Summary
More Free Posts
Life in Texas
What Does it Mean to Have Depth?
The Problems with Shallowness
Life Audit
Deeper Hours
Quotes
"Superficiality is the curse of our age. The doctrine of instant satisfaction is a primary spiritual problem. The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people."
Richard J. Foster, Celebration of Discipline, Special Anniversary Edition: The Path to Spiritual Growth
"Americans no longer talk to each other, they entertain each other. They do not exchange ideas, they exchange images. They do not argue with propositions; they argue with good looks, celebrities and commercials."
Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
"Roger Ebert calls snarking "cultural vandalism." He's right. Snark makes culture impossible, or rather, it makes the conditions that make culture possible impossible. Earnestness, honesty, vulnerability: These are the targets of snark. "Snark functions as a device to punish human spontaneity, eccentricity, nonconformity, and simple error. Everyone is being snarked into line," he wrote."
Ryan Holiday
Housekeeping
I keep saying I will write less each month. Then I think of something else related to the topic that I want to write about, or somebody makes a good suggestion, and I write more than I meant to. I suppose it's better to write too much than too little.
Speaking of writing, I am listening to the feedback I've gotten from people and making this first post each month free for anybody who wants to read it. These first posts tend to be pretty broad as we set up the subject matter for the rest of the month, so I'm willing to try it and see if it works for this to go out to a broader audience. The rest of the month will remain as it has been for the paid subscribers, where we dive into things with a deeper, more bare-knuckle approach.
With that said, I want to say hello to the new subscribers. I appreciate you taking a second to sign up for and read these things I write. Thank you!
What's Going On
In personal news, I got to do a bunch of driving around Texas and see some old friends when we all met up at a farm down in Waco. There was a bunch of brisket and guns, so it was about as Texas as a reunion can get. Being with everyone without drinking felt strange, but I enjoyed it.
We moved my grandmother down to Central Texas to be closer to family. I've had a bit of a hard time processing the fact that East Texas, a place that's meant a lot to me over the years, has become somewhere I don't have a reason to go anymore. It's funny how the map of places we go thins out in some places and consolidates in others as we age. I've been working on a post about that; I will try to get it out later this month or sometime in June.
I officially got another piece accepted with Tiny Buddha, which is cool. It's also a little anxiety-inducing because they have such a large, engaged community. I've gotten two other pieces (you can check them out here and here) published with them over the past few years, and both times it's led to a serious uptick in the number of eyes on me and my work. It's a weird thing. I work hard to grow the number of people who read what I write, and then I get anxious when more people start reading what I write. I suppose that's part of the human condition.
A Simple Way to Have a Good Life
The idea of having depth is what inspired me to plan the whole year around character traits that we all need to have if we want to have a good life. I think it is the primary thing we are lacking as a culture right now, and I believe this is only going to get worse as we continue to outsource actually knowing things to technology. ChatGPT alone will create an entirely new class of people who are prolific in their output with very little understanding of what they are saying.
So, this month's simple way to have a good life is to cultivate depth. This is a pretty abstract idea, so I will work hard to bring it down into concrete terms over the next 30 days.
A few things come to mind immediately when I think of having depth. This is by no means an exhaustive list, nor is it a list of character traits I see in myself. Most of these are aspirational for me at best.
A person with depth has complexity in their thinking and everything that emerges from that. There is a cohesiveness to their thinking, so their beliefs, opinions, ideas, and worldview are all interlinked. This creates a strong foundation for how the person behaves. This person does not pull random ideas from different theories or disciplines and stick them together into a patchwork philosophy that makes them feel good but cannot hold water.
This interdependent complexity makes it easy for them to defend their worldview and decisions because they emerge from a robust framework. They can back these things up because they have done them consistently to validate that they work. These things are rooted in reality rather than the passing pop psychology/cultural fads that are so prevalent and powerful these days.
A person with depth has a natural authenticity to them. They are still human, but there is no consistent disagreement between who they are, what they believe, and what they do. They're not afraid to acknowledge their faults and mistakes because they will correct them once they are aware of them.
A person of depth can consider multiple perspectives and opinions when they are sifting through their ideas and beliefs. They are not threatened by people who disagree with them, so they do not try to regulate other people's thoughts and opinions. Having depth gives you a sense of rootedness, so you are not afraid that who you are and what you stand for will be blown over by a differing opinion or new idea.
