Paul, I am a man in my mid eighties, a christian believer, and I have have found in this new internet technology an increditably delightful source of learning, wisdom, new insights, music, reading, etc., your informative, wise and insightful videos not the least. I agree with you that most of the stuff on it is crap, but searching out the gems is so worthwhile, it has made my life and faith so much richer and deeper, That I wish it had come much earlier in my life. . I count myself fortunate to have lived long enough to experience this phenomena. You too, Paul, are one of the encouragers on this WWW, feeding thousands of us humans with good worthwhile stuff and helping us deal with the crap in each of our lives.

I became a recluse in 2015 and am healing from the assault of the world - nocturnal, walking at dawn and dusk, meditating, watching a very small wildflower meadow gradually bloom in my back garden, grateful for my garden and home, sitting in the garden in the dark watching the sky, listening to the animals, the night belongs to them, increasingly cannot bear the clamour of the world. I am blessed. I don't need to work any more. I keep away from it all for my sanity and my soul.

i often wonder how many talented people, who might have something beautiful to say, have given up baring their souls because the world is now so flooded with ‘content’.i certainly have.

I enjoy your work, brother, and am so glad you're in our family now. God bless you! Jesus did withdraw into the wilderness, but he also was present in the world to touch the hurting and hungry. This is true religion: to be Christ to the broken, lost, lonely, imprisoned, etc. As appealing as it is to withdraw from it all and focus on one's own relationship with God, the end purpose is to be like Jesus: a little Christ to the world.

Paul. I am 55. I have been in the nursing / medical world for decades. Ive taught, written and loved the creativity of it. And God seems to insist that I stop. It is disconcerting, dinsintegrating and i have found it to date impossible to stop. Almost like addiction. Until I heard a quote from St John of the Cross. About a bird that is tied down by a piece of grass is no more or less free than one tied by a chain (along those lines..) After that and thanks to my spiritual accompanier, (spiritual mother) repeating back to me my own words, today I cut the ties. You only have to listen back to yourself for your own answer. Is it that God is speaking to many if us in our own hearts, the same message? Could we gather in some way? I enjoyed the woods with Mary's statue between. I am loving your words. I hope that in your freedom in Christ he may draw you to write of the old saints and Celtic spirituality, that is profoundly present in the earth of Ireland. And who knows where else. The pre schism church of East and West. There is something in that I feel that may be a point of renewal. God bless you.

In Romanian, the root of the word for Vanity, "deșertăciunea" is deșert, "desert". So reading "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity" relates to the desert as emptiness, lifelessness. You are going to be in a desert either way, but one reveals Christ to you, the natural one, the other one obfuscates Him, the Machine one (to use your language). God bless you and yours Paul!

Paul, your posts are always rich and sometimes when I am writing, I read something you've written and temporary blocks retreat. Even when I'm not sure we agree on every point, the depth and thoughtfulness of your commentary causes me to examine my own views. I've been in what the Puritans called the Valley of Vision and surrounded by sin, I saw His glory in the heights. I cannot retreat into isolation because too many innocents/children are facing dragons and need a St. George, even an old one with rusty armor. The trick is to engage and not be consumed, to withdraw to prayer, to be cleansed by the Word. I admit it is a hard balance to master, and when I fail, I feel the awful price of distance from Him. Carry on, your posts are especially welcomed when I feel I am drowning in the world's shallow water.

Thank you from this desert sister literally living in the Mojave desert in 100 + degrees this summer solstice ❤

Paul as a new Christian who is drawn to Orthodoxy and a life close to nature. Please keep making these films if you feel called to make them. It helps us more than you could know

Loved this! Re being in the world and pulling away, I e been doing that for quite some years now. Years without TV, years without network news. I hate advertising. This year, my biggest move yet - giving up voting. Wow! But I’ve hated fake for so long. It’s time. And by the time God takes me, I’ll be ready. His timing will be perfect.

