPT and ask it to compose a paragraph or email for you, you are depriving yourself of this most precious faculty: the thinking process that is writing. LLM users, abdicating their duties as humans born with the capacity to think, risk losing that ability by way of cognitive atrophy. Each time they defer to the chatbot, the more their ability to think deteriorates — many of us are aware of this new danger and attempting to limit our AI exposure already.

Similarly, if you abdicate your wider creative duties (to compose stories, songs, drawings, etc.), you risk losing a profoundly important part of yourself. The creative act is part of you, and one that you cannot afford to lose…

Satisfy Your Innate Desire

There is a school of thought that argues that humans, as beings of a created universe (indeed, created beings), are thereby designed to create themselves.

Dorothy L. Sayers, an Oxford contemporary of J.R.R. Tolkien (and honorary Inkling in my view), made this compelling argument in her book, The Mind of the Maker. In it, she argues why the desire to create is an integral part of the human experience.

When we turn back to see what [the author of Genesis] says about the original upon which the ‘image’ of God was modeled, we find only the single assertion, ‘God created’. The characteristic common to God and man is apparently that: the desire and the ability to make things.

It is through the process of imaginative creation that a human being in some sense emulates the God of Genesis: creating something out of nothing.

It is the artist who, more than other men, is able to create something out of nothing. A whole artistic work is immeasurably more than the sum of its parts.

This is also how J.R.R. Tolkien thought about the creative act. The ‘Lord of the Rings’ author famously wrote that every human being carries a deep impulse to “sub-create” secondary worlds: to take the raw material of the primary world they inhabit and fashion from it something new.

As I compile this article, I’m aware how easy it is to talk about the importance of creation. In reality, creating things is hard. Sure, we might all be happier writing novels of our own, but here comes the objection: “my life is busy.”

If you or I even get the time to write or paint something substantial, how can we be sure of creating anything worthwhile? And what if we never finish? How does one find the time to be a creator amid the duties of modern life?

Here, I want to introduce the advice put forward by Tolkien himself. He knew that for most of us, there is rarely the time to pen a novel or sculpt a masterpiece. Creation must be thought of another way, and it must take place in the margins of ordinary life.

So, here’s what Tolkien revealed about the struggles and rewards of the creative act — and how creation must work in practice for you and me…

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In discussions of great literature, novels get the lion’s share of attention. Then come epic poems, and occasionally the odd novella. All too often, however, one genre in particular is left out of the conversation entirely: the short story.

While a novel can take hundreds of pages to unfold its ideas, a short story has no such luxury. It is a demanding medium, and even some of the greatest novelists fail to live up to its exacting pressures. But when done right, a great short story can be a life-changing twenty pages of literature.

Today, we explore five of the Western canon’s best short stories, all of which can be read in a single sitting.

If you’re looking to kill an hour — or even just 20 minutes — there are far worse ways to pass your time than by reading one of these…

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1) The Tell-Tale Heart

Few writers have shaped modern horror as profoundly as Edgar Allan Poe, and nowhere is his psychological brilliance more apparent than in this story. The plot itself is simple: an unnamed narrator insists upon his own sanity while recounting a carefully planned murder, only for his own conscience to become his undoing.

What makes the story unforgettable isn’t so much the crime itself as it is the mind of the man committing it. Long before psychological thrillers became commonplace, Poe understood that the most terrifying monsters often reside within your own mind. Each one of the story’s paragraphs thus tightens the emotional pressure on the narrator, until he finally loses his nerve at the tale’s climax.

Nearly two centuries after it was written, The Tell-Tale Heart remains a masterpiece on the delirious and destructive effects of guilt on the mind and soul.

2) How Much Land Does a Man Need?

Leo Tolstoy spent much of his later life wrestling with questions of wealth, ambition, and the purpose of human existence. Nowhere are his thoughts on these issues more concisely communicated than in this short tale.

The story follows the peasant Pahom, who is convinced that “our only trouble is that we don’t have land enough. If I had plenty of land, I shouldn’t fear the Devil himself!” But as Pahom seeks to acquire more land, he predictably becomes even more greedy, and less satisfied.

The plot culminates with Pahom making an ambitious bargain, and dying in the process of winning it. The tale then concludes with one of the most famous lines in all of literature: a single sentence revealing exactly how much land it was that Pahom ever really needed.

