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…

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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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It is said that horror is the most moral of literary genres. A strange claim at first, but it makes sense when you think about it: something can only horrify by arousing a moral instinct, and only by knowing what is good can you recognize what is evil.

Horror has taken many shapes and forms over the centuries. In the 1800s, Edgar Allan Poe transformed the genre from tales of external monsters to introspective psychology, depicting how guilt and obsession can destroy the mind. Often, his narrators are themselves the true monsters of the story. Yet for as modern as Poe seems, he is not the main influence on the type of horror we know today.

Best-selling novels like Stephen King’s It and the world famous TV series Stranger Things all take their cues from another man: H. P. Lovecraft. A prolific writer of over 70 short stories, Lovecraft transformed the genre by making it about an unspeakable horror somewhere out there, something unnameable and beyond human comprehension. Knowledge of these hidden realities often leads to madness, as characters succumb to an overwhelming sense of cosmic dread.

Lovecraftian horror clearly resonates with people today, as the success of a show like Stranger Things clearly indicates. But to better understand why it resonates, you must turn to the work of Lovecraft himself.

Today, we look at five stories that best capture the specific horror of Lovecraft’s tales, and explore what they reveal about our own modern and cosmic insecurities…

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1) The Statement of Randolph Carter

This story doesn’t typically feature in the “best of” lists of Lovecraftian tales, but it is thoroughly representative of Lovecraft’s style. It features a man, the eponymous Randolph Carter, testifying in court about the disappearance of his friend and colleague.

What makes the story so eerie is that throughout it, the horror in question is never named directly. It’s alluded to, hinted at, felt, and even heard, but never seen. You know that Carter ends up safe because he’s in court giving his testimony, yet that doesn’t alleviate the rising tension or underlying fear.

From a purely textual point of view, the story is also fascinating for the way it is presented. Written in Lovecraft’s signature journalistic style, the dry and matter-of-fact approach contrasts with the vague and unknowable dread that undergirds the story’s main plotline. It’s a short and easy read, too: pound for pound, it’s one of Lovecraft’s most hair-raising stories.

2) The Shadow Over Innsmouth

If The Statement of Randolph Carter is a good tale to whet your appetite, The Shadow Over Innsmouth is one to keep you full for days. It is the longest story on this list, and one of the main installments in Lovecraft’s famous Cthulhu Mythos.

The story follows a man sent to investigate strange reports about the inhabitants of Innsmouth, and the saga of encounters 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…

3) The Whisperer in Darkness

If you like aliens, this one’s for you. Another one of Lovecraft’s longer stories, it follows a professor’s correspondence with a man who encounters an extraterrestrial race of beings on his Vermont farmstead.

An abrupt change of tone in the latter’s writing prompts the professor to visit the farm, whereupon he gets far closer to the action than he ever imagined. However, in typical Lovecraft style, the power lies not in what does happen but what doesn’t happen, or better yet what could have happened. A vague, uneasy feeling of discomfort slowly builds throughout the piece, bringing you tantalizingly close to the horror, but never quite touching it…

4) The Rats in the Walls

Blood, violence, and gore are integral parts of many sub-genres of horror, but they are noticeably missing from Lovecraft’s work. This story is one exception.

In this and in other regards (such as the fact the story is set in England, whereas most of Lovecraft’s tales transpire in America), The Rats in the Walls is atypical of Lovecraft’s larger corpus. Yet at the same time, it’s unmistakably Lovecraftian. Cryptic themes of fate and ancestral evil haunt the piece throughout, and the plot centers around the main character’s descent into darkness.

What that darkness looks like, exactly, will be left to the reader to discover. This story isn’t for the faint of heart, but it’s one of Lovecraft’s most riveting.

5) The Call of Cthulhu

How could any list be complete without this one? The Call of Cthulhu is the foundational story in Lovecraft’s greater Cthulhu Mythos, and demonstrates his remarkably creative capacity for world-building. It focuses, perhaps rather obviously, on the great monster Cthulhu, a terrifying cosmic entity and “High Priest of the Great Old Ones”.

But just because the story features such a frightful behemoth, don’t be fooled into thinking that’s what it’s all about. The real horror, as with much of Lovecraft, is not a specific monster but rather the terror of discovering you’re caught up in a spiritual reality far greater than you ever realized. Whether you like it or not, there’s no getting out.

In this way, Lovecraftian horror can be read as a dark inversion of Christian cosmology. Both posit that you inhabit a reality populated by vast, powerful forces beyond ordinary perception. The difference, though, is that Christian cosmology frames this hierarchy within a moral order governed by God, whereas Lovecraft presents a cosmos that is chaotic, indifferent, and devoid of human significance: in other words, the most terrifying horror of them all.

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Life is full of ups and downs. Periods of motivation and success are followed by seasons where everything seems to go wrong. No matter how hard you try, you can’t break out of the funk — until one day everything starts to change, and you suddenly start winning again.

This ebb and flow of highs and lows can feel incredibly frustrating. Why does life feel like a rollercoaster; why is consistency so difficult? It’s easy to get upset at this state of affairs. But, according to C.S. Lewis, it’s exactly as God intended.

This surprising revelation comes from Lewis’s standout work The Screwtape Letters, in which a senior demon offers his nephew advice on how to lead humans to hell. What their correspondence reveals is that these ups and downs are actually part of God’s design for humanity, and that the low moments — the “troughs” — provide the best opportunities for humans to be led astray.

But that said, they also provide the best opportunity for spiritual growth. Put simply, the troughs are a double-edged sword: they can be the most dangerous for your development, yet also the most beneficial, depending on how you approach them.

Today, we dive into Lewis’s collection of demonic correspondence to learn why highs and lows are actually a good thing, why God lets the dry spells happen, and what you can do to come out of them all the stronger…

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The Law of Undulation

Let’s begin by looking at the reasons why seasons of up and down exist, and why they’re an inherent part of human nature. This concept first comes up as the senior demon Screwtape attempts to describe to his nephew Wormwood what he terms the “law of Undulation”:

Humans are amphibians — half spirit and half animal … As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time. This means that while their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in time means to change.

Their nearest approach to constancy, therefore, is undulation — the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks.

In other words, the natural pattern of ups and downs in life is baked into what it means to be human, for humans “inhabit time” and “to be in time means to change”. Linear progress in life isn’t possible; the closest we can get to it is something approximating the ups and downs of fractal waves.

Screwtape makes it clear that this “law of Undulation” applies to all aspects of human life, reminding Wormwood that:

If you had watched your patient carefully you would have seen this undulation in every department of his life — his interest in his work, his affection for his friends, his physical appetites, all go up and down. As long as he lives on earth periods of emotional and bodily richness and liveliness will alternate with periods of numbness and poverty.

Crucially, however, these low moments — the “troughs” — aren’t inherently worse than the peaks. In fact, Screwtape reprimands Wormwood for thinking such a thing:

The dryness and dullness through which your patient is now going are not, as you fondly suppose, your workmanship; they are merely a natural phenomenon which will do us no good unless you make a good use of it.

But that said, there are specific strategies Screwtape outlines for how to tempt humans in these stages, and how to best exploit their low moments…

The Bait and Switch

One of the best ways to attack humans during their troughs, Screwtape says, is to lean into tempting them with sins of the flesh:

In the first place I have always found that the Trough periods of the human undulation provide excellent opportunity for all sensual temptations, particularly those of sex.

But the reason for this might surprise you. The reason Screwtape recommends sexual temptation isn’t because humans are more prone to lust in the troughs. In fact, it’s just the opposite: during the peak moments in life you have much more physical energy, or as Screwtape calls it, “more potential appetite”.