One consolation if you think giving up on the news gives anxiety. One reason we tell ourselves is that we need to know what's going on. Turn off the news and believe, if its important you will find out about it. Someone will tell you face to face, or maybe send you an email, you might see a poster on a lamppost, or maybe you will overhear it in the wind. It's non essential but the important bit of information you might get once every 7 months you will hear about in other ways.

I too have felt liberated by turning from the toxicity of politics and the information overload. It only lasts a week before I get sucked in. God bless you on your journey.

In 2014 I found myself without TV for 3 months. I then bought one. I turned it on and several minutes later I turned it off. I have not watched MSN since and I do not miss it.

Superb. Thank you Mr Kingsnorth.

Yes. I am drowning in content. I watched the whole thing and I appreciate both your zeal and your recognition of the paradox of your situation-creating ever more droplets that add to the mighty River of Fakeness. But God also meets us here, and I would argue that THIS is the desert. The internet. And the work of the modern saint is to ground the wire, which I believe you are doing out of a deep love for the world.

“Entering the new country with nothing”, isn’t that how we come to Jesus in the end?

Thank you for this perfect sacred Summer Solstice sermon dear Paul. Just what I needed! This machine ( my cell phone) has taken me into a dark place. It's time to let it go and walk closer to God.

How apropos to have Christ's mother "sitting" over your shoulder. I needed to hear this. Thank you.

I'm a Missouri Synod Lutheran. Your talk, Paul, has much to do with vocation. Luther would say that we recognize our vocation often not to much by self-examination but by considering those around us. Thus you and I are fathers and husbands. We have vocations that correspond to these relationships. Many people reading these comments have not yet retired, as I have; they have God-given responsibilities connected with their employment, and some may decide that their employments are inconsistent with their deepest responsibilities; but a "job" may imply a spiritual discipline in regard to the work and to the people alongside whom one works. So we consider the medieval model, that there are those who work, those who rule and/or fight, and those who pray. Those who work were, primarily, those who worked the land, practicing good husbandry we hope, etc. Some are placed in a position in which they are responsible for the defense of the realm -- there were no police as such then, but probably most people here will agree that sheriffs and other officers are necessary, and, moreover, a trained soldiery may be necessary. The agrarian hobbits depended, without knowing it, on the Rangers who patrolled the dangerous regions on their behalf. Those who pray were the clergy who served in the public ministry of (as Lutherans like to say) Word and Sacrament (the Gottesdienst), plus the monks and nuns who lived by their Rules. I myself believe that some sort of monasticism is increasingly needed (1) to pray and (2) to provide refuge for some of the damaged people who need something more or other than what a local congregation can provide or what a secular counselor is up to. This could include people who have become terribly damaged by traffic with unclean spirits. And there are going to be more and more of them in Europe and the Americas, I suspect. You can reinforce your resolve to cut off the news by reading Rolf Dobelli's classic article: www.theguardian.com/media/2013/apr/12/news-is-bad-rolf-dobelli Dr. Liddon on E. B. Pusey: In our day many ingenious theories have been put forth as to the origin of language. But Dr. Pusey believed that the only one which does justice to what it is in itself and to its place in nature as a characteristic of man is the belief that it is an original gift of God; the counterpart of that other and greater gift of His, a self-questioning and immortal soul. Language is the life of the human soul, projected into the world of sound; it exhibits in all their strength and delicacy the processes by which the soul takes account of what passes without and within itself; in it may be studied the minute anatomy of the soul’s life - that inner world in which thought takes shape and conscience speaks, and the eternal issues are raised and developed to their final form. Therefore Dr. Pusey looked upon language with the deepest interest and reverence; he handled it as a sacred thing which could not be examined or guarded or employed too carefully; he thought no trouble too great in order to ascertain and express its exact shades of meaning… -- H. P. Liddon, 1884 Thanks for reading. DN

Thank you for these posts, Paul. I appreciate them very much!

The same has happened to me. I can’t watch it. When I dabble…invariably my day is not as good. The spirit of the world easily infects.

