Metaphysical Boredom: Why Modern Life Feels So Empty
Nathan (00:00)
Hello and welcome to Thinking Out Loud. I'm your co-host Nathan Rittenhouse.
Cameron (00:03)
And I'm your co host, Cameron McAllister.
Nathan (00:05)
On today's episode, it's gonna sound a little bit like I just got back from the dentist because I didn't go to the dentist, but it's my turn in the family to deal with a round of Lyme disease and facial palsy is the side effect that I have. So if you're watching this on YouTube, you can see I have a little bit of a stink eye, you know, old piratey look. if I had a corn pipe cob pipe, I could probably be the old man of the sea.
Cameron (00:31)
Yeah.
Nathan (00:32)
some some sort of I'm sure.
Cameron has a better literary reference there. But yeah, my eyelids and lips don't work perfectly these days. So I'm I'm not angry and I'm not underwater or intoxicated. This is just the way that I'm gonna sound here for a little bit before the antibiotics do their work. So yeah, thanks for your patience with my face, as always. But now that we've got that out of the way, Cameron, talk to us about the phrase metaphysical boredom.
Cameron (01:00)
Well, that came to me from David Bentley Hart, and he wrote that a long time ago in his book, The Beauty of the Infinite. So he was talking about in this in this case, he was talking about some of the developments of late modernity, specifically deconstructionism. And it takes him a long while to get there. So it's worth if you if you'd like to he his is one of the more fulsome treatments, I would say, of deconstructionism. So
If you're interested, and I'm fully aware you may not be interested, but if you
Nathan (01:33)
Yeah.
Cameron (01:34)
are, his thoughts are really worthwhile and it is worth you reading those those sections up to the point where he says that to a significant degree, a lot of what he's observing there is deep metaphysical boredom. And the way I want to riff on that a little bit today, Nathan, is we were talking for a long time before this episode. We do this a lot, by the way.
Listeners, me just bring let's let's just bring you in to the Nathan Cameron friendship dynamic of what goes into this show. Sometimes you'll ask, do you do you both follow a script or do you have the episodes planned out? The answer is clearly we we just cannot emphasize enough how little thought
Nathan (02:12)
Clearly no.
Cameron (02:16)
goes in. No, I'm just kidding. But what we do sometimes is we do have long discussions beforehand. And there are a number of items, there are always a number of controversies, different
Developments, news stories, in the headlines, of course. But we do try, we're not always successful. We do try to speak about underlying condition conditions rather than just symptoms, because a lot of what's going on on the internet is just you're just witnessing a a vast content machine, as you know, and everybody is just feeding the beast.
And now in in the advent of of AI as well, it's just there's just so much slop out there. So what I had said to Nathan out loud, kind of throwing my hands up in despair. By the way, I always do that whenever I use the phrase throwing my hands up, I have to I I have to I let me just
Nathan (03:06)
Do it. Do it. Make the quote.
Cameron (03:07)
bring it in. There's the quote from Aaron Bells, it's a poem. I think the poem is called it's either called hands or disgust, but it goes like this. I threw up my hands in disgust. Why had I eaten my hands?
So you can probably judge from that that how sophisticated my my sense of humor is. But I kind of said, if everything is significant, nothing is significant. And
Nathan (03:34)
Mm-hmm.
Cameron (03:34)
that is also an outworking of metaphysical boredom. And I do see that on the internet quite a bit. I do see that online quite a bit, where people are just in this desperate, frantic hunt for significance in some of the most
I mean, frankly, just trivial aspects. I came across a video recently on what was called what was being called the Y two K aesthetic, doing an analysis
on the collar
Nathan (04:03)
Ha ha.
Cameron (04:04)
schemes and all of that. And I just thought we we really are deeply bored.
Nathan (04:09)
We're
flailing for something to do with our minds.
Cameron (04:12)
Yes. And so that's the feel that that's what I'm kinda getting at. And that's where where I think that phrase metaphysical boredom comes in.
Nathan (04:18)
Well, so there there's there's another side of this. So let me throw this in here and see if you can combine these. in that oftentimes our conversations are, you know, you and I are talking this morning about the whole debacle with the Cambridge professor, DEI
Cameron (04:36)
Yes.
Nathan (04:37)
stuff around that and academic credentialism. We're you're talking about
Cameron (04:41)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (04:41)
we were talking about independent businesses being bought by private equity companies. You're talking about music magazines.
