In my book proposal currently with my agent I have a chapter with the working title, “How Shall We Then Live?” The sentence has been on my mind for a few months now, ever since I began reading the work of Iain McGilchrist on how left brain/right brain differences affect today’s culture.

The right hemisphere is the primary hemisphere for humans, and the left serves as its emissary. But for the last 500 years left hemisphere thinking has ruled western culture, with plenty of attendant problems. Simply but accurately, the left hemisphere is great at figuring out how to grab things, while the right is great at making sure you’re not eaten by a grizzly bear while you are reaching out and grabbing things.

In a left-hemisphere dominated culture, not enough attention is paid to the right brain’s protection. The left brain says, “I can create AI.” The right brain’s job is to ask, “But is it going to eat us?” In today’s world, not enough people with enough power are focused asking that right brain question.

In the best-selling book, If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies, the authors paint a pretty bleak picture of what happens when artificial super intelligence arrives. They present a convincing case that ASI will in fact, eat us. They say it is not too late to stop it. We’ve controlled nuclear weapons for 80 years because the entire world knows how dangerous they are. They believe ASI can be controlled too, but only if everyone in the world stops building it. Of course, that won’t happen until we all see how truly dangerous it is.

I cannot act at a global level, but I can at a personal level, and I have additional concerns about AI. The arrival of cell phones has brought adolescents who do not know how to show empathy, do not have the ability to put information in a holistic context, and who have a low emotional quotient. With the arrival of ChatGPT we can expect a whole new crop of deficits to develop, all harming the development and health of the human brain.

Only recently have I begun to have to interact with AI, primarily through Google search. Google makes it very difficult to turn off the AI feature in their searches, and those searches have a lot of inaccuracies. If you do a Google AI search of my name, the first seven paragraphs contain five errors, and none of the paragraphs contain information that is current. All of it relates to my first few years as Paula.

If that is the case with my name, it is safe to assume that is the case with pretty much anything Google AI pulls up in searches. I am no longer doing my searches through Google. I’m now using DuckDuckGo.

I never activate the AI feature of Word, nor am I using ChatGPT. I am a writer and speaker. I do not want to diminish those skills. I want to enhance them. I work with speakers, and I can quickly tell if a client is utilizing ChatGPT. They end up speaking in a stilted way because they are using words and grammatical structures that are not natural to them. The words may be smooth, but they are not natural when spoken by my client.

I am not making these decisions because of my age. Learning new technology continues to be relatively easy and natural for me. I am rejecting AI because it is not good for me. I will stick my neck out and say it is not good for you either. If you can explain to me how it truly enhances your life instead of diminishes your life, then I will acquiesce. But nothing I’ve read or heard convinces me that it is good for any of us.

Will AI eat us? That is a bigger question than I can answer, but I would recommend the book I mentioned earlier in this post. I would not suggest reading it when you are depressed, or dysthymic, or suffering from acedia. It will not help you break out of your ennui. But if you are in a place in which sober thinking has room to take root, I’d suggest you inform yourself of the dangers of AI, both for your personal growth, and for the future of the species and planet.

Okay, I promise, in my next post I’ll find something positive to write about. My posts have been skewing a little dark of late.

And so it goes.

A spotlight was shone on gaming culture when it became known that the young man charged with killing Charlie Kirk was a gamer. It is a growing worldwide phenomenon whose major adherents are young men in their twenties. Many become so immersed in gaming culture that it becomes the defining feature of their lives.

As with America’s fixation with zombies, which I will get to a little later, gaming culture is a direct result of the search for meaning in postmodern life. Humans are hard-wired for story. As I have written many times, we do not sleep without dreaming, and we do not dream in mathematical equations. Well, at least most of us don’t. We dream in stories. Story is a biological necessity for humans.

Today’s world is bereft of meaningful metanarratives, (big stories that explain the meaning of life and provide structure for living.) With our need for story being biological, when our culture provides no meaningful stories, we will create our own, hence the arrival of gaming culture, among other cultural shifts taking place today.