3) Leaf by Niggle

Most people know J. R. R. Tolkien through The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit, yet one of his deepest works can be read in under an hour. On the surface, Leaf by Niggle is a simple tale about a painter who dreams of painting a vast, beautiful tree. But the only thing is, he wants to get it just right.

Niggle begins by sketching the outline of the tree, but soon gets fixated on a single leaf, revisiting and revising it endlessly while the rest of the canvas remains rough and unfinished. Along the way, he’s constantly interrupted by the duties of life. He grows frustrated but never adapts, returning again and again to that one leaf while the bigger vision fades.

Eventually, he dies, and the canvas is left incomplete.

Tolkien admitted this story was a kind of self-confession. It ends with Niggle’s vision of the afterlife, and the shocking realization he comes to. It’s Tolkien’s best reflection of the Christian art of sub-creation, and the idea that what you begin in love, even if you don’t live to see its completion, might still outlast you…

4) Boule de Suif

Guy de Maupassant remains one of history’s greatest practitioners of the short story, and Boule de Suif established his reputation almost overnight. Set during the Franco-Prussian War, it follows a group of French travelers who errantly stray into Prussian territory and get captured.

The real drama of the story arises once it is revealed that the group will be allowed to go only after one of its members — the prostitute “Boule de Suif” — sleeps with the Prussian officer. What follows is a story of self-interest and hypocrisy, as the more “respectable” members of society employ all their tricks to convince her to do so.

The story’s end provides a painfully honest look at how moral cowardice and the pressures of conformity can corrupt even the “best” in society, all while those who are truly generous and good suffer the consequences.

5) A Good Man Is Hard to Find

Southern Gothic author Flannery O’Connor wrote incessantly about the strange and mysterious workings of God’s grace. A Good Man Is Hard to Find, one of her best known stories, reveals how it can break through even in the most dismal of circumstances.

The story begins as an almost humorous tale of a dysfunctional family taking a road trip through the American South, but it soon takes a darker turn. An unexpected encounter transforms the narrative into something far more insidious, as the family crosses paths with an escaped convict known as the “Misfit”.

Most first-time readers of O’Connor’s literature never identify anything specifically “Christian” about it , and to some extent, that’s how O’Connor wanted it. But look beneath the surface, and you’ll find deeper meaning lurking unannounced. The final paragraphs of O’Connor’s short stories — of which she wrote over 30 — often transform the meaning of them from something unremarkable to something of extraordinary cosmic significance. The ending of A Good Man Is Hard to Find is no exception.

Thank you for reading!

Don’t forget to join our book club!

We’re currently reading Homer’s Odyssey together. You can watch back our previous discussions here in case you missed them.

The next discussion is today, July 1, at noon ET. See you very soon!

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Reminder that our third (and final) discussion on Homer’s Odyssey is taking place TOMORROW, July 1, at noon Eastern Time.

You can join us via Zoom if you want to participate directly — here’s the link:

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Homer’s Odyssey is the world’s greatest tale of homecoming. It shows the lengths to which a man will go to overcome obstacles and return to his loved ones, no matter the cost. It’s the consummate story about the journey home.

Or is it?

Because a quick look at the contents of the Odyssey reveals that Odysseus gets home to Ithaca just halfway through the poem. Half of the epic, in other words, isn’t about the return home, but what you do when you get there.

This aspect of the tale is often overlooked, as most people naturally gravitate towards the fantastical adventures that precede Odysseus’s homecoming. But to Homer, the second half of the poem is surely the most important, and you cannot afford to overlook it.

Today, we explore the true meaning of Homer’s Odyssey by focusing on the events that take place once Odysseus returns to Ithaca. What do they reveal about the nature of love, home, and even war?

Homer’s answer might well surprise you…

An Arduous Journey

The Odyssey begins in the aftermath of the Trojan War, and documents Odysseus’s attempts to return to his home across the sea. This is the part of the Odyssey people are most familiar with, as this half of the poem is replete with swashbuckling adventure and deeds of daring.

These include Odysseus’s encounter with the one-eyed giant Polyphemus, his harrowing escape from the island of the Lotus-Eaters, his journey to the underworld, and much more. Previously, we’ve written about the symbolic meaning of his confrontation with the Sirens, as well as that of his 7-year captivity on the goddess Calypso’s island.

