There Are No Life Hacks

As the modern age was finally settling in to its total domination over the world, small groups of Catholics like G.K. Chesterton and Hillaire Belloc were sounding the alarm that our destruction was imminent.   One of their greatest fears, and the reason so much of their writing was a mystical mix of economic and philosophical theory, was that the immense mass of small beauties like family and village would be absorbed into huge and boring consolidations of thought and power.  They thought it would be either government or business – they could not imagine how those things have merged in our day.

They longed that men would recover a sense of the good life and stop the trek toward cultural homogenization. Commenting on overlooking a village beer-making operation, Belloc felt at home:

And, as I considered the ruin of the great cities and their slime, I felt as though I were in a sort of fortress of virtue and health… And I thought to myself: “Perhaps even before our children are men, these parts which survive from a better order will be acceptable as models, and England will be rebuilt again.”

You see, Chesterton and Belloc believed in man and believed in God.  They believed in the organic wholeness of nature and reality, and that God did what He said He did – He made them good.  They believed that although sin has twisted us into the monsters we know too well in the mirror, ultimately that which is truly human is good, and that the happiness of man is in being truly human.  And they knew that unless we understand the true economy and the effect it has on the soul, we won’t be able to forge happy lives.

They were prophets.  Today our governments and our corporate overlords control almost every moment of our day.  Social media is the place where they monitor and trade us like commodities. These “free” things are not free because you, the user, are getting something for free.  They’re free because you are the product.  The user is the used.  Companies mine your data, watch your searches, and create algorithms that try to pinpoint the moment when your mindless scrolling becomes a purchase.  Cha-ching!  Got him!   And we know well that governments have compelling reasons to mine, store, and use that data.  But don’t worry; I’m sure they have our best interest in mind.

But what is that interest?  What do we all really want?  If we look at the goals of our overlords, it’s clear that they are absolute materialists which means all that we need, want, and crave is material comfort and pleasure.  They don’t care about the person or the product – both are just means to make money. Person and product and interchangeable parts of an economic engine.  And because the technologists in Silicon Valley have so much sway over us, they tend to reduce everything to a well-ordered system or meaningless aesthetic and material.  They don’t think that the world is a created whole that requires humble cultivation – working with it in harmony and communion as a fellow creature, albeit endowed with a rational soul capable of God.   They don’t think that material things point beyond themselves to metaphysical meaning and fulfillment.  Rather, they think of the world as a complex system that can (and should) be dominated by sheer effort and mastery.

This we hear in language like “life-hacking”.  This refers not to growing in wisdom and virtue in your interaction with the world, but in learning as many small tricks and shortcuts to find the fastest way to material comfort and pleasure.  We respect the 30-year-old millionaire, even if he sold his soul and aborted a small nation on his way there.