What is the allure of gaming culture? It gives the participants a role in a big story with understandable rules, a clear task, and a way to increase their standing in the world. They can immerse themselves in the game and get in a flow state in which they lose track of time, something that happens to all of us when we are immersed in something that requires our full attention. All of these are missing for young people today.

Video games do not require a high emotional quotient or the ability to bodily interact with other humans, making it attractive to those with a left brain preference and/or right brain deficit. It might be noted that with the arrival of AI “relationships” these young people can also have all kinds of interactions, including sexual, without human contact, something we already see on the increase.

Gen Z, those born between 1997 and 2012, is a generation marked by a sense of digital fluency, pragmatism, and unfortunately, meaninglessness. No wonder they gravitate to video games. They provide the elements otherwise missing from their lives.

Interestingly, Gen Z is also returning to church, conservative churches to be exact. You might be surprised to learn that more young men are turning to church than young women. One third of Gen Z are not religious and 38 percent never go to church. None of that is a surprise. But 24 percent go to church every week, quite a surprise, with young men more likely to attend weekly than young women. Only 60 percent of Gen Z females say they are religious, while 66 percent of males say they are.

What kinds of churches do these young men attend? Conservative churches that give them a role in a big story with understandable rules, a clear task, and since only men are allowed into leadership, a unique way to increase their standing in the world. Sound familiar?

With only men allowed in leadership, conservative churches actually have a one-up on video game culture. If we understand this, we understand the allure of Charlie Kirk, a man with a limited education but  high intelligence, with a focused ability to make arguments from very specific categories in rapid-speak that demands one’s full attention. He gave young men a big story with understandable rules, a clear task, and a way to advance in the world.

Had he not been killed, as the years passed Kirk might have come to see the sadly narrow categories of intellectual ability he had nurtured. He might have come to understand the need for a better education, and he might have come to see that his brand of Christianity had more in common with Plato than Jesus. But then again, the kind of power and notoriety he enjoyed would have made it difficult to develop the self-examination necessary to come to those insights. Tragically, we will never know the ways in which he might have grown had he come under the influence of better angels.

When we see the dilemma of Gen Z young men, however, we can understand Kirk’s meteoric rise. He provided a religious and political alternative to gaming culture, with the added feature of misogynistic notions of leadership. Mark Driscoll provided the same elements when he was in his heyday at Mars Hill Church in Seattle, before he was let go for his “domineering leadership style, quick temper, and arrogant demeanor.” One wonders if those features of his personality would have caused him to be terminated today? I’m thinking probably not.

The current fixation with zombies is also a sign of a culture that has lost any sense of meaning. Zombies move collectively, but not communally. They move in the same direction with arms outstretched, but alone. Now, think of the streets of Manhattan during rush hour? What you see is people moving collectively, but not communally. Only instead of their arms stretched out in front of them, they are stretched downward and slightly forward as they stare at their phone screens.

Zombie culture also illustrates a world in which there is no spiritual transcendence. There is a resurrection, but it is not to life as a greater being. One is resurrected to life as a lesser being.

Cultural trends do not develop in a vacuum. If we are willing to spend the time necessary to study them, they will provide clues into the sicknesses of our times. The loss of meaning in today’s world is an epidemic. AI is not going to help, as humans become less connected, and ultimately, less necessary. It might be time to take another look at the Luddites.

And so it goes.

I had a wonderful time last weekend at the Lynnewood United Methodist Church in Pleasanton, California. What a delightful group of people, and how incredibly responsive they were. I hope I have a chance to return. The weekend was a reminder of how much good there is in America.

I flew home from San Jose on Sunday evening, and on Monday I spent about seven hours  in meetings at town hall. The town board meeting included a lot of residents who wanted to speak about concerns in their neighborhoods. They were civil, though I’d have to say not very trusting of the town board or staff, which I find puzzling. Under the circumstances, however, I was happy to have civility.

