Ante and Oliver pick up the theme of restlessness, what it might mean, what its causes are, how it is both a positive and negative reality, how it serves as a central trope in classics and epic literature, the warnings that are encountered therein, the problem of hedonic insatiability and adaptability, how boredom and acedia connect to restlessness, whether the recipe of life beyond restlessness as encountered in ancient philosophy can teach us anything, how the Bible offers a middle path between rest and restlessness, how the absence of restlessness might signal moral depravity, and how the love of God invites us to embrace a sense of arrivedness.
EPISODE QUOTE
"It might be youth. It might be the reptilian impulses of a species with migration encoded in its DNA. It might be your inferiority complex or the boredom of small-town claustrophobia or the exhibitionist streak you’ve never told anyone about. It might be the hungers of ancestors whose aspirations have sunk into your bones, pushing you to go. It might be loneliness. It might be your inexplicable attraction to “bad boys” or the still unknown thrill of transgression and the hope of feeling something. It might be the self-loathing that has always been so weirdly bound up with a spiritual yearning. It might be the search for a mother, or a father, or yourself. It might be greed or curiosity. It might be liberation or escape. It might be a million other reasons, but we all leave." (Smith, 3).
EPISODE MATERIAL
Smith, On the Road with Saint Augustine
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In this podcast, we engage in free-ranging conversations on life, faith, philosophy, ethics, relationships, culture, experience, and all matters existential. And as the title of the show points out, we approach these things "in the middle of things," that is, by grabbing hold of them unsystematically and provisionally. Concerning "about us," we are friends and verbal sparring partners who also happen to be colleagues at Andrews University. - Oliver Glanz and Ante Jerončič
