[Empty references] are a part of the wider memeification of our culture in which recognizability equals entertainment... where it becomes increasingly difficult to engage stories with commitment and sincerity.

-From The Marvelization of Cinema. A great follow up to Memes* cause depression

Hidden Brain: The Paradox of Pleasure

According to this two-part program (1, 2) basically if you're getting the constant dopamine that a modern person receives, our homeostasis will naturally baseline us in a state of depression. So if you want to not be depressed, you have to pretty actively not live like a modern person (e.g., no internet at home).

 There are so many good nuggets but here were two that I remember:

"In our narcissistic culture, you'll find people want to escape themselves and into something else. We are so inundated with thinking and worrying about ourselves that our escapism shows we want relief from that."

"I thought I was unhappy because my life was hard. It turns out I was unhappy because my life was too easy."

I'm rethinking my relationship with the internet and consumerism, down to things that we typically think are mundane and basic like "listening" to music (and podcast consumption!) I'm already cranky thinking about the withdrawal that will happen without my Youtube crutch, but the program convinced me there is no end to the manufactured infinite quantity of novelty, and each hit digs deeper into the dopamine cache that cannot be satisfied.

The limits of therapy

Not letting Alan Noble corner the market on exegeting modern culture, the late Tim Keller has an extremely incisive chapter in his book Forgive titled, “Our need for forgiveness.” It’s based on an article written by Wilfred McClay on “the strange persistence of guilt,” where the modern (western) person, like all persons before, tries to cover their shame and sense of inadequacy *except this time* without the help of explicit moral categories, which is an idea ironically from Karl Marx. Thanks also to the default acceptance of Nietzsche and Freudian ideas that underlie therapy, mainstream therapy rationalizes and detaches itself from moral universals like guilt.

I don’t want to reduce the chapter to a couple wordbites so would recommend reading it in its entirety, but from personal experience I would agree that cognitive behavioral therapy does not cover dimensions of anxiety that are irrefutably moral and spiritual in their subjective experience. This is by design of course, so it’s not a gotcha. CBT I think helps folks to curb excesses in their *thoughts* to prevent *feelings* and *actions* from a downward spiraling.

But “not spiraling” is different than “joyful.” So what gets in the way of being joyful that CBT can’t address? It’s that nagging sense that you’re not good enough, useful enough, or loved enough, by other people or by yourself. No amount of CBT self-thought-policing with affirmations of “I am worthy” will actually sit deeply unless you bring about some standard of, well, what makes someone worthy to begin with?

The deflecting person will look outside and see how society and other people have unfairly deemed them unworthy (e.g., “not smart enough for the job”, “not funny or pretty enough for friends”). This is an archetype that fits the modern MO – victimhood is righteousness. Even if that situation is true, there are two problems: the practical problem is that mere acknowledging doesn’t really help one find joy, and the philosophical problem is therein lies a moral judgment. Those two words CBT is highly allergic to. The moral judgment is that other people are the guilty ones.

But how do you guide a CBT client with this complaint? You have to somehow straddle “those judgments by other people are not true” and “those people may have understandable reasons for treating you this way (a la amygdala function).” A bit vacuous and not joy-inspiring. This is what I actually experienced in my CBT sessions, and this is not an accusation but just an observation on what conflicts surface within this framework.

The honest person will look inside and see that, yes, there are truly things that make them unworthy. A spiteful heart, destructive habits, ungracious attitudes. Dr. Keller cutely quips Instagram is not enough to cover these things we know to be true of ourselves. Pronouncing all guilt onto other people is creating an artificial, or rigged, scale to make sure we don’t acknowledge the inadequacy/shame that we don’t know what to do with (thanks to Nietzsche). CBT would posit that you’ve developed your unworthy traits as your body’s natural way of dealing with stress, and thus we need to reprogram the brain to think-feel-act accordingly.

The “best case” is you start to act in ways that are more righteous. But that doesn’t solve the inherent problem of sensing right vs. wrong actions in the first place. And so when you inevitably do something wrong, you behavior manage your way out and hopefully don’t think too deeply as to why you keep feeling dissatisfied.