I have served on the Board of Trustees for three and a half years. For the last eighteen months I have served as mayor pro tem. I’ve had a lot of people angry with me over that period, but far more who have expressed support for me and for the rest of the board, grateful for our willingness to do a job that takes a lot of time with little return on investment, other than knowing you’ve done the best you can for our residents. Come to think of it, that is actually a very good return on the investment of my time.

I have been very cognizant of the fact that not once in three and a half years have I heard anyone in town attack me because I am transgender, or even acknowledge it. I think that is wonderful. What I like most is when my gender identity is incidental to the work I do. It is that way in Lyons, but in the rest of the nation, not so much.

Transgender opponents have been greatly emboldened since the 2016 presidential election. In 2024 over 700 anti-trans laws were introduced in the United States with 51 passed into law in 17 states. I tried to see the good news in that – fewer than eight percent actually passed.

All of that now seems almost quaint. On his inauguration day the president signed an executive order that said transgender people do not exist. He has since signed six more executive orders targeting transgender people. That does not include his offer to nine universities to receive preferential treatment for government funds if they will stop teaching “gender ideology” and recognize only two genders, biologically determined. Nor does it include the almost countless number of additional inflammatory statements and threats that have been made by the president and other federal employees about transgender people.

Knowing they are supported by the federal government, conservative states have also been emboldened. The number of anti-transgender bills signed into law has grown from 51 in 2024 to 122 in 28 states thus far in 2025.

Other than losing speaking engagements because corporations are dropping DEI events, I have not personally felt the increase in transgender attacks, until now. Personal attacks are on the increase, enough that I am going to have a conversation with the head of the sheriff’s department in our town. I’m not sure if the attacks I’ve received are at the level of threats, but they are significant enough that I feel the need to have a conversation about them.

I know that the vast majority of you who read my words are supportive of me, even if you remain in the evangelical world. Your support means more than you can know.

Here’s the thing. If I’m getting nervous and a little frightened about how I might be treated as a transgender person, we’ve got a major problem. I mean, I don’t know any trans person who has more privilege than I have.

If I’m starting to feel the heat, how about that trans teen at your local high school, or the trans woman who does not pass as a woman in public, or the trans child whose first phrase was, “Mommy, I’m a girl” and has a lifetime of difficult choices ahead? Those are the people I fear for most.

Is it right to compare what happened in Nazi Germany to the experience of transgender people in the United States today? At this point I still think it is alarmist and not particularly helpful to do so. But when I see the kind of rhetoric and actions accelerating as they are, I am definitely paying attention.

In 2015, when trans acceptance was rapidly increasing, I thought today we’d be seeing broad acceptance of transgender people, not far less acceptance. If things get as bad over the next ten years as they have over the last ten, we will all be in trouble. Not just transgender people, but every freedom-loving American who believes there is more that unites us than divides us. We will all be in trouble because in making that generous assumption about America, we will all have been dead wrong.

And so it goes.

Over the course of my time as a pastoral counselor I have had multiple clients who have been into gaming culture. When I first became aware of its existence, I assumed it was an avoidance mechanism, with gamers preferring electronic interactions to embodied connections. Instead of being together in the same room, these men, and they were all men, were using the Internet to avoid developing real life relationships. With the passing of time I came to see that while my assumption is sometimes true, there is more than meets the eye.

Young men are finding it difficult to find a clear sense of meaning in today’s world. If they live in more liberal environments, they probably have heard ad nauseum how white men are the genesis of all of society’s ills. I saw an advertisement for a workshop this month in a mainline Protestant publication. The title of the workshop was, Curing Whiteness. As well-meaning as the workshop might be, I’m afraid the title is an illustration of the problem these young men face. If my very race is a sickness to be cured, then what meaning is inherent in my life? For young men of color it is a question they have been asking since the beginning of slavery, or manifest destiny, or any of the institutional atrocities that ripped away their historical sense of self.

For many young men, gaming culture provides essential elements missing in modern times. First, in a world devoid of meaning, they provide a clear purpose. Purpose is not the same as meaning. Searching for meaning suggests searching for the ultimate answers of life. Why am I here? What makes my life matter?

