Davis Aurini - Why Lent Matters
Aired: 2017-03-17
Duration: 11:24


=== Lent: A Time of Self-Imposed Suffering (02:20) ===

[00:00:29]  So I recently received a donation from Jachin.
[00:00:33]  You might remember him.
[00:00:34]  He's done some excellent requested videos in the past.
[00:00:37]  But this wasn't a requested video.
[00:00:39]  It was a donation with a request attached to it.
[00:00:43]  Asking me to talk about Lent.
[00:00:48]  And really, it's probably something I should be doing anyway, isn't it?
[00:00:52]  Now, Lent.
[00:00:55]  I'm sure you guys are familiar with it.
[00:00:59]  It's the time of the year that Catholics, they pick something that they habitually do to give that up for six weeks, to do a little bit of self-imposed suffering.
[00:01:12]  Now, I'm not going to get into the history of it or the why of it.
[00:01:16]  Partly because that's what your catechism is for.
[00:01:18]  Just go read that.
[00:01:19]  And second, if I tried 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.
[00:01:30]  So I'm not going to be talking about those issues.
[00:01:34]  What I want to talk about is the psychology of it.
[00:01:36]  Why it's so useful.
[00:01:39]  Why it's such a good thing to do.
[00:01:41]  And why it's a ritual that even if you're a non-Catholic, atheist, Hindu, you might want to consider adopting.
[00:01:54]  And for the record, I'm sure Hindus do actually have something a lot like this.
[00:01:58]  Most human cultures have.
[00:02:00]  Most human cultures have had this forced upon them just by nature, if nothing else.
[00:02:06]  And it's something we really miss in our present day lives by not having, by not giving something up.
[00:02:13]  We have a little bit too much luxury nowadays.
[00:02:18]  Now, it doesn't have to be something big.
[00:02:21]  My brother-in-law gave up drinking for Lent.
[00:02:25]  And upon being informed that Lent wasn't five weeks, it was six weeks, he reacted with great emotional distress.

=== Discovering Addiction (04:56) ===

[00:02:34]  Maybe I'll give up drinking one time for Lent and really focus on an exercise program or something, because I'll be going nuts with excess energy.
[00:02:45]  But it doesn't have to be something big.
[00:02:47]  It can just be a small luxury.
[00:02:49]  And I think starting off with a small luxury is actually the better maneuver.
[00:02:59]  Give up carbonated soda.
[00:03:03]  Give up, like I did last year, video games.
[00:03:09]  Because it's interesting to find out just how addicted you are.
[00:03:20]  See, we keep most of our addictions in check.
[00:03:23]  Right?
[00:03:24]  And there's a satiating point.
[00:03:27]  The reason that drug addictions are so heavily criticized is, you know, like blow.
[00:03:32]  When you're doing blow, all you want to do is even more blow.
[00:03:36]  And so you can burn through your entire bank account in one evening.
[00:03:42]  And drugs in general, particularly the ones that are currently deemed illegal, tend to have very, very destructive cycles.
[00:03:51]  And they all have cycles.
[00:03:53]  That's the thing.
[00:03:54]  Serial killers have cycles.
[00:03:58]  When the FBI is tracking a serial killer, there's going to be a cyclic pattern to what they're doing.
[00:04:04]  You know, they only kill every five weeks or eight weeks or what have you.
[00:04:09]  There's a predictable pattern to the rate of killings.
[00:04:16]  And so, with myself, let's take video games.
[00:04:18]  I don't generally play that many video games.
[00:04:23]  I like video games.
[00:04:25]  I could easily just piss away an entire evening playing civilization or the long dark or Minecraft or what have you.
[00:04:38]  But I hate myself the next day.
[00:04:41]  So I try and keep the video games in check.
[00:04:44]  I try and keep them as a bit of a reward.
[00:04:46]  It's like, okay, I've accomplished something a day.
[00:04:48]  I get to play a video game.
[00:04:51]  And so they're a small part of my life.
[00:04:53]  The same way, I mean, I drink a fair bit, but for other people, my brother-in-law, for example, you know, drinking probably isn't that much a part of his life.
[00:05:04]  I know, maybe it is.
[00:05:05]  I don't know him that well, but 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, you'd think.
[00:05:21]  But it isn't.
[00:05:25]  When I gave up video games, I would constantly find myself turning on video games.
[00:05:37]  And then I'd have to remind myself: no, no, you gave it up, put it down.
[00:05:40]  And then, like, okay, now what am I supposed to do with myself?
[00:05:46]  What you find out is that these casual addictions, these addictions that you keep in check, are no less an addiction.
[00:06:00]  And you start to really question just how much control do I have over my life?
[00:06:10]  All the martial arts training in the world isn't going to tell you who you are when the chips are down.
[00:06:19]  When things start going sideways, are you going to stand and fight or are you going to cut and run?
[00:06:28]  You don't know that until you've actually been in a fight.
[00:06:32]  And, you know, training is a great idea.
[00:06:35]  You should definitely train.
[00:06:36]  But you don't know that about yourself until you're there.
[00:06:41]  And similarly, you don't know how addicted you are to something until you try and stop doing it.
[00:06:54]  And, you know, giving up something like video games or, you know, alcohol or sugary soda, giving it up for six weeks shouldn't be that difficult.
[00:07:10]  But you'll find out that it is.
[00:07:14]  You'll find out just how weak you are.

=== Hunger Reveals True Self (04:07) ===

[00:07:22]  That it actually takes a lot of willpower to maintain all of this.
[00:07:28]  And that self-knowledge is invaluable.
[00:07:33]  One of the ideas I've expressed in the past is how with modern technology and conveniences and so forth, we think that we're gods.
[00:07:53]  Okay, you don't know what a man's like until he's hungry.
[00:07:58]  And how many of us have ever been hungry?
[00:08:00]  How many of us know what we are?
[00:08:08]  There's a really ugly sort of atheistic self-righteousness in the whole damn thing where we dismiss our ancestors as being superstitious or credulous or what have you when we've never experienced adversity ourselves.
[00:08:30]  And so Lent is a little bit of that adversity to remind you of who you are and how hard it is for the spirit to overcome the body.
[00:08:50]  So that's the one big benefit of Lent.
[00:08:52]  The other is it's mirror inverse.
[00:09:00]  Because sometimes you develop a bad habit.
[00:09:06]  Again, it could be alcohol, video games, sugary soda.
[00:09:10]  It could be social media.
[00:09:13]  It could be news.
[00:09:14]  It could be any number of things.
[00:09:21]  And so maybe you give that up for Lent, and you see a dramatic improvement in your life.
[00:09:36]  And then you get rid of that vice, that thing that's been eating up so much of your time.
[00:09:45]  And you think, well, hey, what else is eating up my time?
[00:09:49]  What else is not growing wheat?
[00:09:54]  What else should I get rid of?
[00:10:00]  So Lent, it shows you, shows you quite a bit about your own nature without even needing to do anything too drastic.
[00:10:10]  And because it's such a radical and temporary imposition.
[00:10:20]  And you're doing it in a social scene.
[00:10:26]  You're doing it with others.
[00:10:28]  So you're expected to adhere to what everybody else is doing.
[00:10:34]  That strengthens you.
[00:10:41]  At the end, what I'm saying is that Lent is useful psychologically.
[00:10:50]  And it's a great example of why culture is so damned important.
[00:10:58]  Why connecting with your fellows is so important.
[00:11:04]  And so we're halfway through Lent season right now, but I would invite all of you to pick something, not something that's super difficult, something minor that you think is minor.
[00:11:20]  And give it up for the next few weeks.