Being closed and the role of music critics and how influencers can be paid to say things about artists. And so there's all this stuff, but our conversations around that last like 90 seconds because we don't have pre-existing categories
Cameron (05:05)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (05:06)
to like throw this in of like this is right wing, this is left wing, this fits our political agenda, this doesn't. and so you're
Cameron (05:11)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (05:12)
just like, well, there's another one of those things, or here's another one of these things, or here's something interesting. They're not.
They're there and they and they signify something, but the thing that they signify is a deeper shift in our culture. And I think both you and I would be honest to say that it feels like we're living in a moment in which we don't have a deep grasp on exactly what all of those cultural changes are. And that's a terrible thing to say on a podcast because what the internet wants is people who come out guns blazing and say,
I alone and singularly understand exactly what's happening with culture. I know exactly what the young people want. I know exactly what the old people want. I know what the Republicans want. I know what the Democrats want. I know what Christians want. I know what the Muslims want. I have it all wrapped up here. And here's exactly what's happening. And just listen to me. And you won't have to think about much of anything because I would just hand it to you on a silver platter and
If you've listened to thinking out loud at all, you know that there isn't a whole lot of silver platter serving going on here. But just a challenge to say, wait a second, there it is okay. I mean, and you get the whole biblical the men of Issacar who could understand the times. That's not to say that Cameron and I aren't reading deeply and watching and thinking and listening and trying to analyze. But I don't know, Cameron, really, if there ever are moments in which people
fully understand the significance of the moment that they're in, in the exact moment in which they're in it. And so we're pointing to things that are structural and where things seem to be going, but we don't have a nice tight, yeah, tidy, and so there's metaphysical boredom on one side where we're just being distracted into oblivion, but then there's metaphysical certainty on the other side, which is another form of not having to think about anything significant.
So
are those two separate things or is there a harmony between them?
Cameron (07:17)
Well, I think the most difficult time to understand is the present. If you just look at history to if you want to understand the present, by the way, if you if you do want to make some headway, ironically, you've got to look to history to do so. But there is there's real truth to Soren Kierkegaard's adage. Life is lived forwards and understood backwards. I think of the of the theologian John Baer, he he he applies that.
To the disciples' lives in a very profound way. And this is this is just to illustrate a paradigm. I'm not I'm not going all theological here or anything like that, but I'm just talking about if you look at the disciples, a lot of people will say, for instance, if we only had the physical Jesus present with us, we would understand. We would get it on a whole new level. Well,
Nathan (08:11)
Yeah.
Cameron (08:13)
scripture is against you on that one.
Nathan (08:14)
Counter
example.
Cameron (08:16)
Counterexample, the disciples. They do not understand and they do not get it. Now they they understand it retrospectively eventually, and they're illuminated by the Holy Spirit, of course.
Nathan (08:25)
Yeah, 'cause and this is really important, 'cause this is to say
it's not to say that we can't understand anything, or that our experiences are invalid, or that we shouldn't try to discern. That's not what we're saying at all.
Cameron (08:37)
Precisely. The so it's easy to look, there's a real market for people out there who do exactly what Nathan was just saying, who just give you a swift, not only analysis, but tell you, hey, I'm gonna tell you exactly what this means. How many videos, reels, articles have a title or a hook that sounds a little bit like this? What the education crisis in the humanities really means?
What the financial what what inflation really means, what the war in Ukraine really means. Well, if you're like me, and I'm I'm guessing most of many of you are, your hackles go up and you you recognize instantly that you're probably going to get something that is from a con man because nobody knows precisely what all of this means. So yes, some of the headlines Nathan mentioned, I I think of yes, so the the disgraced professor Jason Ayrday at Cambridge University.
We could talk about that easily, right? We could talk about how this DEI darling at one of the most prestigious universities globally has now been found, you know, it's it's now been i pretty much conclusively shown that plagiarism has taken place. All of the concerns and more that were voiced so early on are being validated. The telegraph that was the the publication initially going after him has been more than vindicated.
But why are we not going to do an entire now? A lot of people will you'll get a lot of content from this. People will write articles. People will give you analysis and they'll talk about the state of education. They'll talk about what this says about the state of education, that a prestigious university like Cambridge would allow this to happen. Cambridge, this is a this is a place where the sciences. Right. The UK is on the t
Nathan (10:26)
Free speech in the UK is on the decline. You can't even do journalism anymore.
Cameron (10:31)
right. Nobody can do re yeah, re you know, set sound standards of journalism.
