Restore Culture by Restoring the Imagination | Anthony Esolen

This lecture was given on February 23, 2019.

[@PontoLyone]

Man I wish I went to St. Thomas Moore college... my English degree from Mizzou doesnt mean anything to me because of the secular interpretation of everything the teachers taught me. Needless to say, we did not read anything Sir Esolen just mentioned.

[@PontoLyone]

Sir Esolen, I'm anxious, I watched a video of Jordan Peterson saying a person's creativity climaxes at age 27. Right now, I am 25, and I feel moments of rich creativity, ideas come to me that I feel have potential, that I ought to draw out to their splendor. But as of yet, i have not done so. In two years time, will these moments of creative inspiration cease, or at the very least, slow down to the point where I no longer feel inspired to write? I pray, that my staying close to Christ in the sacraments, and through the intercession of Mary, I might be able to feel these moments of inspiration well into my years, God willing. As for now, the world beckons, and I attempt to secure financial security through becoming a CPA and MBA. My time is spent on more worldly things, but time, I dream, will find it's way to deeper things.

[@debraesolen5258]

Certainly a person's creativity does not peak at age 27. But imagination is like a muscle which needs constant exercise lest it atrophy. What you do in your twenties (and really at any age) to keep your imagine "toned" is to read good and great books -- poetry, novels, excellent writers, listen to great music -- classical and popular (I hate to say not much of the canned "product" that we are fed in our times qualifies as acceptable, let alone great), surround yourself with beautiful things, art that is represents beauty and truth, read the scriptures and expose yourself daily to the revealed Word of God. If you do those things, you will increase your creativity through the inspiration you imbibe every day, no matter if you do have to pay the bills by working as a CPA or any other occupation. Surround yourself by beauty and you cannot fail to be inspired to create more beauty.

[@erickelleher3911]

Keep it up while you got it...

[@PontoLyone]

Happiness is just a word to me And it might of meant a thing or two If I had known the difference Emptiness, a lonely parody And my life, another smokin' gun A sign of my indifference Always keepin' safe inside Where no one ever had a chance To penetrate a break in Let me tell you some have tried But I would slam the door so tight That they could never get in Kept my cool under a lock and key And I never shed a tear Another sign of my condition Fear of love of bitter vanity That kept me on the run The main events at my confession I kept a chain upon my door That would shake the shame of Cain Into a blind submission The burning ghost without a name Was still calling all the same But I just wouldn't listen The longer I'd stall The further I'd crawl The further I'd crawl The harder I'd fall I was crawlin into the fire The more that I saw The further I'd fall The further I'd fall The lower I'd crawl I kept fallin' into the fire Into the fire Into the fire Suddenly it occurred to me The reason for the run and hide Had totaled my existence Everything left on the other side Could never be much worse than this But could I go the distance I faced the door and all my shame Tearin' off each piece of chain Until they all were broken But no matter how I tried The other side was locked so tight The doow it wouldn't open Gave it all that I got And started to knock Shouted for someone To open the lock I just gotta get through the door And the more that I knocked The hotter I got The hotter I got The harder I knocked I just gotta break through the door Gotta knock a little harder Gotta knock a little harder Gotta knock a little harder Break through the door

[@donaldwatson3176]

Amen.

[@Laocoon283]

12:50 This was my favorite thing about Dostoevsky's The Idiot. That Mishkin was such an aberration to their perception of the world that they instinctively mocked him but without even being conscious of it they were also drawn to him. They didn't even know how desperately they wanted that earnest goodness in their lives until it was presented to them. You don't know what you don't know.

[@iphang-ishordavid2954]

Beautiful will save the world -Dostoevsky

[@ronaldmilner8932]

This was an amazing speech!

[@FranciscoWeslley31]

what's is the imagination in your book: ten ways to Destroy of the imagination of your child? Sorry for errors of grammar I 'm from Brazil and I know not the english language very well.

[@KL0098]

I have lots of respect for anyone who can recite Hopkins from memory, but it's kind of cringey to see this continuous appeal to solve problems with things from the past that were just as problematic back then. The speaker who's reciting poetry as a cultural salve is also endorsing Plato, the autocrat who idealized a city without artists, especially poets, including I presume Hopkins. Somehow the deplorables indulge in tacky modern culture because it's easier than reading Shakespeare; would that be the same Shakespeare who, along with his fellow Elizabethan playwrights, was always on the verge of being forbidden to stage plays because not a few Christians argued that moral decadence (yes, people, there were cultural wars in the 1600s; yes, there were conservative curmudgeons who saw cultural decadence everywhere then) and the theater went in hand?

[@jasonh.8754]

Read: need to find a new set of lies/delusions.