The Charlie Kirk Show - The Search for Meaning in 2022 + Charlie's Top Books of 2022

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, happy new year.

00:00:02.000 We go through a recap of 2022 and I talk about New Year's resolutions, man's search for meaning, the great new depression we are living through, and so much more.

00:00:11.000 Email me your thoughts as always freedom at charliekirk.com.

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00:00:28.000 Make a New Year's resolution.

00:00:29.000 Commit to being better, deeper, happier, more joyful, despite what is going on around you.

00:00:35.000 Get involved with TurningPointUSA at tpusa.com.

00:00:37.000 That is tpusa.com.

00:00:40.000 Buckle up, everybody.

00:00:41.000 Here we go.

00:00:42.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:00:44.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campuses.

00:00:46.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:00:49.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:00:53.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:00:54.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:00:55.000 His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created.

00:01:02.000 Turning point USA.

00:01:03.000 We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.

00:01:12.000 That's why we are here.

00:01:15.000 Brought to you by the Loan Experts I Trust, Andrew and Todd at Sierra Pacific Mortgage at andrewandTodd.com.

00:01:24.000 We are doing a 2022 year in review and looking ahead to 2023.

00:01:29.000 Let me just say a couple things that I wanted to express to you.

00:01:33.000 First, I want to talk about New Year's resolutions.

00:01:36.000 I'm a big fan of New Year's resolutions, regardless of whether or not you keep them.

00:01:44.000 I think that every person listening should try to make a commitment of things that you think you can do better.

00:01:51.000 Let me tell you why I believe New Year's resolutions are terrific and also why I get so angry when the cynics and the pessimists start making these social media posts against New Year's resolutions and making fun of them.

00:02:05.000 Number one, I'm a big believer.

00:02:07.000 One of the most exciting parts of our existence is the ability to improve.

00:02:14.000 I think it's terrific.

00:02:16.000 I think that in totalitarian countries that are largely secular, human improvement is devalued.

00:02:24.000 Now, in order for one to improve, to truly improve, you could improve accidentally.

00:02:28.000 That's possible.

00:02:30.000 But it rarely ever happens.

00:02:34.000 The greatest improvements I've ever had in my life, and I think you would agree in your life, happen.

00:02:40.000 You have to be honest with yourself, know yourself, know what you're good at and what you're not good at, know what you're succeeding at and what you're failing at, and then making an honest commitment to improve.

00:02:53.000 So when someone says, look, I'm 35 pounds overweight and I want to lose some weight, I think that takes a lot of courage to admit that you're not where you want to be.

00:03:04.000 I think that's a beautiful thing.

00:03:06.000 Now, regardless of whether or not you actually are able to lose the weight or keep going to the gym, the first step of acknowledging that you're not exactly where you want to be is very healthy.

00:03:19.000 We talk about 2022 and how I believe we're living through a new Great Depression.

00:03:25.000 Not a great economic depression, but a great spiritual depression, the likes of which I have never lived through.

00:03:31.000 And just talking to some people I really trust, they're experiencing and seeing the same thing.

00:03:37.000 From priests to rabbis to pastors to just other spiritual people I know, they're seeing a widespread, massively suppressive spiritual depression.

00:03:47.000 But for New Year's resolutions, what I really love about it is the admission that I have not reached my full potential.

00:03:59.000 And isn't that what's one of the most beautiful parts of life is saying, I'm not exactly where I want to be yet.

00:04:06.000 And it doesn't have to be material.

00:04:08.000 I find the most fulfilling New Year's resolutions not necessarily to be material New Year's resolutions saying, oh, I want to be able to get another house or all this.

00:04:21.000 The New Year's resolutions that I think are the most fulfilling are the ones where you say, I want to wake up earlier.

00:04:30.000 I want to work out more.

00:04:32.000 I want to read more.

00:04:34.000 I want to go the month of January without alcohol.

00:04:38.000 I want to stop watching internet or online pornography.