Paul, thank you for your thought-provoking video. I think you are on to something at least in the sense of walking away from much of what we are told we shouldn't walk away from. I am a Roman Catholic and I have been thinking a lot about the examples of saints such as St. Benedict, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Teresa of Avila, etc. who all sought God by leaving the world behind. Both St. Benedict and St. Francis of Assisi sought refuge and spiritual combat in caves in order to be purified before they could answer God's call. St. Teresa is a master of mystical prayer because she chose a life focused solely on God. I think we do have to be willing to part with the constant noise of the Machine in order to grow in holiness and prayer. I think of how this week every time I tried to do mental prayer I had a song my daughter was listening to going through my head on a loop. We need silence in order to encounter God, which is why the Machine is hell bent on noise. It is diabolical. I think we need to shut the endless technology off in order to grow in prayer, but then to actually live the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity by serving within our physical communities. Staring endlessly at news we cannot control while our own communities are falling apart is insanity. There are people right outside our door who need us to be Christ to them. We are too busy staring at our phones to see Christ in our midst. The saints are all grassroots sorts of people, not top down reformers. We can't fix politics or what is going on elsewhere, but we can begin in our own homes, churches, and towns. We can begin by fighting the darkness within our own hearts. That is enough darkness to keep us battling until our dying day! God bless.

Heard Pauls stunning talk in Estonia in regard of Aldous Huxley. Just brilliant, so far reaching. Follow this man,hes onto something very big

Beautiful and true. May our good Lord Jesus continue to watch over you and guide you along the way.

"Zen spirituality isn't thinking about God while peeling potatoes, zen spirituality is peeling potatoes." - Alan Watts

The gems of youtube are channels such as this.

Lovely to listen in here. God bless.

Enjoy your holiday Paul. Appreciate your writing and videos. I endeavour to limit my time online but it’s voices like yours that make it a value resource for me. Greetings from Cork.

Timely thoughts. I've been thinking a lot about this Paul, in large part because I already had a wife and 8 children before also becoming an Orthodox Christian a couple of years ago, so there's not exactly any desert cave path for us at this point. In fact, we even tried isolation for a while on a homestead before Orthodoxy, and we learned a lot, but one of the main conclusions is that children especially do indeed need something like a village and extended family of close loving relationships to feel whole and develop correctly. Thank God that realization led us to Orthodoxy, and it was our pilgrimage to Ireland last year, staying with those blessed sisters near you, that got us realizing that perhaps the model for families is something like a monastery of the home and parish, and we've been trying to model our lives that way, in the ways possible, even while now living back in the city (to be near our parish). I sense this implicit desire in so many of the families of the parish, which are now our extended family and village. It's kind of a modified Benedict Option that doesn't require everyone to retreat to a wilderness enclave (which "intentional communities" have not tended to go too well, at least in recent times here in the United States).

Great to see you again Paul

Thank you for this video. Withdrawing from the "stuff" that agitates and distracts us from beauty and love is one way to interpret Jesus' command that we seek first the kingdom of God. Psalm 46 exhorts us to be still and know that God is God, so keeping silence is another aspect of responding to the "noise." Your visit with us reminded me of Peguy's poem, The Surrender of Sleep. Stay well. Prayers for you and your family.

Amen ❤️

Paul, thank you so much. Your words inspire me to keep seeking and walking with Jesus.

Thank you. I want to retreat. I’m married to a good man who would never think of this. So my home must be my cave.

I have heard many talks from you since I discovered you more than a decade ago. I always enjoy your words which hold wisdom to me. I do engage with the machine, albeit for my job or some hobby's that I have to have fun and connect with the world and myself. I also have so many observations, questions and thoughts regarding this topic and spirituality/religion, I would love to talk about with you (and others). I'm thankful for this, thank you Paul.

The world might not need more content but it needs more Kingsnorth. Footage looks great BTW.

Thank you so much, Paul, for the offering of your experiences and story. I appreciate your ability to convey insights with compassion and understanding for the unique situations of your listeners, including myself.

Thank you Paul for another breath of fresh air. The last time I remember hearing anyone discuss fakes and fakery was as a teenager in high school in the 70s. It seemed any number of artists and poets had the desire to compose or create from a place of authenticity as opposed to factory manufactured trends. A different era with a different form of fakery but here we are, contending with it still.