Acadec academic integrity, blah, blah, blah. We could do that too. We could throw our voices in, but both Nathan and I also see
Nathan (10:45)
Is that really what you need from us?
Cameron (10:47)
no, there there's a there's an emptiness to that. So we don't wanna we're not here to feed the content machine. We also recognize that this is a symptom of a deeper underlying condition in our cultural moment. What precisely that is is difficult to say because
Like you, we live in the present.
Nathan (11:05)
But that's why but that's why boredom is such
a good term. Because when you're bored, it is a difficult I don't I don't experience a lot of boredom in my life, but it it is a difficult sensation to describe.
And and that does seem to me to to comport with so I think that's why David Bentley Hart's phrases and is accurate is so flesh that out a little bit more for us in in and how that applies to what we're talking about here.
Cameron (11:37)
So when when you're thinking about deconstruct deconstructionism as a literary movement, as a philosophical movement, you're talking about incredulity toward meta narratives. That that's the Francois Liotard, the famous definition of postmodernism. But you have come to a place of despair as well.
And I'm not speaking pejoratively here. I'm speaking descriptively. What distinguishes deconstructionism from other philosophical approaches, if you want if you want to if you believe this rises to the dignity of of some sort of philosophy. What's different is now you're not you're moving away from anything constructive. I know that sounds a bit like a truism, but you're moving away from building something. You're moving away from
Making confident assertions about the nature of reality or the pursuit of wisdom. Now remember, if you go all the way back, you get to a place, if you if you look into the ancient traditions, philosophy and theology overlap very significantly.
Nathan (12:55)
Mm. Yeah.
Cameron (12:57)
Very significantly. Ancient philosophy.
Nathan (12:58)
Actually they're indistinguishable.
Cameron (13:00)
They're almost indistinguishable. Yeah. I mean, that the it's about not just the pursuit of wisdom, but it's also about it begins with wonder. So it begins essentially with a posture of adoration or worship. And adoration or worship of what? Well, first of all, it begins with a posture of wonder at being, at the givenness of existence, the sheer exuberance of life.
And the richness of it, but also as a devotion to the pursuit of the true, the good, and the beautiful. A pursuit
Nathan (13:40)
But that's work.
Cameron (13:40)
of the light. Right. So well, all of that, by the time when you get to late modernity, you have this is where the despair comes in. All of that is seen as essentially a failed experiment.
A naive pursuit, or even worse, something that ultimately resulted in the tyranny of totalitarian forms of thought. The the the absolute confidence of the fascist or the absolute confidence of the tyrant and a will to power. So, I mean, I'm obviously I'm I'm I'm painting in very broad strokes here over a lot of philosophical history.
But it's a place now where instead of trying to pursue the true, the good, and the beautiful, you come to a place where you question whether the true, the beauty, the good, and the beautiful even exist, or you come, you come to a place of total suspicion of any of the motivations behind that pursuit in the first place, and you begin to simply take apart or look
look try to peer behind the curtain of the motivations of any of these pursuits in the first place. So you start to to move away from anything positive, any positive vision. And so I wanna speak of boredom here as almost synonymous with a form of of deep despair. A despair of of really arriving at a firm destination, a despair of moving beyond our own prejudices and our our own
basically the just all of those factors that have all of the contingencies of human life, really.
Nathan (15:31)
Let me ask a question in here before you parse this out for us. When I was a kid, we never used the word I'm bored. The words I'm bored, because if we ever said to our mother, We're bored, she would say, Great, I have something for you to do. And that there's a chore list that was always waiting. So there was work. Work was seen as the solution to boredom in my parents' mind. but it also meant
That
boredom is on the back end of having all of your needs met.
Like when you didn't have you you don't say you're bored when you're trying to survive. And so we we jokingly talk about, you know, first world problems as, you know, coffee pot didn't work this morning or something. and we and we joke about, you know, the physical first world problems, but is metaphysical boredom a byproduct of a bit of an intellectual first world problem where i it it seems to me there's a unique
form of despair here that comes out of abundance or out of surplus or out of excess. Is there maybe I'm maybe I'm misunderstanding this, but it seems like some of the time that we have to devote to some of these questions is a result of our previous success. So we we succeeded into despair.
Cameron (16:53)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm. I think you're on to something there. I mean, broadly speaking, there's there's a line in East of Eden where it says they found the people in the Salinas Valley of of of California trying to eke out a living in that very unforgiving terrain found hope in the future according to their present lack.
Nathan (17:19)
Hmm.