00:04:43.000 I'm tired of watching Netflix ad nauseum.

00:04:47.000 I don't feel fulfilled enough in my life.

00:04:49.000 People that refuse to do that first step and just live in a state of delirium never will improve.

00:04:58.000 And I think they actually are deeply unhappy when that happens.

00:05:01.000 Now, it's important not to stay there, obviously, which is why the resolution is: I am resolving to go about fixing it.

00:05:08.000 And I don't think we give enough credit to the process that goes into turning off your phone, turning off your computer, turning off your television, taking out a piece of paper, and writing down things that you think you have not yet reached your highest potential that you think you can go about fixing in the new year.

00:05:28.000 And so my recommendation, especially for young people, but people of all ages, is to make a few New Year's resolutions.

00:05:34.000 And I just get so angry is a good word for it because there's a growing cynic movement out there.

00:05:42.000 And it's a lot of Gen Z because they're not religious and they're hyper-secular.

00:05:48.000 And when you're secular, irony is one of the few things that actually makes sense to you because what is irony?

00:05:54.000 It's two things that don't fit.

00:05:56.000 That's irony.

00:05:57.000 It's someone who is, you know, overweight giving you advice on how to lose weight.

00:06:02.000 Okay, that would be ironic.

00:06:03.000 Things that don't fit.

00:06:04.000 And so young people find that irony is the only way they can make sense of the world because they don't believe the world has meaning.

00:06:11.000 The universe has a cosmological or teleological or epistemological purpose for existence.

00:06:20.000 And so they find irony as a way to try to explain it away in kind of a smug and arrogant, condescending way.

00:06:28.000 So the point is some of these prognosticators from the cheap seats from the audience say, oh, what's the point?

00:06:39.000 You're going to break that New Year's resolution.

00:06:42.000 I think that's a very, if you are one of those people, stop it.

00:06:46.000 You are making the world a worse place.

00:06:48.000 If you are a cynic towards other people that want to self-improve, that have been honest enough with theirselves to say, you know what, I'm not all that I could be.

00:06:57.000 And you are one of the people on the sidelines saying, oh, what's the point?

00:07:02.000 You're going to break that resolution.

00:07:04.000 Why put in the effort?

00:07:06.000 You should have a New Year's resolution to stop doing that.

00:07:08.000 And I think one of the reasons why so many people break their New Year's resolutions is that kind of cynic chattering class that has only grown in number and volume over the last couple of years, where the community of people that want to improve is dramatic.

00:07:29.000 I mean, I see the emails.

00:07:31.000 By the way, my wife Erica runs a fabulous Bible ministry that allows you to read the entire Bible in the course of the year.

00:07:40.000 You guys can check it out at biblein365.com.

00:07:43.000 That's biblein365.com.

00:07:45.000 And one of the features she has as part of her ministry to try to have people grow spiritually and to achieve spiritual depth, which is, I think, the most important thing a human being can achieve is spiritual depth, is she has a prayer request portal where she is able to hear the prayer requests of what is going on in the world.

00:08:05.000 Over 30,000 people have sent them in.

00:08:08.000 And in some ways, it's more accurate than a poll because it's real and it's not filtered through some sort of firm that might want a specific outcome and some algorithm that we're kind of out of the loop on.

00:08:20.000 And it is so fascinating to see where the country is at.

00:08:25.000 And it is by far the most depressed I've ever seen a country.

00:08:29.000 And I'm not trying to make you depressed.

00:08:30.000 In fact, I actually think you could take this in one of two ways.

00:08:33.000 You can also then be even more depressed than you are and then go in a cycle of negativity and pessimism and despair.

00:08:39.000 Or you could say, wow, that's a problem.

00:08:41.000 Let's go about fixing it.

00:08:42.000 And I'm going to choose to at least pursue love, joy, and peace or happiness.

00:08:49.000 And so some of the common themes that Erica is seeing is hundreds of people experiencing suicidal ideation, thousands of people struggling with anxiety and depression, tens of thousands of people that are lacking significant meaning in their life.

