As a college freshman I became curious about Christianity, so I attended a few meetings of the campus "Christian fellowship."
I could not understand or sympathize with these people at all, friendly though they were.
They seemed completely unaware of or uninterested in social and political trends that were antagonistic to what they believed. The idea that they might take action or speak out against these things seemed completely alien to them.
They wanted to get together on Friday evenings, sing songs and hold hands, and go home.
I decided to look elsewhere to find out about Christianity, because quietism has never held the slightest appeal to me. Evil is to be fought. You cannot claim to love your neighbor while leaving him to the wolves.
Quietism rears its ugly head in many contexts, but the conclusion is always the same: since this world is fleeting, it is wrong to focus too much on it. Even placing more emphasis on trying to make a good living or taking care of one's health than these people think you should is, according to them, a kind of idolatry.
Yesterday someone who subscribes to this view wrote to me in this spirit, and I found it too infuriating to keep to myself. Lucky you, dear reader: you get to read what he wrote to me.
You will recall that yesterday I wrote about yet another area in which the conventional wisdom is unsatisfactory: namely, physical exercise. I said: there are precisely four movements you need to master, using precisely one implement, and that's it.
There can be a place for cardio, but strength is what is going to give you longevity and a better quality of life as you age. Your muscles are going to atrophy as you get older unless you make a serious effort to build them up.
So many older people are in homes not because their brains don't work but because a lifetime of neglecting this advice means they lack the strength to do things people who want to live independently need to be able to do.
At any rate, yesterday I heard from a quietist for whom all this concern for physical health is so much idolatry: after all, maybe God wants you to die miserably in some Rockefeller-style hospital:
Real freedom is not the freedom to use the toilet unassisted. True freedom is interior and exists in our ability to act morally given our circumstances. The man who works out 5 times a week (or more) is no more free than the heroin addict. It is quite possible to work out for purely appetitive reasons.
You said above, "The evil bastards want us weak and sickly so we can beg for their bogus treatments, and I prefer not to give them the satisfaction." Real satisfaction ought to come from being able to suffer the poverty, suffering, and even death that might arise from these treatments knowing that this life is not the end, that our health and wealth cannot save our souls but their loss can be meritorious.
Poverty is, after all, one of the three Evangelical Counsels and many a great saint withered away in sickness at their lives' end. When we order our lives in such a manner that our focus lies more fixedly on this world in the way of how to earn a good living, enjoy the things of earth, be healthy to live without the suffering endemic in the health industrial complex instead of what is pleasing to the Lord, we are no different than the commies that run our society.
I have no patience for this kind of moral preening at all. There is nothing wrong with or idolatrous about prudent self-control and foresight. So I replied bluntly:
Translated into non-pompous English: you refuse to do basic things that might prevent others from having to spend all their time catering to you in your old age. All you have to do is master four simple movements, but you're too cheap or lazy to do that. You disguise that cheapness and laziness in the form of piety and moral superiority.
Too harsh? Not harsh enough, if anything. This man's is the kind of Christianity Nietzsche mocked and loathed, and for good reason.
The stronger you are, the more you can give, rather than endlessly receiving. We bear each other's burdens, yes, but a good person is thoughtful and considerate enough not to create avoidable ones.
You don't need me to gather biblical verses affirming the obvious truth that it's a good thing to take care of your body: Christian or not, you know this is common sense.
But it's one of those things we all mean to get to someday. And then someday keeps getting pushed off.
Maybe you're unhappy with how you look. Or you'd just like to be stronger. Or you know the full case for what strength training can do for your health and longevity. But (1) you're busy, and (2) you don't know what to do or where to start.
We're all busy. But there are some things that deserve priority and that you have to do, busy or not. This is one of them, both for yourself and for the children for whom you are setting an example.
And if you're going to do it, it may as well be via an instructor plucked right out of Woods World, and a colleague of the great Mark Rippetoe, one of my (enormous) repeat Tom Woods Show guests.
Early bird special expires soon, and then the price triples.
We all tell ourselves we'll get to this someday.
Someday is today.
Clicking the link will not make you guilty of idolatry. It means you have prudent consideration for yourself and for others. See you inside, as Woods World embarks on this important mission together:
Ni komentarjev:
Objavite komentar