The initial trailer for the film Interstellar is a striking tease of the movie, charting man’s real life course into space, focusing on the human reaction to each new reaching achievement. There’s only one shot in the trailer from the final film: Matthew McConaughey’s Cooper tearfully speeding away from his family.
With only the trailer to go by, the viewer is left to wonder: why is he leaving his family? Where is he going?
As his voiceover narration says:
“Or perhaps we've just forgotten that we are still pioneers. And we've barely begun. And that our greatest accomplishments cannot be behind us, because our destiny lies above us".
A little on the nose, which is perhaps the film’s greatest flaw. Still it’s a film that knows what it wants to tell you: a clear and important message emanating from this very first trailer all the way to the film’s closing credits: Keep going. It’s the only way anything worthwhile ever gets accomplished.
There will be hardships and sacrifices. Keep Going. There will be pain and death. Keep Going. Each planet they visit extracts a terrible emotional and human cost. Keep Going. They’ve gone further than anyone else in history. Keep Going. They have to do the impossible. Keep Going.
Even after Cooper has saved the day and reunites with his elderly daughter, he still Keeps Going as the last thing you see him do is opening the outer doors and returning again to the vastness of space.
A lot of people criticize this ending, leaving his daughter so soon after finding her, but maybe it’s the right ending for the story being told.
Life is about going forward, not backward.
“But We’ve Lost That”
For generations, the path to personal stability was through one’s relationships and alliances. But the narrative path which has come to dominate modern American life is personal stability by aligning oneself with a long list of stable institutions. This was a great idea when it worked: these institutions were competent, high achieving, they embodied the feeling of “Keep Going”. They made life better and if you wanted to do great things, you’d do well to hop on board.
But that narrative is sputtering, struggling to hold its head above water. Institutional excellence and competence have given way to complacency and neglect. To rely on them is to be well acquainted with disappointment and disillusionment; to be taught by them is to risk being unprepared and lacking in principle. Across the private and public sectors, there’s a sense that these institutions are simply too big to succeed on a human level; that they now exist as self-sustaining black holes rather than as ladders to peace and prosperity.
We need new narratives, ones that are found outside the involvement of mass institutions; we need to create new “Keep Going” alternatives.
But to make matters worse, our personal need to “Keep Going” has given way to lifestyle creep. The biggest obstacles holding us back are not a political nemesis or an all powerful “Big Brother” but a high mortgage, a $750 monthly car payment and only 3 days accrued PTO. “Gosh guys, I’d love to be a revolutionary, and change the narrative and all, but darn it, I don’t have enough vacation days.”
What’s Required
We are no longer a pioneering people but limited individuals holed up within lonely and skill-less comfort zones from which we declare with a false sense of pride: “This far I will go, and no farther.”
What is required of us today is a focused effort to build a family and a home capable of community, fraternity and interdependence. And to raise children capable of carrying the torch after us. And to build a life, including work, which will allow us to attend and contribute to the revolution.
We are all now estranged from each other and we can’t do it alone. What’s required first and foremost is a personal investment into relationships. From those family and communal commitments will spring the alternative institutions and patterns of living which we so desperately need in:
the education and training of our youth
the cultural expectations of family, marriage and child-rearing
the accreditation of knowledge and experience
the employment and social patterns which keep men (and women) out of local community.
and of course, in culture and the arts.
It will not be easy. It will not be convenient. It will be risky. But that’s ok, you’re starting a multi-generational conflict against mainstream American culture - not assembling a conservative retirement portfolio with a predictable rate of return. Revolutions are not about predictable returns, or even your personal future, it’s about “Keep Going”.
The question that every man must ask himself is “Am I willing to invest time, money, energy, my expertise or other resources into ideas/projects which create alternative institutions?”
If the answer is no, then, no worries, we can take the easy road and coast into mainstream oblivion.
But if the answer is yes, then we can get started. While there are existing and worthy organizations, such as EXIT, that are fishing in these waters, you can’t wait on them to scale their projects and come to save you.
If you want educational alternatives for your kids, or different cultural expectations and standards, or apprentice or alternative career opportunities, you’ll need to work with other parents and adults around you and make them happen today. If you have the financial means, then you need to fund them.
What’s the rate of return on that Bob? 5%? 10%?
