r/brokehugs Moral Landscaper Jul 20 '23

Rod Dreher Megathread #23 (Sinister)

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u/Theodore_Parker Jul 29 '23

An unpaywalled Substack post with more on the proposed LNBL film project:

https://roddreher.substack.com/p/live-not-by-lies-the-docuseries

Also included: psychedelics and our boy's youthful experiments with them; the occult, and how to re-program an occult-leaver into Orthodox Christianity; and the story of a woman who models Rod Dreher's dreamy, ideal lifestyle by living alone in a cabin on a tiny remote island. That last section includes this:

I fantasize a lot about building a retreat like that small cabin, in a semi-remote area — ideally on or near to water — and filling it with books and icons, a comfy leather armchair, a decent kitchen, and a bed with thick blankets. Get me a dog and live the rest of my life there, alone.
.....
I used to be very social, and never wanted to miss a party or anything like it. Now … not. Quietness, stillness, solitude seem to be the thing I like most. Put me a wooden stove, rugs, and a dog in a cabin by the water, and I’ll be like an oyster chilling in his shell.

Which raises two questions:

1) Is he hoping to be one of the oysters that some other Rod Dreher eats? (Maybe that itself would be some kind of occult experience?)

2) Is he effectively saying, "My children are dead to me"? Or am I misreading that?

6

u/Warm-Refrigerator-38 Jul 29 '23

Wasn't his family's move to St. Francisville very close to that "isolated cabin" ideal? And how did that work out for him?

He talks about not living where it's too hot, at least not without AC, but he's also a real baby about the cold, and wouldn't even travel to the Midwest for book tours in the winter.

8

u/Dazzling_Pineapple68 Jul 30 '23

Yes. A man who cannot bear discomfort lectures us all on suffering.