Purpose is more functional. It is not asking the deeper questions. It is finding something interesting to do. We were made to work. People are not naturally lazy. Laziness is usually resistance, not true laziness. We are resistant to begin an endeavor because of previous experience, or the likelihood of limited return on investment, or clinical depression, or lack of self-esteem, or any one of a number of other factors. Deal with those factors and the “laziness” disappears.

Purpose relates to the feeling you get when you have good work to do, work that contributes to something bigger than you, and gives you a sense of satisfaction when doing it. It is even better if the task is meaningful.

Gaming culture provides a sense of purpose. It gives a narrative structure, a story that makes sense, and tells you your place within that story. You are a part of something bigger than yourself. Gaming also provides a feeling of competence and a pathway to move to higher levels.

A story you can understand. Work you can do that will further that story. Feeling competent to do that work, with a path to higher levels. All of these were once provided by our culture. In today’s world, however, with more and more people in meaningless jobs without opportunities for advancement, should we be surprised that these elements essential to people’s health, especially men’s sense of wellbeing, have to be artificially provided via gaming culture?

There are dangers inherent in gaming culture. One of the dangers in finding purpose through gaming is that it is a decidedly left brain pursuit, without the ability to be placed in the greater context of one’s life. That is one of the reasons some young men become addicted to the games they play, spending every waking moment immersed in their alternate disembodied universe.

Without having work that is placed in the context of an embodied life, they come to lack empathy, have a lower emotional intelligence, and experience difficulty placing information into a holistic context. These are all elements that need embodied activity, relationally completed. A pickup basketball game is vastly preferable to solo gaming. In the basketball game we bring all of our bodies and brains to the game. We are experiencing life in an embodied way.

Interestingly, the rise of gaming culture has been paralleled by the rise of what many call Bro culture, a hypermasculinity that focuses on dominance, aggression, and competitiveness. Bro culture does answer two important questions related to our wellbeing: “What do you want to exist if you don’t?” And a related question, “How are you contributing to that right now.” The problem is with the answers provided by Bro culture.

A couple of decades ago I watched with curiosity as Mark Driscoll built a huge conservative church in liberal Seattle by encouraging men to be unashamedly misogynistic, using a corrupt interpretation of the Apostle Paul to justify their behavior. I thought it was an aberration. I was wrong. Now there are pastors saying the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a mistake, something Charlie Kirk said in 2023, and that giving women the right to vote was a mistake. These extreme views have found purchase because they provide in real life the same elements available in gaming culture: A story you can understand. Work you can do that will further that story. Feeling competent to do that work, and an opportunity to move to higher levels.

In Bro culture, all of these things are available to men without a college education, meaningful employment, or opportunities for advancement. Seeing the need, conservative churches have filled the gap.

No wonder Pete Hegseth had no idea how ridiculous he appeared when he brought all the nation’s generals together to give them a pep talk about how to be a real warrior. This, from a man who was a weekend anchor on a Fox News opinion show. But he is excited about what he has found and wants to share that excitement, as well as flex his leadership muscles. He has found meaning through the hypermasculine Bro culture he discovered through his church and its denomination. The Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches is a radical denomination founded by Doug Wilson, a pastor in Idaho who espouses Christian Nationalism and an extreme patriarchal view of life.

We all need a story we can embrace. We all need work we can do that will further that story. Feeling competent to do that work and having a pathway to higher levels are important to our satisfaction. Say what you might, Bro culture has provided those things. What have Democrats provided in return? Not much, but there are signs of hope.

Watch Pete Buttigieg and listen to his words. He knows what is at stake and how to proceed. He is able to speak to men. Evangelicalism will reject him because he’s gay, but when I listen to him I see light at the end of the tunnel. Jimmy Kimmel provides a similar hope, as well as Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.

Bro culture is dangerous. It will set women back decades and it ultimately does not provide men with the guidance they need. But there are men whose example can be followed. Here’s a novel thought. How about we follow Jesus? You know, not the one ignored by the religious right, but the one in the Gospels, the one who commanded us to love God, neighbor, and self. How about we follow that Jesus?