Why Lent Matters
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
107.90468
Summary
Lent is a time of self-imposed suffering where Catholics choose to give up something they habitually do for six weeks to do a little bit of suffering. I discuss why this is a good idea, and why you should do the same.
Transcript
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I recently received a donation from Joachim. You might remember him. He's done some excellent requested videos in the past.
00:00:37.140
But this wasn't a requested video. It was a donation with a request attached to it, asking me to talk about Lent.
00:00:48.160
And really, it's probably something I should be doing anyway, isn't it?
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Now, Lent. I'm sure you guys are familiar with it. It's the time of the year that Catholics, they pick something that they habitually do to give that up for six weeks.
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Now, I'm not going to get into the history of it or the why of it, partly because that's what your catechism is for. Just go read that.
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And second, if I try to talk about it, I'm quite certain I would get something wrong and look like an absolute fool and you might figure out what a bad Catholic I actually am.
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So I'm not going to be talking about those issues.
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What I want to talk about is the psychology of it.
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And why it's a ritual that, even if you're a non-Catholic, atheist, Hindu,
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And for the record, I'm sure Hindus do actually have something a lot like this.
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Most human cultures have had this forced upon them just by nature, if nothing else.
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And it's something we really miss in our present-day lives by not having, by not giving something up.
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And upon being informed that Lent wasn't five weeks, it was six weeks, he reacted with great emotional distress.
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Maybe I'll give up drinking one time for Lent and really focus on an exercise program or something,
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And I think starting off with a small luxury is actually the better maneuver.
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Because it's interesting to find out just how addicted you are.
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See, we keep most of our addictions in check, right?
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The reason that drug addictions are so heavily criticized is, you know, like blow.
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When you're doing blow, all you want to do is even more blow.
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And so you can burn through your entire bank account in one evening.
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And drugs in general, particularly the ones that are currently deemed illegal, tend to have very, very destructive cycles.
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When the FBI is tracking a serial killer, there's going to be a cyclic pattern to what they're doing.
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You know, they only kill every five weeks or eight weeks or what have you.
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There's a predictable pattern to the rate of killings.
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I could easily just piss away an entire evening playing Civilization or The Long Dark or Minecraft or what have you.
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It's like, okay, I've accomplished something today.
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But for other people, my brother-in-law, for example, you know, drinking probably isn't that much a part of his life.
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So you would think that giving up drinking, if you only drink socially, like you drink once a week and you only have three beers, it should be really easy to give up drinking.
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When I gave up video games, I would constantly find myself turning on video games.
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And then I'd have to remind myself, no, no, you gave it up.
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And then I'm like, okay, now what am I supposed to do with myself?
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What you find out is that these casual addictions, these addictions that you keep in check, are no less an addiction.
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And you start to really question, just how much control do I have over my life?
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All the martial arts training in the world isn't going to tell you who you are when the chips are down.
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When things start going sideways, are you going to stand and fight or are you going to cut and run?
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You don't know that until you've actually been in a fight.
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But you don't know that about yourself until you're there.
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And similarly, you don't know how addicted you are to something until you try and stop doing it.
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And, you know, giving up something like video games or, you know, alcohol or sugary soda.
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Giving it up for six weeks shouldn't be that difficult.
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That it actually takes a lot of willpower to maintain all of this.
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One of the ideas I've expressed in the past is how...
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Is how with modern technology and conveniences and so forth, we...
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You don't know what a man's like until he's hungry.
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There's a really ugly sort of atheistic self-righteousness in the whole damn thing.
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Where we dismiss our ancestors as being superstitious or credulous or what have you.
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When we've never experienced adversity ourselves.
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And so Lent, it's a little bit of that adversity to remind you of who you are.
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And how hard it is for the spirit to overcome the body.
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And again, it could be alcohol, video games, sugary soda.
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And you see a dramatic improvement in your life.
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That thing that's been eating up so much of your time.
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And you think, well hey, what else is eating up my time?
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So Lent, it shows you quite a bit about your own nature.
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Without even needing to do anything too drastic.
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Because it's such a radical and temporary imposition.
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So you're expected to adhere to what everybody else is doing.
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Because at the end what I'm saying is that Lent
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Why connecting with your fellows is so important.
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And so we're halfway through Lent season right now.