To his credit, Dr. Noble does dedicate a whole chapter to the limits of therapy in his essay-book On Getting Up In The Morning. He does not downplay the need for it but acknowledges that it’s hit-or-miss at best. Positively speaking, CBT has been beneficial for me to understand better how I think, why I operate in a certain manner, and increase my capacity for compassion when others act destructively. And it is a sort of relief to know that it doesn’t, shouldn’t, and can’t address the lingering accusations, which compel a need for deep acceptance and love from a worthy party.

Memes* cause depression

*well, internet scrolling in general, which are basically memes or meme-adjacent.

During company layoffs, I went two straight weeks looking at nothing but internal memes. They were really helpful in processing the feelings of hurt and shock. 

Memes with my colleagues straddle an interesting spectrum. It's "connection" with a real collective community, but the collective is across 200K employees.

Extrapolate that to an entire internet "community" and you have the state of today's media. For all the split-second entertainment that's out there, I rarely laugh. That's true unfortunately not just with internet browsing, but with life and with people too.

Is it just me? Are we not having as many belly laughs with people as with past times? 

I could be conflating a number of other true things: 

adult friendships don't tend to be as deep as those from youth,  

raising a kid is a perpetual beatdown,

pandemic disconnection,

desensitization from working in a frenetic environment,

but let me just stick to my thesis a little longer. First, what am I calling a "meme," and why do they make us depressed? A meme (picture, short video skit, stupid Tweet™️) is basically an attempt through media to get a "Oh I know that feeling!" It's creating a "connection," and the more niche the reference the greater the payoff, e.g., in order from basic to niche: SAT -> 90skids4lyfe -> depression/anxiety/introvert/antisocial -> grad school memes with relatable themes -> NUMTOT -> MD is a cult Not a State -> Super Secret DMV bboy page. Honestly for every human experience, and I mean *every*, we've created some media.

But here's the thing. I think connection is zero-sum. At the core of it, memes create connection to a nebulous internet entity, which thus disconnects us more and more with our real counterparts. We strip ourselves the opportunity to laugh with real friends, because would-be funny convos are constantly scuttled with our mental "oh I've seen this line of humor already in a meme." I sense this constantly in my interactions. People including myself have a hard time laughing from true novelty, because there is none.

And it's even more negative than zero-sum. The meme reduces the dimensions and dignity of the human experience it's making fun of. Tokenizes and trivializes. Ironically, the more nuanced ("niche") the meme is the more the tokenization effect. Because of this, I draw a line at Christian memes. Under no circumstances I'll entertain Christian memes. That's the last thing in my life I need trivializing. 

As self-proclaimed Nostalgia King, I think about how life was in the 2000s. Even though we had internet, its use was so different. We still used Facebook to catch up with real people in our lives, not random impersonal internet personalities. AIM chat was in its heyday. We connected with real folks. 

Will I stop with memes? Maybe! I unfollowed a bunch of meme accounts by the end of writing this. Out of all my social contexts, I think I have pretty good laughs with bboys. The meme skills of the community are so poor it's actually a net-benefit. It also helps you're inherently vulnerable and silly when participating. A lot of the things discussed here are themes from the book "You Are Not Your Own" by Alan Noble. Excellent read, seriously cut me on specific modern problems that older religious figures don't have insight into (a la memes, porn, and smartphones).

I can’t optimize God out of my life

The credit card points are great but I end up blowing them on traffic camera tickets.

Paying property taxes online is really convenient unless I pay it on the wrong property.

Giving my best presentation but for the wrong audience stifles my sense of accomplishment.

All the best parenting materials don’t seem to help when I end up surrendering to frustration at my don’t-know-any-better toddler.

Getting extra sleep sometimes, but doesn’t always, save me from random grogginess.

I don’t know why I think I can solve everything when it seems pretty clear I can’t solve most things. Jesus prods and lets me know I can’t do a single thing without him.

Best man

I'm going to try to write this in the tone of +Edward Suh's (@Eagersuh) tweets. Running into my friends who are with their significant other makes me so happy. Like really really happy. The guy's embarrassed grin can scarcely be contained, and the girl's eyes glint with a joy I just don't see in other contexts. Like PDwight's groomsman/best man analogies, in those moments I dwell not on myself and instead cherish that window I can peer into their shared joy.