So why does he recommend it? The reason has to do with the fact that good pleasures are more likely to be perverted when they are embraced from a spot of exhaustion and emptiness. The example he provides to Wormwood is that of a man drinking alcohol:

The attack has a much better chance of success when the man’s whole inner world is drab and cold and empty…

You are much more likely to make your man a sound drunkard by pressing drink on him as an anodyne when he is dull and weary than by encouraging him to use it as a means of merriment among his friends when he is happy and expansive.

In other words, during the down moments of life — those in which you lack energy or hope — it is far easier to open the door to bad habits. And once you do so, the demons then compound your error with their next trick, which is to:

…make him acquiesce in the present low temperature of his spirit and gradually become content with it, persuading himself that it is not so low after all.

It’s the devilish art of bait-and-switch: make you err and despair during a momentary trough, and then convince you that state is permanent. You can succeed in leading your patient to hell, Screwtape tells Wormwood, when you “do not let him suspect the law of undulation.”

But if this undulation between peaks and troughs presents so many opportunities to lose sight of what’s good in life, why would God allow them to happen? And how can you resist temptation during the troughs?

It all begins by tackling one of the most difficult questions of all time: why would a good God feel so absent?

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Mark your calendars…

The next discussion will take place in 2 weeks, at the usual time: Wednesday, June 17, at noon Eastern Time.

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Why should you read Homer’s Odyssey in 2026?

There are, of course, a plethora of good reasons to pick up this ancient epic, but one in particular towers over them all:

It is our story.

Homer’s epic opens with the single word “man.” From this moment on, Odysseus becomes a stand in for every one of us. He wrestles with fate and free will, clings to the sacred idea of home, and discovers what it will take to rectify the injustice that consumes his house. In other words, this adventure is a thoroughly human one.

But most of all, the Odyssey is a poem that refuses to be molded to modern man’s ideologies. For this reason, it remains the fountainhead of Western civilization, the poetic training ground for Plato, and a surprising preparation for the coming of the Christ.

Today, we look at 10 reasons why should read the Odyssey. As you’ll discover, this ancient work is still surprisingly relevant to life in 2026...

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10. The Story of Humanity

You read the Odyssey to better understand the nature of man. You should take seriously that the very first word of the Odyssey in the Greek is “man.” Odysseus is in many ways a representative of man and his story is our story. In fact, when Homer invokes the Muses at the beginning of the text to help him sing the story of Odysseus, he asks the Muses to sing of “our story too” — the story of man. As such, the Odyssey is a deeply anthropological tale that weaves together perennial questions about the human condition, like free will, fate, justice, home, place, and the divine.

9. The Question of Fate & Free Will

You read the Odyssey to explore the tension of fate and free will. Though the Iliad is often read as a deeply fatalistic text, the Odyssey is often praised for exploring the agency of man. In fact, in the beginning of the text, Zeus defends the gods and blames the misery of man upon man’s own poor choices. But, to what degree are Zeus and fate separate? At times Zeus seems to be the caretaker of fate, shepherding all things according to a providential pattern; yet, at other times, fate seems to be the alter ego of Zeus, another persona of the king of gods and men. The Odyssey presents these in tension and, in the tension, has you explore perennial questions about free will, fate, and the divine.

8. In Praise of Arete (Virtue)

You read the Odyssey to understand the arete of men (and women). In the Iliad, arete, the excellence of men, is usually reserved for military prowess and skill in combat; yet, in the Odyssey, human excellence takes on a more robust, intellectual character. Odysseus is a man of military might, but he’s also a man of resilience, cleverness, and perseverance. Moreover, Homer uses the term arete to describe Odysseus’ wife, Penelope, who is certainly not a warrior but a clever, faithful woman. Homer is at the beginning of the virtue tradition, and the concept of arete in the Iliad and Odyssey deserves special consideration. What does it mean to be a good man?

7. Understanding Guest-Friendship (Xenia)

You read the Odyssey to explore guest-friendship. The concept of xenia or guest-friendship is a sacred ritual overseen by Zeus in which the stranger is welcomed, bathed, and feasted before he is even asked his name; and, in reciprocity, the guest usually tells his story. The host gives gifts and helps the guest on his way. The ritual is a sign of civilization, and violations of it are sacrilegious — and deserve swift punishment. Xenia permeates the stories of the Odyssey. It also makes for a wonderful parallel to the Bible, like with Abraham and the three strangers (Gen 18:1-15) or St. Paul’s comment that those who host strangers sometimes entertain angels unknowingly (Hebrews 13:2). Hospitality is central to Western thought, and Homer is an indispensable teacher on the subject.

6. Homer the Philosopher

You read the Odyssey to better understand Plato. Homer is not a dull echo of his age. Too often, Homer is seen as some passive collector of oral traditions who simply regurgitates them into a flat narrative. No, Homer is a teacher. He is a philosopher. He is very intentional in his writing and presents concepts and characters in tension — and this tension creates a “poetic dialectic.” In other words, the tension or layers of the text mimics the effect of dialogue — it gives contrasting views that, if contemplated, lead you to a perennial truth. Homer has a philosophy on the human person and his place in the cosmos — if you are willing to listen. It is arguably where Plato learned the art of dialectic.

5. The Coming Home Story

You read the Odyssey for the coming home story of Odysseus. It is a tale of perseverance, glory, and place. One of the most important passages of the entire text is Odysseus refusing to become a god. He declines an immortal life of pleasure with a beautiful goddess. Why? In another passage, he declines to marry a princess and rule over a utopian island blessed by the gods and filled with wondrous technologies. Why? In Odysseus’ journey home, Homer offers you an insight into the nature of man and the importance of place—and he offers you a moral read, i.e., what decision would I make and why?

4. The Coming of Age Story

You read the Odyssey to understand how a boy becomes a man. Often overshadowed by the coming home story, the coming of age story of Telemachus, Odysseus’ son, is a powerful template of maturation. In King Odysseus’ absence, his house is filled with suitors wooing his wife and consuming his goods — Telemachus, the boy, is not a threat to them. Yet, Telemachus must become a threat to this injustice. He must overcome his fatherlessness and become a man who can regain his father’s house. Telemachus has his own odyssey in which he finds his spiritedness, his thumos.

3. Beginning of the Great Books

You read the Odyssey because Homer is the beginning of the great conversation. The so-called “great books” are the most influential texts in Western civilization — and they start with the Iliad and the Odyssey. The great books are great because they engage in the perennial questions of the human condition like free will, the soul, virtue, politics, and the divine. Homer, the teacher, is the beginning of these perennial discussions — save for the Bible. And you must understand that the authors of the great books are all in conversation with one another, as Plato is in dialogue with Homer, and Aristotle is in dialogue with both. As such, you read Homer to enter into this great conversation on the human drama.

2. Understanding Western Civilization

You read the Odyssey to understand the identity of the West. Western culture is downstream from Homer. He plays an unrepeatable role in Western identity, and he is ubiquitous throughout the ages of Western philosophy and literature. The rage of Achilles, the piety of Hector, and the wit of Odysseus serve as constant reference points for exploring the truth of the human condition in the Western mind. Though Homer may seem foreign at first, reading him is like coming home — you see the first conversations that led to the world you inherited. You read the Odyssey to understand yourself and your world better.

1. Homer as a Forerunner to Christ

You read the Odyssey to better understand the reality of Christ. Greek reason coupled with Hebrew faith under Roman order prepared the world for Jesus Christ. As St. Paul teaches, Christ came in the “fullness of time.” The Incarnation is not an accident but an intentional act for which Providence prepared the world — and Greek culture played a large part of that cultivation. The first Old Testament canon, the Septuagint (250 BC), is written in Greek. The New Testament is written in Greek. St. Paul quotes from Greek poets and philosophers (Acts 17:28; 1 Cor 15:33; Titus 1:12). St. John uses a multifaceted but rich Greek philosophical word, logos, to describe the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity (John 1:1). In other words, Hellenistic language — and with it Greek thought — is imprinted on Christianity (and on Judaism before it). To best understand that Greek imprint, you start with the fountainhead of Greek thought: Homer.

