I’m Content With My Life In Modern Times
Usually, someone like me, a wealthy resident of the Manhattan/East Hampton bubble, would remain silent about how I find my life full of meaning.
To evaluate my life I love using various lenses; a neat one is the Paul Kingsnorth formula of the four P’s. But my outcome is very different than his.
, a popular Substack writer and author, believes that modern Western capitalism is a Machine that has leached away meaning from our lives. In his recent book, Against The Machine; On the Unmaking of Humanity, Kingsnorth contends that the Machine has left us bereft of what he calls the four P’s: people, place, prayer, and the past.To define terms:
people means community,
place means a rootedness to a particular geography, ideally including nature,
prayer is a faith-based allegiance to a higher power or purpose,
the past is a set of traditions practiced by your ancestors.
To escape the Machine, Kingsnorth moved his family away from the London rat race to a secluded spot in County Galway, Ireland where he and his wife homeschool their two children and grow things on their land. In describing his new life which included a conversion to Orthodox Christianity, Kingsnorth has acquired a large and loyal following of readers, including me.
Adverse selection
If you have a starkly negative view about our modern world, you will likely speak up. If you are someone like Paul Kingsnorth, a talented writer who has authentically altered his life to correct what he sees as the ills of the modern world, your voice will be heard.
But about most subjects we don’t generally hear from those who are content. As for our modern times, perhaps there’s a silent majority thrilled to be living in 2025 with modern medicine, air conditioning, smartphones, and Netflix. Perhaps this majority has maintained lives of meaning despite modern capitalism or even because of it. Who speaks for them?
I’ll go first
Usually, someone like me, a wealthy resident of the Manhattan/East Hampton bubble, would remain silent about how I find my life full of meaning. I’d be held back by my privilege, a fear of coming off as smug, entitled, arrogant, “misreading the room.” I can acknowledge the role of luck in my good fortune, but that’s seldom an effective inoculation against criticism.
Anyway, it would be inauthentic to hide from the truth that while I’ve been dealt a great hand, I’ve played my cards very well.
There’s another factor that might discourage my candor. A good portion of my “people, place, prayer, and past” is based on my Jewish identity. Open that Pandora’s box and out tumbles a host of contentious topics. But my Jewish identity is not contentious to me. I see it as beautiful and precious.
I met with my rabbi and friend this week to catch up on various issues in the Jewish world. He and I agreed that it was a shame that today’s discussions about Judaism are dominated by criticisms from all sides. The vitriol is loud, hostile and often mean-spirited. Appreciation for the wondrous survival of our Jewish heritage is drowned out.
That’s all the more reason to take this plunge and write about my four P’s.
My Four P’s
People
My people are first and foremost my family who (almost) all live in Manhattan–– our five children (including son-in-law and daughter-in-law), three grandchildren, the two in-law families with whom we share grandparent bonds, my two brothers and their families, my in-laws, and my father. There are about thirty of us in total.
Family forms a large part of our social life. This week we have our youngest grandchild’s baby naming at the synagogue followed by a birthday party for my son and daughter-in-law’s niece, a birthday brunch for my younger son at our house, a celebration of my younger brother’s birthday, and a week-long visit from my wife’s brother and his two daughters who live in Houston but are integral parts of our family. That level of familial activity is not atypical. We are indeed a clan.
As well, my readers and fellow writers on Substack are fast becoming a second family that I treasure.
Place
My place is New York. I am the fourth generation to live in NYC. To see my children and grandchildren grow up here and walk the same blocks is a thrill. We are rooted to this place and I shudder to think of any circumstances that would make us leave.
Both my wife and I grew up on the Upper East Side where we live now, and it’s rare that a walk does not trigger some memory. Every time I cross wide Park Avenue, I think of my mother’s rule that I had to wait at the median for the lights to change twice. As for nature we live adjacent to Central Park and as a city kid, I am more than satisfied with the beauty of its vast and varied landscapes.
Prayer
My prayer is my Judaism. I am an active student of the history of my people. I read and re-read our sacred texts. My ethics and search for justice are formed from the writings of Jewish sages. I take pride in our Jewish heritage, especially the gifts that we gave to the Christian faith.
Christians and Jews pray to the same bible up until the Gospels. And in the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament, the Jewish ethical influence is unmistakable.
Pope Leo XIV, my favorite world leader, has said that the foundation of the Catholic Church is based on “the Patriarchs, Moses, and the prophets” and that the acknowledgement by a predecessor Pope sixty years ago of the “Jewish roots of Christianity” represents a “point of no return.” 1
Past
And that brings me to what binds it all together, which is my past. I am one of many strong links in a chain of Jewish ancestors that likely stretches back three thousand years. I have the writings of two great-grandfathers who came to America in the late 19th century, Herman Appleman, my mother’s grandfather, who founded an oil business and Samuel Rottenberg, my father’s grandfather, who founded the Brookly Jewish Center.
I think of these two men often, not as saints, but as people with virtues and vices like any other. They had big families and so they were also strong links in the chain of preserving and extending our family’s Jewish identity.
A magical wish
If I had one magical wish it would be that my ancestors could know that my three children attended Jewish Day School and are proudly Jewish. That the two older ones married fellow Jews and are raising their children in the Jewish faith. That our grandchildren are the sixth generation of Jewish Americans. That they, my ancestors, succeeded in creating in America a long-lived and successful Jewish legacy.
My wife and I have played an active role in a Jewish tradition that has survived in spite of attempts to extinguish us. If you ask me what singularly holds meaning for me, what my legacy is, that’s it. We are part of something ancient, rich, and amazing.
Write on, David. Good stuff. Thanks for sharing this. It's from the heart, that is clear. There is a lot to be grateful for in this world, even in this "western capitalist" world, indeed. And it IS very sad that just bringing up Judaism can create such a mad row. This should not be. Anyway, I come from a family with money so growing up I was always very self-conscious and class-conscious. Most of my friends were working-class, which my parents didn't love. I always felt like the outsider. When I struggled (and I really did) often people would mock me, because, in their eyes, if I had money: What was the problem, exactly? So over time I learned to hide it. Looking back that saddens me. I wish people could hold two ideas in their head at the same time.
Sadly, the antecedent to this essay, “I’m Content With My Life As A Landowning Noble In 14th Century France”, has been lost to history.