Pints With Aquinas - Bonus Episode: Quitting the Internet

Episode Date: August 1, 2018

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G'day guys, Matt Fradd here. Thanks for tuning into this bonus episode of Pints with Aquinas. I want to share some stuff with you today that maybe you've already heard about online, but I wanted to take some time to tell you myself over this podcast. Before I do, I wanted to make a quick announcement. Many of you are already aware of this, but I plan on doing some long sit down professionally recorded video chats. So right now I plan on doing them once a month. I've been talking to people like Christopher West, trying to fly him in here to Atlanta, Bob Rice from Steubenville University, Father Mike Schmitz, Gomer from Catching Foxes. The idea is

that I would fly one of these people in. I'm paying a video guy. I'm paying to be in a particular studio. There's going to be like three cameras. It's all going to be very professional. And I would sit down with these people for like two to three hours straight and just chat with them. Because I think what's important, I think, is that we think through some of these things as opposed to just getting soundbites. Like, what do you think on contraception? And someone gives like a one minute soundbite. Those are helpful, but I want to think through some of these difficult things. Like the church is teaching on homosexuality and these sorts of things. Like, I want to think through them. I want to talk with these people because life's complicated and we live in a complicated age. And so, I think this thing will be a blessing to many people.

You know, full disclosure, each episode will cost me about $700 just for the shooting of it. But that doesn't include the flight. You know, I got to pay someone to fly them down. And then I also have to put them up in a hotel and I also have to give them a stipend. You know, like the people that I want to get in, these aren't people who have nothing to do and just want to come down for free. You know, like I got to make it worth their while. So, each episode I'm expecting is going to cost like nearly two grand or something. So, it's expensive. And that's why you haven't seen many Catholics doing that, I don't think. You know, there are some secular people like Joe Rogan and Dave Rubin who are doing these sorts of sit-down chats But the reason you haven't seen in the catholic world is it's bloody expensive But I want to do it and I plan on doing it

But in order to do it, I do need your support and the support that you give it's not like again It's not going to my personal whiskey collection fund. Although that would be awesome It's it's going directly to pay for this now I could start, you know a gofundme account and try and do it that way But many of the people I've reached out to, you know, let's just do it over Patreon. Let's just get more supporters. You know, people are listening to you every week. We're getting over 15,000 downloads a day now on average. And so, I know there's many of you who have been listening and you're like, yeah, I want to support but I just haven't gotten around to it. Would you please get around to it? How do I say that in a nice way? Would you think about getting

around to it like now, please? Because I want to start doing this and it's going to be costing a lot of money, but I think it'll be worth it. I think it'll be really great. And I'm not asking for a lot of money. Just give me 10 bucks a month. And if you can't afford that, give me one buck a month or something like that. If you like the episodes, if you want to see Pints with Aquinas go from good to great, like that's the whole point of this. And we've been able to do a lot of great things because of our patrons. Go to pintswithaquinas.com good to great. Like that's the whole point of this. And we've been able to do a lot of great things because of our patrons. Go to pintswithaquinas.com, click donate and give me 10 bucks a month.

And you'll see all the really cool rewards I give you in return. You know, you'll get exclusive videos. You'll get a signed copy of my book. If you give more, you'll get a Pints with Aquinas beer stein. So there's all these things I give you in return, which you can go check out.

But anyway, that'll do. Pintswithaquinas.com, click donate and help me get these check out. But anyway, that'll do. PineswithaQuinus.com, click donate and help me get these videos started. I'm really excited about it. All right. Well, it's Wednesday. It's August the 1st. Why are we doing this bonus episode? Well, as the title suggests, I'm doing this episode because I'm about to quit the internet. I wrote an article for Catholic Gentleman recently in which I laid this out. So I just kind of wanted to go over that and kind of explain what I'm doing. And part of the reason I'm doing it, to be quite honest with you, I think it's twofold. One is it's my way of sort of like

solidifying my decision. You know how sometimes you can kind of half make a decision, but you then don't go through with it because you never kind of made it kind of like official. Well, if I tell like literally tens of thousands of you that I'm quitting the internet, then I better be doing it. And secondly, the second reason I'm telling you is I've already gotten some great feedback from folks who say they want to do something similar. And so, I just want to kind of go through this with you. In the article, I talked about the fact that since I was 16 years old, that's what, nearly 20 years ago now, I've gone online probably almost every day. I guess when the internet was just starting out, maybe I went on a couple of times a week or something. But shortly after that, it became this thing that you would just check daily.