Over the course of these adventures, the mettle of Odysseus is proven time and time again. While he’s not a perfect man, he’s certainly clever, cunning, and astonishingly brave. You can’t help but admire him, and you begin to realize why he was counted among the most respected Greek generals at Troy.

And yet, for all his daring and valor, Odysseus’s toughest battle still lies ahead. This time, though, it’s not simply a question of strength and arms. There will indeed be a bloody battle in the end, but in the meantime, the real challenge is something else entirely. It’s a struggle so intense that Homer deemed it worthy of half his poem: the challenge of returning home…

A Stranger at Home

One of the most poignant paradoxes of the Odyssey is that after surviving storms, war, and monsters, Odysseus cannot simply walk back into his own home. The hero who conquered all is reduced to a mere shadow of himself the moment he sets foot on Ithaca.

This point is made abundantly obvious when Athena, in order to protect Odysseus, disguises him as a beggar. The metaphysical posture of humility is reflected back out in the physical reality, and Odysseus is made to travel through his homeland as an outsider. In fact, his faithful dog Argos is the only one at first to recognize him.

Now, in some regards Odysseus’s beggarly disguise certainly comes in handy for him, as we will see in the next section. But in the meantime, it reminds the great adventurer of a harsh reality: that time creates strangers out of friends and family. Home changes while you’re gone, and so do you. You can return to your home without it ever feeling like home at all.

Odysseus is forced to sit with this sobering truth, and as he does, he also realizes the harm caused by his absence. His son has grown up without a father, his wealth is going to waste, and suitors threaten to end his family line for good. Nature abhors a vacuum, and so do families: what will fill the great vacuum in our hero’s household?

The key to restoring order, Odysseus discovers, requires combat of a different sort. Because homecoming isn’t usually a triumphant return — often, it’s the biggest test. To overcome his enemies and win back his wife, Odysseus must wrestle with a harsh truth.

This final test is everything that Homer’s poetry, in both the Iliad and Odyssey, has been leading up to: an uncomfortable lesson about home and belonging…

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Where is our modern-day Michelangelo? Why don’t we make great art anymore?

For some, the answer is simple: “we don’t know how to do it”. Others provide more complex answers regarding financial incentives, new technological landscapes, and the absence of patronal proclivities in ruling elite. Most, however, simply complain.

But while it is easy (and often financially lucrative) to complain about how great the past was and how much the present sucks, we at The Culturist have decided to actually do something about it. We’ve decided to become patrons ourselves.

We’re incredibly excited to reveal a project we’ve been working on for several months, and which is currently underway in the very heart of Renaissance Italy. It is the beginning of our much larger vision to help revitalize the arts and shine a light on those who are stewarding the flame of the Great Tradition.

Are you ready for the New Renaissance? If so, read on to learn about our quest, and how you can join us on the adventure…

The Quest Begins

As digital creators, we’re constantly exposed to online discourse regarding art and beauty — or better yet, the lack thereof. Refrains like “the West has fallen!” frequently come up on our timelines, but hardly ever do you hear stories about the people still fighting for the good, true, and beautiful.

Since many of our articles place a strong emphasis on the power of beauty, eventually we felt compelled to ask ourselves: what are we doing apart from just writing about this? What can we do concretely to bring more beauty into the world?

These questions prompted our quest to seek out the best up-and-coming artistic talent, and to support them in the development of their craft. Building relationships with everyone from French sculptors to Russian fresco painters, our co-founder leveraged his position in Europe to scour the continent for the best creators and craftsmen. He discovered many promising artists, but one in particular stood out from the crowd.

That young man, Carl-Nikolas von Tiedemann, is a 25-year-old classical painter based in Florence. Following a call to the arts, he left his native Germany after high school to pursue his vocation. It was a dramatic gamble, as leaving home meant abandoning any hope of a safe and steady career path.

But the gamble paid off. Accepted into the prestigious Florence Academy of Art, he not only earned his diploma but soon became a principal instructor at the academy. Now, following his conversion to Catholicism, he has shifted his focus to the creation of sacred art.

