Pulling Through

Candles only matter in the darkness

This newsletter is not cheerful. It’s very funny; in general, my life is fine—it’s the rest of the world that’s going to hell. I’ll spare you the details in this missive, because of the reason for the season and all, but boy! Did ya ever want to learn what it felt like to live in the Dark Ages? Well, good news!

But I promised to spare you that. For now.

Here’s some uplift.

It's in moments like these that principles matter. When security and consensus are plentiful, principles are cheap—does anyone who profess them really hold them? You’ll never know in comfortable times. It’s easy to have hope in boom times; when every number goes up, what faith do you need that life can be better?

The wrong numbers are going up now, from deaths in war time to greenhouse emissions. Security is dearer. Division has arisen. IU made a college football playoff game. It’s unsettling.

We can choose our responses, even if it seems like the response is obvious, even natural. Nihilism doesn’t depress; it absolves. Despair is easy, perversely comforting. If nothing is worth living for and nothing can be done, then no attempts can be made—and, crucially, nobody can blame you for not even trying.

Ah, well, it’s our lot to persevere instead of to succumb. You can think of committed endurance as the grim side of Pascal’s Wager: if we act as though our actions matter, well, we could be wrong and they may not—but we could be right. If they don’t, it doesn’t matter if we act or not; if they do, then it matters very much. So choose to believe it matters.

That perseverance, however, can take many forms. Visible, outward protest is one form; survival and nurturing is another. Both have their place; how could it be otherwise? You can’t win through internal exile, but you can’t win by frontal assaults alone. To everything there is a season.

In the darkness, even a single candle can enlighten. If the next six months or six decades go poorly, there will be more years beyond that; it’s our task to keep the flame.

Hey, did you know December 25 is the start of Hanukkah this year? Here’s one of the better seasonal songs I know, by the best thing to ever come from Bethesda.