And the internet seems to have become more and more addictive. I mean, I think it was 2006 that YouTube came out. It was prior to that. You know, we had MySpace and then Facebook. And then these things just took off. And it's just like this thing that sucks in all of our attention and energy. And I need to take a break. Here's the best analogy that I've come up with.

I was back in Australia a few years ago. and I live in a country town in South Australia where nothing terribly exciting happens. But on this particular day, there was a police raid taking place across the road from my house. This was fascinating. I mean, it lasted about five hours. We had no idea what was happening, but there was several police cars. There were multiple police officers circling the perimeter, shouting things out. You know,

we were really excited, you know, and my sister and my dad and my mom and my brother, you know, we were looking out the front door, you know, this lasted most of our day. You know, we'd go back inside, we'd get some lunch and then we'd always be poking our head out. What's going on? Has anything happened? No, nothing's happened. That to me is a good analogy for the internet because that event that was very exciting wasted our day. You know, we spent the whole day looking through this window hoping not to miss anything. And it seems to me that the internet, that dark mirror you carry around, that black mirror that you carry around in your pocket, your laptop, your computer, is that door, is that window into a world that we're so afraid something's going to happen and we're going to miss it, you know? And I just want to take some

time off. I want to take some time off because I think most of us have become very addicted to being distracted. And here's an analogy I used in my article. All right, think about this for a second, okay? Imagine that you're at a party and across the room, you see someone that you don't like. It doesn't matter why. Maybe they're boring. Maybe they spit when they talk. Maybe they are super pumped about politics and always want to talk about it. Doesn't matter. Now, you're at the party, you know, you're over by, you know, getting some food at the table and a drink or whatever. And out of the corner of your eye, you notice this person approaching. Now, if he had been

a longer way off, you might've been able to escape without seeming rude, right? But darn it, he's only a few feet away and there is no escape. So what do you do? darn it, he's only a few feet away and there is no escape. So, what do you do? Well, you know, you turn, you smile as convincingly as possible, you endure a few minutes of conversation before mumbling about something you need to get done and that you're sorry to be rushing off so soon. Then you make your escape. Now, this is usually what we do if we're not feeling particularly charitable and we don't like this at someone. But here's a serious question that I want you to think about and that I've been thinking about. What do we do when we're the people we don't like? Like, what do you do when it's you you don't like?

How do you get away from you? It's a bit more difficult, isn't it? You can't just run because there you are. Well, I think it's not that complicated. You just distract yourself. You know, when you distract yourself, you're fragmenting your interior life, you know? And we do this by plunging ourselves headlong into a myriad of distractions. It doesn't matter what they are, really. It could be YouTube or even crossword puzzles or Pornhub or Instagram. So, we do this, but we don't get the relief we want. We don't get the peace. We don't get the rest, the leisure that we want. It doesn't last. It's all of this noise, which is essentially what I'm talking about. When I talk about distractions, there's this noise which distracts us from

ourselves. It doesn't matter if it's audible or not. You know, even just scrolling on your internet, like this is, you know, without listening to anything, this is still noise, if you will. Cardinal Seurat put it this way. He says, noise is a deceptive, addictive, and false tranquilizer. He says, the tragedy of our world is never better summed up than in the fury of senseless noise that stubbornly hates silence. Isn't that true? Like in the moment, it feels good or, you know, you don't maybe notice it in the moment. But think about this seriously, like, after five and a half episodes of The Office, you know, you've been texting and tweeting throughout the entire five and a half episodes. When that's done and you shut the laptop lid, are you calm?