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Reminder that our first discussion on Homer’s Odyssey is taking place TOMORROW, June 3, at noon Eastern Time. We will be reading from the excellent Fagles translation.

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

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Most people view creativity as something otherworldly and magical. They treat it as a gift bestowed by the gods, an elusive and fleeting spark that inspires the greatest artists and geniuses. It’s a romantic notion, for sure — and a terribly wrong one, too.

The thing is, genuine creatives rarely define creativity in these terms. Take a songwriter, for example. The most prolific ones often approach their craft with a brutally rigid approach, demanding certain chords or musical phrases at highly specific intervals. Max Martin, today’s most famous songwriter and the man behind 29 Billboard No. 1 singles (second only to Paul McCartney’s 32), is particularly renowned for his exacting approach to songwriting.

Creativity, far from what most people think, is way more accessible than you’re often led to believe. Of course, that’s not to say that it can be entirely broken down into a rote and mechanical process. There will always be some aspect of creativity that feels like it comes from “beyond you”. But the truth is, that part might only constitute about 10% of the creative process.

So what does the remaining 90% consist of? And what can you do to enhance your own creative process, thereby increasing the odds of stumbling upon that magical 10%?

The answer, as we shall see, is surprisingly simple…

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What Creativity Is & Isn’t

There is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one can say, “Look! This is something new”?

-Ecclesiastes 1:9-10

But first, we need to define what creativity is in the first place. Cambridge Dictionary defines creativity as “the ability to produce or use original and unusual ideas”. This definition isn’t wrong, but it’s not particularly helpful, either. To actually define creativity, we have to look at what lies in common among different creative pursuits.

Novelty is one of those common elements, yet even this is deceptive. For is anything truly novel? Is any idea generated in a vacuum, completely free of external influences? The answer, as revealed by both ancient wisdom and modern neuroscience, is abundantly clear: everything that we deem “novel” derives from or builds on what came before; there is truly nothing new under the sun.

And yet, it doesn’t always feel that way. Some things genuinely feel new. What, then, makes them feel as such?

In most cases, it all comes down to one thing: connection between seemingly unrelated concepts. This is best seen in comedy, where the best jokes are often the ones that make connections where you least expect. A pun like “I used to be a banker, but I lost interest”, although far from side-splittingly hilarious, relies entirely on this mechanism. Move beyond the realm of comedy, however, and it’s still easy to spot this principle everywhere: The Lord of the Rings, for example, pulls from influences as diverse as Beowulf, Catholicism, and Norse mythology to create something that feels remarkably “new”.

Key to making these connections is having a wide enough range of knowledge to pull from, as well as the time and space to let the connections form naturally. Boredom is actually one of the biggest drivers of the latter, as your brain, deprived of external stimuli, starts grasping for whatever it can to entertain you. This is why constant stimulation (specifically via social media) directly correlates with a decrease in creativity.

But if “connection between seemingly unrelated concepts” helps you generate ideas, it doesn’t help you act on them. That’s where the next step becomes so essential…

Ideas, or Action?

As we know from the world of business, ideas by themselves mean nothing. Execution is everything. An idea unacted upon is worthless.

You should not be surprised to see, then, that this same idea applies to the world of creativity. In fact, it’s baked into the very word itself: creativity entails the act of creation, not simply idea generation. A sculpture is not created when it’s dreamt of in the mind, but when it’s physically wrought from a block of marble.

This aspect of creativity is perhaps the most overlooked, because everyone loves to focus on the originality of ideas themselves. But men like Michelangelo and Tolkien are not considered creatives for the ideas they had. Rather, they are considered creatives for how they brought those ideas to life. In fact, there is far more virtue in the execution of an idea than the mere generation of it.

Why? Because execution forces you to overcome unforeseen hurdles. It demands a kind of resourcefulness, what one might even call “creative problem-solving”. Michelangelo’s real accomplishment in creating his statue of David is not so much that he had a revolutionary idea for what it could look like, but that he was actually able to overcome the challenges of physically realizing it.

True creativity, then, entails both A) making the connection between seemingly unrelated concepts, and B) having the skill and wherewithal to express ideas tangibly in the physical world. Whether you’re composing a song, carving a statue, or writing a novel, Part B is just as important as Part A, if not even more so.

What can you do, then, to cultivate the necessary virtue required to bring your ideas to life? What’s the key to expressing your creativity to the fullest, and making the most of your potential?

The answer lies in one simple process, outlined by none other than J.R.R. Tolkien himself…

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Friedrich Nietzsche once said to “never trust a thought that occurs to you indoors”. A provocative statement, for sure, but is there any truth to it?

According to many authors, the answer is “yes”. Getting outside and walking, it appears, is one of the best ways to spark your creativity and get you thinking about what really matters. Almost unanimously, history’s greatest thinkers credit walks with their biggest insights.

Thinkers from the likes of Seneca to C.S. Lewis have discussed why the humble walk is the key to greatness, and why the answer to your problems might just be a quick jaunt outdoors…

We have just voted to read Homer’s Odyssey next in the book club! We’ll be journeying through it together for the next 6-7 weeks.

The first discussion is on Wednesday, June 3, at noon ET — join us!

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1) Seneca

We ought to take outdoor walks, to refresh and raise our spirits by deep breathing in the open air.

Even in Roman times, people understood the value of taking a stroll in the fresh air. Especially for a man like Seneca, who was simultaneously a philosopher, statesman, and playwright, being able to “refresh and raise” his spirits with a quick walk was of utmost importance to keeping him energized and mentally sharp.

The Latin phrase solvitur ambulando (“it is solved by walking”) gets at this truth directly. Have a problem? Chances are it can be at least partially remedied by a quick walk.

2) Søren Kierkegaard

Above all, do not lose your desire to walk: every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness; I have walked myself into my best thoughts and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it.

Seneca touches on walking’s ability to assuage the negative in your life, but Kierkegaard shows how it brings out the positive as well. This is something you might well have experienced personally: how often is it that you’ve walked yourself into your best thoughts?

One of the best aspects of walking is that it allows you to “do nothing” while still doing something, much like taking a shower or smoking a cigar. It is often in these in-between modes of doing that the best ideas come to you. The fact that walking entails movement, too, makes it all the more powerful.

3) Friedrich Nietzsche

Sit as little as possible; do not believe any idea that was not born in the open air and of free movement — in which the muscles do not also revel… Sitting still… is the real sin against the Holy Ghost.

Here we get a slightly different translation of Nietzsche’s original quote, and placed in more context. For Nietzsche, the mind-muscle connection was a crucial one. He believed activity of the mind and activity of the body were intimately connected, and that it was difficult to have the one without the other.

This is why he deems sitting the “real sin”, because just as much as it is an impediment to movement, it is also an impediment to thought.

4) Ernest Hemingway

I would walk along the quais when I had finished work or when I was trying to think something out. It was easier to think if I was walking and doing something or seeing people doing something that they understood.

This one comes from Hemingway’s book A Moveable Feast, a memoir about his time living as a journalist in Paris.

Whenever Hemingway experienced writer’s block, he would descend to the paved riverbanks of the River Seine and walk until he broke through it. Taking in the sights of Paris certainly didn’t hurt, either. Careful readers will note that the importance Hemingway places on “walking and doing something” as the key to solving his problems recalls Nietzsche’s emphasis on the mind-body connection.