00:09:06.000 It'll bring you down for sure if you allow it to bring you down.

00:09:10.000 That's a very important theme of Viktor Frankl, which I'm going to talk about later this hour.

00:09:14.000 Probably one of the most powerful pieces of literature written in the last 100 years, man's search for meaning.

00:09:19.000 But you got to really read it carefully and slowly.

00:09:23.000 It's not a breeze.

00:09:24.000 It's very deep and it's very tough.

00:09:27.000 It's a tough book because he goes into great detail about his experience at a concentration camp and how he actually found meaning at a concentration camp.

00:09:35.000 I mean, you think about it, it is the example of how to find meaning while going through the earthly equivalent of hell.

00:09:41.000 We're going to talk more about this, but I think that in 2023, it would be helpful if the nation said we want to live in a happier country than we did in 2022.

00:09:54.000 Because if we're honest with ourselves, we're living in a deeply unhappy time.

00:10:00.000 I got a great email here.

00:10:02.000 Charlie, thank you for this.

00:10:04.000 I intend on losing 40 pounds this year.

00:10:07.000 Praise God.

00:10:08.000 I did it 20 years ago as a young man.

00:10:10.000 I will do it again.

00:10:11.000 Thanks for that motivation. 0.98

00:10:13.000 I hope to bump into you sometime around town and not be a disgusting fat body when I shake your hand. 0.98

00:10:19.000 Okay, well, you're being hard on yourself, but you know what? 0.99

00:10:21.000 Sometimes there's a time to be hard on yourself.

00:10:23.000 Sometimes you're too hard on yourself.

00:10:25.000 It's about finding the golden mean, as Aristotle would find.

00:10:28.000 Sometimes you're too easy on yourself, generally.

00:10:32.000 So, yeah, just to kind of close the thought, you know, I have a piece coming out soon called The New Great Depression.

00:10:36.000 And, you know, Erica and I spent a good amount of time without our phones and kind of just going to local coffee shops.

00:10:43.000 And it was very interesting.

00:10:46.000 Erica commented, it was like Christmas Eve or the eve of Christmas Eve.

00:10:49.000 I can't remember.

00:10:50.000 I think it was Christmas Eve.

00:10:51.000 And she said, people look really unhappy.

00:10:55.000 It didn't feel like Christmas.

00:10:57.000 I mean, there were the lights and there were the kids running around and there was the Christmas music.

00:11:00.000 And it wasn't like people were necessarily miserable, but it did not feel with that kind of kinetic joy that usually would spread during the Christmas season.

00:11:13.000 And then you pair that with the emails that Erica is getting.

00:11:16.000 And then tragically, one of our family members committed suicide and killed herself in the last couple of days.

00:11:22.000 And so there's a lot in this kind of genre of the spiritual frequency of the nation.

00:11:28.000 And I mean that you could say, you could take it literally or metaphorically, but I think that there is kind of a spiritual health of the nation is very low right now.

00:11:38.000 And I think it's low for a lot of reasons. 1.00

00:11:39.000 Secularism kills people.

00:11:42.000 It does.

00:11:42.000 Secularism creates a massive vacuum of existential despair.

00:11:48.000 If you remove the idea that there is a God who created you and there is a harmony and meaning to the universe, you're not going to fill that void with macchiatos and TikTok.

00:12:00.000 You're not going to fill the void just by going out to eat every night and getting yourself incredibly drunk.

00:12:06.000 Eventually, you're going to look up to the heavens and say, What is the purpose of all that?

00:12:10.000 Now, as a Christian, we have an answer to that.

00:12:11.000 Praise God, we do.

00:12:13.000 But the journey of trying to find your place in the cosmos is nothing new.

00:12:18.000 Some of the greatest writers and thinkers have struggled with this and have, I think, been rather successful and persuasive in being able to make the argument that we are first and foremost spiritual beings.

