hodlbod on Nostr: Watched Band of Thieves this weekend (which was pretty good), and was struck by a ...

Watched Band of Thieves this weekend (which was pretty good), and was struck by a just slightly more concentrated dose of profanity than usual. Maybe it was the juxtaposition of the dorky main character and the amount of fucks coming out of his mouth, or maybe it was quantifiably more than usual, but in either case it got me thinking.

Why is our culture increasingly profane? Why must we punctuate all our communication with meaningless allusions to aggressive sex acts or scatology?

My wife an I have been watching "classic" movies more often in the last year or two, including On The Waterfront with Marlon Brando, the Bicycle Thief, and Casablanca. In every case, the pace of the dialog is quite slow, and the gravity much greater — despite an almost complete absence of emphatic profanity.

This can be seen in modern movies as well. Slow movies in general (think Dune or Interstellar) feel more meaningful. Marvel movies feel like cotton candy in contrast. In modern movies though, the gravity comes from the subject matter rather than the inherent drama of human life — vast stretches of space, time, or war. More mundane subjects having to do with normal people almost always seem to be approached with a certain level of irony or flippancy.

Marshall McLuhan says that "At electric speed, all forms are pushed to the limits of their potential." We live in a frantically fast age, that has outpaced the gravity of the human. The natural recourse is to attempt to keep up, but in doing so we lose the dignity slowness confers and are forced to resort to frantic insistence on our right to be heard. We scream, swear, panic, and twerk.

But of course, no one hears. The natural response to noise is to tune it out. The more we stimulate the senses, the number the senses become.

The most memorable people I have met are people who have not succumbed to this cultural panic. They are not people who project their emotions, but who carefully choose their words, and if in doubt prefer not to speak. They are people who have filled themselves not with their own thoughts, but with the thoughts of others, through study and memory. They are people whose silence speaks volumes.

I'm not like that. I'm uncomfortable with silence, and think best while talking. But it is something worth aspiring to. To be the kind of person whose dignity and gravity slowly expand. Who have a deep well of wisdom to draw from, which they dispense sparingly yet abundantly on the people they come into contact with. Whose eyes say more than their mouths.

There is one man in particular, whom I love. He always carried a pipe in his pocket or his mouth, vinted wine from his own grapes, did a little woodworking, and always said very little. Every Sunday, eyes closed, he would recite Psalm 103 to his small congregation. When he read the Bible, he would entirely leave off his own commentary (even though he was a pastor), simply reading the passage and closing the book afterward. At his funeral, and dozens of people shared stories of how this man had changed, or even saved their lives.

All of this came from a deep humility that came from spending many of his younger years without any idea what his purpose in life was, and from many personal failures and disappointments subsequent even to his calling. A "long obedience in the same direction" brought this man to the end of a life full of ups and downs, in which he was able to say that as he looked back, all he saw were the peaks, rather than the valleys.

Lately I've been challenged by Christ's words in Matthew, not to "worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." No amount of thrashing productivity, frantic overwork, or boiling frustration can improve things, because our times are not in our own hand. All we can do is wait on God — and he will renew our strength.

Profanity is often a panicked bid to be heard by piling on emphasis. But panic is a form of fear, and perfect love casts out fear. "The very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows."