Spiritual Parasites (the unseen ecosystem) pic.twitter.com/83RAcNoU52

— BlotterMonkey🐒 (@BlotterMonkey) October 25, 2026

This was rather disturbing but I think incredibly accurate. We all, myself included, are all using these devices. It's important to consider what these devices do to us in that, do they feed your demons.

I had the pleasure of attending a conference this weekend called Lifting the Veil with speakers Malcolm Guite, Martin Shaw, Joshua Luke Smith, and others. A lot of focused finding Christ in communion and collaboration with others through fellowship. Beautiful message I wanted to share in hopes in might inspire someone else to do the same.

I wonder why we all feel lonely, there's simply no explanation! pic.twitter.com/bWf0Iadod9

— Patrick Neve (@catholicpat) October 22, 2026

Ughhh…

So many factors.

I typed and retyped several thoughts and it doesn't come across right.

Summary:

Men are weak and women are living in a world they shouldn't and it makes everyone miserable.

The world is gross.

God is dead to most.

They broke the Church.

They broke the community.

They broke the family.

They isolated everyone.

They convinced women they would be happier working making corporations money instead of raising children.

They locked you to get your first mortgage based on two incomes so that she could never stop working and raise a family instead.

Inflation is a feature and not a bug as it makes sure everyone feels pressured to keep going.

Your both a .0000000000000000001% on a quarterly profit sheet prospectus.

You'll own nothing but you'll be "happy".

Renting is more profitable for corporations & banks as it doesn't lock them into a low interest rate for 30 years.

Everyone is too stressed and time is too limited to do any thing.

The government doesn't want you to belong to any group that could organize you.

Technology and social media are walking us to slow sad obedient and lonely deaths.

Frok said:

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I'm with y'all on this......I just don't know what to do about it. Everything is so busy and fast paced now. Nothing turns off.

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You have to turn it off.

Great verse!

I think your quotation of Matthew 10:39 hits on a fundamental spiritual truth but it's incomplete when offered alone.

It is correct that clinging selfishly to comfort, control, and worldly security is precisely how modern man ends up spiritually dead and isolated. Just as Adam tried to grasp life autonomously on his own terms and lost it, our culture obsesses over self-preservation and digital distraction and the fruit is misery.

The Christian remedy is self-emptying: dying to our ego, taking up our cross, and offering our will back to God.

However, throwing out a single verse without application leaves an incomplete solution isn't helping much in regards to the question that you asked about how to navigate daily life.

To me the verse offered without explanation sounds nihilistic or simplistic. I don't know the OPs understanding of texts or faith so I don't want to presume he knows it or doesn't.

Christianity isn't nihilism. It does not tell us to passively suffer in paralysis until we die.

We must navigate real burdens.

Mortgages, careers, raising families, and managing exhaustion.

It's not abstract.

You do it in actual life.

Shutting off the screen and being physically present with your family and neighbors.

Giving up the illusion of total control and perfectionism so you can actually do the work right in front of you.

Seeking communion, regular prayer, and community instead of retreating into comfortable isolation.

The verse gives direction but breaking the cycle of modern paralysis is how you actually start living it.

Most of the time you can't change much, but you can change how you react to it.

Frok said:

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I'm with y'all on this......I just don't know what to do about it. Everything is so busy and fast paced now. Nothing turns off.

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I'm sorry you are feeling stuck in the rat race. I don't know you particular status in work and life. But remember you have to give consent to play the game. Sometimes just finding one aspect of your life to reclaim as your own will be the first of a series that will eventually break you free from the Matrix. Get a used car. Get rid of a bunch of subscriptions. Have a pizza and Uno night with the family instead of an expensive night at a restaurant or the movies. Ease the burn so you aren't so reliant on a money stream to reduce the heat and pressure.

Soon after Covid, I got tired of the grind running my own clinic. I shut it down and joined a big group. I was very specific about what workload I was willing to do and I let them set my salary based off that. I had decided I was no longer interested in the career. It is a job and if I get hit by a bus they will find someone else to fill my roll there and not miss a beat. I know that is true because they had a provider die of cancer several years before I started. No one there remembers her name anymore.

The only people who keep her memory alive are her friends and family. Those will be the only people I will matter to when I die. As such, those are the individuals to which I have turned my upmost attention. Can I take the trips and buy the things I once did? No. However, I feel much more "wealthy".

I once heard someone lament, "you won't know the last time your child will reach up and hold your hand until that moment is gone". That hit hard. I'm determined to treat more interactions I have with them that frame of reference and it has brought me much joy.

Good words by Cracker and FIDO.

You absolutely have to swim against the current of the world. Be intentional about everything you do with a life devoted to Christ. This should infect every aspect of life.

I try to dwell on this

41 "Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but few things are neededor indeed only one.[a] Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."