00:12:31.000 But I really believe that we have not yet left the era of low spiritual frequency, or said differently, an unhealthy spiritual kind of prognosis or reality from COVID.

00:12:46.000 I think it has left people in a constant state of this secular frenzy.

00:12:52.000 What does secularism have to offer?

00:12:55.000 Somebody who says, What is the purpose of life?

00:12:57.000 You know what they say their purpose of life is?

00:12:58.000 They say the purpose of life is to serve the state.

00:13:01.000 That does give some people meaning.

00:13:03.000 It does.

00:13:04.000 It gives people in BLM meaning.

00:13:06.000 It gives people in the environmentalist groups meaning.

00:13:08.000 In fact, I'm actually reading a really interesting biography on Xi Ji Ping, whose biography is really mysterious.

00:13:17.000 But the one thing we do know about Xi Ji Ping, he was sent off to a work camp when he was young, and his father was one of the founding fathers of the modern CCP.

00:13:24.000 And at age 18, Xi Ji Peng famously told all of his friends, I have found my meaning.

00:13:30.000 It is to serve the Chinese Communist Party.

00:13:33.000 And he said he felt a sense of peace. 0.51

00:13:35.000 Now, I believe that's really demonic and spiritually dark, that your sense of purpose is to serve the state.

00:13:40.000 What?

00:13:41.000 Well, it makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?

00:13:42.000 It can give you temporary meaning.

00:13:45.000 It's why they want more lands and they want to conquer Taiwan and they want the Belt and Road Initiative. 0.76

00:13:49.000 It's never enough.

00:13:50.000 The appetite is never satisfied. 0.94

00:13:52.000 And so we know how that's going to end for Xi Ji Ping.

00:13:55.000 It will end in torment and despair, just as it did for every attempted conqueror of the last couple thousand years. 0.89

00:14:01.000 But outside of serving the state, then they try to say, well, just please yourself.

00:14:06.000 Just have an unlimited amount of food and pleasure, drugs, and drink.

00:14:13.000 And the existential despair, the vacuum that is being created, shows that we have the most suicidal, alcohol-addicted, drug-addicted generation in history.

00:14:23.000 And why is it that so many young people are killing themselves?

00:14:28.000 I mean, I just told my friend, I was just telling somebody, yeah, I mean, I know four or five people that, unfortunately, in the last couple of years decided to kill themselves.

00:14:35.000 And it's really sad and tragic.

00:14:37.000 And it's a reality.

00:14:38.000 It's a very selfish thing to do.

00:14:40.000 I know that might sound very harsh, and I'm not saying I don't have sympathy and compassion.

00:14:46.000 But if you believe that it's all about you, not about service, not about connection to the divine, then all of a sudden that kind of unthinkable becomes entertainable.

00:14:57.000 It's just about you.

00:14:59.000 And then you're like, oh, I mean, I'm just, I'm not happy anymore.

00:15:02.000 That's completely irrelevant whether or not you're happy.

00:15:05.000 Why are you here?

00:15:08.000 You're here just to serve yourself?

00:15:09.000 Then okay.

00:15:12.000 It's been quite a year, and I want to summarize just some of the highlights: Russia invading Ukraine.

00:15:19.000 There were the Beijing Olympics, Novak Zhoikovic, Katanji Brown Jackson, the Canadian Freedom Trucker, truckers, the rise of the Parents Party, overturning the mask mandate, Roe versus Wade being repealed.

00:15:37.000 There was a lot of newsworthy items all throughout the year, but let's be honest.

00:15:43.000 If you go back to some of the programs that we did earlier in the year, there was a kind of constant bend, a constant pivot towards the midterm elections.

00:16:01.000 There was a lot of hope that was being put into the November midterm elections, 11-8.

00:16:09.000 Now, it wouldn't be fair to say that it was all terrible and that it was catastrophic across the board, but it was certainly a letdown.

00:16:16.000 And I think a lot of you in this audience feel that and you see that.