Cameron (17:20)
It's a really arresting phrase. They found hope according to their present lack. The precise opposite is the case these days. Any minor inconvenience drives us into fits of despair. Why? Well, because unlike Steinbeck's hard scrabble characters, who are they just they don't really have the luxury of boredom at all. They have to survive. If they don't work hard, they're gonna die. And
Ironically, that gives to them a sense of purpose and hope and meaning. We in a highly affluent society where we have more free time than people have ever, we've got more leisure than people have ever had. We're more connected than we've ever been. Now I know. Yes. Okay. So so I Right. Yeah. Right. But correct.
Nathan (18:04)
Our food is cheaper, our housing is cheaper. I know there I I understand the whole housing market thing, but as a percentage of income, historically speaking.
Cameron (18:15)
Abs absolutely. So all of those those factors you just yeah, real estate and all that, inflation, we get it. Yes, and we're we're not downplaying that, but all things being equal, we are living like kings. We're living in a way I I've I've put it I've put this in writing before, Nathan. We're we we have at our beck and call, we have at our fingertips, literally at our fingertips on a phone, a level of indulgence
That would shock Caligula. Okay, that's the world, that's what we live in. Now, what would you maybe expect to think of this? Well, you know, we're we're very successful. So we're happier than ever. But you use the phrase victims of our own success here, leading to deep metaphysical boredom. And that's right. So we have all of this. You're right. We have all of this luxury, all of this leisure, and it has come at the cost of a sense of meaning and purpose. So
That is where this deep sense of metaphysical boredom comes in as well. When you live in a a time where so much of what is perceived to be the good life has just to do with really what we would just call distractions and diversions or games. Now that has become front and center for many people, and it feels hollow and empty.
And it's leading to despair in a very real sense. So that's part of what we're getting at too. You're right to bring to bring that in, a sense of meaninglessness in the mist in the midst of great abundance.
Nathan (19:56)
But
wait a second. But the solution can't be go out there and make yourself miserable and then you'll be hopeful. So where do we go?
Cameron (20:06)
Well, actually, here's an interesting thing. The solution and it's which w any Christian, any theologian can tell you this, but now psychologists and therapists are corroborating this. To a significant degree, if you're feeling this way, if you're feeling the hollowness of our moment and empty, here's what you could do that would almost immediately fix it. Join a church.
And volunteer in the nursery, volunteer at a soup kitchen, volunteer at an assisted living facility. In fact, do anything that pulls you out of your house and but doesn't just pull you out of your house, but that actually helps you perform some sort of service for other people. That's basically all you need to do. And and I'm not even gonna quote yeah.
Nathan (20:57)
Hey, you know there was another there's
another philosopher who said something about saving your life and losing it and losing your life and saving it and picking up crosses and denying yourself and hope. What was the the
Cameron (21:07)
You know that guy was all right. But see,
that's why why why I'm s yes, exactly. So whoever wishes to save his life must lose it. And whoever w whoever tries to save his life will, you know, will lose it. That there's a deep n not that we need corroboration for all of this, but there's a deep practical reality to that. You try living only for yourself, you're gonna find
a life of isolation and loneliness, it's gonna feel very hollow and it just gets worse and worse. On the other hand, if you just put down your device or whatever it is, whatever diversion it is, your coloring book, your device, your Pokemon cards, whatever they are, and you go and actually help somebody, I I don't I'm not even gonna qualify. It will help instantly. It's not a well, maybe, you know, if you have the right philosophy, nope, you don't even have to think about it that much.
Well, maybe if you're you have the right intentions when you volunteer at a soap soup kitchen. Yeah, your intentions are important and they're great, but they don't really matter here. Just volunteer and see what happens. You'll start you will start to feel instant and it's not even, well, what if you go to a gym? Yeah, physical activity and all that can be good, but a gym is still about you. The the soup kitchen's gonna be more powerful than the gym.
Nathan (22:25)
So so
why is that in your theology and philosophy? What's the what's the ontology behind that mechanism of the non self referential activity being life giving?
Cameron (22:36)
Okay, so if you're made by God for God, and the supreme command is that you love God with all that you are, and then your neighbor is yourself, that means you're not an isolated, discrete, monadic being or individual. You're not atomistic. You're actually you are inconceivable apart from relationship. The most fundamental relationship, whether you recognize it or not, is between you and your maker.