Earlier this year, Evan connected with Carl-Nikolas, whereupon the two decided to embark on an ambitious project: a life-sized portrait of St. Catherine of Siena; von Tiedemann’s largest commission to date.

The Mission

But what is the point of this project? How much of an impact can one painting really have? What do we hope to achieve through this commission?

Quite a lot, actually. First and foremost, we want to shed light on the fact that there are still people stewarding the flame of the Great Tradition. The thing is, you just don’t usually hear about them, since the skillset required to be a great artist isn’t often the same as that required to grow an online audience. Amidst the lamentations of “we don’t know how to do it anymore”, it is more important than ever to highlight the people who are making great art, and thus making a difference.

Second, we want to focus on the power of art to point to the divine. Upcoming articles on this publication, as well as on The Ascent, Letters from the Old World, and INVICTUS, will break down why it is that classical art points you to a higher reality. They’ll also explore the life and spirituality of St. Catherine — one of the greatest women of the Middle Ages, yet also one of the most misunderstood — and why she is such a critical figure to look to for guidance in our chaotic modern world.

Third, we aim to shed light on the importance and role of patronage in the modern day. Even though being a “patron” sounds like something reserved for the ultra-wealthy, the truth is that it’s never been easier to become one. It’s also never been more critical that you do so.

Whether at a grand regional scale or a modest local one, we hope to inspire you with the possibilities of what patronage can entail. Contrary to popular belief, patronage doesn’t mean giving handouts to starving and ungrateful artists. Rather, it can still be used to build relationships and exert power: the influence of the Medici, in other words, has never quite disappeared.

Lastly, we hope to throw gasoline on the metaphorical fire of Carl-Nikolas’s career, helping him get the attention he absolutely deserves. It is rare, especially these days, that an artist exhibits such exceptional talent at such a young age. Since we are in a position to highlight it, we can’t help but do so.

Carl-Nikolas has a dream of one day establishing an academy of sacred art in Rome, and we want to help make that vision a reality. If you are in any way able to support his work — whether by commissioning a painting, or simply by making an introduction — reply to this email or reach out to Evan directly, and he will put you in touch.

What’s Next

Over the upcoming weeks and months, we’ll share updates documenting the progress of Saint Catherine’s portrait: both how it’s made, and what it reveals about the power of great art to transform our modern world. We’ll also share insider advice on how to find talent worth supporting, how to leverage the system of patronage to your advantage, and how you can make a difference on even the most local of levels.

The responsibility of passing down the Great Tradition, after all, doesn’t fall to others: it falls to you. The good news is, you can make a far bigger difference than you realize. This project, for example, wouldn’t be possible without the support of our paid readers.

In late July, Evan will travel to Florence to visit Carl-Nikolas’s workshop in person, and the two will then journey to visit Saint Catherine’s home in Siena. That trip will be documented in future articles, as will the spectacular debut of the painting later this fall. We can’t share yet where it’ll first appear, but it won’t disappoint!

Of course, we highly recommend you follow Carl-Nikolas on Instagram so you can track his progress in real time. You can also learn more about him and browse his past work on his website.

Lastly, we want to thank YOU for your support of all we do here at The Culturist. This project would not be possible without our incredible readers, and we are deeply grateful for the community we have here.

The time for the New Renaissance is now. The only question is: what part will you play in it?

P.S. Don’t forget to join our book club!

We are currently reading Homer’s Odyssey. You can watch back our previous discussions here in case you missed them.

The next discussion is on Wednesday, July 1, at noon ET — join us!

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What is the true meaning of success? What does it look like to “win” the game of life?

Most people’s answer to this question defaults to observable success, like professional achievements, high income, exotic vacations, or a beautiful spouse. The more you do, the more you’re valued — hence why people like Elon Musk, Lionel Messi, and Warren Buffett are considered to be the “winners” in society.

But one man more than any other challenged this assumption. He was a man who had it all, who had done it all, and yet still felt deficient. He had all the success you could ever dream of, but still felt like a failure.

His name? Michelangelo Buonarroti.

That’s right. The painter of the Sistine Chapel, sculptor of David, and architect of Saint Peter’s Basilica often wrestled with the true meaning of success. His private writings reveal a burning focus on one recurring question: everything he had accomplished in his career, what was it all for?