It remains indefinite who is to be my object of affection, the apple of my eye. But the thrill of expressing those emotions (for which there will be no lack, this I promise) will give me deeper appreciation of the passion Christ sees his bride, the church. In any case, I'll gladly use this time to take the role as humble groomsman to please Jesus and his wife, me in the background and them in the foreground.

The art of losing myself is the art of joy

It could be hard to fathom, but I was ostensibly more prideful when I was younger. One clear example was my refusal to learn Chinese properly. As I sit here and prepare to go to Chengdu in hopes of showing God's love to a people I can barely communicate with, the regret is palpable.

The main reason that I hated learning Chinese was that it forced me to lose myself. Sardonic quips, mocking snark - these things I saw as precious facets of my personality. Chinese sarcasm (hyperboles, rather) is more to be mean than to be funny. It infuriated me to "condescend" to a language where sarcasm as I knew it didn't exist, and the extent of humor was cheesy puns. Our flesh naturally wants to make much of ourselves, but if only God helped me to see that people could really use less of my sarcastic personality anyways, much less the people I will minister to in the future.

And that is why - better late than never - I am now loving every second of learning Chinese. +Brendon Wu said once that if you find that your interests are not constantly changing, you should really question whether your love is genuine. We touched upon this in CG too (+Rachel Miao +Gloria Kim): we must love people in the way they feel loved. Their interests must become ours, in the same way Jesus condescended himself in human form to walk alongside us. My love for God and his people, and my desire to forget myself to make much of him, is now giving such education divine purpose and passion, to which there is much joy.

Pennkindness

Was randomly blessed by dude who held the elevator for me at Harnwell then proceeded to make heartfelt conversation about the week for what the 20 floors were worth. What a nice guy! How easy would it be for me to not be so insecure and brighten someone's day? Worth thinking about.

Don't "Try Jesus"

From a sermon by Ray Comfort:

Two men are seated in a plane. The first is given a parachute and told to put it on as it would improve his flight. He’s a little skeptical at first because he can’t see how wearing a parachute in a plane could possibly improve the flight. After a time he decides to experiment and see if the claim is true. As he puts it on he notices the weight of it upon his shoulders and he finds that he has difficulty in sitting upright. However, he consoles himself with the fact that he was told the parachute would improve the flight. So, he decides to give the thing a little time. As he waits he notices that some of the other passengers are laughing at him, because he’s wearing a parachute in a plane. He begins to feel somewhat humiliated. As they begin to point and laugh at him and he can stand it no longer, he slinks in his seat, unstraps the parachute, and throws it to the floor. Disillusionment and bitterness fill his heart, because, as far as he was concerned, he was told an outright lie.

The second man is given a parachute, but listens to what he’s told. He’s told to put it on because at any moment he’d be jumping 25,000 feet out of the plane. He gratefully puts the parachute on; he doesn’t notice the weight of it upon his shoulders, nor that he can’t sit upright.

The second man is struck by the truth and knowledge of death without the parachute. Outside jeering falls short of the peace, security, and joy in certain salvation that fills his heart. Surely he is grateful to the giver of that parachute. The first man just wanted the parachute solely to improve his flight, but ends up humiliated. Chances are, he wouldn't dare put that parachute back on to save any face he has left.

When leading others to Christ, don't falsely promise a great life. To do so is to sow seeds on the rocky places where there will be no root (Mark 4:16-17). Matthew 16:24 paraphrased is, "In the world's eyes, you gon' die if you follow Jesus. Prepare to get put up on a cross every second of your life." A life in Christ is most joyful, but trial is certain. Suffering is imminent.

It's a delicate thing, sharing the "Beloved child, God wants to hug you" Gospel vs. "Wretched sinner, God wants to save you from deserved wrath" Gospel. Both are vital. Yet I encourage those in the faith to not talk like a theologian when sharing to the lost, but use personal narrative to relate these truths. Don't testify about how bad life was before Christ and how your life is baller now (yeah, no); testify on how you're still short of His glory. how you don't deserve saving and repentance. how you're as wicked as the child pornographer and family-abandoning father.

and how you love your Jesus.