But then there's the web of human relationships that define you. And yes, define you, whether you like it or not. We are all shaped by the relationships in our lives for better or for worse. So if you take that into account, here's why volunteering at a soup kitchen or in your your church's nursery is going to help you find yourself, is going to help build you, is going to help.
Pull you out
Nathan (23:30)
Or
Cameron (23:31)
of depression qua quicker than a gym will. It's because you are focused, if you are focusing on other people, you're going to find you you will find yourself in the midst of that because you are made for others. You are made to serve others. Exercise and all that and movement can be good up to a point. Your personal health can be good, but.
If you're not careful, that can just become another selfish pursuit. If you're focused only on building yourself, on making yourself, on sculpting your own body, that can be every bit as empty as just getting lost in the online world and scrolling endlessly.
Nathan (24:13)
Hmm. Did I well there's another part to this though of like it doesn't have to be a soup kitchen? It's is there a way in which you can recalculate the work that you already do and see it as an act of worship and of service? So let's say is there a way in which you can think about your career and say this actually is a way in which I honor God with my mind and my body, or this is a way in which I serve other people?
That this is a gift to humanity. And hey, I get financially compensated for it. But the pri but the primary reason that I do this thing, you know, if you work in the food industry, feeding other people is a biblical command. If you're work in a hospital, taking care of the sick and the injured, that's a biblical command. Are there, don't you think, Cameron, there are ways in which we can recalculate and recalibrate what it is that we're already doing and saying, I am actually doing this as an act of worship.
This is me participating in the world in a way that honors God and loves my neighbor. And if I get fiscally compensated for it, thumbs up. That's great. But which what's driving the vision here? Is it the paycheck or is it the sense of my engagement and involvement in the world? And then suddenly you find that your activity is not reduced down just to the economic elements of it. And when we start to see beyond the economic elements of our life, that's usually where we find.
the most meaning and significance and metaphysical freedom.
Cameron (25:46)
Mm-hmm. Well, yes, I mean you if you have if you change your mindset, but my the main point I'm trying to to drive home here is that living for yourself alone is the road to not only metaphysical boredom, but to a real sense of emptiness in your life.
Living for others, even in our, yes, in our everyday pursuits. The reason I'm I'm bringing in soup kitchens and things like that is because those kinds of examples can sound fairly countercultural. The advice that you're usually given, the folk wisdom,
Nathan (26:31)
Self care.
Cameron (26:33)
exactly. The folk wisdom of our age is going to be self-care. But the problem with self-care is self-care can be fine up to a point, but the problem is right there in the words. Self.
The problem is that s if if self is the driving engine of everything you do, then you're going to be lonely. Then you're going to be feel empty. Then you're going to be sad. If you can come to a place where you're serving others, well, ideally, where you're serving the Lord and others, you'll get yourself thrown in.
To kind of crib from C.S. Lewis a little bit.
Nathan (27:11)
Yeah.
Cameron (27:14)
So you want to, yes, we can change our mindset regarding the activities that are in front of us and the dynamics of our everyday lives. But what we want to do is try to f is is to not not prioritize the self, but really prioritize the needs of others. That's the
Nathan (27:34)
Hm.
Cameron (27:34)
key to finding a real sense of.
Happiness and satisfaction, and yes, ironically, to finding your distinctive personality in the mix. If you try if you if you lead with yourself, you'll lose yourself in the worst possible way. Yeah.
Nathan (27:52)
So
so loot this back then to transcend transcendent signifiers and deconstruction and the early
philosophical
work of
Cameron (28:05)
Well
Nathan (28:06)
is is it as simple as saying that when we disconnect ourselves from a narrative that transcends ourselves, ourself doesn't make sense to us.
Cameron (28:17)
When we come to a place where when we we l we look at all human pursuits as nothing more than power games or a pursuit of selfish ends, it's hard to imagine that terminating in anything other than cynicism or despair. If you look to the ancient understanding of how human beings think
So what is it that gets us out of bed in the morning? What is it that drives everything we do? And it's amazing. There there are so many profound thinkers. Every from everyone from Augustine to Jonathan Edwards to Gregory of Nyssa to Nicholas of Cuza to Paul to Jesus to Socrates. So many ancient thinkers talk about this. What is it that's moving us, that that gets you out of bed in the morning? Well, on a very fundamental level, it's desire.