00:16:22.000 You thought that this would be a chance for us to reclaim the country, that regular everyday citizens would be able to send a triumphant message, and it just fell short.

00:16:31.000 And it fell short in a very serious way.

00:16:34.000 Yes, we won the House of Representatives.

00:16:36.000 The Senate, we lost a seat in.

00:16:40.000 And so, I mean, I look, I had this wonderful year in review that our team put together here.

00:16:45.000 Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine.

00:16:48.000 Ron DeSantis was one of the winners of this year, signing the Florida Parental Rights and Education Act.

00:16:54.000 Roe versus Wade was repealed, praise God, even though Republicans didn't know how to deal with it politically.

00:17:00.000 August, of course, remember Biden raided Mar-a-Lago.

00:17:03.000 I thought it was one of the biggest political mistakes.

00:17:06.000 We did not talk more about that raid during the midterm elections.

00:17:10.000 Elon Musk bought Twitter this year, which was a big deal, probably a bigger deal than the midterm elections that allow us to talk openly about the vaccines and lockdowns, hydroxychloroquine, and ivermectin.

00:17:23.000 That was a huge victory for Liberty.

00:17:26.000 I'll be very honest personally, the sabotage and the ambush of Kerry Lake was a very, and still is a very difficult thing for me to move on.

00:17:37.000 I think it's important to be honest with you, the audience, about things that I'm good at and things that I struggle with.

00:17:47.000 I struggle with forgiveness, especially when it comes to the ambush of someone as spectacular and as special as Kerry Lake.

00:17:59.000 I have not forgiven the people that have done this.

00:18:00.000 I'll be very honest.

00:18:01.000 The people that automatically forgive after a tragedy, let's just say you're either being fake or you're far more spiritually developed than I am.

00:18:12.000 It's just not, it doesn't come easy to me.

00:18:15.000 Certain things, you cut me off in traffic, whatever.

00:18:17.000 Even if you steal something from me, okay, whatever.

00:18:20.000 But if you ambush and sabotage a gubernatorial candidate who had a very clear vision, let me be very clear, it's not over.

00:18:29.000 I hope it goes up to the Supreme Court, but let's pretend that it's going to end the way that it currently stands.

00:18:34.000 I think that's a fair and rational way to look at it.

00:18:39.000 It's very hard for me to all of a sudden say, you know, I forgive you.

00:18:43.000 And it's also difficult because they haven't asked for forgiveness either.

00:18:47.000 So I know we're called to forgive.

00:18:49.000 I know that, but it doesn't come automatic for me.

00:18:53.000 No, I am harboring a fair and plentiful amount of resentment towards these people.

00:19:01.000 You can call me whatever you want in regards to that, but that's how I feel.

00:19:06.000 I hope that I'm able to get over that.

00:19:09.000 So the midterms were a mess.

00:19:10.000 Kerry Lake is in suspension.

00:19:13.000 Doesn't look good, but we'll see what happens.

00:19:17.000 December, highlight of my December was America Fest.

00:19:21.000 We had 11,000 students from all across the country, the largest conservative event of any kind.

00:19:25.000 It was a highlight.

00:19:27.000 Turning Point USA was definitely a shining star in this dark Spiritually despondent chapter that we're living through.

00:19:40.000 Praise God for Turning Point USA and the chapters that we're starting and the students that we're training and the leaders that we are lifting up.

00:19:48.000 Praise God for the millions of people that we are reaching every day, for the pastors that we're working with, for the churches that we're working with, for Turning Point Academy.

00:19:56.000 If it wasn't for Turning Point USA, we would be in a far, far darker spot than we are right now.

00:20:02.000 So, what is the takeaway from this last year?

00:20:04.000 I think that this last year could have been worse, and it's always important to say that, but it was the year of the shattering of high expectations.

00:20:14.000 It's a year where millions of people, myself included, had understandably and reasonably high expectations that we were going to advance in the Senate and take back the House triumphantly.