The return is you leave a legacy of life for the generations which come after you. So they can achieve even greater things. It’s not about you. It’s not even completely about your kids. It’s about “Keep Going”.
The only thing at stake is civilization itself. No big deal. As
recently wrote:…inheritance is not just wealth, it is history, responsibility, leadership, and the dependence of the surrounding community. Anything that requires multi-generational education to appreciate and support, like the fine arts - ballet, music, etc. - wither and gradually disappear. Nurturing the heights of civilizational refinement is a non-trivial responsibility. What cannot wholly disappear, like the buildings of the great estates, becomes lifeless and ossified, becoming museum pieces rather than elements of a living culture. But no, our [society] chooses discontinuity between father and son, between one generation and the next. No shared responsibility and destiny, just a total reset to individualization.1
This is a difficult thing.
It requires a whole new view of charity, family, ownership, and wealth. It requires releasing from our minds the consumer friendly idea that each new generation of family has to accumulate and then spend it all before death; that legacy is to be found only in donation, and meaning is to be broken and remade from scratch again and again. It’s embracing the possibility that your life and your resources exist not just for your personal enjoyment, but are an inherited stewardship; for which you do your part to nurture, before passing it on.
What’s required is a sort of new constructive energy; an impractical bravery to build alternative educational and cultural paths through the wilderness. The kind of impractical bravery it took to leave the sight of the shore and sail into the unknown sea, the kind of impractical bravery it took to ride a rocket into space.
Again, this is not just for me, or even just for our kids, but for the building of a society in which our kids will have to live in.
A Vision
I find it both amusing and sad that rich college alumni are willing to spend tens of millions of dollars to make bad sports coaches and their contracts go away. How badly do they want a winning football team? So badly they’re willing to part with more money than most people earn in their lifetimes just at the chance the next coach might do a better job.
But though I mock them, at least they understand and embrace the fact that paying the buyout of a bad coach does not yield a quantifiable return on investment; for them it’s a personal matter of investing into a vision they may never live to see or enjoy. But they believe in it.
Because it’s their legacy.
Today we might feel like we’re not the men capable of revolutionizing the mainstream narratives. It’s easy to think of your life circumstances and say “Who am I to do something different? What makes me qualified?”
Nothing, you’re probably not qualified in your present state. But what makes us qualified is to Keep Going, to seek fraternity and from those relationships the answers for the generations that come after us will be revealed:
How do my actions today prepare my children for an adult life of responsibility, family and parenthood?
What activities, events or other barriers keep me far apart from my family or my family far apart from other families?
How can I help my children be prepared financially and emotionally for marriage?
Outside of public school and college, how can I help my kids learn? How can I be more involved as a father? Which other people in my circle should they be learning from?
How can I help them avoid the soul crushing, golden-handcuffs provided by email jobs? Can I escape this myself?
How can I meaningfully connect with the men at church or on my street to build alternatives?
What can I do to convince my friends this is a worthy cause?
What changes can I make to my work/career to free up time to invest in alternatives for my kids?
What mainstream narratives and assumptions around culture and entertainment are making me lethargic and need to be reexamined?
Like many others, probably my favorite scene from the film Interstellar is the docking scene. The music, the visuals, the stakes all hit perfectly. A masterclass in filmmaking. Again, the dialogue is a little on the nose: Cooper’s robot friends all tell him docking “is not possible” and he agrees, but proceeds anyway - boldly yet softly saying, “No, it’s necessary.”
Building a village in the atomized 21st century is simply not possible, but it’s also necessary and so that’s why we’ll Keep Going until we succeed.
Do You Need Guidance?
These are big ideas and the details need to be planned and tailored to your village and circumstances. Often I find it helpful to get the perspective of someone far removed from my circumstances. To that end, I’m available to consult with you to help you succeed.
What’s Coming?
In August, I plan on writing on the following topics:
The careers and types of work which are most “village-friendly”.
Homeschooling For Boys, specifically.
What I’ve learned from feedback on my book about building a village.
Publishing my first interview with a master village builder.
The type of village building projects and initiatives that make the biggest difference and how I can help you.
Excellent and very timely.
Another gorgeous piece. Inspiring! We're hacking our way through this wilderness together.