You want something. But when you look at human desires, and this is just to go back to ancient lines of thinking, human desire is always, if you really look at it and pause to navel gaze a little bit here, desire is a pursuit of transcendentals. It has to be. I'll try to tease this out for just a second, but it's a pursuit of things like the true, the good, the beautiful, love, friendship.
relationships, human flourishing, joy, abundance and and and flourishing. Okay. Now, take even the most superficial seemingly superficial desires. Let's take the person who just wants wealth and power and notoriety. These are easy things to to to focus on. Yeah, what about somebody who just all they care about, they're selfish, they move to LA, they use people in their pursuit of, you know, some sort of Hollywood success or whatever it is, or climbing up the the corporate ladder.
And it's just this vicious, horrible, ruthless life, and all they want is money and power. Well, that's actually not all that they want, no matter how debased the person is you're talking about. They they don't want money as an end in and of itself. I mean, does anybody really want it? Well, I just want as an im as many piles of cash or I just want huge columns of gold piled up in a room.
Nathan (30:39)
Yeah.
Cameron (30:41)
Or I just want to stare at the the balance, the growing balance in a Swiss bank account on my screen. No. That money is a means to an end. What's the end? Well, perhaps that's a certain kind of life, all right? Flourishing. Perhaps it opens the door to acceptance and love and sex or whatever. Okay, so now we have relationships. Again, I said no matter how debased. Or maybe it's I want to invite other people in and create, you know, shower hospitality on them. I want to entertain people.
And show off my goods. But okay, hospitality, community, power. People who are motivated by power, the most power-hungry hungry people, often when you look at their lives, rejection is a huge, huge factor there for them. And they're looking for love and acceptance. So no matter how debased the pursuits of our desires, they are oriented toward a transcendental end. So if we have that.
Orientation. So the the way it's put in Ecclesiastes 3.11 is just God has set eternity in the hearts of men. So if you have eternity in your heart and you come to a place where you stop with the self, just with you, and you're and and just and you look at your wants and wishes only as just sort of as the temporary things that they are, and you refuse to follow them beyond to that transcendental horizon, yes, then you're gonna be
bored,
Nathan (32:04)
It's a clogged pipe.
Cameron (32:06)
angry.
Confused. It's a clogged pipe. You're made for so much more than that. That's the problem. And the agony, the convulsions that we see in our culture, part of it is really due to spiritual creatures trying to please those eternal appetites in finite ways. And it's a it's a tragedy. It's horrible to watch, but it doesn't have to be that way. You're a spiritual creature, and you want more than what this world has to offer.
Nathan (32:36)
And so I think Cameron that's the the the beauty and the
difficulty simultaneously of the work of the church right now is to help people see and think through.
And and and for our own spiritual growth and formation to how do we brush aside the things that are legitimately pointless and meaningless and are just distractions from reality? And so we can comment on things, we can notice that they're happening, but to put them in their proper perspective, to say, This is what we're about, this is what we're growing toward, this is who we're trying to grow in Christ likeness, really having a
you know, if you want to get better at soccer, you don't go by a whole bunch of baseballs. It's like, what's the vision? What's the plan? And then that helps me say no to a whole lot of other things. And so I think the same thing happens in our metaphysical freedom and hope is to say, What am I trying to do? And if I have clarity over that vision, then I can say no to ninety nine point nine percent of the things that, you know, flitter across my screen or whatever in life.
and and pursue the things that are in keeping with the the plans and the goals that God has set in my heart for what he wants me to do with my life. And so I think to bring this back around to where we started, that's the challenge for us at thinking out loud is not that these other things aren't neat, nifty, interesting, and sometimes hilarious or depressing, but are they really helping us grow in the right direction so that something meaningful is actually done with our lives?
In a way
Cameron (34:21)
Mm.
Nathan (34:21)
that honors God and is good for our neighbor. And at the end of the day, in pursuing proper worship and proper service, we go to bed and put our head on the pillow with a deep sense of satisfaction in our souls because we're in the flow of what God's will is, or to use the biblical language, stain in stuff with the spirit. So in one way, this is an apology, not an apology for us not talking about every single hot topic that we see bouncing around in the world.
I hope there are people in your life that you can have those ninety second conversations with and laugh or roll your eyes. But at the end of the day, we can't live the entirety of our intellectual space pursuing those things. It has to be so much deeper than that.
Cameron (35:07)
Lots to say here, lots more to say. Thanks for sticking with us. Hey, we like you. Do you like us? If you like us, hey, you should tell people about it. So you can like, share, and subscribe, and that would be so wonderful. Also, if you'd like to support us financially, you can do that as well by going to www.toltogether.com.
Thanks.