A Quiet Lake, A Broken Dryer, and the Fight to Stay Human: Hunter-Blatherers vs Inner Peace
Gabe just wanted a quiet moment by the lake—then came spiritual epiphanies, Dom fought a broken dryer, and they fight for the soul of modern life.
After a foggy, rainy Saturday, Gabe had been in a haze all day, managing kids, wrestling with a headache, and the weight of unprocessed thoughts. “I told my wife, I just need two or three hours by myself where I could just sit by a lake and just think,” Gabe said.
Sunday morning opened up, and he packed his bag: journal, Bible, free write pad, breakfast. “For twenty minutes, I just sat there. Not even doing anything. Just being.”
He noticed the quietness, a fisherman far off, birds in flight. “It was a moment of chill.” As he sat, a verse surfaced in his mind: Acts 17:28: “For in Him we live and move and have our being.”
He reflected on how often days end with a sense of disuse—as if his body wasn’t fully engaged, his energy not fully spent. That verse reframed it: “It’s not about doing enough. The day is housed within Him.”
And that led to another thought: “God doesn’t need me to succeed for His plan to work. He wants me, but He doesn’t need me. Even if I weren’t here, He’d still take care of my wife and kids. That’s sobering… but comforting too.”
The Cardinal and the Coincidence
Coincidence, metaphor, providence—all blur together. Gabe recalled a moment during Mass: “The moment I took Communion, I prayed, and I felt like, ‘The sun just came out.’ And I opened my eyes and—boom—the sun was bursting through the stained glass. Fog lifted. It was stunning.”
These moments, even if explainable, still feel significant. Dom added his own uncanny moment: saying “Good morning” quietly to the world on a walk, only to instantly hear “Good morning” back. It was plumbers greeting someone nearby. But still—it felt like a reply. “Could be nothing. Could be something,” we laugh.
We discuss Jung, discernment, and the ways imagination is a porous faculty—not just fantasy, but sometimes a receptor of real things. Dom shared the story of Jung and the beetle: how a therapist handed a client a beetle at just the right moment, which had deep personal meaning for them.
Gabe talked about the cardinal that always reminded him of his grandmother. “Whether it’s her or just a reminder of her, I’m still thinking of her. And that matters.”
The Hunter-Gatherer Framework
Gabe shared a framework he’d been working on to bring more rhythm to his life:
Movement – “We were meant to move. Run, jump, lift. Even if it’s just the laundry.” He referenced the idea of a farmer’s workout—lifting and carrying heavy things.
Communication – “Talk around the campfire. Debrief the day. Even the mailman counts.”
Creation – “Make something. Not just consume. Did I create anything today?”
Reflection – “Before bed, take a moment. What worked? What didn’t? Don’t let the day evaporate.”
He described the agitation of modern life and how it might stem from a lack of real movement. He reminisced about running and wanted to return to it.
Gabe agreed. “You focus on one thing. One animal, one goal. Not scattershot.”
Dom joked, “You can’t shoot three rabbits with one shot.”
Of AI, Journals, and the Shape of the Soul
They turned to ChatGPT and how it mirrors our thinking. Dom says, “Sometimes we don’t know what we think until someone says it back to us.”
Gabe had uploaded his journals and asked Chat to analyze them. It surfaced themes he hadn’t noticed. “It showed me what I was really wrestling with. But it couldn’t help me process it.” He noted that AI tends to default to generic advice—“just give yourself positive affirmations.”
The Rise of the Golem
Dom had just watched a bunch of movies.
He imagined a future where AI replaces us—and humans are left helpless, looking up.
“That’s the moment we realize: I want to be here. I want to live. I want to create. We need friction. We need struggle. That’s how we stay human.”
He compared the over-automation of life to the need for exercise—how we invented gyms after the Industrial Revolution because people stopped needing to move for work. “What if we used that energy to build things again?”
Gabe noted how many off-grid influencers are only able to survive because they monetize their lifestyle online. “It’s ironic. They preach disconnection—but it’s funded by being extremely connected.”
They talked about bartering—Gabe traded flyer design for home-roasted coffee. “That felt real.” Dom wanted more of that. “I want to need less. I want to trade more. Maybe offer land to someone who farms it and share the crops.”
Knowing the Land, Naming the Trees
Gabe talked about walking his property, naming trees with his kids, mapping memories to places. “There’s something special about returning to the same path and noticing the smallest changes.”
Dom agreed. “Our bodies should be fed by the land around us. Spiritually, emotionally. The Incarnation says it’s good to be here.”
Gabe recalled Avatar: The Last Airbender, when Uncle Iroh said, “Life happens wherever you are.”
Laundry Machines & Landlord Woes
And finally—Dom’s saga of the washer. A banshee dryer. A washing machine that broke down. A landlord who ghosted them for weeks. Parts that were backordered until December.
Dom tried calling repair services. Tried to buy the part from a store in New Jersey. They were customer 128 in the backlog. “We were so desperate, we almost drove five hours,” Dom said.
He researched Virginia law, exercised their rights, bought a new washer themselves, and deducted it from rent.
The landlord? Furious. Begging them to understand his financial situation.
“We didn’t want a war,” Dom said. “We wanted clean clothes.”
Gabe laughed. “If you have dirty laundry—air it in the comments.”