Safety note: This essay is not advice, not treatment, and not a substitute for medical or mental-health care. If you are suicidal, in crisis, or not able to keep yourself safe, stop reading and seek immediate help (911, ER, crisis line, or a trusted person). This is not meant to fix anything.
When the Code Breaks: Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and the Man Who Found Another Way Out
The American Dream Was Always a Lie
F. Scott Fitzgerald knew it. He saw the emptiness behind the glamour, the rot beneath the glittering surface. In The Great Gatsby, he showed us exactly how the American Dream curdles—Gatsby achieves wealth but can’t transcend his origins or win Daisy. The rich are careless and empty. The valley of ashes sits between the mansions like the waste product of all that striving.
I would like an image that I can use when I post the podcast on my blog.
The podcast is very good. I think it has an appeal to a larger audience than the blog post. And I think it could be a really compelling hook on a number of fronts. I’m thinking of an image I had in my mind. Apparently, it’s not associated with the work of Shestov.
I’m thinking of an image, kind of a black and white image. There’s the well-lit path that’s a broad road, and it’s easy to see. And then there’s kind of this side path. It’s dark. It’s not entirely well-lit. You can’t see very far. And I’m trying to talk about how life can offer a well-lit path and an unwell-lit path, or maybe it even compels you to go on an unlit path.
And the purpose of this reflection is to give you, I don’t even want to say a different framework, because the whole idea of a framework is the problem.
But it gets you to a place where you are free from what existentially and spiritually, and in terms of the wisdom traditions, it gets you free from these things that are superficial.
The podcast calls them the eight worldly concerns. I think that’s what the reflection talks about too.
But the idea is that, you know, all is not lost. All is not lost. And that’s not just a superficial, you know, papering over reality, but the fact is that reality itself, no matter how deep you fall, no matter how you fall, that there is a satisfaction, there is a satisfactory result. There’s an existentially satisfactory result.
So whether you’re coming at life from a secular authenticity lens, or you’re coming at life from a spiritual lens, or from an everyday lens, that we don’t have to fear. You know, Henri Nouwen talks about this so well, I’ll never be able to say enough how much I love that reflection by Henri Nouwen about being the beloved at the Crystal Cathedral.
And he talks about falling below the line, and we don’t need to fear falling below the line. And above the line are all the traditional success metrics.
And there’s an anxiety that if we don’t maintain the success metrics, however you define them, and there’s all different categories of them, if we fall below the line, then, you know, it’s game over.
You know, we can’t even look below the line because it’s too existentially terrifying.
And I think with this reflection that I’m trying to do here, with these fragments in my mind, and with the help of AI, is to come to this place that you feel in your bones, you feel in your gut, that no matter what happens, I’m safe, I’m loved, I matter.
Even if nobody recognizes me, even if everybody crucifies me, like what happened to Jesus, you know, and whether you come at that from a Christian perspective, which is my perspective, which is that we are loved by the Father. Although, as Henri Nouwen says, it takes a long time to claim that, to feel in your bones. It’s one thing to be told that God loves you. It’s another thing to work through all the bullshit, the stance between me and appropriating that love for myself, claiming that love for myself, and then not getting sidetracked, not letting other people talk me out of that.
But it’s not just an intellectual thing, it’s a heart thing. You know, the Buddhists talk about it as a mind thing, but their idea of mind is much more, you know, it’s not the same as ours in the Christian tradition. When they say mind, they mean it in a meaningful way, in a deep way. You know, when I say mind as a Christian, you know, I mean, there are those scriptures to talk about the mind of Christ. But for me, it’s a matter of heart.
I have to get my head to descend to my heart. That’s what an Eastern Orthodox monk, I’m sorry, an Eastern Orthodox priest told me that, you know, that’s their tradition.
And so the point of all this is, whether you come at it from a career perspective or a mystical perspective or a secular philosophy perspective, the point is that, you know, there’s nothing they can do to us. There’s nothing they can do to us. There’s nothing they can do to us.
They can kill us, but we’ll be resurrected.
This may sound weird, but there’s a, I listened to an Eastern Orthodox monk, I’m sorry, Eastern Orthodox priest talking about an Eastern Orthodox monk. And the monk said, they cannot rob us of our death. They cannot rob us of our death, which sounds weird.
But what he’s saying is that even in death, even if they execute us, you know, and there are many saints that had this experience. You know, one of them was the patron saint of comedians and they were basically roasting him alive. And he said, turn me over. I’m done on this side or something to that effect.
But the thing is that we don’t have to be afraid. We don’t have to be afraid. And actually what’s below the line, the thing that we’re afraid of is actually what’s meaningful. That’s the mystery.
The thing that we’re afraid of, our crucifixion is actually the gateway into something that really matters. Something that we don’t have to distract ourselves from. We can go deeper and deeper into it. And the deeper we go, the less important all those things that used to claim our attention are.
And the deeper and deeper we go, the less afraid we are. Of losing those things. And that can be really scary. It can be scary to us. It can be scary to our neighbors. It can be scary to our family.
But we can take that to the cross as well. We can take that to Christ as well. The Buddhists have their own language for saying it. You know, I don’t, I don’t know all the wisdom traditions, but the point is we don’t have to be afraid. The point is we don’t have to be afraid.
And that doesn’t mean that we have, you know, perfect faith in a Santa Claus in the sky that’s going to solve all our problems. You know, Pema Chödrön, I think has some very valid critiques of deism, you know.
But we don’t worship the clockmaker God. We worship, I worship Jesus Christ who came and got into the muck and the mud with us. God is in the trenches with us. And so, you know, and, and, you know, this doesn’t always feel this way. I mean, you know, there are many circumstances, whether it’s mental illness or whether it’s anything, we don’t always feel this, but we don’t have to be afraid.
At the end of the day, we know that, you know, I’ve often talked about, you know, descending into the arms of Christ or whatever, but that’s kind of, you know, that’s a, that’s true. Literally, existentially, you know, metaphorically,
but, but what does that really feel like?
You know, what does it feel like to be in the arms of Christ? Well, it feels like there’s somebody holding you tight. You know, there’s, it’s like a bear hug from a father, you know, it’s going to keep you safe. And, you know, I’m riffing on all this stuff here.
But I guess all I’m trying to say is that we don’t have to be afraid.
And, you know, actually, the thing that we’re afraid of is actually the thing that will make our life meaningful and will give us joy and peace.
And I’m sure that that can be qualified and nuanced, but I just know in my own life that going off the beaten path, whether through good motives or bad motives or indifferent motives,
I think Thomas Merton says that, you know, he has no idea where he’s going. But he believes that his intention to go in the right direction, even if it’s not the direction God wanted him to go in, his intention to go in the right direction pleases God. I’ll just stop there.
Boyd Camak 