Within the current age, the phrase “cult” is utilized in a pejorative sense.
However it didn’t at all times carry this detrimental baggage.
Cult derives from the Latin cultus, which was initially an agri-cult-ural time period referring to the cultivation of the land. The Romans, who participated in each state and personal cults, used the phrase to explain the dedicated cultivation of the rites, habits, and sacrifices attendant to exhibiting non secular reverence.
In subsequent centuries, cult retained this non secular connotation however was additionally used extra typically to imply “devoted consideration to a specific individual or factor.” Individuals spoke of those that belonged to “the cult of the soul,” “the cult of honesty,” “the cult of creativity,” “the cult of strenuosity.”
Right now, we might all profit from becoming a member of a cult on this older sense of merely being unwaveringly, even “excessively,” devoted to a set of beliefs and practices. In a world wherein wholesome, virtuous methods of life are unusual and unconventional, sustaining one’s beliefs requires a single-minded, virtually non secular devotion.
It takes fanatical dedication to make train a every day non-negotiable when life hardly ever necessitates getting out of your chair.
It takes fervent dedication to not overeat when meals is on the market at each time and in each place.
It takes zealous conviction to remain in a wedding when everybody round you appears to be chucking up the sponge.
It takes unrelenting vigilance to suppose for your self when the panorama is filled with regurgitated, algorithmically-driven chatter.
In a world the place normal norms have a tendency in the direction of deterioration and decay, you can’t hope to swim upstream with a middling, milquetoast allegiance to wholesome habits and better ideas. Staying sane requires going at issues a bit loopy; adopting stand-apart beliefs, bright-line guidelines, and sacrosanct rituals; embracing the cult of constancy, reviving the cult of strenuosity, and becoming a member of the cult of life.
