Lessons in humility

One thing this papacy is doing for me, is making me realise that there is a big gap between our perceptions and reality, mostly created by the media. They have made a kind of virtual reality world, populated by famous people whose actions and motives are weirdly stilted and artificial. It is making it clear that we have allowed a strange and false interpretation of reality to be overlaid on everything we see and think.

It is also making me want to ask, "What does real humility look like?"

I think this weird, artificial wonderworld is having a big influence in making people become much crazier than they have ever been. It creates a kind of self-enclosed bubble-verse in which we can find ourselves trapped within ourselves. I think the media-created mirrorverse is what creates things like this. Outcomes that would have been inconceivable in any previous time, by anyone, no matter how mad. It's not that crazy people, narcissists didn't exist in former times, it's that the new media-created world allows them to take it to extremes that would simply not have been tolerated.

But we can no longer tell the difference between a preening narcissist, playing out her life before the cameras, and "spirituality" or "humility". We simply no longer have any categories.

~ * ~

I'm having a bad morning, especially since it's after two pm, and I just woke up an hour ago. I'm experiencing that horrible, desperate, helpless and frantic condition one gets when one has completely buggered up one's sleep cycle by flying around the world and back, powerless to fix it.

I started swimming to the surface this morning about ten am, after sleeping about four and a half or five hours. Every time I squinted blearily at the clock, I thought, "Get up now!". Next thing I knew, I'd be doing it again, and in about five minutes an hour would have passed. When I thought it was 11:45, I got up in a haze of misery, self-loathing and desperation, only to find that it was nearly one.

It's been eleven days since touchdown, and I've been struggling every day. No matter what I do, I'm still up til four and in bed til well into the day. And I'm exhausted. Even with nine hours sleep, if it's the wrong ones, I can't wake up. The first day back, I slept around the clock and woke exactly as miserable as when I fell asleep, fully clothed, 13 hours before.

It's the feeling of being trapped by it, weirdly constrained, that is the worst. I'm shocked and horrified to find I'm physically incapable of breaking out of the trap. I HATE not having control over such a basic thing.

This ... hangover, effect is the real reason I don't EVER want to fly across the Atlantic. The misery it causes for weeks afterwards. I'm nauseated, exhausted, I can't eat and my energy is at about the level of a snail. I can drag myself from the bed to the computer, and the only reason I get up every day at all, is because I've left it on the dining room table, instead of bringing it to bed with me.

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No true feminist

"They" are so clever. They've made a name for everything.

I keep having the same fruitless conversation with "conservative" Catholics, who love to tell me I'm being harsh and "judgmental" and "painting with too broad a brush" when I attack feminism.

"MY feminism is just lovely," I'm told. "Sweet and charming and totally compatible with Christianity... That other kind of feminism, that wants to destroy Western Civilisation... that's not the REAL feminism."

Well, I've just remembered that there is a name for this: the "No true Scotsman" fallacy.

It goes like this: I want to retain a selection of the feminist principles because I find them personally convenient and salubrious, and I'm afraid of being seen as some kind of wacko. Therefore I will invent my very own mental construct that fits my needs and preferences, call it 'real feminism,' and condemn anyone who dares to call me on it. Problem solved.

To that I reply, "No true Scotsman":

Imagine Hamish McDonald, a Scotsman, sitting down with his Glasgow Morning Herald and seeing an article about how the "Brighton Sex Maniac Strikes Again". Hamish is shocked and declares that "No Scotsman would do such a thing". The next day he sits down to read his Glasgow Morning Herald again; and, this time, finds an article about an Aberdeen man whose brutal actions make the Brighton sex maniac seem almost gentlemanly. This fact shows that Hamish was wrong in his opinion but is he going to admit this? Not likely. This time he says, "No true Scotsman would do such a thing"

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The unfunny sex-world

One of the things the Sexual Revolution has done is make it impossible to make bawdy jokes. The porn-culture has made us all, willingly or not, into pervs. There's no more innuendo, no more hinty, nudge-nudge-wink-winkyness left in the culture. The depraved culture has taken nearly all the fun out of sexiness.

I don't know if anyone has actually codified it as a rule, so maybe I'll do so now: the depravity of the culture can be measured by how many classic Monty Python jokes have been de-parodied.