A person of depth is consistent because they are not always chasing the newest fad or the next cool belief. This gives them a long-term perspective on the things that matter, often allowing them to be unbothered by the things that upset so many other people. Shallow people live in constant chaos because they are always looking for a new answer that will solve all their problems. People of depth realize that problems are part of life and that there is something to learn from them.
Please understand that this is just a broad list of things that came to mind as I thought about this idea of depth. All these things, the positive and the negative will be familiar to all of us in one way or another. Please don't go diagnosing yourself as shallow because you can't perfectly check off a list of traits some guy in West Texas came up with. As I said, I don't even check off everything on my list, and that's OK. It's good to have things to work toward. When we can see something as an aspiration instead of a requirement, it can be motivating instead of paralyzing.
An Example
It's OK to have things you like. It's OK to have silly hobbies that do not lead to bigger things. It's OK to be a big fan of something. It's all great, but you cannot make them your life. You cannot weave them into every conversation, especially with people you want to take you seriously.
I play Magic The Gathering once a week with my friends. I love pro wrestling. I read a lot of sci-fi and fantasy. I enjoy these things but put them away when it's time to do something else. I don't try to talk about pro wrestling to people who look down on pro wrestling, which is about 99% of the population. I don't try to talk about Magic cards with people who don't play the game. I don't talk about sci-fi and fantasy to people who only read nonfiction or don't read at all.
One of the strange things the Internet has done to us is expand our hobbies until they almost seem like real things. I've met people who identify themselves by their fandom ("I'm a Potterhead, I'm a Whovian"), people who wanted to talk about and express their hobby no matter the situation, and I've recently met the people who call themselves Gamerdads. As I said, there's nothing wrong with having your hobbies and things you like, but it's important not to let them define you. We also need to have depth in things that relate to the real world.
A Practice
Take inventory of your life and see where you see depth and where you see shallowness. Ask yourself if these things are portioned out in the way they should be. Try to deepen the areas where you consistently feel intimidated or outclassed. Maybe put less time into the fun things that don't advance your life how you want them to.
For me, there was a time when I realized that video games were too big a part of my life. I played them, read about them, kept up to date with what was coming out next, and knew a lot about them in general. There's nothing wrong with video games, but this was not taking me on the path I wanted to be on.
Know at least a little about everything you can. When you can have a conversation with anybody, you can learn a lot in every interaction you have. I think podcasts and audiobooks are the best way to do this. When you find something you're interested in, learn everything you can about it, especially if it can help you be the person you want to be.
Cultivate depth in every part of your life, and you'll find a peace that's hard to shake. Look for the areas where you get shaken up easily; you'll probably find a lack of depth there. This is what makes it so hard to take the shrieking voices that we all see on television and online seriously. People who are genuinely assured of their beliefs do not shriek, yell, cry, and rage when those things are challenged.
Depth gives us roots. Roots give us stability. Cultivate stability by having a deep and comprehensive knowledge of yourself and the world around you. You will never regret this.
Journal Prompts
What things do I become defensive about very quickly? What might I learn from my defensiveness?
What kinds of things do other people say or do that make it harder for me to take them seriously? What do I say or do that might encourage people not to take me seriously?
In what area of my life do I have the most depth? What area of my life is the most shallow?
What things shake me up the most easily? What might this tell me about this area of my life?
Memento Mori
Your time on this planet is limited. My time on this planet is limited. We cannot let shallow, silly, trivial things devour our consciousness. We all have a certain number of hours to be here, but some people's hours are much deeper than others.
Until Next Time
As always, none of this is meant to be judgmental or condemning. We live in a world that constantly shoves shallowness and silliness down our throats. This keeps us shaky and unbalanced and makes us more likely to spend time on things that aren't good for us and buy things we don't need. We need more people of depth who can handle difficult discussions and choose reality even when it's inconvenient.
Be one of those people.
If you are a free subscriber, I will look forward to talking to you on June 1st.
Here's what's coming up for the $7.00 subscription: We will talk about depth of character, depth of belief, and depth of knowledge over the next few weeks, and I have at least one reader response scheduled for this month.
I love and appreciate you all; please let me know if there's anything I can do for you.
Thank you for your time and energy.
Love all the people around you.
Love yourself enough to hold yourself accountable to be the best you can be.
Take care,
James
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