5) C.S. Lewis

Walking and talking are two very great pleasures, but it is a mistake to combine them. Our own noise blots out the sounds and silences of the outdoor world; and talking leads almost inevitably to smoking, and then farewell to nature as far as one of our senses is concerned. The only friend to walk with is one who so exactly shares your taste for each mood of the countryside that a glance, a halt, or at most a nudge, is enough to assure us that the pleasure is shared.

In this passage, Lewis picks up on a fresh aspect of walking: the silence and sounds of nature. For him, a walk through the countryside was infinitely more beneficial than a stroll through the city center.

From birdsongs to leaves rustling in the wind, Lewis believed the quiet rhythms and sounds of nature served to refresh and restore you more than any other. Undoubtedly, it was one of the keys to his own prolific output. Perhaps it will be the key to yours, too.

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Before we embark, you may want to revisit some of the articles we’ve written previously…

The first discussion is on Wednesday, June 3, at noon ET — join us!

Whether you like it or not, AI is here to stay. It promises to bring innovation alongside disruption, making advances for humanity while impoverishing the lives of countless humans in the process. Some believe AI will herald an explosive era of change. But in fact, it will do much more than that — it will herald in a change of era.

In this sense, the advent of AI is not unlike the Industrial Revolution of two centuries past. That revolution, just as this one, was impossible to resist. The forces and incentives that propelled its advancement were too powerful to be overcome by mere abstentionism. The question was not if you would industrialize, but how you would industrialize.

Yet none of this lessens the fact that for millions of people, the Industrial Revolution completely reshaped their experience of what it means to be human. Many, tragically, were overwhelmed by this chaos. Yet others, through their actions and resilience, were able to overcome.

The question is, how?

That is the question we seek to answer today, as we look at how you can survive in the era of artificial intelligence. Taking cues from the past, we’ll look at how you can continue to live well through a tumultuous change of era, and how — through action, not abstention — you can preserve what it means to be human.

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The Problem

One of the most immediate and obvious repercussions of AI is that it will drastically alter the landscape of the current job market. Certain professions, once thought indispensable, are now up for grabs, and not just the obvious ones. Artists, doctors, surgeons, accountants, and lawyers now face dramatically less job security than they did even just three years ago. What happens if mass layoffs come to these sectors, and to people who invested hundreds of thousands of dollars into their education and career?

It’s not just the job market that will suffer, however. Our collective capacity for many high-level skills will gradually decline as well. When an AI translator can satisfy with 95% accuracy, for example, who is willing to pay a human one? As pay declines, fewer people will be motivated to enter the field of translation. True experts, men and women who lived for decades in a foreign land learning all its linguistic, historic, and cultural nuance, will become few and far between.

All of this, however, is rather surface-level. New technologies have always disrupted, and will continue to disrupt, the economic status quo. The place where AI really threatens to create chaos is in something far less tangible, yet far more sinister: the way you perceive reality.

Most people fear the biggest danger is that AI-generated pictures and videos will make you think something is real when it isn’t. In reality, however, it’s precisely the opposite. The real danger is that the prevalence of AI will make it so that you can’t believe anything at all. And when you don’t know what’s real, how can you ever make up your mind and act?

This is the true danger of AI. As I’ve written previously, people are hardwired to seek information that helps them better understand the world and determine their course of action in it. And when there is too little or too much information, you resort to trust.

But what happens when trust isn’t enough? What do you do when you don’t even know what is trustworthy and real?

The Solution

The answer begins by turning towards that which AI can never truly replace: the essentially human. To survive in the age of AI, you must put a premium on real things, real interactions, and real people.

This is, of course, much easier said than done. What does it actually look like in practice? Does it simply mean subsidizing those who would otherwise be put out of work by AI? Not quite, as such an approach would be both unsustainable and impractical to implement. Instead, systems must be developed not to replace what was, but to build what will be.

Fortunately, here we have the benefit of being able to look back at history, and specifically to the Industrial Revolution, to see what the people did in a similarly tumultuous change of era. Granted, AI and the Industrial Revolution are not perfect parallels, but they are/were equally unprecedented. In both instances, a change in technology results in the breakdown of pre-existing economic and social systems, leading people to radically question the meaning of life and how they ought to live.

So what do we see about how people responded to such a change? First and foremost, they turned to community, forming guilds, fraternities, mutual aid societies, and other local organizations to help reconstruct a sense of belonging. Whenever they managed to find common footing with others — whether in relation to their trade, or their place of origin — they doubled down on these characteristics and built communities around them, not dissimilarly to the behavior of immigrant groups.

In many respects, those who lived through the Industrial Revolution did indeed find themselves in a “foreign” land, for it was a world that hardly resembled the one they had grown up in.

But while community is what many people turned to in order to overcome their sense of unrootedness, others went several steps further. By leaning into the most essentially “human” aspects of the human experience, they not only managed to survive the change of era, but indeed to thrive in the midst of it. They became major figures of influence in their communities, creating opportunities for others and even shaping policy on both the local and national levels.

So what did these people do to advance their own cause, while simultaneously helping others retain their dignity and humanity in a time of tumult?

And what can they teach you about finding meaning in an uncertain world increasingly dominated by AI?

Well, one answer may have to do with the monetization of beauty…

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What is freedom?

Most people think freedom is about choice: the more choices you have, the more free you are. True freedom means being able to do whatever you want, whenever you want — and anything that limits your choice is a form of tyranny.

But Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a world-famous defector from the Soviet Union, thought this idea was totally wrong. Even though he had suffered in the Soviet gulags and found political liberty in America, he thought that the American idea of freedom was mistaken, and that it would one day lead to ruin.

That’s why at a Harvard graduation ceremony in 1978, Solzhernitsyn taught that true freedom is something completely different. Speaking to 20,000 people, he explained why true liberty means knowing what and how to choose, and that it naturally conforms your soul to the good, true, and beautiful.

It’s a radical idea, but it might well change your life. Today, we explore the difference between modern and ancient conceptions of freedom, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s famous warning to America…

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We are currently reading Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray in the book club. The next discussion is TODAY, May 20, at noon ET — join us!

The Famous Warning

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was a Russian who had been convicted on trumped up charges under the Soviets, spent ten years in prison, and toiled in hard labor camps before fleeing the Soviet Union and coming to the United States. He had risen to fame in the West by shining a light on Soviet atrocities in his writings such as The Gulag Archipelago, a true account of those who endured the inhumanity of the Soviet labor camps.

Thus, as he stood before Harvard University, he was expected to lambast the Soviets and praise the West, especially the United States, in which he had found refuge.

Yet, Aleksandr took an unexpected turn.

While he certainly lamented the suffering of his homeland under the Soviets, he asked the question of whether he would recommend the West as a model for his home country…

His answer? “No.”

Shocking his audience, he explained that under the West, men and women had become fractured, atomized, and subject to a false freedom. He observed that this false sense of freedom had taught mankind that there was no “higher force” above him, and that man was an autonomous moral universe.

It was a type of freedom, Solzhenitsyn predicted, that would end in ruin.

Contrasting this false idea of freedom with a more ancient understanding, Solzhenitsyn pointed to the Christian tradition, which claims that true freedom brings internal liberty and all that is true, good, and beautiful.

Understanding the distinction between these two conflicting ideas of freedom, he maintained, is one of the most important spiritual lessons you can learn.

What Is True Freedom?

The modern understanding is that that freedom means a lack of restraint, a plurality of options for your self-creation. The more choices you have, the more freedom you have. You are the most free, therefore, when you have the most choices to pursue what you desire.

But notably, this modern notion of freedom is almost entirely removed from considerations of what is good or bad. Freedom is just about choice — what is good or bad is relative to each individual, and subject to choice.

The Christian tradition, however, teaches that freedom is not about maximizing choice, but about choosing the good. Freedom is given to man by God to allow him to choose amongst a plurality of goods. In this understanding, using freedom to choose evil is a misuse, an abuse of the power of freedom.

