Essays in Idleness

Goodness gracious: I get out of hospital just after Easter, and suddenly it is Christmas. Little, almost nothing, seems to have happened in the interval; thanks to mind-baffling anaesthetic drugs, much seemed to be happening just before. But like most illusions, it can be explained. I stepped out, and into, an environment that had been heavily medicalized; which is as agnostic as most medical people; and on the outside, we are all in nearly perpetual “lockdown.” Our lives have been appropriated by the lockdown bureaucrats.

I was quite amazed, both before and after my medical internment, at how willing, indeed eager, the Ontario population is to be “guided.” The same is in evidence almost everywhere else. The modern man chooses safety over freedom, every time, and it is no surprise he gets no safety in the bargain. His anxieties and his isolation (he has no real family or friends, no religious direction); his ignorance and superstition; make him a natural target for manipulation. Those who seek power are his natural controllers, like ants with aphids. Trying to defeat them with rational arguments will always prove a waste of time, for democracy has provided that the idiots who rule us are the ones we have selected to rule.

Not everyone is included in my dismissal; I only refer to “Modern” men (of both sexes), which is to say, almost everyone. I try not to be too inclusive, however, to limit sin. For we were told to love all of our neighbours and enemies, and we should do our best.

Our fate is not hopeless, if there is God; and if it is the God who sent Christ, out of Himself, to redeem us. Christmas — the occasion and its meaning — serves as a more powerful refutation of the evil argument. Like love, it goes beyond the rational. We are to fear not, and to replenish the joyful — in defiance of the “Grinch” of scientism and modernity. This can be done by anyone, with Faith (which involves a bit of stomach). We needn’t stay aboard the handcart or motorboat to Hell, there are protocols for getting off. Instruction is soon coming, from Bethlehem.

A Merry Christmas to all my readers.

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I owe thanks to many kindly correspondents who have sent Christmas cards and other notes of encouragement, and even generous donations to my idle cause. Many of these communications were anonymous, and even some that weren’t I haven’t acknowledged. Most splendid are those who uplift me in prayer. Forgive my many ludicrous failures.