Do you know what they eat in gulags?

It’s a milky gray substance, something of a pulverized compost soup that not even a stray dog would eat, and nor would you, unless of course you were stuck in the gulag.

Many say the odorless, colorless glob of mystery mush would be far better if it had a bitter or even rancid flavor about it. Instead, they are forced to slurp down a thin (though sporadically chunky) sludge, similar to wet mud, without the flavor of mud. In fact, there is no flavor whatsoever, and that is a problem. For even a rancid flavor is more interesting than no flavor at all.

But the worst part about it, about the liquefied gravel ladled out of rusting lukewarm soup pots, is that it provides prisoners with absolutely nothing positive except for a short break between long miserable working hours.

In other words, without any nutritional substance, the value of gulag grub is equal to that of a soft, flavorless, half-stick of gum that one moves around in their mouth simply because it’s something to move around in their mouth.

That food, if it can be described as such, is comparable to the advice offered by the widely accepted and beloved modern self-development movement.

How can I draw such a comparison, you ask? Have I spent time in the cold, so cold, Soviet prisons? No, not yet, dear comrade! But I have done time in a different type of labor camp. A self-imposed labor camp directed by podcasts, books, and speakers that sell progress in all the areas of life except the one that is more important than the rest combined: progress of the soul.

By specifying ‘modern’ self-development, I infer the ancient form to be somehow superior to what we are stuck with today. To understand why, we need to travel back to the place that gave us the Olympic Games, democracy, and the world’s best salad: Greece.

It was here that the roots of self-development were born. Specifically, out of the minds of all those Greek guys that people love to reference without ever having picked up one of their books.

I’m talking about Socrates, the graybeard who liked asking questions and believed that an unexamined life isn’t worth living.

Plato, who used the Allegory of the Cave to illustrate that the physical world is not the ultimate reality, but rather a flawed copy of a perfect, intangible realm of forms.

And Aristotle, who wrote several books on the science of living a good life and taught that the highest good for a human is to reach a state of eudaimonia, which is often wrongly translated as 'happiness.' The truer meaning of eudaimonia is something like 'flourishing' or 'well-being.' One achieves this state by striving to fulfill their highest potential, or so he said.

Socrates mentored Plato, Plato mentored Aristotle, and Aristotle tutored Alexander the Great, whose conquests initiated Hellenization: the spread of Greek culture, language, and virtues that would go on to pave the road not only for the self-development movement but Christianity itself.

This is why Saint Justin Martyr when defending and explaining Christianity to the pagan Emperor Antoninus Pius wrote:

"For those who are called philosophers were seeking, indeed, the same things as we, but they were only seeking them, not finding them, for they were in the dark."

 — First Apology, Chapter 46 (~155 AD)

And:

"I confess that I both boast and with all my strength strive to be found a Christian; not because the teachings of Plato are different from those of Christ, but because they are not in all respects similar, as neither are those of the others, Stoics, and poets, and historians.

For each man spoke well in proportion to the share he had of the disseminated word, seeing what was related to it."

— First Apology, Chapter 13

Good gracious! Enough with the history channel business? No one learns from that anyway. Get to the meat and potatoes, my good man!

Yes, you are quite right. I am equally impatient, which makes this whole writing business quite the challenge. But I promise it wasn’t for nothing.

The point is that the ancient Greeks never lost sight of the soul. Christianity then began to spread, thanks to virtues already seeded by Greek philosophers, and the soul became the sole focus.

To both groups, focusing on sculpting your body without sculpting the soul would have made as much sense as watering the rocks around the garden instead of the garden itself. A fruitless pursuit.

We seem to have lost that somewhere. I’m not sure how or when, but the soul took a backseat. That’s probably why, for nearly a decade, I slumped my way back to the soup kitchen to order up yet another round of self-help slop, thinking, ‘Maybe, just maybe, this will finally be the one to nourish my bones!’

Surprise! It didn’t.

Try as they might, cheap substitutes will never be able to offer the results of the real thing. A bean burger won’t satiate you like a bison burger, no matter how much ketchup is slabbed on to it.

I only realized this after trying to be Christian. It was, and largely still is, a disaster.

I can make my bed, skip the donut, work out five times a week, take ice baths, and read every day.

But I can’t pray for five minutes without getting distracted, humility is more foreign to me than any far-off country I’ve seen, and the only time I turn the other cheek is when I need to get the right angle on a clean shave (I don’t clean shave).

The virtues I was cultivating in the self-improvement space have not translated into the virtues I want to build as a Christian man. Worse, some of them seem to actively undermine Christian ideals.

Freedom.

In the modern world, freedom is the ability to do what you want when you want. In Christianity, you are free once you are no longer a slave to desires and passions. The same is true for classical Greek teachings, including stoicism.

One views freedom as the ability to choose; the other as the ability to choose well.

Happiness.

People tell me happiness is the goal.

But what is happiness?

A state free of struggle. Or so they say.

In ancient Greece, however, eudaimonia was attained through the process of striving for your utmost potential, which by definition is the most difficult thing you can do.

In Christianity, joy is the result of theosis: the process of becoming fully united with God through spiritual edification and grace. This requires a bit of work. Only part of which, is death to all of your worldly desires and passions.