That’s why historically, Christians — as well as the Romans and the Ancient Greeks — maintained that freedom is less about options, and more about self-discipline. True freedom means cultivating a self-governance that frees you from your inclination toward evil and disorder, and it is cultivated by practicing virtue.

This understanding of freedom is reflected in a term frequently used, and just as frequently misunderstood, in modern education: “liberal arts”. The liberal arts are called “liberal” not in the sense of “leftist,” but in the sense of “freeing”. The idea is that these liberal arts (the “arts of freedom”) are what give you an education that frees you from ignorance and the slavery of your passions so that you can pursue the true, the good, and the beautiful.

Modern vs. Ancient Freedom

This idea of freedom as a form of self-governance and self-control can easily be seen in the New Testament, where St. Paul contrasts the slavery of sin to the freedom found in Christ. The difference couldn’t be more clear: false “freedom” is a plurality of options to satiate desires, while true freedom conforms you to what is true, good, and beautiful.

A large part of the difference between the modern and the Christian view of freedom goes all the way back to the topic of creation. In the modernist view, you are the creator of your life and your purpose, whereas in the Christian view, you are made by a creator God. If you are the “creator” of your life, then it makes sense that more choices means more freedom, because you are more free to create what you want.

But if you believe that you are created by God, then true freedom isn’t simply freedom of choice, but whatever helps you best adhere to who you were created to be. In other words, you become most “yourself” when you conform to the characteristics of the God in whose image you’re made: a God of goodness, truth, and beauty.

In many ways, the struggle between these conflicting views of freedom is what defines many of the struggles in our world today.

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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Reminder that our second discussion on Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray is taking place TOMORROW, May 20, at noon Eastern Time.

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

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Che cosa faccio? Scrivo.

-Rodolfo, La Bohème

When I was young, I often dreamt of becoming an author. It is a romanticized career if there ever were one: still to this day, the image of the pipe-smoking Oxford don alone with his pen, writing stories to enthrall the world, remains one of the classic images of the “author” that prevails in the public consciousness.

But while to be an author is one thing, to be a writer is quite another. In fact, thanks to platforms like Substack, it is a more realistic and accessible career than ever before. Because even if you can’t make money selling your poetry and novels, you can certainly earn a living sharing your insight and knowledge.

Thanks to a few lucky breaks and unexpected twists of fate, I now find myself in the category of the latter. Although I never introduce myself as a “writer”, objectively speaking I am one: thanks to the incredible readers of publications like this one, I’m able to earn a living from the written word.

Recently, I was asked how I became a writer, and my answer to that question serves as the inspiration for today’s article. To be clear, I don’t profess by any means to be the next Dante or Dostoevsky (although I would like to pen an epic poem one day). However, I do believe there are certain principles to follow in order to improve your writing, no matter how advanced you are or what kind of literature you want to write.

Those four principles are what we explore today. They are what have helped me most in my own journey to become a full-time writer, and it is my hope they can help you as well…

Reminder: this is a teaser of our paid subscriber essays. If you’d like to support our work, please consider a subscription — it helps us enormously. You’ll get:

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We are currently reading Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray together in our book club! The next discussion is on Wednesday, May 20, at noon ET — join us!

1. Take It All In

A few weeks ago I wrote about how to learn a language, and many of the lessons from that article can be applied to becoming a writer as well. Chief among them, however, is input: get as much exposure to the written word as you possibly can.

Begin by reading as much as possible, and in different genres. Needless to say (hopefully), reading tweets on X doesn’t count. You should instead be reading things written with craft in mind, whether a poem or a persuasive article.

Of course, the classics are often the best place to begin, precisely because the passage of time has confirmed the merit of their message and the art of their prose. This is especially true of classics written in your native language, as translations often fail to capture the full beauty of foreign writing. For English speakers, the non plus ultra will forever remain Shakespeare, who, despite being the most famous playwright in the English language, is still underrated (you read that correctly) in regards to his vivid poetic imagery, clever wordplay, and masterful turns of phrase.1

By reading a wide range of authors and genres, you’ll be able to pull from different forms and incorporate them into your own writing. Dialog, journalism, prose, and poetry all have some role to play, and you must read them all in order to become familiar with their unique strengths and intricacies.

2. Study the Science, Get the Reps

Literary input provides the raw material for your personal style in writing. Like most raw materials, however, that input must be refined and crafted into a final product.

The second step, then, to improve as a writer is to study the science of writing. Take a look at common rhetorical formulas and begin implementing them in your work. You’ll naturally come across these when you read famous speeches or popular passages of literature, but to study them intentionally will drastically speed up your progress.

The Elements of Eloquence by Mark Forsyth is one book which outlines the most popular rhetorical forms and how to implement them. It covers everything from alliteration to polyptoton, hendiadys, epistrophe, and more. Once you learn why these rhetorical flourishes give phrases like “Bond, James Bond” or “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” their power, you’ll be able to implement similarly effective turns of phrase into your own writing.

If you want to make some money while you hone your craft, consider becoming a marketing copywriter. The art of (good) copywriting is much harder than it seems, since it requires that you pack important information into simultaneously short, digestible, and memorable phrases.

Admittedly, many now outsource their marketing copy to AI, which means there are fewer opportunities for you to start with this. But copywriting used to be the trial-by-fire for writers for good reason, and it played a major role in my own journey. Before AI threads took over Twitter, for example, I was able to amass millions of views from well-written hooks. Now, however, people are distrustful of posts that read like AI, even though they would have been celebrated as “great copy” just two years ago.

We will look at what it means to write as a human in the AI era later in this article, but first we need to look at the one thing that changed my writing more than any other.

Because for all the time I had spent reading and writing, it wasn’t until I mastered the art of clarity that my writing truly began to take off…

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C.S. Lewis is widely regarded as one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century. Having taught at both Cambridge and Oxford, he also encouraged Tolkien in his writing of The Lord of the Rings and authored about 30 books of his own. He greatly influenced theology and literature in postwar Britain, and continues to shape our own discourse today.

But with such a large catalog to choose from, it can be hard to know where to start with Lewis. Part of this depends on your own interests: do you want fantasy, theology, or science fiction? Lewis has something for everyone, but you need to know where to look.

That’s why today, we provide a list of the best places to start with C.S. Lewis. No matter what your interests are, you can’t go wrong with any of the works on this list…

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We are currently reading Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray in the book club. The next discussion is on Wednesday, May 20, at noon ET — join us!

1) The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Lewis believed that stories shape children’s moral imagination long before they can understand abstract moral principles. This is one of the main reasons why he wrote The Chronicles of Narnia.

Of the seven installments in the Narnia series, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is both the best known and the most accessible. It’s perfect for lovers of fantasy, and resonates especially with younger readers, since Lewis wrote it as a way to introduce children to a world where moral action matters.

If you want to explore theological truths through story and symbol, it’s hard to go wrong with The Chronicles of Narnia. If you’ve already read this specific volume, however, we suggest The Voyage of the Dawn Treader as another accessible and powerful installment in the series.

2) Mere Christianity

If you want to learn more about what Christians actually believe, look no further than this book. It remains one of Lewis’s bestsellers even to this day, and with good reason.

Mere Christianity was adapted from a series of BBC radio broadcasts Lewis did during WWII, and it covers everything from arguments for the existence of God to practical and everyday Christian ethics. This book is also where Lewis lays out his famous “Lord, Liar, or Lunatic” trilemma, and shows how if you take Jesus’s own words at face value, you can only believe him to be one of those three things (in other words, “good teacher” isn’t an option).

