This week, I intend on fully flaunting my limited imagination, provide my rudimentary impressions on the greater aspects of life and distinguish Don Colacho from a poorer writer (hint: that’s me). These four aphorisms I find particularly noteworthy, since they touch on the true meaning of life and greater immortality. The modern world may take away our wifi, but she can’t eradicate the noble and the true.
To be a protagonist in the drama of life, it is enough to be a perfect actor, whatever the role one plays. Life has no secondary roles, only secondary actors.
Nicolas Gomez Davila: An Anthology
Firstly, you should always strive to be the hero in your own story. That’s not selfish, this is your life and there’s no reruns in syndication afterwards. Be the protagonist for your wife, children and friends. The antagonist is your “other” self, your Mr. Hyde scheming behind you. He will attempt to destroy you, all throughout your life; he wants you to lie, cheat and steal. He is your worst opponent and the disastrous foil of all of you, including your id, ego, and super-ego.
Secondly, you only have one role to play in life – the fullest of man (or woman, for our female readers). I am a reactionary, there must be order, tradition and hierarchy to live a satisfied life. Gorging on Doritos, sporting a goofy headset and becoming addicted to World of Warcraft is no way to go through life. You are a man, the decedent of pioneers, warriors, poets, pirates and survivors, you weren’t destined to be a thrall of modernity (the “secondary actor”).
Values, like souls for the Christian, are born in history but are immortal.
Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 183
Honor, integrity, fortitude, discipline and ancestor veneration are immortal values. They transcend time and our current age. Paul Ryan, the spineless political hack and soon to be forgotten cheesehead, used to spit out a common phrase when he was in the media spotlight and confronted with some event heretical to neoliberalism, “These aren’t our values.” What were these, they certainly were not mine, values that he spoke of with such moral authority? It always appeared (and still does) as simply corporate egalitarianism, indignant faux feminism, finance prostration, Middle East jingoism and xenophilia.
Those GOP “values,” personified by Paul Ryan and really just a hodgepodge of modern delirium, aren’t lasting. They’re designed to expire because they’re either artificial, nonsensical or have an expiration date (take xenophilia for example, eventually those practitioners become extinct by their own morality). Timeless values of our ancestors, the cherished, the cautionary and the vaunted, are hated or perverted by modernity, likely out of jealousy because one is deathless and the other ephemeral.
Elegance, dignity, nobility are the only values life does not succeed in disrespecting.
Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 42
Try as the modern world must, and with great and continuous effort, the beauty of mankind, elegance, dignity and nobility, can never be extinguished. Like timeless values, timeless aesthetics are immortal and perennial. Even debased modern man, of the 21st century variety, will still longingly stare at that old, wrinkled photo of a bygone era, of that beautiful woman in the Old Holywood evening gown- backless, sleeveless and long bias-cut dress. Her skin couldn’t be mistaken for a sailor’s ink-stained body, her nose hadn’t been pierced like a savage and her eyes never strained before the late-night soft glow of a smartphone.
Conversely, modernity provides us with nothing remotely as valuable as immemorial aesthetics. Sterile and lifeless, the fadish architecture of today uniquely fits the zeitgeist, as unassuming citizens, zombified by their precious hand-held palantír, amble unknowingly and underneath their minimalist shadows. I don’t think they even teach dignity anymore and the average citizen considers the epitome of nobility the mascot to “the home of the Whopper.”
Hierarchies are heavenly.
Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 245
In Hell all are equal.
Have you ever seen a functional household that had embraced equality? You haven’t or you’re lying to yourself. Hierarchy is natural to the human condition, all things need a place and all things need an order. Equality has no order, in a sense it is anti-order. A home where the toddler decides what’s for breakfast, because he is equal to the mother, and the teenage son directs the finances, because he is equal to the father, is pandemonium. Universal equality is antithetical to reality.
Hierarchies are the mechanism for prosperity (“heavenly”) because the individual, within any hierarchical structure, is aware of their worth and their duties. The complexities of a man’s mind require lines of delineation, structure and accountability, if he is to succeed in any endeavor, be it his profession, his family or his community. Prioritization is not possible within the framework of equality. And, neither is aristocracy or even meritocracy. Equality is the leveller of civilization.
Deo vindice
The man who never was.
I never comment on here but this article compelled me to simply say thank you. I read you folks everyday and I am always inspired by the writings in this blog. This is some of the best work I know of going on right now. You talk about living in a true way and you describe ways to do it. All appreciated. I hope your approach conquers all of the lunacy out there and that your influence reclaims the culture from the evil hands who currently possess it.