Oh, my - thank you for this, Paul. I have been wondering about wandering into the desert - what it means to daily depend on the food of God, his sustenance, grace and mercy, as upon manna. For me, themes of but surrendering more to what God wishes for me today, even as I plan and such (Lord, your will be done, not mine!). Your words also bring in the element of leaving behind the things of the world that enslave us and make us crazy, and I ponder now, the many ways I engage with the world that enslaves me, and keeps me from being in prayer with God. The reality I experience is indeed very different when I truly walk out of the world, and into the arms of God. Blessings to you.

I deeply appreciate all that you write . Thank you for your inhaler.

Thanks Paul, your words bring me peace. God bless you.

Nice video. I like this format. Great poem you read.

Dear Paul, lovely to see and hear from you again. I wonder if the desert might be one's mind rather than a place. To work towards a mind that is free from the desire for the things of the world (machine), so that one may finally 'know' what remains when the spell of desire has subsided - God. You are on point, though. But removing oneself from society really is a drastic action. Be a vessel of God regardless of place and circumstance. You and your voice are a blessing to us. Thank you.

A mental breakdown is definitely a sign of not being able to live in the world you find yourself in. I knew how I felt about the world but how does one disappear from children, a husband, a community that expects you to take part in the upkeep of it’s social life. 25yrs of self inflicted isolation under psychiatric care was the outcome of my yearning not to be, until I found my priorities, built myself up and chose to come back to family and friends. Finding God again was instrumental in giving me the strength to go back, knowing that I was never alone.

Thank you for your thoughts. Very glad I sought out your channel and subscribed (even though minimal content) and marked all notification following your discussion with Jonathan Pageau last month 🙏

A timely video for me Paul. As another culture and politics addict, this is something that has been in the back of my mind for a long time. The solstice is in 22 minutes, this time I will change?...

Thanks Paul. I have had very similar thoughts myself but equally (at the very least) I find it difficult to turn away from the politics of the election or just the ongoing stream of nonsense that has us all outraged or angry or perplexed or whatever. I hope I can find the wisdom and the strength to simply turn away from it all and return to the more permanent things that actually do matter.

I love this little film

Paradoxically, its probably my comments on other videos that led to the algorithm suggesting this video, but these themes are at the forefront of my mind, almost to an incessant degree. Some observations: Firstly, you’re probably familiar with Marshall McLuhan, but if not, you’ve gotta check him out bc he predicted our current situation with art vs. machines in the 60’s. He’s brilliant. Secondly, I think the only format of writing that can contend with A.I., and I do mean contend, is informal, subjective journaling/memoirs. A.I. will soon be able to ape every other medium but a subjective reflection of a real human’s experience will always contain the variable seed of tangible experience. We already value the primary sources of letters and journals over secondary sources like historiographies and newspapers in the study of history, but we must consciously decide to elevate the colloquial, regional, informal, and subjective elements of writing if we want to preserve it. I’m a southern American so perhaps that inclination is more natural to me than for others. Thirdly, to expand on the “contention” aspect…never before has art needed to defend itself. It has always been used as a weapon or a tool, more or less, but it’s never been the prize being fought over. What an opportunity we have, to be the guardians of art in the meta-sense, we are called to truly make art for art’s sake now…not in self-indulgent coyness, but as a genuine means of survival. If you don’t develop your own voice soon, it WILL be co-opted by the machines. Lastly, Christianity spread due to those pagan roman roads. The cunning of reason still reigns. God is with us. He has ordained us for this time and place and battle. We will win bc he has won. Sincerely, Anew Sub-Scriber P.S. As far as the mediums…we must champion the analog. I’m a musician…busking on the street is the only pure form of music left. The same applies to writing. Read your poems at the park, on the corner, at the court house. Print pamphlets to hand out to people. Grab a typewriter and compose spontaneous haiku. We must think like neo-artisans. It won’t make us rich, but great art never does. Vibrations > computations.

