Dear Fellow Hypertraditionalist

"The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.” G.K. Chesterton

 Everyone I know and whom I also respect, and with whom I can laely find fellowship in any way, has some aspect in their personality and soul which can be called hypertraditionalist.

It reminds me of the movie The Village directed by M. Night Shyamalan. I have to discuss it with a spoiler here.

The story is about a group of present-day Americans who, scarred by personal trauma in their lives, collectively retreat into a "living history" past compound in teh woods, completely cut off from the outside world. It is like some fantasy island Amish adventure that lasts the rest of ones life. The movie implies that this retreat into the traditionalist past arises from the wounds the characters have suffered in the present-day world. As a viewer, one is motivated to feel pity for them.

I like the premise in the movie. Perhaps the wounds I have suffered in my own life are the reason for my own  hypertraditionalism. But I don't want any pity because I think we are all of us suffering those type of wounds because the outside contemporary world, instead of the being the baseline reality of sanity and normalcy by which things should judged, should itself be regarded as a soul-mangling hellscape designed to shatter out minds and bodies into splinters and lead humanity into darkness.

At the same time I write this, I make my living doing advanced tech projects, and I am using the Internet to communicate to you, my dear reader out there. 

We negotiate the ways in which we can be hypertraditionalist, each one of us. We are part-time actors in our various living history museums, whether they are located in four walls, or in the words we speak and the manners by which we treat others, and raise our children. It can be in the way we seek health and relief from pain. Above all, it can be in the way we worship God,

We are each of us conserving something we think needs to be conserved. We have appointed ourselves the conservators of this piece of the shattered landscape of the world, because someone needs to do it. We are glad when we see others step forward to be conservators in their own way. We have no jealousy but rather relief when we see others come to join us, and work with us shoulder to shoulder.

We know the culture as a whole is not with us. It seeks to demonize us, and destroy us, even with a soft voice on the radio mocking us. Even when they can find anything overtly wrong with us, we know they will lie about us, making up any accusation they think might stick with others.

We do not begrudge those who desire to live in contemporary mores without our perspective, but so often we see that this is accompanied by a willingness to believe the lies about us, in a bad faith manner. IT suggests to us they simply hate us, and want us to go away and vanish. They do not want to extend the courtesy of live and let live to us to us, but must force our submission to a great paradigm in which all things traditional must be seen as pitiful, like the characters in the movie I mentioned.

I feel sorry for them. Perhaps they are just one trauma, one bad scrape with the world,  from joining us. To me, it feels as if we are the lucky ones. I have felt great joy after embracing this knowledge about myself and others.

For those of you out there fighting the good fight, acting in your living history way, I salute you with Christmas joy. Let this be my Christmas card to you. Know that many of us are deeply grateful to see that you are with us, even if we never speak or see each other.