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All-time fave

I just discovered the thing that tells you what your all-time most popular post was.

Guess! Go ahead!

Well, it sure wasn't one of those long, boring philosophical things.

With 7344 individual page views,

this was the most popular post I've done since starting this version of the blog in September 2005:



Remember him?


How 'bout him?

Me too.

Nature: it's cool, gross, terrifying and awesome all at the same time.



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Foreshadowing

OK, there's a little secret coming. Something cool. I'm working with someone to start another blog. This one will be much bigger, and more public than our little tea party salon here, so it's taking some time to get developed. But you're going to like it.

Of course, I'll never abandon the Picnic and things will carry on here as usual.

I thought I'd share some of the editorial policies we're working from, see if any of it sounds familiar to our regulars:

I think the basic rules I've learned in blogging for ten years (holy crap!) are the following:

Post short, post often; long posts bore the crap out of everyone, so the rule is no more than one in five long/serious to short/funny

Be entertaining before all else; Charm, not facts will win the masses over to your side

Cultivate a conspiratorial ambiance; readers love to feel like they belong to an exclusive "in-crowd"

Abuse your readers; readers are like women, they get more loyal if you slap 'em around a bit

Police your commboxes; ruthlessly purge, punish and eliminate anyone who doesn't get the joke

When you need money, ask for it; just putting a paypal button on the sidebar will net you no dough whatsoever, you have to directly ask people for it - do it regularly and shamelessly

A black sense of humour is going to be your best friend; attack mercilessly but make em laugh (preferably at your enemies), and don't be afraid to be the bad kid

Remember that you are working to conquer the world; try not to forget that you have to turn it over to Christ when you're done, but your job is conquest first - be a ruthless tyrant for the sake of the Kingdom

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There is something wrong with my brain

Or, I could be a girl, I don't know which.

But whenever I watch this video, I usually cry when the elephant busts out of jail, goes home and finds his friends again.

I was first introduced to Coldplay by best-friend Vicky, my go-to girl for all things pop-culture, in the following conversation several years ago:

"That was nice, what band was it?"

"Coldplay".

"Ah, well, they're really good."

"Yes, they are. Quite good."

"Are they a local group?"

"No, I think they're British."

"Doing well? Are they popular?"

"They're the new U2."

"Oh, good for them."

Vicky taught me everything I know about being cool.

~ * ~

Apparently a few other people also like it. It's been viewed a simply amazing 222,411,796 times! Holy Cats! I guess they are doing well.

~ * ~

First day in nearly three weeks I can walk normally. The day after I arrived in Tranna, my back totally seized up and I spent the entire time walking like a penguin and yelping in agony if anyone touched me.

This is one problem I can't put down to old age. I did my back in the first time in the fifth grade playing floor hockey. (Yes, yes, go ahead with your Canadian jokes, I'll wait.) I was covering goal, and I thought the ball was going one way and it went the other. The top half of me went the first way and the bottom half followed the ball, and the rest of me landed face down on the floor screaming.

Months of physio made it better, but it's been touchy ever since. And unpredictable. I once got six weeks of agony for reaching down to the kitchen floor to pick up a plastic bag.

I got accupuncture in Tranna before facing the 9 hour overnight plane ride home, and it helped (that, and the codeine). But it's still been another few days to become fully functional.

The accupuncture guy said it was the abrupt transition from roasting hot Roman weather, to the ice-box air conditioning of the plane, then all the AC in Tranna: one minute in the cold and the next out in the heat again. He said that Chinese people come over to Canada from nice warm China and get all sorts of AC related injuries. Back and neck mostly. He said it'd start getting better as soon as I got back into the warm.

I've looked up exercises to do to strengthen my back, and the Francesco the Friendly Pilates Guy said to do them every day, but...well, it's me, so...

Anyway, If anyone has any suggestions I'm interested. (Anything but yoga. Don't hold with that New Age guff.)

Even when I'm not crippled, my lower back is always slightly sore, always stiff. It's always difficult to get moving. Loosens up once I'm on the go, but it's always a problem. Nothing worth wasting money at the doctor's for, but maybe there's something someone knows.



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Let's Play a Game!

This one will be fun.

I call it the "Personally opposed but..." game.

I don't need to explain it, do I?

I also call it the "Moral Equivalency" game.