May God Bless you Paul. You are a godsend to us ❤

🙏mowed by your sharing ✍ 💦

Thank you Paul! It is comforting to know that there are others out in the world with some of the same thoughts that I have. I struggle a lot with understanding how we live our lives today - so many unnecessary additions that have just been created by man. I am not a job or number and I would like to spend my life doing something other than purchasing and consuming things that in the end are just waste and a burden.

Balance is being in the world but not of it; read and watch minimal amount of news, to keep in the world, but detach and meditate and live in gratitude for the wonders of nature and loved ones , in order to nourish the spirit. We are born at this time for a reason which involves facing the fake and recognizing it and living as an example to those sucked in. Thanks Paul.

Yes! What you talk about in this video is something that is moving through the air these last months.

It was helpful to hear this. Thanks Paul!

Thank you Paul. Your words resonate with me greatly. ❤

First time I've heard you. Thank you for this

Thank you Paul❣️

not watching the news will be easier than you think! thoughts soften, a quiet peace comes

Mr Kingsnorth, you always do a great job of getting my attention, but my ears nearly jumped off my head when you mentioned Fr Lazarus El Antony! He's my favourite too (not least because I'm also an Australian Copt, but one that made the opposite move to him; from Egypt to Australia). As you say, fantastic man and his story is just epic. I always wonder why he was attracted to Christ and St Mary in such a dramatic way and my guess is he had/has a purity of heart (and body, most likely) that makes him special. Fascinating! God bless you brother, and may your/our struggle against "the machine" and its distractions be acceptable in God's sight as the psalm says "...let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight O Lord, my Strength and my Redeemer".

"I remain with nothing, so that I do not lose that which I have been given." Josip Lasta, in the novel "Island of the World", by Micheal O'Brien.

Thank you, Paul. As Christians called to lives of holiness, the Holy Spirit sanctifying us, we are called to be set apart so as to be in but not of the world. We can be fruitful servants in Christ's vineyard despite the maelstrom of madness: light and salt no matter the inanity. Would like to read 📚 your novel 'Beast' as well as 'Savage gods'. My Coptic doctor told me about Lazarus el Anthony and I found him refreshing. Thank you for this video. You have a good new camera. It was a lovely mid Summer's day by the looks of it. Blessings to you entering the desert and closer walk with the Lord there.(Had a chuckle at your line about the Biden- Trump contest😂)

Thank you Paul. Couldn’t agree more.

Even as we die as the 'new martyrs' you speak of, we have to write, have to testify, have to sing. For such we were made, as eternal creatures, to the glory of God forever. When we sing and testify in response to who God is, what we give is also eternal, even if in its presentation ot the world is it is indistinguishable from IA, or never reach the eyes and ears of the hungry soul. Continue to worship God, dear brother, by whatever means He offers you in His kindness. He has been so kind to you, and kind to us through you.

Thank you so much❤ God bless you Paul. Thank you.

Thank you so much for sharing your heart it blessed me; God bless you brother

“If you have a phone in your pocket you’re always on.” I had my phone in my pocket listening to this . 😁 the key , brother , is to recognize that technology is addictive thanks to dopamine, but so is thinking and ruminating about various things like escaping technology . Self awareness can help us break the dependency .

Comments on the show “Mrs. Davis”? Very well done, and highly relevant.

I keep tracking everyday the impact of technology into the life and behavior of my family since 2018. All I do with a smartphone is emailing and watching content similar to this one. Probably looking for my own way of carrying the cross. I have been born in an orthodox family in eastern Europe but I never believed anything, so I am a pariah, some kind of apatrid. I have a cabin into the Carpathian Mountains and I go there weekly for introspection and healthy vegetables. I am tired of being alert and alone. I can feel the fall deep into my bones, the great pain that is around but never felt the need for any dependency which I found to be a good source for clarity. I can’t follow or believe in anything, all I can do is simply watch the end of our enterprise.