00:20:28.000 And it's a year when all of that was kind of shattered in front of us for a variety of reasons.

00:20:32.000 We've gone through the reasons of it, but that's a very honest thing.

00:20:34.000 And that creates a people that then kind of go into political, civic, personal, spiritual hiding.

00:20:44.000 It creates a demoralized chapter that we're living through.

00:20:47.000 And that's okay.

00:20:48.000 That's a healthy process.

00:20:49.000 I'm basically over it in a lot of different ways, except the fact that I have a lot of resentment for people that do things unjust and unethical, especially when it comes to elections.

00:21:02.000 And so this last year, a lot of people, I think, baked in the hope of what they wanted to see happen in the midterm elections.

00:21:15.000 And that fall shorts.

00:21:16.000 Then what do you do?

00:21:17.000 Giving up is one option.

00:21:18.000 Plenty of people are doing that.

00:21:20.000 And I see your emails.

00:21:21.000 You guys say you're done and you're giving up and you're walking away.

00:21:24.000 We aren't doing that.

00:21:25.000 We don't have the luxury to do that.

00:21:28.000 In fact, you have to look at it as a possible seed of equivalent benefit.

00:21:32.000 What can we possibly learn from this?

00:21:34.000 Victor Frankl talks a lot in his book, again, Man's Search for Meaning, which is a beautiful book.

00:21:41.000 That we need to take suffering that might be in the pit of our stomach and turn the pit into a seed of equivalent benefit.

00:21:49.000 We got a question here.

00:21:50.000 Charlie, tell me, what was your favorite book that you read this year?

00:21:54.000 It's interesting now that we have the sweepstakes of that.

00:21:57.000 But let me elaborate a little bit more on the seed of equivalent benefit before I get into my favorite book of the year.

00:22:02.000 It's this: look, I'm a big believer in choice and agency.

00:22:07.000 That's what I love about Frankl's book.

00:22:11.000 And he's not alone in this, but there's things you can control and there's things you cannot control.

00:22:18.000 And in Frankl's book, Man's Search for Meaning, he's in a concentration camp where he literally is about to die from typhus and he has no shoes and it's negative 10 degrees and he has to go dig ditches.

00:22:36.000 And he said at certain moments, he had these waves of bliss where he was never happier because he made a conscious decision to have an attitude of love, joy, and peace.

00:22:47.000 I mean, you look at it and you think the first reaction is like, this guy's delusional.

00:22:51.000 I mean, what kind of drugs is this guy on?

00:22:54.000 And then you read deeper, and he explains it from a psychological perspective: he knew there were things he could not control.

00:23:02.000 He could not control the Capos or the SS or the Nazis or what kind of soup he was going to get served or what kind of bread rations he was going to get.

00:23:12.000 He could not control whether or not his best friend was going to be taken away.

00:23:16.000 He couldn't control when the camp was going to be liberated, but he could control his attitude.

00:23:23.000 And when he could control his attitude, he realized that if they can't take that away, then they can't take your being itself away.

00:23:33.000 That's a very difficult thing for a lot of people in the Western world to embrace because that means that he could find meaning in suffering.

00:23:42.000 And I know a lot of you are suffering right now.

00:23:45.000 We have a rather generous audience, praise God.

00:23:48.000 There's people, I guarantee you, that are dealing with anxiety and depression and suicidal ideation and sticky thoughts and anxious thinking and all of that.

00:23:57.000 And I encourage you to go find help.

00:23:59.000 People actually know what they're doing and to talk to those people.

00:24:03.000 But at the root of almost all of it is a lack of meaning.

00:24:07.000 And the argument that Viktor Frankl makes, which is profound, is he disagrees with Friedrich Nietzsche, who wrote the book Beyond Good and Evil, who said that everything in life is about a will to power, that you have free will, but it's really about getting power.

00:24:25.000 He disagreed with Sigmund Freud, who was basically a contemporary, who said, no, no, no, everything's about a will to sex and pleasure.

