A pox o' both your houses
Or, a plague on The Anxious Generation
I’m blessed: I have monastic students - actual monks who are obliged to but also enthusiastic about study - and I have seven young homeschooled children who are…less than enthusiastic but still obliged.
The kids have heard “a pox/plague on your house” and they have laughed; some of my students have heard and have contested (playfully and respectfully!) either version. To fill you in: if you’re a Shakespeare enthusiast, you’re likely interested in the minutiae and you probably have a few books with names like, “The Invention of the Human“, “The Quest for Shakespeare”, “The Oxford Companion” et al. You might follow some of the scholarly debates, such as whether or not “pox” for “plague” was a legitimate substitution in Romeo and Juliet. And so on.
The monks are a cut above the rest: they can laugh (or cry, if they were really into Shakespeare) at the literary reference, but they can consider the scholarly question too. Most folks aren’t like that. Maybe half of the literate older generation had read and partially remembered Romeo and Juliet, so famous it was in almost all English circles, but those times are gone. Now you’d have to explain the reference to 98% of those with a Master’s in English.
Yet, even high school youngsters know what Doomerism is. I just looked up the term.
Probably 3/4 of the planet knows what Bluey is (and even parents can quote it at length - apparently). My kids and I heard the name and we all looked like deer in headlights.
The monks don’t know these things either, just to confirm what you knew.
Their collective *ignorance* of so many new things and of so much news allows both the monks and my progeny to know and laugh at or cry over other matters.
I’ve focused on the monks’ ignorance before, but I read “The Anxious Generation” recently and it confirmed - with loads of research and references - my suspicion about my kids relative health and sanity: mens sana in corpore sano.
That quote allows me to take the argument one step farther: the Thales quote upon which the famous Juvenal quip seems based is the following: τίς εὐδαίμων, "ὁ τὸ μὲν σῶμα ὑγιής, τὴν δὲ ψυχὴν εὔπορος, τὴν δὲ φύσιν εὐπαίδευτος"
Who is happy? He who has a healthy body, a well-provided soul and a well-formed nature.
Thales is famous for a reason! Even St. Augustine said that a little toothache knocked him out like nothing before in his life. Physical pain can “ground” you like nothing else. It took Augustine and his buddies to their knees in Book 9 of the Confessions - and then he was well and wrote all the great stuff for which we happily remember him.
The soul that’s well-provided for, or resourceful, or has an easy thoroughfare, or is easily passible, etc. That’s the soul that is ready to do whatever it takes to flourish.
Now, you can have all that, but if you are not formed - in childhood, usually - in the proper manner, if you don’t get that proper “paideia”, then your nature will be fighting you at least half of the time, and you won’t have benefits of virtue, or “good habits”, which Aristotle and Cicero called “second nature”.
That paideia is formed primarily from exercise and food: The Anxious Generation was a very good book and it pinpointed the disaster that followed from the horrible changes to kids’ diet and exercise ever since the introduction of ubiquitous electronics.
Those ubiquitous electronics, ironically, are not found in my children’s possession and the monks do not have the opportunity to access any such unless it is for a single specific purpose for which a direct permission is needed. Thence, the anxiety - about anything, really - is just not there.
Life still has its troubles, pains, and annoyances, but a life that is free of anxiety is, well, exactly what St. Augustine said conversion freed him from in Books 8 and 9 of the Confessions. Anxiety is a spiritual condition that has physical, emotional, and mental factors contributing. So, do what you can on the human and divine fronts to cut off the source[s] of anxiety: don’t soak up the bad news and social media, go for walks and other exercise, and read things like Romeo and Juliet!