Come up with something the stupid liberal soixant-retards think is morally equivalent to murdering 50 million babies a year. Like smoking in a pub.

Or thinking limits on illegal immigration might be a good idea.

I'll go first:

"I'm personally opposed to shooting illegal Mexican immigrants who sneak over the US border, but I don't believe it's right to impose my personal beliefs on the Texans who want to shoot them."

"I'm personally opposed to men getting twice the pay as a woman for the same job, but hey, who am I to impose ..."

OK, now you.



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A 'play-world' which licks your 'real world' hollow...

I don't know yet for sure, and I'll have to ask God when I see Him if I'm right, but I can't help thinking that my feeling of being in perpetual exile, of always being on the outside observing (and taking notes), and never having a real home, has been one of those backhanded graces we sometimes hear the saints writing about.

I've spent my whole life looking for the door to Narnia, trying to get home. Because, brother, this just can't be it.

A few days ago, I was talking to one of the LifeSite staffers, and he said that he had never paid much attention to Narnia. He read one or two of them as a kid, but never gave them much thought. They're just kid's books right?

I was shocked. How could a Christian not know?

I said that nearly all my Christian formation came from those books as a child, and that they still form the framework for how I understand the Faith. I know the Chronicles of Narnia the way some Protestants know the Bible. (Yes, I know that's bad, but it's the truth.)

And I know I'm not crazy or dumb, because this man also takes them really seriously. And he's really smart and knows lots of stuff.

As a friend, and fellow Narnian, Gregory di Pippo pointed out to me the other day, the average lifespan of ordinary children's books is, from hard-cover first edition to paperbacks in the remainders bin, maybe, at most, 3-5 years. The Chronicles of Narnia have never gone out of print since their publication in the early 1950s. They have sold +100 million copies and been translated into 47 languages.

I said to my colleague that Puddleglum's famous Profession of Faith was probably the most important expression of the answer to Modernia's obsession with secularism that I'd ever seen. I told him I'd post it.

~ * ~
The Green Witch, the Lady of the Green Kirtle, the Queen of Underland, has captured Eustace, Jill, Puddleglum the Marsh Wiggle, and Prince Rillian, whom she has held for ten years, and all of whom she wishes to use as tools in her plans of conquest.

She has spun an enchantment, a sweet web of lies about not just Aslan, but about the very nature of reality. The world, she says, is only what she says it is; there is no real world but her world...It would be so easy to give in, and is such a struggle to fight...

But Puddleglum, the wet blanket, the one who has never let himself be distracted from the quest, has broken her spell, and stamped on her sweet, cloying, enchanted fire with his cold foot.

"The sweet heavy smell grew very much less. For though the whole fire had not been put out, a good bit of it had, and what remained smelled very largely of burnt Marsh-wiggle, which is not at all an enchanting smell. This instantly made everyone's brain far clearer. The Prince and the children held up their heads again and opened their eyes.

Secondly, the Witch, in a loud, terrible voice, utterly different from all the sweet tones she had been using up till now, called out, "What are you doing? Dare to touch my fire again, mud-filth, and I'll turn the blood to fire inside your veins."

Thirdly, the pain itself made Puddleglum's head for a moment perfectly clear and he knew exactly what he really thought. There is nothing like a good shock of pain for dissolving certain kinds of magic.

"One word, Ma'am," he said, coming back from the fire; limping, because of the pain. "One word. All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things - trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have.

Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one.

And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a playworld which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia."

That has been my private manifesto since the first time I read it when I was nine years old.

I've spent my whole life feeling like an exile, longing, yearning to go home, and looking for the door that will take me there.



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How it's done

Ever wonder how the Church was brought to its knees, and now almost universally kowtows to the leftist orthodoxy?

It wasn't by accident.

As any conqueror, from Hannibal to Hitler knows, you don't attack the whole force at once. You identify key strategic positions and you go after them.

And if you're a Gramciist Communist, you do it real sneaky-like.

Our old bloggie buddie Ttony of the Muniment Room explains how it was done in Eng/Wales

...most of the Bishops had been formed in the old days, and both believed in and valued their independence. Although the Bishops’ conference existed as an entity, it was fairly toothless. But if Hume and Worlock could force the Bishops to cede “sovereignty” to the Conference and could then replace them (through a complaisant Nuncio) as they reached 75 with a new breed of new-thinking Bishops, they could transform the Church in England and Wales.