Today, we look at the life of the world’s greatest artist to see what it reveals about the answer to this question. Fortunately for us, Michelangelo himself gives us a hint of it in his own writing — and what it reveals will change the way you measure your life’s success…

An Artist Unlike Any Other

But first, let’s begin with an overview of Michelangelo’s opus. Sculpting was his favorite discipline, and in that field few — if any — have ever outdone him. His David is easily the most famous statue in the world, followed closely by his Pietà.

As the most famous sculptor of his time (and practically ever since) he was sought out by everyone who could afford him. He carved the tombs of Medici dukes and the Pope, and the statue of Moses he made for the latter was described by his contemporary Giorgio Vasari as “unequaled by any modern or ancient work”. All this is to say practically nothing, of course, of other statues like the Dying Slave or the Florentine Pietà.

Yet Michelangelo’s success was not limited just to this field. Although today the Mona Lisa contends with The Creation of Adam for the title of the world’s most famous painting, in the halls of power of 16th century Italy, Michelangelo was the undisputed champion. Works like The Last Judgment and the Doni Tondo are easy proofs of why.

But lest you think his success ends there, Michelangelo was also one of the greatest architects of his day. Many of Rome’s most iconic landmarks, such as St. Peter’s Basilica, Piazza del Campidoglio, and Porta Pia, were designed by his hand.

Simply put, Michelangelo was the consummate Renaissance man. He was considered a genius just as much in his day as he is in ours, and had the fame and fortune to back it up. All of this is what makes his perspective on worldly success all the more surprising…

A Man of Little Worth?

To us, Michelangelo’s career and legacy is about as vast and admirable as is possible for a person to achieve. But to Michelangelo, it was woefully insufficient.

In his private writings, and specifically in his poetry, Michelangelo deemed his great masterpieces to be in vain, and his existence to be of “little worth.” Interestingly, he was not the only famous artist of his time to come to this conclusion. Leonardo da Vinci, for example, famously admitted on his death bed that he had “offended God” by the lowliness of his efforts.

Michelangelo’s perspective on his own success is partially reflected by the work he created at each stage. Full of life and energy in his twenties, he created pieces like the Pietà, the Statue of David, and the Doni Tondo. In his thirties, he sculpted Moses and painted the Sistine Chapel.

But as Michelangelo entered his 60s, the mood began to change. He painted works like The Last Judgment, The Conversion of Saul, and The Crucifixion of Saint Peter — all paintings that focus, in one way or another, on death and what comes after. He also sculpted the Florentine Pietà for his own tomb, portraying himself in it as the Pharisee-turned-Christian Nicodemus.

In all of these works, one message was clear: a sense of unworthiness and undeserving that no great achievement could ever undo. In a moment of remarkable honesty, Michelangelo wrote:

“I am a poor man and of little worth, who is laboring in that art that God has given me in order to extend my life as long as possible.”

Why did he feel this way? And if satisfaction can’t be found in your achievements, no matter how impressive or widely they are admired, then where can it be found?

This is surely a question that everyone, especially creatives, must come to ask. How can your work or craft bring you lasting fulfilment?

Fortunately for us, Michelangelo addresses this question in some of his little known writings. In particular, there’s one poem that addresses his dilemma, and his solution, more than any other.

What he records is that true success in life is found elsewhere than one’s achievements — and his words provide surprisingly useful advice for all of us living and working today…

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Mark your calendars…

The third (and final) discussion will take place in 2 weeks, at the usual time: Wednesday, July 1, at noon Eastern Time.

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Love might be the most powerful force in the world, yet the English word for it is anything but. For starters, it’s incredibly unclear: what does it mean, for example, that you “love” chocolate? Or that you “love” going to the movies? Do you really love these things in the same way you love your spouse and your children?

Hopefully, the answer is “no”. But why, then, do you use the same word to express your love for such different things?

To the ancient Greeks, this kind of linguistic imprecision would be considered barbaric. This is because they had at least five different words for love. The nuance between these different meanings helped the ancient Greeks better make sense of the type, measure, and intensity of their love for other things and people, and it can help you do the same.

That’s why today, we look at these five ancient Greek words, and discover what they can teach you about the nature of love itself…

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1) Storge

Storge (pronounced “store-jay”) is most ubiquitous type of love, arising naturally from basic human networks and relationships. It describes the type of love you have for family, your country, or your classmates: in other words, love that stems from familiarity.