Whether you’re interested in learning about Christianity from a sociological point of view, or if you already believe and want to grow in the intellectual side of your faith, Mere Christianity should be next up on your list.

3) The Abolition of Man

In The Abolition of Man, Lewis argues that modern philosophy’s rejection of objective values produces “men without chests”: creatures governed only by instinct or by the manipulations of others.

It’s a pretty strong claim, but Lewis goes to impressive lengths to defend it. Over the course of this (surprisingly small) book, he shows why reason, when stripped of its grounding in moral truth, becomes a tool of power. If you enjoy philosophy, this is Lewis at his best.

For Lewis, to recover reason means to recover humanity itself. The vision he lays out in The Abolition of Man complements the earlier traditions of Aristotle and Aquinas, yet is sharpened by the modern experience of relativism and nihilism. If you want to dive deep into the philosophical side of Lewis, start here.

4) The Screwtape Letters

Written, or rather “found” by C.S. Lewis, this book is a collection of epistles from senior demon Screwtape to his nephew Wormwood. In them, Screwtape offers his nephew advice on how to tempt humans away from God (“the Enemy”) and into hell.

The correspondence opens with Screwtape admonishing Wormwood for a rookie mistake: choosing to focus on argument over distraction. “From the way some of you young fiends talk,” he writes, “anyone would suppose it was our job to teach!” He goes on to explain why distraction is key to the corruption of souls, and gives a specific example of how he once used it to lead a man to hell.

Each chapter is filled with similar examples of how demons try to tempt humans and ruin their lives. But in outlining their methods, Screwtape unintentionally reveals the key to resisting the demons’ tricks. If you want a combination of engaging fiction, sharp theology, and practical insight on how to resist temptation, there are few books better than The Screwtape Letters.

5) The Great Divorce

Unlike the diabolical fun of The Screwtape Letters or the fairy-tale charm of Narnia, The Great Divorce is one of the stranger entries in Lewis’s catalog. It is simultaneously wholesome and haunting, in many unexpected ways.

In The Great Divorce, Lewis imagines a fantastical bus ride from Hell to the outskirts of Heaven, where souls who reside in the former are allowed to step into the latter. Yet one by one, nearly all of them choose to return. One clings to his intellect, another to his bitterness. Each insists on keeping some part of the self, even if it costs them everything.

The Great Divorce, therefore, is Lewis’s take on the idea that “those who are in Hell choose to be there.” It’s a short and eye-opening book that is a must-read if you want to explore the theology of the afterlife.

6) A Grief Observed

The question of why God allows suffering has been posed by both believers and atheists alike for centuries. That’s why in 1940, C.S. Lewis set out to finally answer it with his book The Problem of Pain. In it, he offered a robust explanation of why a loving God exists even in a world filled with suffering.

But 20 years later, Lewis’s theory was put to the ultimate test. When his wife died, Lewis was forced to wrestle with the ideas he had previously outlined so deftly — but he found the practice much harder than the theory.

Originally published under a pseudonym (N.W. Clerk), A Grief Observed is the work that resulted from Lewis’s anguish, a book compiled from the notebooks he kept following the death of his wife. In writing this work, Lewis discovered something that changed his entire understanding of God and the problem of pain…

Thank you for reading!

And don’t forget to join our book club if you haven’t already.

We have already read Lewis’s Screwtape Letters together, and we’ll certainly be reading more of his works in the near future.

Right now, we’re reading Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray — please join us!

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This past week, I had the pleasure of hosting my second annual “Leisure: The Basis of Culture” retreat here in Italy. Inspired by the philosopher Josef Pieper’s seminal work of the same name, the retreat was designed to help participants engage with all aspects of leisure: what it is, what it is not, and how it can serve as an antidote to a work-obsessed world.

Most people, of course, think that “leisure” is simply time to escape from the grind, blow off steam and veg out with Netflix. A slightly less common, though equally grave conception, is that it’s nothing more than time to recharge and prepare for even more work. In light of both of these misunderstandings, Pieper offers a profound and refreshing vision.

Leisure, Pieper argues, isn’t just a break from labor. Rather, it is the soul’s gateway to reality, a necessary condition for human flourishing, and the foundation of all culture.

In my own life, I’ve found Pieper’s thoughts on the topics of leisure to be incredibly compelling, which is what prompted me to begin hosting this retreat in the first place. Today, fresh on the heels of our latest outing in northern Italy, I want to share some of the main ideas we covered over the course of the week.

Having now spent well over 100 hours discussing Pieper’s work with others, I’m only all too aware that any attempt to condense his thoughts into a single article is a fool’s errand. What follows, then, is not a complete overview, but a brief crash course on the idea of leisure as the basis of culture.

It is a radical idea, yet one that just might transform your understanding of a life well lived, and what it means to be human…

Reminder: this is a teaser of our paid subscriber essays. If you’d like to support our work, please consider a subscription — it helps us enormously. You’ll get:

• New, full-length articles 2x per week

• The entire archive of content (200+ articles, essays, and podcasts)

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We are currently reading Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray together in our book club! The next discussion is on Wednesday, May 20, at noon ET — join us!

What Leisure Is Not

Our retreat began not by asking what leisure is, but what is not. As our group included people working in disparate fields such as finance, tech, and architecture, you may think their answers differed quite a bit. But across the board, people shared similar struggles in attempting to get at the heart of leisure’s true definition.

This would have been no surprise to Pieper, who in 1952 was already arguing that modern society had forgotten the true meaning of leisure. He instead claimed that it had embraced a “culture of total work” where the value of a person is tied directly to their productivity:

The original meaning of the concept of ‘leisure’ has practically been forgotten in today’s leisure-less culture of ‘total work’: in order to win our way to a real understanding of leisure, we must confront the contradiction that rises from our overemphasis on that world of work.

-Pieper, Leisure: The Basis of Culture

Work, of course, is not a bad thing. Pieper himself affirms its dignity and necessity. What he points out, however, is our overemphasis on the world of work leads to a totalizing mindset that sees all of life through the lens of utility. Little wonder, then, that most people see “leisure” as either entirely opposed to work, or as a tool to increase future productivity.

But, of course, both those ideas are mistaken. True leisure, as we discovered on our retreat, is something far more profound…

Stepping Beyond the “Merely Human”

In a purely utilitarian culture, everything bends towards utility. Education becomes job training, and art becomes entertainment. There’s little room left for the beautiful and transcendent, the things that make life worth living.

This is precisely why Pieper identifies leisure as “the basis of culture”, because it is where “the truly human is rescued and preserved precisely because the area of the ‘merely human’ is left behind.” In other words, it is what helps you step beyond the metaphorical 2D plane of ordinary existence and access a hidden, yet abundantly meaningful, “third dimension” of life.

On Day 1 of our retreat, we discussed the role of contemplation in Pieper’s understanding of leisure. Pieper agrees with Ernst Jünger’s statement that seeing is an “act of aggression”, and challenges readers to instead let life wash over them. Once you stop trying to grasp each moment and quantify its meaning, you’re able to contemplate, and this is the first step in entering into leisure.

On Day 2, therefore, we traveled to Milan for some immersive experiences: the Duomo, the Galleria, the Scala opera house, and the world-famous ossuary chapel. In each of these settings, participants were encouraged to simply let the surroundings wash over them. The result, as Pieper could have well predicted, revealed one of the biggest paradoxes about the nature of leisure.

That paradox is that even though these things — a trip to the opera, the Milan duomo, exquisitely ornate public buildings — are the most “unrealistic” ones in your everyday life (in the sense that you rarely encounter them), they nonetheless point you to what is most real. They point to beauty, inspire to virtue, and provide an opportunity to glimpse the transcendent. They open up the metaphorical “third dimension”, going beyond the merely human in order to preserve the truly human.

