{"id":448,"date":"2013-02-24T20:04:13","date_gmt":"2013-02-24T20:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dabacon.org\/newpontiff\/?p=225"},"modified":"2013-02-24T20:04:13","modified_gmt":"2013-02-24T20:04:13","slug":"tips-for-a-resigned-pontiff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dabacon.org\/caelifera\/2013\/02\/24\/tips-for-a-resigned-pontiff\/","title":{"rendered":"Tips for a Resigned Pontiff"},"content":{"rendered":"

On February 11, 2013,\u00a0Benedictus PP. XVI, a.k.a. Pope Benedictus XVI, also once known as Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, announced<\/a> that effective February 28, 2013, \u00a0he was stepping down as Roman Pontiff (not abdication, resignation or\u00a0renuntiatio<\/a>). \u00a0Pope Benedictus XVI was the 265th (or maybe 266th<\/a>?\u00a0or maybe\u00a0267th<\/a>?) Bishop of Rome, perhaps the nineth pope to resign<\/a>, not counting conditional resignation (important if you think you might get caught by Nazis.<\/a>) \u00a0Now normally, the comings and goings of the College of Cardinals would not stir me to write a blog post, especially not a blog post written in advice column style (so often used to convey certitude in the face of overwhelming selection bias.) \u00a0But, you see, I was once a pontiff<\/a>. \u00a0Indeed according to Google for one brief period<\/a> in 2004, I was once the top search result for this word. \u00a0(Take that Beattles!)<\/p>\n

Which is all to say, I thought it might be a good time to offer some advice to Pope Benedictus XVI for his life after leaving the papacy.<\/p>\n

Tip 1<\/strong>\u00a0 It’s time to get serious about how your identity shapes your ego. \u00a0You were once the leader of one billion souls, God’s main man on the ground,\u00a0infallible and all that,\u00a0 but now you’re going to be living a humble monk’s life in a Vatican monastery<\/a>. \u00a0No longer infallible. \u00a0No longer the leader of a billion souls (tweeter<\/a> to 1.5 million.) \u00a0You may think that your ego is separated from your job, but in my own transition from pseudo professor blogger to software developer it was quite a shock to no longer be able to rely on the accumulated status symbols that my job title carried along with it. \u00a0In my case this meant no longer being introduced at parties as a “theoretical physicist doing quantum stuff.” \u00a0In your case, people aren’t going to be kissing your ring any more (oh yeah, and you’ll have to give the ring up too!) \u00a0My advice? \u00a0I’d go for some Zen koans: Joshu’s dog<\/a>\u00a0and Zuigan Calls His Own Master<\/a>\u00a0would be a good \u00a0place to start.<\/p>\n

Tip 2<\/strong> You’re not going to get to travel all around the world anymore. \u00a0Tip: volunteer to pick up people from the airport! \u00a0Or visit an air museum<\/a> where they will let you sit in airplane seats. \u00a0Bonus tip: I find the air museum seats a really good way to fall asleep as well (If you can’t\u00a0empathize\u00a0with this, I would suggest you try getting up for way too many 6am flights, and you too will learn to fall asleep on contact with the too tight armrests of airline seats.)<\/p>\n

Tip 3<\/strong>\u00a0It’s going to be tough to keep up with your past life’s passion. \u00a0When you got into the flow during your papal years, I’m sure there was no one able to compete with you for your knowledge and understanding of how to guide your flock forward. \u00a0But now you are going to have to dedicate your time to your own solitary monastic life. \u00a0You may think that this transition will not be abrupt, that you can slowly ween yourself from the papacy, but in my experience you’re not going to have the time to, say, give advice to the next Pope. \u00a0Which is not to say that you have to give up you mission: you will just to choose what battles you’d like to carry forward. \u00a0For me, it was self study of shortest vector in a lattice problems. \u00a0For you, well I’m sure there is a suitable equivalent.<\/p>\n

Tip 4<\/strong>\u00a0You’re going to miss all of the friends around the world. \u00a0Hopefully, if you’re lucky, some of them will start blogs<\/a>. \u00a0For you I’d suggest adding\u00a0Whispers in Loggia<\/a>\u00a0to your RSS feed.<\/p>\n

Tip 5\u00a0<\/strong>People are still going to look to you for expertise in your past life, but the slow creeping pace of entropy will gradually strip you of your knowledge of the secrets to the universe, and you’ll have to tell them that you don’t know. \u00a0You’re just going to have to live with the accumulated slippage of your brain from the most up to date theology of our day. \u00a0You can try to keep up, of course, though I’m not sure of what the equivalent of the arXiv<\/a> is, but you’re just going to have to live with a new world where you say “I don’t know.” \u00a0I recommend testing those words out every morning: “I don’t know.” \u00a0“Nescio.” \u00a0“Nescio.” “Nescio.”<\/p>\n

The end of an era, pope. \u00a0There is life afterwards, beyond an event horizon. \u00a0Enjoy the transition, just hope that the black hole firewall<\/a> ideas are wrong.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On February 11, 2013,\u00a0Benedictus PP. XVI, a.k.a. Pope Benedictus XVI, also once known as Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, announced that effective February 28, 2013, \u00a0he was stepping down as Roman Pontiff (not abdication, resignation or\u00a0renuntiatio). \u00a0Pope Benedictus XVI was the 265th (or maybe 266th?\u00a0or maybe\u00a0267th?) Bishop of Rome, perhaps the nineth pope to resign, not counting … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Tips for a Resigned Pontiff”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-off-the-deep-end"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dabacon.org\/caelifera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dabacon.org\/caelifera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dabacon.org\/caelifera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dabacon.org\/caelifera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dabacon.org\/caelifera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dabacon.org\/caelifera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dabacon.org\/caelifera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dabacon.org\/caelifera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dabacon.org\/caelifera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}