This is not to say, of course, that the love you have for your high school friends is the same you have for your family, but it’s simply to indicate the sort of affection that naturally arises from proximity. It’s the kind of love Antoine de Saint-Exupéry describes in The Little Prince, writing:

“[My rose] is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under the glass globe; because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen; because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars (except the two or three that we saved to become butterflies); because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or ever sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose.”

Storge is a naturally occurring type of love, but this also makes it easy to take for granted. It is always wise to remember that even though storge seems “built-in”, that doesn’t mean you can act however you want. The bonds of storge love can still be broken by cruelty, or even mere indifference.

2) Philia

If storge is the most natural type of love, philia is perhaps the most unnatural. Philia is love in the sense of close friendship, whether between siblings or schoolmates. It is considered “unnatural” in that it doesn’t just occur spontaneously: character and circumstances must align for a true friendship to begin, and intentionality must be present for it to endure.

For this reason, however, philia is considered a higher-level love in regards to storge. While storge ensures that siblings are endowed with a natural affection for each other, it is philia which enshrines that closeness with lasting love and closeness, especially through the ups and downs of later life.

Perhaps because of its rarity, the ancient Greeks put an incredibly high value on philia. Oxford professor C.S. Lewis once described their affinity for it as such:

…to the Ancients, Friendship seemed the happiest and most fully human of all loves; the crown of life and the school of virtue.

3) Eros

Eros is arguably the most misunderstood type of love. Because of its connection to the word “erotic”, it’s far too easy to simply write of eros as mere lust — but this is a colossal mistake.

Our sister publication The Ascent shared a comprehensive guide to eros, covering its origins in pre-Platonic Greek thought to its role in Christianity, and why it is absolutely essential in order to know and love God.

At its heart, eros is a sort of generative energy that moves souls to action. The direction in which it pushes you, however, varies greatly depending on how you engage with it. It can either push you towards the good, true, and beautiful, or towards madness and mania.

For better and for worse, eros is a love that overcomes reason. The only question is, how will you use that to your advantage, and not your destruction?

(If you’re interested in learning more about eros, we really recommend you check out The Ascent’s article on this topic. It is far more comprehensive than anything we could include here!)

4) Philautia

At its most basic, philautia is the love of oneself. However, just as with eros, philautia has both noble and ignoble forms.

At its best, philautia is the type of self-love that acknowledges one’s innate dignity. It allows you to have compassion for yourself, recognizing your flaws (and resolving to improve them) without sliding into contempt for yourself.

On the other hand, though, an unhealthy form of philautia makes you vain, prideful, and selfish. It makes you avoid criticism for fear of inflicting pain on your ego. Whereas healthy philautia makes you more confident, unhealthy philautia makes you more insecure and fragile.

The ancient Greeks recognized that keeping philautia in proper balance was no easy task. Aristotle proposed that a good litmus test to see how you’re doing is to ask if your philautia leads you towards virtue or away from it. When properly embraced, philautia should always lead you to the former.

5) Agape

This is the highest form of love, the type that most imitates God’s own. Translated into Latin as the Christian virtue caritas (from which we get “charity”), it also means “affection.” But what does this kind of affection look like?

Agape, to St. Thomas Aquinas, meant “to will the good of the other”. It is a kind of unconditional love that seeks the best for the beloved, even when that comes at the expense of the lover. Jesus’s claim that “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” underscores this self-sacrificial element.

Whereas storge is defined by proximity and circumstance, philia by freedom of choice, and eros by deep desire and longing, agape is best defined by the action of the will, the voluntary decision to love and be faithful even in the worst of circumstances. For this reason, it is the most selfless and constant; the most God-like love you can achieve.

Agape love is so essential that without it, even the most noble and glorious of causes is reduced to nothing. Saint Paul highlights this in the famous passage from 1 Corinthians 13:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not [agape], I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not [agape], I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not [agape], I gain nothing.

But perhaps the best description of agape comes in the lines that follow. Here, we get to see just a few of the characteristics of agape. In reading the words of Saint Paul, it is clear to see why this love is considered as superior — but not in opposition — to all the others, and why it remains the greatest form of love you can strive for to this day:

[Agape] is patient and kind; [agape] is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. [Agape] does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. [Agape] bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Thank you for reading!