To the latter two, true happiness isn’t attained in a state free from struggle, but in the exact opposite: constant struggle. It’s purification by fire.

Discipline.

Saying that discipline is praised as a virtue in the self-development space would be an understatement. It is a pillar, possibly the core pillar, of the industry.

This isn’t inherently wrong; skipping the donut and making your bed are positive steps. But what is discipline worth without humility and love? Would we call Hitler virtuous because his discipline was world-class?

I could say only a dolt or dullard would sleep under a roof supported by fragile pillars, but since that is precisely what I did for nearly a decade in the gulag, I’d be calling myself a dim-witted simpleton.

There is no way around this. That is exactly what I am. If I weren’t, it would be quite impossible to write these points out, as my imagination isn’t where you’d expect it to be for a writer. But like I said, I’m more of a simpleton trying to become something other than a simpleton than I am a writer. So bear with me and learn from my mistakes.

Fitness

It’s easier to judge when I’m fit. Why? Because humility becomes optional when you are stronger than others. This is why we adore figures who are strong, yet gentle.

But that’s not me, yet.

I’m still the guy in the gym seeking my reflection in one of the many mirrors and saying, “Check out that candy-apple of a bicep mannnn.”

Okay, maybe I don’t go that far, but I do think “Wow, look at all the progress I’ve made” while fully knowing my soul is in disarray.

That’s the thing of this self-development business. On paper (or in the mirror) everything looks good, but internally, you could be an absolute wreck. That’s how I finally realized it was dead-end. Jesus said you shall know the tree by it’s fruit, and this fruit was about as nourishing as…well, you know, whatever it is they eat in gulags.

Death

Memento Mori (Remember Death) and Nemini Parco (No One Is Spared) are Latin phrases commonly traded amongst self-development bros to spark an urgent sense of intent action. Within the industry, there’s an entire ecosystem of podcasts, videos, and clothes promoting this ideology.

I bought into it. For a year, my screensaver was a skull and cross bones with an hourglass trickling down its last bit of sand.

Studied more closely, however, these phrases are born from a fear of hell.

Even if the person doesn’t believe in hell, the remembrance of death is supposed to lead them to a more virtuous path, free of errors. In other words, a divine path devoid of sin.

On these Latin phrases, modern Saint Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia wrote:

“In our attempt to avoid sin, we invoke these thoughts so that our soul will be filled with fear or death, hell, and the devil. The concept of fear is good in the initial stages. It is for beginners, those in whom our ancestoral fallen nature lives on. The beginner, whose sensibility has not yet been refined, is held back from evil by fear. And the fear is essential sense we are men of flesh and blood and earth-bound. But that is a stage, a low level of relationship to the divine. For someone to become good out of fear of God and not out of love is not of such value.”

(Wounded By Love)

Like jewels on a crown, self-development followers adore these phrases. To a Christian, they are merely tools useful for those at the lowest level of the spiritual ladder.

Masculinity

The man with the most options is envied; therefore, aim to become the man with the most options. Money and power get options. Bad boys have options. Rebels, rule-breakers, the lone wolf who walks unapologetically through life in his own way, never stopping to ask for permission. It’s an idea sold by Hollywood and bought by guys like me. It’s like a dead end but worse, because usually, you bring others with you.

The Christian ideal of masculinity is one of simplicity, love, humility, spiritual leadership, and self-sacrifice, following the example of Christ. That’s a much harder masculinity to sell.

By now, I’m sure you see the point.

Pride is baked into the current self-development industry. And because pride’s appetite only grows, the further you progress down that path, the more likely you are to feel justified in your own pride.

And guess what happens when you advance spiritually in Christianity? Exactly the opposite.

Humility takes over. You become a servant to your fellow man. This is why many saints (the ones closest to perfection, furthest along the spiritual ladder) say they are least worthy of God’s love, the lowest of the low.

It’s not so complicated.

If I wrote better, I could’ve made the point in a couple of paragraphs or less. It’s right there in the phrase: ‘self’-development. Self, me, ego, pride.

The path to development is path to hatred and self-loathing.

Many times, I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror. The divide between my concept of self and the reality of self was too great. It was unbearable. No matter how hard I tried to be perfect, telling myself, ‘enough is enough,’ ‘no more self-sabotage,’ ‘no more wasted time,’ ‘just work harder, be better,’ I would inevitably fall again, and again, and again.

I got sick and tired of being sick and tired. I wore myself out, labored in vain. No matter how many bowls of gulag chow I choked down, my soul remained unnourished, unmoved.

Something had to change. I needed out of this place. I needed to escape.

“For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?”

–Matthew 16:25-26 

P.S.

This is a story about my time in the gulag.

It’s a story of how wrong I was about so many things, all of which were embarrassingly, self-imposed.

This story, however, is largely incomplete, for how can one share a story of the gulag without first escaping it?

In my next piece, I’ll share how I came to make the great escape. Rather, I’ll tell stories of the ones who came to set me free. Your only hint is that they wear black and have long, twisting beards.

For two years, I’ve tried to write that story. I now know exactly why it didn’t come out, and so do you if you read this essay carefully.

Since since my pigeons are cooped up for the winter, you’ll have to write your email in the box below if you’d like to be notified when that installment is finished.

Until then, fight the good fight (but not on your own).

-Z