Content for Connection, Connection Over Content
I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong— that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith.
I’m about to start a podcast. I’m also done with my first year of grad school. I’m in the middle of a wonderful, life-giving relationship that is sort of, kind of, long distance. We both love Jesus a lot and tend to have a lot of questions a lot.
And I have a lot of friends who are leaving the church.
As with any and all millennials, my life is mixture of good and bad yet is altogether busy. Full. Overfull actually. Overwhelming more often than underwhelming, even with the best stuff.
As such, I’m finding a bigger need for self-care. For constant renewal of rhythms, routines, and even rituals to get me out of bed, into school, into work, into community, into myself, into communion with God.
I know I am not the only one overwhelmed not just by time, not just by commitments, not just by responsibilities.
I am overwhelmed by “content.” My friend David hates the word so for his sake (because he’s one of my dedicated dozen or so readers of this blog), I’ll elaborate; by overwhelmed I mean too much tv, too much movies, too much games, too much emails, too much social media, too much news media, too much too muchness.
While I have got a billion and one things to do in my life and season, I have a billion and two things, usually over screens, screaming for my attention. Demanding commitment. Relenting only to full submersion of the rectangle in my pocket or the $1,000 school machine I am typing from only to transition to a different kind of demand when I need to sleep, eat, breathe, or stay in touch with the people I love.
It’s the damn Matrix, and the Social Dilemma had it all right; these algorithms and machines are going to eat us alive.
And yet, I’m going to start a podcast with David.
David and I are different kinds of dudes. I’ll post a link to his channel here. If you’ve been reading this blog long or know me IRL, you know looking at his video titles, immediately, that he and I see… differently about political-y things.
Yet despite all of that, David and I have kept in touch for many years. In spite of the gap in our theologies, discontentment over the church (he thinks it’s too left and I think it’s too right), and differing personalities (he’s an 8’s 8 on the enneagram, I’m the 4’s 4), we both love movies.
In fact, the way we even became good friends is by waiting in line at ungodly hours, sneakily walking into the 12:05 showings instead of the 12:01 we paid for, discussing them afterward at hellish hours, and then topping it off by being mildly harassed by overzealous security guards who took their job far too seriously and didn’t allow for some cinema hot takes circa 2am in a small-town parking lot because David had a gun. One time David even was the cause for a sudden pause in the midnight for Super 8 because an attendee freaked out over the pistol at his side to the point that the po-po was called and he was questioned about it.
What an event.
Regardless, even though those were hard years for me personally, those were the golden hours. The ability to talk long and hard the ins and outs of all the characters, all the plot workings, all the director choices. It was then that I discovered films is only as fun as it is engaging to discuss.
(Hence why I don’t like the MCU. Shameless plug for my future podcast, or maybe a reason you’ll avoid it like the plague)
There’s no quicker way for me to harshly judge someone (then repent later) then for me to ask someone’s opinion of a movie, song, or book only for them to say it was “good” and then smile, waiting for the conversation to transition to something else.
Oh how it pains me.
See for me content is a conduit for connection. When Game of Thrones had the dumpsteriest of fire series finale, it was David that I called to toss additional kerosene. When The Last Jedi broke the internet and the SW fandom lost their collective shit, it was David who confirmed that no, I wasn’t crazy for loving it.
But even we don’t always agree on films. In fact, some of our most impassioned, fervent discussions came from not being on the same page.
Yet over the years, in spite of what Twitter and other entrenched political outlets would want for us, essentially, hatred for one another, David and I are still friends.
It’s the rich engagement with content that unites us.
And it’s why he was the one I had in mind to have a movie podcast with.
Who knows. Sparks might fly and our political differences that are ‘cataclysmic’ to an increasingly polarizing world might make some tense moments live and unfiltered via the inter webs. Yet I’ll take the chance.
It was movies that made us friends and movies that keeps us friends. That and loving each other as Christ demands, but you get the point.
Lukas and basketball (and being artsy, heart on sleeve, dry humor-y, and both 4s [apparently]).
Vince and video games (and being misfit-y, socially awkward, deep thinkers, and gleefully self-deprecating).
Isaac and movies (and being walking IMDB machines, lovers of excess, and a penchant for free-spirited spirituality).
Jordan and Star Wars (and being frequent pun-ners, amateur Chess players, and card game enthusiasts).
Danny and music (and being ‘nice guys,’ sporadically philosophical, and avid gamers).
And with David it’s movies.
I don’t think male friendship is only contingent on shared interests but it’s damn hard to befriend and become super close to another dude who doesn’t really, really, really like the same crap you do.
But at the end of this term, I noticed myself in a ‘content’ rut. Too much empty space, not enough enriching material. Actually, more truthfully, even the limited ‘enriching’ material wasn’t hardly shared.
See the problem with individualized Instagram feeds, Netflix recommends, and creepy cookie algorithm-y “you might like this app” of the iPhone and “me, me, me” era is the hollow, soul depleting nature of it all.
When I’m burnt out with school, with work, with long drives, and with all the demands of my life, I begin to get burnt out with any of these recommendations that don’t point me back to my friends. To my community and family. To God.
There’s a reason there’s almost always a fight between couples when one of them watches a show “ahead” of the other.
Because unlike novels, tv and film weren’t meant to be engaged with alone. They are designed to be consumed together.
But more and more, it seems they are watched alone. I’m not saying it’s bad, per se. It’s just far, far, far from ideal when compared to watching ‘with.’
All this to say, I’ve decided I want only to absorb content in order to foster connection. Said another way, connection should always be over and ahead of content, so I’d argue that if the content you are engaging with is hindering and not fostering connection, it’s best to avoid it.
This isn’t a hard and fast rule. In fact, right now I’m replaying the Mass Effect trilogy and reading a Witcher novel during my month off. ‘Content’ which, by design, can’t be engaged with other people.
But I am going to keep watching movies with the boys as we’ve gotten into a habit of doing to stay connected to them. And to start this podcast with David to help stay connected to him.
Movies and tv to us are what the the live theater was to the Greeks. What the oral tradition was for indigenous populations. What public letter reading was for the early churches in the era of Paul and company.
These things need to be shared.
So while it seems that many good friends of mine are leaving the doors of capital c church, I’ve decided that, maybe, I can keep doing small c church of sorts by going to the theater together with brothers semi-frequently. Grabbing drinks with them afterward at a bar or at a house. And talking about what these things all mean.
It’s not a substitute for church, but for now it’s an alternative. And fills me up in a similar way that church does.