Let's Rethink What It Means to Lead the Good Life
No problem can be solved on the same level of consciousness that created it.
First and foremost, my deepest gratitude goes out to all of you who have read my new novel. And for those of you who are still on the lookout for a great summer read, I hope you will consider The Good Death of Kate Montclair.
One 5-Star Amazon Review said of it:
“This book was impossible to put down and I had all but forgotten how amazing it feels to find a book like that….
“I found myself completely lost in this novel. Kate Montclair became so real to me in the hours I was reading it that I found myself thinking about her, caring about her, even when I put it down.“This novel was a thrilling, goose-bump raising mix of a moving cancer memoir (though a very a-typical one), the classic story of a group of young friends, thirsty for life, and their struggle to find balance in a world without direction, and a mystery story (believe it or not - it surprised me, but it definitely fit). At times, I found myself feeling as though I were reading Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited or Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood, two works that differ drastically in tone and yet somehow find an easy harmony in The Good Death of Kate Montclair. I can't recommend the book enough.”
You can purchase the book here on Amazon.
If you’ve read the book, or if you’re someone who intends to read it, I would deeply appreciate your leaving a review on Amazon. It doesn’t have to be an essay. Just a sentence or two will do the trick. Even simply clicking one of the stars would be appreciated. That kind of action on Amazon attracts the algorithm to the book. THANK YOU!
Now, a warm welcome to all the recent subscribers to The Comic Muse!
My post from last Thursday, “On Keeping Yourself Unfit for the Modern World: An Open Letter to My Students, Recently Graduated from College,” drew the biggest response of any post I’ve published on Substack. This was aided by it being listed among the Friday Links offered by my friends at Dappled Things Magazine. I’m very appreciative of that mention!
Even before the response to my “Open Letter,” I had been thinking about a refocusing of The Comic Muse. Throughout May I was quite busy with end-of-semester duties and activities, as well as with finishing a set of revisions to the book that will appear from Word on Fire Academic next spring, The Way of Beauty: A Philosophical Reflection. But all the while I was thinking about certain changes to this newsletter, and then the response to my “Open Letter” helped me to sharpen my thoughts.
According to the description of the newsletter I have been using for the past several months, The Comic Muse is about reimagining a renaissance in popular entertainment, fueled by wonder, philosophy, and the quest for the good life.
I have not lost any of my interest in reimagining a renaissance in popular entertainment. At the same time, however, I have been questioning whether this description best captured all the things I want to write about here—and also whether it was the best description of what you would like to read from me.
The response to my “Open Letter” persuaded me that many of you are most interested in how the predicaments of modern life can best be addressed, especially by those doing their best to live out their Catholic faith. So, a shift of emphasis to the wonder, philosophy, and the quest for the good life part of the original enterprise seemed to be a good idea.
Such a shift also seemed to be a good idea because it would give me more reason to write about topics I am very much interested in but haven’t yet written about. Topics such as (to give you only a few examples, in no particular order):
the cultural loss of the value of poetic knowledge (recently made prominent by the work of the neuroscientist Iain McGilchrist);
the nature and importance of “deep work” in our shallow, distracted culture
how productivity and ambition might be redefined to better suit a holistic view of the human person
The description of The Comic Muse I am currently test-driving on Substack is this:
Why does our world, which promises so much happiness, consistently fail to deliver it? As Einstein said, no problem can be solved on the same level of consciousness that created it. Let’s rethink what it means to lead the good life.
And below is the new description on my About page.
(Comments and suggestions on both of these items are most welcome.)
Have you ever wondered about the following?
How curious it is that, in a world that affords us ever-increasing leeway to write the story of our lives, we feel the gnawing suspicion that we’ve lost the plot.
How curious it is that, in a world that offers so many unprecedented opportunities for sexual and other forms of social connection, so many people are left feeling empty and lonely.
How curious it is that, in a world that prizes technological progress above all else, this same technology keeps undermining our desire for wholeness and fulfillment.
In the face of such curiosities, there seem to be two ways of proceeding.
One is to double-down on the view that our cosmos is not in fact a cosmos (i.e., as the Greek word denotes: an ordering, a field of meaning), but a meaningless anti-drama, thrust into the middle of which the best one can do is recommit, with obsessive purpose, to the adventure of authentic self-expression, to the creation of a pleasurable ego-drama—as it were, from scratch, aided by the latest technological blandishments.
A second is to reflect upon the possibility that our current mode of thinking about the cosmos, about our lives as human beings, about our desire for happiness and meaning, is wrongheaded, and that what are needed are fresh ways of thinking, perhaps inspired by traditions that antedate the predicaments introduced by the religious and scientific revolutions that mark the beginning of the modern age. As Einstein aptly put it: No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.
Welcome to The Comic Muse. A newsletter devoted to the second way of proceeding.
I hope you will join me in asking the biggest question of all: what is this reality that I find myself in, and how can I best find meaning and fulfillment in it?
In weekly posts, typically delivered on Saturday or Sunday, I will explore this question in ways that apply concretely and practically to all our lives: at home, at work, at play, at school.
My name is Daniel McInerny. I am a philosopher and author of fiction and drama. I teach at Christendom College, a small Catholic liberal arts college located in Front Royal, Virginia, in the heart of Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. My latest novel is The Good Death of Kate Montclair (Chrism Press, March 2023).
Plato said that education is about learning how to love the beautiful, and from time to time I will offer my own attempts at such education in the form of short stories and behind-the-scenes looks at my creative projects.
But most of what I share with you will be practical philosophical reflections on the problems generated by life in the modern world, and how best we can work our way through them.
In this endeavor I will allow myself to be guided by the Comic Muse, and the possibility that the tragic dilemmas of modern life might in fact be obscuring our appreciation of the fact that life is not a tragedy, but a comedy: a quest capable of a joyous resolution.
I thank you for joining me here at The Comic Muse, and I look forward to our conversation.
Thanks, Daniel. Look forward to it. Can’t help wondering if the ‘attention-cult’ is at the heart of the rot.