This is why leisure, in Pieper’s understanding, isn’t simply time spent away from work. It is rather an attitude of openness, a willingness to encounter the world not as a resource to be used but as a mystery to be contemplated.

The question, then, is how do you practice it?

Pieper’s answer is much more extensive than simply making more free time for yourself. What he reveals is that leisure is ultimately rooted in cultus, and that no merely secular justification for it can hold. Without a sacred dimension, leisure collapses back into utility.

True leisure, according to Pieper, is the not the absence of activity but the presence of depth — and practicing this is how you recover what it is to be truly human…

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Mark your calendars…

The next discussion will take place in 2 weeks, at the usual time: Wednesday, May 20, at noon Eastern Time.

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J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings has inspired millions. Both the original work and the movie adaptations have influenced hearts, minds, and — as the innumerable quantity of derivative fantasy worlds reveals — many a modern writer as well.

But what are the stories that inspired Tolkien?

What are the legends and myths that gave birth to the world of Middle-earth and the epic journey to cast the One Ring into the fires of Mount Doom?

Today, we look at five of the tales that inspired Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Whether you want to better understand the Oxford don’s magnum opus, discover other fantastical worlds to explore, or write an epic yourself, these are the five works you need to turn to…

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1) Beowulf

Beowulf was one of the works that most inspired J.R.R. Tolkien, and with good reason. It begins with a “shadow-walker” who haunts the mead-hall of Heorot, and ends with an ill-fated duel against a dragon. Three major battles serve to explore themes of heroism and sacrifice, and each is highly symbolic. Or, in Tolkien’s words:

The monsters are symbols of the inevitable hostility of the world itself to mortal men…they do not only bring physical ruin but spiritual despair.

-Tolkien, Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics

Ultimately, the Beowulf epic is less about triumph and more about the virtues that compel you to fight the good fight no matter the odds. It’s a theme which is echoed many times over in The Lord of the Rings, and explained by Tolkien as such:

Beowulf is not a hero because he wins but because he fights, even when he knows the battle will bring his doom. His death is the crown of his life.

2) The Poetic Edda

If Beowulf gave Tolkien his heroic spirit, the Poetic Edda gave him much of the mythic framework behind Middle-earth itself. Compiled in medieval Iceland from much older oral traditions, the Poetic Edda contains the most famous stories of the Norse gods and heroes. Tolkien drew heavily from these poems, and many of the names of his dwarves — such as Thorin, Dáin, Fili, and Kili — are taken directly from the text.

But the deeper influence of the Edda lies in how it impacted the atmosphere of The Lord of the Rings. In Norse mythology, the world is one in decline: even the gods themselves are destined to be destroyed in Ragnarök, the final battle/series of natural disasters that consume the world in fire and destroy it.

Yet in light of this, the characters depicted in the Poetic Edda continue to fight on anyway. In this way, the work helped Tolkien build on the foundational virtues depicted in Beowulf, while simultaneously influencing his mythological structure of Middle-earth.

3) Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Long before creating Middle-earth, Tolkien was a philologist with a deep love for medieval literature, and his translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight reflects that childhood passion.

The poem itself, originally composed in the 14th century, is a marvel full of chivalric trials and mystical encounters. But Tolkien’s version restores the musical cadence of the original, using a formal yet lyrical English that carries the weight of the past.

The tale of Sir Gawain reveals to what extent medieval knights valued honor and virtue, and how temptation and pride threatened to destroy even the bravest among them. All of it is translated and recounted, of course, by a man who knew exactly how to make that kind of mythic wisdom translate to the modern era and speak to the soul.

4) The King of Elfland’s Daughter

One of the few modern fantasy works Tolkien openly admired was Lord Dunsany’s The King of Elfland’s Daughter.

Published in 1924, Dunsany’s novel transformed the concept of a “faerie-story” from something whimsical and childish to ancient and ethereal. It encouraged Tolkien to continue down the path he was taking with his elven lore and develop a world far different from what most people pictured when they heard the word “elf”.

Similarly, Tolkien sought continuity with Dunsany’s depiction of magic. Unlike “hard magic” systems (think Harry Potter) where magic has rules and guidelines, the magic in Dunsany’s novel enchants nearly every aspect of creation. It is pervasive and mysterious, just like the magic of Tolkien’s Rivendell and Lothlórien. One aspect in which Tolkien diverged from Dunsany, however, was in his naming conventions.

Although Tolkien appreciated Dunsany’s “ear” for names, his background as a linguistics professor spurred him to pursue a far more internally-consistent approach when it came to naming people and places. The result was his incessant focus on building coherent narrative structures that took the best of Dunsany’s approach, and infused it with unmatched historical and linguistic rigor.

5) The Bible

This one might sound like a cop-out, but that doesn’t make it any less worthy of inclusion. As we’ve written before, Tolkien might have avoided direct religious allegory, but his faith greatly influenced his work — The Lord of the Rings includes his own interpretations of Christ figures, the Virgin Mary, and the Eucharist.

In a letter to his friend, the Jesuit priest Robert Murray, Tolkien wrote:

The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like ‘religion’, to cults or practices, in the imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism.

So while Tolkien’s knowledge of literature, mythology, and linguistics gave The Lord of the Rings its intellectual and narrative heft, it was Christian faith that imbued it with deep symbolic meaning.

The result was a masterful integration of spiritual elements into the world of fantasy, and a classic tale that enchanted millions…

Thank you for reading!

And don’t forget to join our book club. We have already read the epic of Beowulf together in our community, and we’ll no doubt cover some of the others on this list very soon.

Right now, we’re reading Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray — please join us!

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Reminder that our first discussion on Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray is taking place TOMORROW, May 6, at noon Eastern Time.

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

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Oscar Wilde famously converted to Catholicism on his deathbed. It was an astounding end to the life of Europe’s most notorious aesthete, a man whose name became practically synonymous with the decadent movement.

But as shocking as Wilde’s conversion seemed at the time, history reveals that perhaps it shouldn’t have been so unexpected. Indeed, a surprising number of late 19th and early 20th century decadents converted to Christianity, from the erotic artist Aubrey Beardsley to decadent-pioneer-turned-Benedictine-oblate Joris-Karl Huysmans.

So what’s the reason for this? On the surface, Christianity couldn’t have anything less to do with decadentism, the “sex, drugs, and rock and roll” of the Belle Époque. But upon deeper investigation, the two worldviews have far more in common than most people realize.

Today, we explore the hidden link between decadentism and Christianity, and what each reveals about the other. Most importantly, we’ll look at how these seemingly at-odds worldviews can help you deepen both your faith and your understanding of what it really means to live life to the fullest.

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We are about to start Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray together in our book club! The first discussion is on Wednesday, May 6, at noon ET — join us!

Yearning for Beauty

O, reason not the need! Our basest beggars

Are in the poorest thing superfluous.

Allow not nature more than nature needs,

Man’s life is cheap as beast’s.

-King Lear, Act II, Scene 4

For many Christians, it’s all too easy to critique the decadents. Their promiscuous and extravagant lifestyles flew clearly at odds with Christian morality, and undermined established social mores. Oscar Wilde was famously convicted of practicing homosexual acts, but most decadents were unimpeded by the law. Beardsley’s erotic prints circulated freely, and Huysmans’s novel À rebours became an international bestseller.

Yet in their obsessive pursuit of love and beauty, dandies and aesthetes exhibited a sort of world-weariness not unfamiliar in Christianity. In many ways, decadentism was a reaction to the large-scale industrialization of the 19th century, and sought to rediscover the things that made life worth living. Many decadents saw their landscapes and cities destroyed by a zeitgeist that preferred quantifiable material output to unquantifiable beauty, and they lashed out against it.

