18. Be an ordinary person, one of the human race.

Fr. Thomas Hopko, 55 Maxims of the Christian Life

There is a certain kind of person, usually self-styled as clear-eyed, hard-headed, and immune to trends, who regards the cozy girl lifestyle with undisguised contempt. She sees cozy culture as unserious, quiescent, and politically regressive. She insists that the things celebrated by cozy girls are so celebrated because they replicate the preferences of the wealthy, of the bourgieosie. … Some of these criticism have a little merit, but I find myself entirely unable to join in that contempt. In a winner-take-all society where ordinary life has been systematically stripped of dignity, the turn toward “cozy” is less a retreat from reality into the past and more a rational adaptation to the unhappy present.

…

You’ve heard this song from me before many times: we live in an era in which the range of lives publicly regarded as worthy of living has contracted almost to nothing. Our culture confers esteem on a vanishingly small number of roles, and those roles are largely defined by being visible - that is to say, by attracting public attention, of which there is a necessarily finite supply. … Everything else - teacher! paralegal! office manager! dental hygienist! retail supervisor! random white collar office email job that’s basically fine! - is flattened into an undifferentiated gray. These are necessary roles, some of them pay well, but they certainly aren’t glamorous ones, and young Americans seem increasingly convinced that a life that doesn’t inspire envy among others - when broadcast online, naturally - isn’t one worth living.

… [A]lmost everyone who tries to get rich quick will fail, but everyone can choose to be cozy.

The genius of the cozy aesthetic is that it identifies sources of pleasure that are widely accessible and modest and treats them as inherently worthy of serious cultivation: a soft sweater, a well-made cup of tea, a public library card, a crockpot recipe that reliably produces something warm and nourishing, a Saturday morning with nowhere to be. You may find any one or all of these more or less attractive based on your own preferences, but whatever they are, they’re not signifiers of elite achievement, they’re all available in low-cost forms, and they’re all reliable and attainable. They’re not blue-check credentials, they don’t require venture capital or viral reach, and you don’t need to chew your fingernails waiting for the wheel to spin to see if you’ve won them. These simple pleasures are, instead, elements of an ordinary life lived with intention.

Freddie DeBoer, Cozy Girl Lifestyle is a Rational Response to a Winner-Take-All Culture (Shared link)

Last night, my wife and I went back to a chef-owned Italian restaurant downtown that just fell off our radar during Covid (though it had been a favorite). Judging from the crowd last night, we’re not the only ones who lost track of it.

No wonder so many small businesses failed.

Importantly, what we experience is not just an image of a world ‘outside’, some sort of projection on the walls of a Cartesian theatre inside our heads, and watched by an intracerebral homunculus on an intracerebral sofa. As I will explain, such a viewpoint could be predicted to arise from the left hemisphere’s attempt to deal with a reality it does not understand, and for which everything is a representation.

Iain McGilchrist, The Matter With Things.

Where would we be without figures of speech?

How much better things will be with AI agents who are consistent! Xfinity Hallucinating Customer Service Hell

One of David Brooks’ many merits was distinguishing résumé virtues (for which aspiring meritocrats strive) from eulogy virtues. (Reading a promising interview with him.)

Maybe it’s because of my age and my frequent solo lunches that I think this Billy Collins, Old Man Eating Alone in a Chinese Restaurant, is awfully good.

Christianity is a highly adaptable collection of faiths … It can be liberal or conservative or apolitical. It can be hellfire and brimstone or love and forgiveness. It can be whatever it needs to be to survive, [and] it will.

T.J. Kirk a YouTuber for twenty years as “The Amazing Atheist”, via Nick Pompella.

Ouch!

Thoughts?

Was Abraham Lincoln a Christian?.

I didn’t read it because the only acceptable answer is “none of our business” (even on Presidents Day), isn’t it?

I am influenced in my rejection by my late Aspie brother’s obsession with the question.

Not a fan of the ELCA, but we owe them a debt of gratitude for this.

Butterflies on my stomach already: Purdue, moving from a 12 ranking to #7, meets #1 Michigan tonight. My consolations are (1) it’s only a game (it’s only a game, it’s only a game), and (2) Purdue plays that only-a-game at home.

Robert Duvall’s presence was my assurance that a movie was great. He never acted in drek. I will miss him.

Meatfare Sunday

I often marvel at the stupidity of criminals, leaving breadcrumbs right to their doors.

The second Trump administration is kinda like that. With no grownups in the room, tone-deaf monsters rule.

Could the basest populism be self-limiting?

I just finished a subchapter of The Life You Save May Be Your Own about Walker Percy’s struggles over race in the 1950s. Raised Southern Gentry (i.e., stoic with noblesse oblige), his new Catholicism left him conflicted. The stoicism had to go; his world was rupturing.

A compelling account.

After a long weight-loss plateau, I weighed less this morning than I have weighed in (quick check) fourteen years. Another 25 pounds or so and I’d be back to “marrying weight.”

A young man paced the sidewalk nervously as I approached Church for Matins. We exchanged names, his sounding middle-eastern.

“I’m an inquirer,” he said. “First time in an Orthodox Church?” “Yes.” “What drew you?”

Notable hesitation, then one word: “Repentance.”

“You picked a good Sunday for that. The theme is the parable of the Prodigal Son. Do you know it?”

“No. I just started reading Matthew.”

(Edited to make me sound slicker than I was.)

So I summarized the parable for him and then left to do my part in the services.

Seldom have we had someone starting as such a “clean slate,” innocent of any knowledge of the faith.

But remarkable, too, that seldom have we had someone give a confident answer that “repentance” is what drew him. That is probably the very best of all possible answers. I don’t know where he got it.

He stayed all three hours through the Divine Liturgy. I think God’s up to something in this young man.

Gotta love the winking title: “What’s the Over/Under on Sports Betting Reform?“

Gotta love the Jamaican Winter Olympics team.

My (limited) courtroom practice was mostly in State courts, but I am terribly proud of the Federal Courts standing for the rule of law.

• The Federal Court Snapback - by Jack Goldsmith;
• February 1, 2026—On the Rule of Law - James Comey

(possibly paywalled, but I tried)

24 hours ago, I got flu symptoms that really laid me low.I’m pretty sure I’m pulling out of it now, but somehow, with zero calories consumed yesterday I gained 1.9 pounds. (Tests for Influenza A & B plus Covid were all negative.)

Chorus rehearsals resumed last night. Spring Concert is for America’s 250th.

Some of those patriotic songs, especially ones with a jingoist flavor, are especially hard to sing these day.

The National Anthem holds up surprisingly well if you make the battle ideological rather than physical.

Retire These Words!

When my great-grandchildren ask what I did in the counter-revolution, I can say “I blogged” (and never voted for the guy). But then I’ll have to explain what a blog was.

Reading Paul Elie, The Life You Save May Be Your Own. 📚

An obituary in this morning’s New York Times reminds me: I’ve seen many scandals in my life, but I loved Bill Cosby so much that his probably hurt the worst.

Q: Why Can’t I Use What I Have? - Front Porch Republic

A: Because we own you.