00:24:32.000 Everything is about foul logocentrism, about the phallic pursuit of the man.

00:24:38.000 And he said, no, that's not really what it's about.

00:24:40.000 And there's a really powerful part of the book where Viktor Frankl, who literally was in an equivalent of hell on earth, says in the concentration camp that the sex drive of the man kind of went away.

00:24:55.000 But the meaning drive never went away.

00:24:58.000 And that's really something, isn't it?

00:25:00.000 That people could go 20 days without eating, two years without any sort of sexual contact.

00:25:07.000 But it was the people that survived if they had some meaning.

00:25:11.000 So he calls this logotherapy.

00:25:15.000 And he basically paraphrased this.

00:25:18.000 I think it was this quote.

00:25:20.000 There's somebody else who said it, I think.

00:25:22.000 Anyone who has a why can overcome anyhow.

00:25:25.000 And if you have the why, which I believe structural Western religion, specifically Christianity and/or Judaism, or a combination of both, well, if it's a combination of both, it'd be Christianity, but something that recognizes a divine creator and you being a creation helps you get to that.

00:25:47.000 The idea that you have the free will to choose your attitude, that you have will to meaning, not will to power, not will to pleasure.

00:25:56.000 You have those things, but you're going to end up falling short.

00:25:59.000 And what Frankl writes, which is super powerful, is that he was in the most barren, desolate state of nature that he turned into a psychological experiment.

00:26:20.000 He turned the unspeakable horrors of Auschwitz into an opportunity to learn who man actually was.

00:26:29.000 So he says that man has to find meaning, and that's the name of his book, Man's Search for Meaning.

00:26:34.000 And yes, when you have secularism in every one of your institutions, people are going to be searching for meaning in bizarre places and they're going to come up empty.

00:26:45.000 Okay, my favorite books of the year.

00:26:48.000 I read 32 books this year.

00:26:52.000 I've got the final tally, just in case you guys are wondering.

00:26:55.000 Of which one of our team members, when I told them this, they said, that's it.

00:26:59.000 Okay, fine.

00:26:59.000 So that's it.

00:27:00.000 32.

00:27:02.000 Now I listen to a lot of them, and that doesn't count all the podcasts or the Hillsdale online courses or all of that.

00:27:08.000 I love learning.

00:27:08.000 I'm not saying it to show off.

00:27:11.000 Evidently, it's not that much because one of our team members, who I will not name, which rhymes with Lake, said, like, that's not a lot.

00:27:20.000 And I said, okay, fine.

00:27:22.000 If only I went to Dartmouth.

00:27:23.000 And so, anyway, look, having, I'll tell you my top three books of the year.

00:27:29.000 Number three, in third place, the one that had a very serious impact on me, and it's going to kind of seem out of order here, but bear with me.

00:27:38.000 Number three is Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis.

00:27:41.000 It's a terrific book, and it's very short.

00:27:44.000 You could read it in an afternoon.

00:27:46.000 C.S. Lewis, I believe, is the greatest apologist of the 1900s of the 20th century.

00:27:52.000 And basically, C.S. Lewis starts on a rather abstract concept of children's literature.

00:27:58.000 talking about how this particular author was saying that a waterfall might not be sublime.

00:28:08.000 It's up to your own opinion whether or not it's sublime.

00:28:11.000 And C.S. Lewis saw this as a major issue.

00:28:15.000 He said, hold on a second.

00:28:16.000 He said, you're now allowing children to have a subjective view of beauty, truth, and goodness. 0.95

00:28:24.000 And he goes on to talk about men without chests and basically predicts postmodernism before it really became a school of garbage thought.

00:28:33.000 So abolition of man, second favorite book that I read this year.

00:28:35.000 It's a rather dark book.

00:28:36.000 So I want to give you a warning before you've heard me talk about it throughout the year, but it's by Arthur Kusler called Darkness at Noon.