The video and audio quality were great 👍🏻on the new gear. Beautiful location. I unplugged from cable TV a decade ago and mainstream media a few years ago. When I see it at a friend or family member's home, I am shocked at how shallow and fake it all is. I am much happier with a well-filtered and limited exposure to media. Nature, home, family, friends and pets are a much better way to spend time.

Thank you!

Thank you Paul.

We will face the desert when we die, we do not need to disengage from the world, only to look into it with a childrens eye

Paul, I'd love for you to tease apart Tolkien's "Mythopoeia." It seems so consistent with your themes of Truth and of The Machine. And of Hope.

I love you Paul, thanks for this

That singing bird in the background sounds rather like a blackcap in your lead in Paul 🐦‍⬛

The sufferings in this time of fakery .. .for many of us it has been the loss of true contact with family and friends who are entranced, and who despise us if we speak our truth, however so quietly.

❤❤❤

Profound. Thank you for the invitation to consider how, particular to each person, the desert father/mother emulation is to take shape. Technical feedback. Consider putting the microphone a little bit lower because swallowing and mouth noises are distracting and unpleasant.

Paul your words ring very true. One of the issues with all this is to not throw the baby (Jesus) out with the bath water. After all he came into ‘the world’ to lead us out of it. So while words and the internet can on one hand “trap” they can also help release (from the deep fake world) . These are the words you use. Words that emerge from “The Word”. That’s a whole different kind of creation. I spent last weekend in Moyvanne Co. Kerry celebrating the life of John Moriarty and his message which I think many are more ready to hear now. It was such a profound experience I cannot find words for it! The well known people who were there, who’s purpose it seems is to carry messages like Johns forward, are your contemporaries. Where would we be without the divine words passed down to help us find our way? There’ll be times and maybe and end point where all words become useless. But for now they are a necessary channel for the silence - the “peace that surpasses all understanding” . Thanks Paul for how you use the gift of the word.

Thank you. In answer to whether the world needs more content, the answer is yes, more like this that points to a world not reduced to "content."

Paul, the way you say we're *flooded* -- I'm thinking of how you build a boat, you craft something in order to stay afloat, and you kindly make room for some strangers to get on board, to sail with you. I feel this is what you do. Thank you.

Very interesting video. I stumbled upon it on substack. Much of it resonates. Yes, I think one struggles to Imitate Christ out of the desert, though with our history of Saints, not impossible but improbable for us sinners. I do think personally, my goal is to at least get into the desert when possible, even by way of a foot or toe in the sand. Much of that can be helped by divorcing from news and current affairs, including that of the Church. As removing conduits to noise like KZfaq, and social media generally. So much deculturalising and baseness on these spaces: when I listened to your video, I picked up on the use of the words BS and c**p, which almost had me switch off, but I'm becoming quite sensitive to the use of language, so please don't see this as snobbery, just a yearning for higher expression. God bless.

Paul: In the kindest way possible can I suggest that you look directly into the camera lens when you face us and not (as it appears) at the video screen attached to your camera? It’s a niggling little thing perhaps but it has the effect of you looking over our shoulders instead of into our eyes.

Thank you Paul! One of the gifts of the Covid years is that it helped me see the extent of fakery, and feel motivated to explore what is real and true. It has been a exciting spiritual journey since! I have a question - I’m raising a seven-year-old, we’re in a great Homeschool community, but I do wonder whether you have ideas about raising children to be in the world but not of the world...

This last year, I have repeatedly sensed what may (I fear) be a call to give up entertainment media almost entirely. I watch much less television than the average American, but I'm increasingly forced to recognize that even in small amounts on weekends, it negatively affects my ability to pray, clouding my mind with noise that takes a long time to dissipate. I don't think this would necessitate refusing to go to the next Dune movie with friends or watch a Studio Ghibli movie with my daughter, but it would mean dropping anything during my downtime that I don't expect to be, not just high-quality and engaging as media, but spiritually profitable, which is a higher standard.

I tried to watch the Father Lazarus video, but I couldn't get past the epic guitar solo. I'm cooked.