I'm not. You're probably not either. The internet promises leisure and it often delivers stupor. Now, look, I am aware that we can lose ourselves in stupor offline as well. I get it. You know, I'm not saying that there was this golden age before the time of the internet where people didn't distract themselves. They were doing that. Your parents, my parents, if you're around my age, what were they doing? I don't know. Maybe they're in the garage drinking and doing Sudoku puzzles or something.

Not puzzles, but whatever that thing is. There's always been ways to distract ourself, but I think like, gosh, the availability, the ability to distract ourself today compared to back then. I mean, it's just different in kind, isn't it? You know, most of us are numbing out through the internet. I mean, maybe the reason you're listening to this podcast is you're driving right now and you don't know how to be alone with yourself, which is not a cool thing. And look, the reason

I'm quitting the internet is because I'm more hopeless probably than you are. Don't feel condemned to you. I'm condemning me. That's why I'm the one giving it up. I've said this before, but you know, when you walk around in the morning or you lay in bed at night and hopefully there's no sound going on, you're not looking at anything, you're not distracting yourself. You know, those thoughts that go around in your head and they don't make a lot of sense, but what do you think that is? Now, I'm not a neuroscientist or the son of a neuroscientist, but you've got to think that part of it is your brain's attempt to sort through, categorize, process reality, the things that you've done that day. Sort of how dreaming, they tell us, is a way of your brain kind of processing what happened that day.

You've got to think that those thoughts you think when you're alone and in quiet, it's not like it's useless. So, what if you don't have those thoughts anymore because you keep pumping your brain with Matt Fradd's thoughts. Maybe you should stop listening to me. Or maybe what I'm saying is going to wake you up a little more and it'll actually be beneficial to listen to me. But a lot of the time, I think we listen to podcasts, we binge Netflix, we can't be alone with ourselves. It's just like we're restless, man. We're restless. It's not good, dude. It's not good. So, bottom line is I'm taking a break from it. This big black hole, this black mirror, the internet is sucking up my mental, emotional, and spiritual bandwidth. It's

robbing my family, my work, and my contemplation. Because when you get sucked into the internet, it's not like it's robbing your time and energy from nothing. It's robbing your time and energy from stuff. You know, your family, your contemplation, your prayer life, the things you want to do. So, let me just close by talking about how I'm going to practically do this. Because many of you have sent in... Look, let me say this if I haven't made it clear already. This is not a heroic thing that I'm doing. And I'm not trying to pretend that I'm a hero for doing it. 20 years ago, this was just called life. The reason it seems heroic, even though it isn't,

is because we don't know how to live without the internet. Maybe that's why. So here's some questions. You might say to yourself, okay, Matt, but how are you going to let people know that you're taking a break who are trying to get a hold of you? I have to be honest, I'm a little nervous about this. I suspect that there's going to be people who are texting me, and I'm not going to respond to them, and they're going to feel, you know, like I'm totally ignoring them. Can I also just be really honest to you here and just say, I'm nervous.

Can I also just be really honest to you here and just say, I'm nervous. I'm nervous about this. I don't know what it's going to be like. Whenever I release episodes like this, I'm checking how well the episodes are doing. I'm making sure that the bottom isn't falling out of my Patreon account, that people aren't like quitting too much. And I'm like, oh my gosh, you know, like, it's like, it's a real, it's going to be a trust in the Lord thing, you know? Anyway, as far as letting people know who are trying to get ahold of me, starting August 2nd, so what's that tomorrow? I'm going to change my email responder and my voicemail essentially to say, you know, like if you're trying to get a hold of me, I'm offline for this month. So you can't, but if you want to get a hold of me, give my, if this is an emergency call my wife, and then you know what I'm going to do, I'm not going to give them or you my wife's number. Why? Because if you don't know my wife's number, you're probably not as close as you think you are to me. It's like, or what you think is an emergency, I don't know my wife's number, you're probably not as close as you think you are to me. Or what you think is an emergency, I don't think is. And I'll also give my assistant's number if people are trying to book me for work or something. That's it. So, pretty pumped about that.

