Holy Gravitas
Tomorrow’s events:
Dharma Gates: Deep Meditation Training for Social Change w/ Aaron Stryker. November 11th @ 12:00 PM ET. RSVP here.
Social Design Club w/ Freyja and Joe Edelman. Every Wednesday @ 1:30 PM ET. RSVP here. Join the club here. 90 mins.
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November 10, 2020
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
This is the Jesus Prayer. Some Orthodox Christians leave out the word sinner, which is probably my favorite part. I am told the word sin originally meant “to miss the mark,” and we are always missing the mark. So keep your ass humble Orthobros, and keep the word sinner in your prayer.
One of the finite games I am playing for this week’s Metagame Mastermind is to do the Jesus Prayer daily for at least 10 minutes. This is a practice I did in the past regularly, and the person who is spiritually advising me on it said not to speak about it too much, and I imagine he advised this to avoid spiritual narcissism. This is wise, so I will not talk much about it, but I will say that the Jesus Prayer is a psychotechnology that has had a powerful effect on me.
Stoicism is fun and all, and I think it inspires a para-egoic way of being, which helps with so many things, but when I talked to Massimo Pigliucci on my podcast, we talked about how Stoicism is an ecumenical philosophy. It is pretty compatible with everything. In the Modern Stoicism community we have Stoic atheists, Stoic Christians, Stoic Buddhists, and Stoic meta weirdos. Well, there is only one Stoic meta weirdo that I know of, and that is me.
Spiritually speaking, the only tradition I am drawn to is my tradition: Eastern Orthodox Christianity. I totally dig the tradition, and I dig the Slavic culture that surrounds it. I am half Ukrainian, on my mother’s side, and I know it is not fashionable for white guys to be proud of their European ancestry, but I do feel pride with my Slavic roots. The cultural aesthetics, as well as the badass vibes, tickles me in the right way.
I especially like being around the stereotypical Slavic man. There is a certain attitude that they have, and I would describe it as a dirty masculinity, which contains that “you do not fuck with me” vibe. I could totally do Slav squats all day, in Adidas tracksuits, rocking a resting barbarian face, while giving zero fucks.
I fondly recall having this Russian philosophy professor, and when a student got all pretentious and tried to sound deep, he always responded dismissively in a thick Russian accent with the following line: maybe, but who knows. I always internally chuckled when I heard this, and it still brings me joy reflecting on it. For me, that line is the essence of the Slavic nature. It conveys a certain independence of soul which I quite appreciate.
I do not talk about my parents much here, and I do that out of respect. They are private people, and I love keeping their privacy intact. It may seem like I am this crazy truthful wildman, but I am respectful of other people’s desire for privacy. I am not only sensitive to my own impression management, but I am sensitive to others' as well. Good social skills are basically ways to allow others to “save face,” and each person has a different relationship with their “face.”
I will continue to respect my parents' desire for privacy, but I will say this about them: they have independent souls. Reflecting on my Slavic mother, she is her own woman, and she cannot be gaslighted into something that goes against her intuition. My babushka was the same way. I probably got my independent “go my own way” streak from them.
Another thing which makes me grateful for my parents, is that they have always had my back during my school years. I was not an easy child. My German father called me a “rotz nase” when I was young, which directly translates to a snot nosed, and which was apparently a slang word his family used for a boy who always got in trouble.
And I did always get in trouble. Just imagine little Peter running around the playground with so much thumos, causing all sorts of innocent mayhem. Teachers hated me, because I never listened, and I was in the principal's office at least once a week. I recall one time, the principal pulled my file out in front of me, it was huge, but all that made me want to do was get into more trouble, and make my file even bigger.
The school wanted to keep me behind a grade, or put me in special needs educational classes, but my parents fought against this. My mother thought it would stigmatize me, and she ultimately thought it was a category error. Maybe it was not a category error though to put me in a special needs class, because my special need was not giving a fuck about school.
To be more serious, and more respectful to my Slavic side, I always sensed there is a gravitas with my people. Gravitas is a word I always liked. It means carrying yourself with a certain seriousness, that has a self-dignity. I do joke around a lot, and I like to playfully tease my ego like I would a kid brother, but I do feel like I have an internal gravitas. I sense I got this from my mother, which she got from the wider Slavic culture.
Maybe this is why I am drawn to the Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition. Those priests with their epic beards and deeply resonant voices are simply badass. A part of me wants to grow my beard out, and hang out at Mount Athos, and attempt to get into the right relationship with God.
Eastern Orthodox Christians are “panentheistic,” meaning God is reality, but also is outside of reality. I had so much love for my babushka, and she still visits me in my dreams sometimes. I felt this panentheistic essence when I was around her, as there was always a sense I was swimming in God.
I think it is disrespectful to the people of the faith to call myself a bona fide Orthodox Christian, as I do not go to church anymore, and I have way too many meta proclivities. I do wear the cross though, and I do have a spiritual longing for the tradition to be a part of my life, as I strongly desire to embody the holy gravitas it contains.
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