00:28:44.000 Darkness at Noon is a terrific book all about the Soviet Union and about how dark things can really get.

00:28:52.000 So if you're like, wow, Charlie, this episode has been really depressing and people are killing themselves and all of this.

00:28:58.000 Oh, yes, but you have, well, maybe you do have an idea, but if you want a preview into the psychological, the political, the spiritual darkness and lack of meaning, read Darkness at Noon. 0.69

00:29:09.000 It's all about the Soviet show trials.

00:29:11.000 It's about the power of the state. 0.55

00:29:12.000 It's about what people live for.

00:29:13.000 It's about a guy by the name of Rubachov who was basically on trial for being disloyal to the party.

00:29:22.000 Very powerful.

00:29:23.000 My favorite book of this last year, and we had him on the show back in August for a rather informative conversation.

00:29:31.000 And I would love to actually have this conversation in person is Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter.

00:29:36.000 He wins the 2022 book of the year.

00:29:40.000 It is powerful, I got to tell you.

00:29:43.000 And it's not religious and it's not anti-religious.

00:29:46.000 He does acknowledge that a belief in the divine can be very helpful.

00:29:50.000 But his entire premise, I believe, is biblical.

00:29:54.000 He believes that living in a state of overindulgent comfort, air conditioning, three meals a day, staring at screens for eight hours a day, is making us miserable.

00:30:06.000 The argument he makes is that we're meant to be in nature, a monks challenge to grow deeper and better, to go a long time without eating, to even go 36 hours at times without eating.

00:30:17.000 Talking about how being in a state of nature can make you full of joy and peace.

00:30:23.000 He talks about the psychological data.

00:30:25.000 He talks about this idea called a masogi.

00:30:27.000 I read it multiple times that a very profound impact on me.

00:30:31.000 And it's very well researched.

00:30:33.000 It's told from a first-person perspective of a hunt that he did in northern Alaska.

00:30:38.000 Very entertaining.

00:30:40.000 And I think it's applicable to anybody.

00:30:42.000 A question, some of you might say, look, Charlie, I have no New Year's resolutions.

00:30:47.000 Or someone might say, Charlie, what should my New Year's resolution be?

00:30:50.000 A very simple New Year's resolution that should, in my personal opinion, based on the book of Michael Easter, which has made a big impact on a lot of people's lives, is to stop being so comfortable.

00:31:00.000 It is paradoxical, isn't it?

00:31:02.000 Because we think of happiness of being comfortable, but actually typically it's the opposite.

00:31:07.000 Making yourself intentionally uncomfortable, exposing yourself to cold water, going a long time without eating, changing your diet, hiking for days on end, challenging yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, actually can help develop that path towards meaning that Viktor Frankl talked about.

00:31:25.000 That's what existence is all about.

00:31:26.000 And as Christians, we believe that meaning comes through Jesus.

00:31:29.000 That meaning was given to us, and we just have to accept that.

00:31:34.000 So, Comfort Crisis, the 2022 book of the year.

00:31:39.000 So, in closing, this year was not what we thought it would be.

00:31:42.000 It had its blessings.

00:31:44.000 We welcomed a daughter into the world.

00:31:45.000 Praise God.

00:31:46.000 That was definitely the highlight of the year.

00:31:49.000 Lost a lot of friends, and that just tends to happen.

00:31:53.000 But the question is, then, what do we do about it?

00:31:55.000 How do we act?

00:31:56.000 And what is the attitude?

00:31:58.000 And I'm going to choose an attitude of 2023, and that is the operative word choose to be happy, joyful, better, and deeper.

00:32:06.000 I hope you'll do the same.

00:32:07.000 See you next year, everybody.

00:32:08.000 God bless you.

00:32:11.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:32:12.000 Email me your thoughts as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:32:16.000 Thank you so much for listening, and God bless.

00:32:21.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk.com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - January 01, 2023

The Search for Meaning in 2022 + Charlie's Top Books of 2022

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