So, and then, yeah, same thing with email. That's what I'm doing. All right. Now, you'll say to yourself, well, what are you doing with your phone? You're giving up your phone as well? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going to give my phone to a friend. He's going to put it in a drawer somewhere and he's not going to give it back to me until September 2nd. Now, I haven't decided yet. I might end up buying a cheap flip phone and giving my number to my assistant and to my wife in case there is, you know, an emergency. What about my computer, you might be thinking? I'm going to have my wife change. We have two computers in our house, a desktop and a laptop. I'm going to have her change the passwords to them so I can't get on. And I'm going to try very hard not to bribe her with chocolate. Now you might say, well, how will you get any work done,

Matt? Well, good question. Most of my work consists of podcasts like this and vlogs i've been working my butt off old july like pre-recording so it's not like i'm recording this episode the day it's coming out okay i'm recording it what's the date today like 23rd of july i've been working my butt off getting these videos done getting these podcasts done you know um so that that's that's how i'm gonna get the work done i've got one trip in Atlanta this month. So yeah, it's gonna be great. You won't even know that I'm gone. Okay, people. Now you'll think, well, what about social media? I don't know if you know this or not, but two months ago, I quit social media. I don't mean that I shut down all my accounts, as those of you who follow me on social media know. I was contemplating that for a while, but I thought, gosh, I do need to like, I want to let people know about my books. I want to let them know about Pines for the Quietness episodes when they come out. And this is a good vehicle for doing it. So what do I do? Well, I decided I was just going to pay a good friend, shout out Kiernan Doyle. Awesome dude. He runs my social media accounts and he'll tell you, I was really anal in the beginning. I'm like, dude, change my passwords now. Change them. I

don't want to know the passwords because if you just run it, I will still go and check it out. Yes, I'm that pathetic. So, I don't have access to it. I haven't been on it. Sometimes I'll email Kian and say, please tweet this out. You know, here's a photo. Could you, you know, but it's much, it's been great. Like it's really helped me cut down from the internet. Now, so you might say, well, what are you going to do for a month? Well, I'm going to wake up and I'm going to hang out with my family. I'm going to pray. I'm going to read Holy Scripture. I actually just bought a handsome copy of the Brothers Karamazov. I was in Manhattan a couple of weeks ago. So I'm going to write myself a reading plan and I'm going to complete it in August. Other than that, I hope to be bored. Do you remember bored?

I mean, if you're above 20, you remember bored. If you're below 20 listening to me, you don't know what boredom is. Right? Anyway, so this is what I'm doing and I'm really excited about it. Now, I'm not here to give you advice because I haven't done this yet. But I hope that what I'm saying inspires you because, you know, hopefully you're not just listening to this like, oh, poor Matt, what an addict. Because I am kind of accusing you along with me. This isn't like, oh, I'm really addicted, but I'm sure you're fine. Like, I suspect that you've got an issue with the internet as well. There you go. Full judgment on you, you know. So, what are you going to do to reclaim your life?

Look people in the eye, talk to them. Like, when's the last time you read a book? When's the last time I read a book? Has my attention span just been decimated because I need something to bing or to vibrate or to pop up every three minutes, you know? So, that's it, man. It's not a big deal. a i'm not a martyr i'm not a hero i'm not trying to say that but look here in a day and age where many of us can't go an hour without the internet look think about this we don't even say go online anymore do you remember we used to say that i'm gonna go online i'm just gonna go online we don't say that why because we're never off right most of us can't go an hour without the internet, two hours, including me. Okay? So, like this, for me, is going to be a radical move. And

I pray that when it's over, I'm going to have a healthier relationship with the internet. Oh my gosh. Did you hear what I just said? I just said relationship with the internet. So maybe this is going to be harder than I think. Please pray for me. I'll update you in September. But to my wonderful patrons, I want you to know that I've preloaded weekly exclusive videos that are going to be coming out for you. You know, Ascension Presents videos are still going to be rolling out

because I recorded them ahead of time. Kian is still going to be updating my Twitter feed and Instagram feed. And Planes for the Quietest episodes are still going to be coming out. So like y'all will be fine. It's me you got to worry about. Say a prayer for me. God bless you and thanks for listening.