The NPC [National Pastoral Congress - basically the October Revolution for the English Catholic Church] was designed to effect this change: to use the numbers of engaged lay people and compliant priests to design and build new structures for the Church. To anybody who remembers “entryism” in the Labour Party – the way in which Party structures were taken over by the “new Left” – the methodology is familiar.

And, I have observed, this is how politics works everywhere:

The Bishops were few in number, but the Council was not binding on them. They were being manoeuvred by Hume and Worlock (and their agents) into a position where the cost to them of rejecting the most extreme propositions the Congress would propose would be the acceptance of limitations to their autonomy by the creation of stronger structures within the Episcopal Conference and a greater role for lay activists within these structures.

You see this method used all the time if you watch politics closely enough. For example, most obviously in Italian secular politics. Activists in... ah... a particular lobby/special interest group, will want to get a major legal concession, for example, the existence of a huge, systemic problem of "discrimination" against, say... left-handed mini-golf players.

The activists propose a 50 page bill that is jammed with the most outrageous curtailments of public freedoms; say for example, anyone who tries to sell a right-handed golf club to a LHMGP will face twenty years in prison for "discrimination". And there is no "objective test" as lawyers say, the existence of an offence is left up to the feelings of the LHMGP who perceives the discrimination.

This monster of a bill is presented in the House of Deputies, and the usual suspects, for all the right reasons, start screaming about civil rights, freedom of speech and belief and whatnot, and the activists respond with "reluctant" concessions. Until the bill has been shaved of 90% of its outrageous idiocy, and everyone is now talking about this discrimination as though it were a real thing, and a grave danger to millions of citizens, yay, even unto civilisation itself.

Shaved-down bill passes, after much shrieking and howling in the Lower House, and after the LHMGP lobby has denounced it as "toothless".

And Voy-lah! We have invented an entire new thing in law that can be watered and cultivated carefully over the years and made to grow, and grow and grow...



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Summer

One minute, summer vacation and all the promise and hopes and dreams attached to it is a staple of your childhood psyche. The next minute, it's gone. Losing summer is like losing an arm in a battle you don't remember having. Until the day you die, you're going to have phantom twinges of hope for a three-month holiday that is never ever coming.

My solution: move to a beautiful beachside resort town in Italy, where the actual three months of summer are the time when you most want to go somewhere cool and fresh and not crowded with sweaty tourists, and the rest of the year is, basically, like the summer you remember in childhood.

What am I doing today? Fooling about on the internet, when, yes, I really should be doing nearly anything else.

~ * ~


In other news...

Been giving the second two Narnia films another shot, and been thinking that they're not as bad as I had at first thought. Dawntreader especially can be forgiven for at least some of the crimes. The book is really a series of little vignettes, which would not lend themselves to a complete narrative on film. There really had to be some kind of unifying plotline.


Also, there is one way in which I thought the movie outdid the book: Eustace, while a dragon, sacrifices himself to save the ship from the sea monster and complete the quest by taking the last sword back to Ramandu's Island, an act that very decisively indicates a massive change of his character, much more decisively than Lewis had done.

The green mist was, I'll admit, exceptionally stupid, but Hollywood has done worse things to books. and there is some good character development, and they did to Eustace pretty well.

But I will say, the moment Lord Rhoop, on the Dark Island, tells the Narnians, "Don't let it know what your fears are or it will become them." and Edmund says, "I'm sorry," I really, REALLY expected the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man to appear.

~ * ~

And about being an introvert...

"I'm not talking about people who are introverts against their will. I'm talking about the millions of us out there who are introverts because we simply prefer our nice, [safe] quiet houses over the jaw-clinching idiocy of public functions."

I've just come home from a lovely trip to Ontario where I spent a great deal more time in the company of other human beings than I normally am used to, and it was fine. It was great, actually. But I can't describe how glad I am to be back in my cave... my lovely, lovely caaaave.

(Especially after nine hours in that sardine tin airplane.)

Other people are OK, I guess, and I'm working hard on dealing with my crippling social anxieties. And you know that I'm totally on board with the whole "don't kill 'em" thing, but as a day-to-day thing, really I'm always glad to be home.

Always.



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