Their reaction caused them to focus on the human need for unnecessary beauty, something Shakespeare himself had identified nearly 300 years prior. Yet they went too far. Italy’s decadent poet par excellence, Gabriele D’Annunzio, once wrote of his own “need for the superfluous” (his words) that:

I could have lived very well in a modest house … taken tea in a threepenny cup, blown my nose on handkerchiefs at two lire the dozen … Instead, fatally, I have wanted Persian carpets, Japanese plates, bronzes, ivories, trinkets, all those useless lovely things which I love with profound and ruinous passion.

Yet in their pursuit of material beauty, the decadents inevitably came up against its limitations. Some intuited what this would lead to: in his review of À rebours, for example, French critic Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly wrote he could sense its author would soon have to choose “between the muzzle of the pistol and the foot of the cross.”

He was not wrong. Nearly a decade after the publication of his novel, Huysmans took holy orders.

Mischief & Misdirected Love

The poet Dante would not have been surprised by Huysmans’s conversion. Because although decadentism and Christianity might seem like polar opposites to us today, medieval thinkers saw things differently. And nowhere is this outlook better cataloged than in Dante’s own Divine Comedy.

In the second of the three canticles that comprise the Comedy, Dante traces the journey of souls as they climb the “mountain of Purgatory”. This mountain is composed of 10 terraces: one pre-Purgatory terrace at the bottom, then seven terraces corresponding to the seven deadly sins, then two final terraces where the Earthly Paradise is found.

The terraces that correspond to the deadly sins are split into three categories: sins of perverted love, deficient love, and misdirected love. The first three deadly sins of pride, envy, and wrath constitute perverted love. Acedia (sloth) constitutes deficient love, while the triad of greed, gluttony, and lust constitute misdirected love.

According to Dante, sins of misdirected love are the easiest to overcome. This is because they constitute a love of the right things, but in excess. Wealth, food, and sex are all inherently good things, and only by placing improper emphasis on them do you stray into sin.

So what does any of this have to do with Oscar Wilde converting to Catholicism? Simply put, Dante would have understood that the decadents pursued and emphasized all the right things, but in excess. Yet their underlying desires were aimed at the good — and because of this, there are still many things they can teach you.

But what can decadent aesthetes possibly teach you about something sacred like faith?

As it turns out, quite a lot. Because at the core of their creed is an idea that goes back thousands of years in Christianity. Understanding it is the key to living a properly ordered and meaningful life, and knowing how to enjoy God’s creation…

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Last week, I wrote about how classical music changed me. In that article, I discussed my time living in London, and how one genre of classical music helped bridge the gap between the head and the heart more than any other: opera.

To most people, opera feels like a living relic. It conjures up comical images of fat women in viking helmets, not a profound connection to eternal beauty. And yet, it is with good reason that the composer Richard Wagner deemed opera a Gesamtkunstwerk, a “total work of art”.

Much like film, opera incorporates music, acting, set design, poetry and more to bring a world to life for the spectator. The only difference is, it does so in front of a live audience, and tells the story through music as opposed to mere dialogue. Indeed, most people are surprised at how much they enjoy opera when they attend their first one — the only problem is, they don’t often know where to start.

That’s why today, I want to share 5 of the most accessible operas, and excerpts of their famous arias and interludes. To be clear, this isn’t a list of the best operas, nor of my favorites.

It’s simply a list of five operas, each by a different composer, that provide a great first step into the world of opera, no matter where you start…

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We are about to start Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray together in our book club! The first discussion is on Wednesday, May 6, at noon ET — join us!

1) Carmen

Georges Bizet’s Carmen has just about everything you want in a first opera: great costumes, world-famous arias, swaggering bravado, and an intoxicating femme fatale.

You probably already know some of its most famous excerpts: its prelude is played on the Formula 1 victors’ podium, while the “Habanera” and “Toreador” arias are among the best known pieces of operatic music in popular culture.

But beyond the hits, Carmen is also a poignant reflection on seduction, sin, and how lust can degrade a man to the role of supporting actor in the metaphorical movie of his own life. Attentive listeners will pick up on Bizet’s careful use of the children’s choir to contrast against the seedier scenes, especially in the first act. The children’s innocence serves as both refresher from and reminder of the brewing tragedy amongst the adults: a tragedy that will end in jealously, death, and, fortunately for us, an unforgettable score.

2) The Marriage of Figaro

This is the first opera I ever attended, and it’s the near opposite of Carmen. Although it’s a comedic opera about a young couple in love, Mozart’s score gives it a depth reminiscent of Shakespeare’s own romantic comedies, such as Much Ado About Nothing.

The Marriage of Figaro is considered by many (including myself) to be among Mozart’s best works, and with good reason. Mozart keeps you hooked for the entirety of the opera’s nearly three-hour runtime, kicking things off with his famous overture and brilliantly underscoring all the humor and wit of the story performed on-stage.

From Figaro ranting about the man trying to steal his bride, to the pubescent Cherubino discovering his attraction to women, to the heartfelt plea of a neglected countess, Mozart’s music touches on all aspects of the human experience. In addition to being a great opera, The Marriage of Figaro is a perfect encapsulation of all Mozart’s heart, humor, brilliance and depth. For this reason, if for no other, it deserves a listen.

3) La Traviata

Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata is one of my personal favorites. Although it’s often written off as being a typical “Italian opera” (read: love, loss, and a broken heroine), I believe the opera is far deeper than most people realize.

Hidden references to Dante and St. Paul, as well as the recurring phrase croce e delizia (“cross and delight”, i.e. the two meanings of “passion”) make La Traviata more than meets the eye. Its prelude foreshadows the tragedy of the plot in reverse, beginning with somber notes and working up to the present frivolity of the protagonist Violetta.

La Traviata also contains one of the most famous arias in all of opera, “Libiamo ne’ lieti calici”, which you are likely to have heard before. Overall, Verdi’s masterpiece (or more accurately, one of his many) makes for a phenomenal intro to opera, and is a must-see for anyone wanting to get into the genre.

4) Cavalleria Rusticana

This is the least popular of the operas on this list, which isn’t to say it’s not popular in operatic circles. Its shorter runtime often leads to it getting double-billed with the opera Pagliacci, and for the beginner, it’s a perfect way to get into opera without making as much of a time commitment.

Cavalleria Rusticana is set in Sicily, a fact which becomes apparent from its opening notes. The opera’s first aira, which comes right on the heels of the overture, is sung not in Italian but Sicilian, and further thrusts you into the heat — literal and metaphorical — of small-town life on the Mediterranean island. Both the overture and the haunting opening aria can be listened to here.

The plot of the opera centers on love, betrayal, and a fateful duel, but not before taking detours into matters of death and resurrection, such as in the Regina Coeli Easter Hymn. The result is nothing less than one of the most moving pieces in the operatic canon. Be sure to crank up your speakers for this one!

5) La Bohème

No list of accessible operas would be complete without Puccini. The “John Williams of opera”, composer Giacomo Puccini brought his operas to life like modern day movies, penning some of the most accessible works in the operatic catalog.

Of those works, La Bohème is arguably the most approachable, especially if you’re familiar with the movie Rent: the latter’s plot was essentially lifted and adapted from Puccini’s opera. Featuring a young man and woman in love in Paris, La Bohème tackles everything from romance, bohemian escapades, and an endearing portrayal of male camaraderie. Part of the plot was in fact inspired by Puccini’s experience mapping out his landlord’s daily route with his friends so that they could avoid meeting him in the city!

La Bohème is best taken in as a whole, otherwise you lose a lot of the context which lends the plot its emotional weight. That said, you can never go wrong with O soave fanciulla.

Were you hoping to see Wagner on the list? If so, don’t worry — he requires an article of his own, and we’ll be sure to get to that soon…

Thank you for reading!

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