As mentioned, we highly recommend you check out our sister publication, The Ascent.

There, we are diving deeper into theology, mysticism, and ancient texts. You’ll get one free article every Tuesday, and longer essays every Friday for paid readers.

And don’t forget to join our book club!

We just started reading Homer’s Odyssey. You can watch back our first (intro) discussion here in case you missed it.

The next discussion is TODAY, June 17, at noon ET. See you soon!

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Reminder that our second discussion on Homer’s Odyssey is taking place TOMORROW, June 17, at noon Eastern Time.

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The tale of Cain and Abel is one of the best known, and most misunderstood, stories of the Bible. On the surface, it’s deceptively simple: God prefers Abel’s sacrifice, so Cain gets mad and murders his brother.

But of course, there’s much more to it than just that.

What most people miss is that before Cain murders Abel, he has a conversation with God. Seeing that Cain is feeling down, God comes to warn him about the dangers of sin, but Cain doesn’t heed his advice. The result? The murder of Abel, Cain’s exile, and his subsequent psychological torture.

This last element is one of the most overlooked, yet astonishingly relevant, parts of this nearly 10,000-year-old story. It reveals the reason why many people ruin their own lives, knowingly or unknowingly. By outlining the psychological factors behind Cain’s self-destruction, the tale gives you the tools to avoid making the same mistakes.

Today, we explore the hidden meaning of the story of Cain and Abel, and what you can learn from God’s warning…

Background & Lead-Up

From a Christian perspective, Cain and Abel are especially significant because they represent the first humans ever born. While Adam and Eve were created by God, Cain and Abel were born of woman, and are thus considered (in some ways) more representative of humanity as a whole. This is especially significant as we see how it is that their story turns tragic.

Cain is the firstborn child, which is significant because it means that he is naturally favored as the eldest son and heir. As for his profession, the Bible says he is “a tiller of the ground”, essentially a farmer. The exact phrasing of this, however, becomes more important later in the story.

Abel, on the other hand, is a shepherd: a keeper of animals and the one responsible for keeping beasts at bay. His profession and status as younger brother mean that he prefigures the character of King David. God described David as “a man after mine own heart”, and he looks with similar favor on the young Abel.

The fateful moment in which God’s favor — and lack thereof — becomes clear is in Genesis 4:3-5, which records:

In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard.

As a result, Cain gets upset and murders Abel. But what about Cain’s offering wasn’t pleasing to God? Or is God simply playing favorites?

The answer is revealed in the next two verses…

Cain’s Conversation with God

Immediately after stating that God had no regard for Cain’s offering, Genesis records that “Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell”. It is right at this point that the most remarkable part of the story takes place: Cain’s conversation with God.

Seeing that Cain is upset, God goes to him and asks why he is down:

The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen?”

This is a remarkable line, for many reasons. For starters, it suggests that God isn’t simply playing favorites. If he were, then Cain’s frustration would be understandable — but as it stands, God seems to think Cain’s reaction is unjustified. This idea is supported by what he says next:

“If you do well, will you not be accepted?”

Here God indicates to Cain that things don’t have to remain as they are — in fact, he doesn’t want them to. God wants Cain to make a worthy offering he can accept, and reminds him that (to paraphrase), “If you do what is right, won’t I accept you and your offering?”

It’s clear, in other words, that God seeks to bring Cain into communion with him. Cain’s sacrifice wasn’t what it should have been, and God simply reminds him of the standard.

But this is where things begin to go wrong for Cain. Because instead of apologizing and making a new offering, Cain grows resentful. He doesn’t want to ask how he can remedy things. He’s upset they need to be remedied in the first place.

God recognizes this, and warns Cain:

“...sin is couching at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.”

But far from mastering his anger, Cain lets it wash over him, and in the next verse he murders his brother.

But why? Why kill his brother even after being warned? What do Cain’s actions reveal about man’s tendency to self-destruction, and how to avoid it?

The answer to all of these questions lies in the events that follow and Cain’s punishment. Because instead of striking him down, God does something far worse: he lets him live.

At this point an uncomfortable truth starts to become clear, and we learn that Cain’s mistake wasn’t just murder. There are much deeper levels to this ancient story…

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