This is where KZfaq bottoms out at the end of the politic…. Welcome Sir Kingsnorth, to this little corner of the internet. Welcome to thinking out loud and to this conversation.

Great talk, Thank you for the content:) You cannot live like a monk in the world and you Cannot live with the world as a monk - interesting problem! But maybe we in the world can live a little bit more like the monk, and like you say, seek shelter from the storm of indifference and fakery.

I think we can and will be able to tell the difference.

I see nettles are doing just as well in Ireland as they do over here in Poland.

Hi P, great upload with profound thoughts. I also fell (ill) after following too much modern media indiscriminately, until I descovered it being todays opium to keep the majority stump. Manipulation by axe/sword, more recent bullit/NBC technology, today electric/tronic/AI every human is 'connected' to exploid on behave of the few percentage privaledged. 99% of what you say I can support. Only to reach optimal self realisation, imho, I kept only one connection pure, which is Nature(Gaya) in spiritualty. Some 'machine' technologies do enhance without at cost of 'life'. Modern, relative new, any scripture, believes are value based and the core of all evil in mankind. One doesn' t need to hide in a dessert.. Seek likeminded, make pleasure but think more before just enslave yoursef! Live between the lines! An old geezer....

I hear you, brother, I hear you. Fr Stephen Freeman said after he become Orthodox he could not write at all for years. I have had much the same happen.

How will you bring the light of Christ to the world if you walk into the desert?

Regarding the "news" and Fr Lazarus' advice: he's right. And the weird thing is that it's possible to take that advice, taking a good amount of time to build up a resistance to the wiles of that fakery and that preoccupation with "this world", and then actually return to the point where you can once again encounter the news in a whole new way. But when you encounter it again, it feels so shallow and kind of pointless (at least in my experience). I avoid political discussions now and largely avoid politics in general mostly because I now feel (after about 20 years as an Orthodox Christian and 12+ years as a priest who has intentionally left discussing and following politics behind for the most part) that those things are not applicable to me, in a weird sense. As an American, I can sense the push of personal responsibility I'm supposed to have for the political sphere, but being a citizen of The Kingdom of God, I find it hard to dedicate myself to that "task". We are in this world , but we are not stuck with it or trapped by it, no longer being "of it", as Christ would tell us. I encourage my flock regularly to simply turn off the news and let it go. There are those who will directly tell me, "No," and then make all sorts of excuses why this is ill-advised or impossible. But I usually retort that if there is anything actually important happening in the world that requires our attention, the Lord will make certain that we know about it. Those who cannot turn off the news, the internet, social media, etc seem to think that these things are giving them more life and more awareness, not realizing the massive blinders that are being imposed on them by these gatekeeping industries.

A gentle reality check Paul --- the winter solstice has just passed here . . .

nicely put.....now im off to watch the football lol

I resonate with what you are saying, and its to some degree similar for me - but I also think it's important to consider that people are very different and that for some people, this "fake world" is what they need and want. It's not necessary to condemn it all. How plausible is it that all the effort that went into building all this, all the people who dedicated their life to this - that all this has been a complete error? Maybe there are nuances and degrees. Maybe there is a multiplicity of diverging needs and ideals and joys, even in a single person. Also I think there is no need for moralizing. The "machine world" is poisonous for some, but others would go kaputt in the desert cave or the monastery. Your message is important because it can give people the courage to turn away from the world, which is an unfashionable move, and therefore "dangerous". But I don't think it's right for everyone. Actually, I think it's about following what is truly joyful for each person and about avoiding a victim mentality - avoiding the sad passions. Maybe it would be interesting for you to look into Nietzsche and/or Spinoza.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb says "The opposite of reading is not 'not reading' - it's reading something like the New Yorker." If it's important, your environment (friends, etc.) will tell you.

Are you not talking about the Rich Young Ruler? We are each him, caught by the things of this world that enthrall us, that we most think we cannot live without. Jesus says that is what we must give up, leave behind, give away so that we can come to Him impoverished, emptied, and therefore ready to be filled with His "things," which is the Spirit of Christ, the Way of Life.