Update: Futures market for salsa expected to spike at opening bell.
Happening now: Biologists warn that decreased tomato production would endanger basic research.
State Department issues travel advisory as Spain’s La Tomatina festival faces tomato shortages due to U.S. ketchup crisis.
Breaking: The White House ran out of ketchup. Stay tuned for updates.
Breaking: Both commodities markets and stock markets are in disarray after White House announces ban on ketchup.
BREAKING: Insiders say that administration’s key decision-making criteria for appointments and other critical issues is ‘Dip or Squeeze’ and which one the candidate chooses.
Based on Boyd Camak’s own writings—specifically his guides for job seekers, his reflections on “productivity systems,” and his theology of the “empty cup”—here is what he would say to himself in a state of burnout and unemployment.
Camak would immediately instruct himself to cease trying to “project manage God’s will.”
The Message: He would remind himself that the governing principle of the job search must be: “‘Thy will be done.’ Full stop. Including a full stop of the analysis.”
The Logic: He would argue that trying to figure out the complete plan is a trap of “worldly wisdom” that leads to anxiety. Instead, he must focus only on “sowing seeds”—reaching out and applying—without attachment to the harvest, trusting that necessary information comes on a “need-to-know basis.”
He would validate his feeling of being overwhelmed, noting that productivity systems (like Getting Things Done) assume a stable life that no longer exists.
The Diagnosis: He would tell himself that his burnout isn’t a failure of discipline; it is a “diagnosis” of the conflict between “Mammon” (endless extraction/output) and the Kingdom.
The Reality: Life arrives as a “torrent” of crises and obligations that “exceeds what most systems can meaningfully contain.” When facing chronic uncertainty (like unemployment), “technique dries out” and only “Grace preserves.”
Contrary to self-help advice that says “you can’t pour from an empty cup,” Camak’s theology asserts that he must pour from an empty cup because that is what Jesus did on the Cross.
The Theology: He would tell himself: “You are an empty cup. And I don’t have any alternative… We have to pour from an empty cup. That is what we have to do.”
The Hope: The “resurrection power” flows specifically through that self-emptying (kenosis). He would encourage himself that surviving the day while empty is a participation in the divine life, not a failure of spiritual resource management.
He would advise himself to abandon the “cultural artifact” of a career and look to St. Joseph as the model for masculine strength in crisis.
The Model: St. Joseph didn’t have a “5-year plan”; he had to flee to Egypt in the middle of the night and find work in a foreign land to protect his family.
The Instruction: Do the “mundane” and “unglamorous” work—packing lunches, changing diapers, sending emails—because that uncelebrated fidelity is the actual vocation, not the job title.
In the face of an unsolvable problem (the “Rubik’s cube that changes colors”), his advice is to stop frantic fixing.
The Prayer: Shift the prayer from “What should I do?” to “How should I be?”
The Discipline: If acting will only increase the chaos, the faithful act is to “sit with it and be crucified” and wait for the “still small voice” to give the next specific step, rather than trying to force a solution.
Finally, he would remind himself that being unemployed and burned out isn’t a deviation from the good life; it is the “baseline” of human existence.
The Reframe: He would say, “I am co-crucified with Christ every goddamn moment of the day.”
The Comfort: Trophies and accolades are “empty things” that end up in the trash. “Falling below the line” of success is actually where God is found, and where he is “safe, loved, [and] matter[s]” regardless of the job market.
“You feel like you are drowning because you are drowning. Grab the life ring (the Gospel). Stop trying to understand the hydrodynamics of the water. Sow the seeds, do the dishes, ignore the ‘worldly wisdom’ that says you are behind, and trust that the ‘dead man on a tree’ is in the trenches with you.”
LinkedIn announced today a new partnership with major payday loan operators, saying that there is a significant market for payday loans among its user base—especially those that have purchased job search assistance features on its platform.
When asked about the ethical considerations of offering payday loans, LinkedIn responded that the payday loans will give it an image boost. Whereas the LinkedIn job search feature upgrades are intangible and may not help jobseekers at all, payday loans will offer something tangible to support LinkedIn on jobseekers’ journeys.
When asked about rollout, LinkedIn said that it will use the Facebook-like video features on the platform to show families being evicted from their homes as well as celebrities screaming loudly and then collapsing.
I have said previously in a one-page meditation that I have published, self-published a while back that Christianity is not about God, it’s not about Jesus, Christianity is about us.
Christianity is about us, not about Jesus, not about God.
Christianity is about us, and that’s why Christianity is about Jesus and about God.
The reason that Christianity is about Jesus and God is because Christianity is about us.
It says, for us and for our salvation he came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit and became man, for us and for our salvation, for us.
This is my body broken for you, for you.
Christianity is about us.
Christianity is not about taking away our volition or taking away our identity, it is about rescuing our identity, it is about protecting our identity, it is about giving soil, good soil for us to grow in.
It is about protecting us from lies, protecting us from lures of the world that would have us follow them with empty promises and vain deceits.
Now why am I talking about this now?
Well, I knew that things were coming.
I’ve been dealing with some difficult relationships, and I got to a stopping point after getting my daughter to bed, and I felt myself getting anxious, thinking about things, analyzing things, and I knew better.
I know that’s not solid ground.
Anxiety, and I’m not talking about biological anxiety, I’m talking about temperamental anxiety, I’m talking about worrying.
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Boyd Camak 