My Shameless T. Swift Deep Dive

The antithesis of evangelical hustle culture

Merry Christmas yada yada … I am aware this post arrives to you just a few days before Christmas, but yes, we’ll be talking about Taylor Swift today. Not sorry. 😆

I took a road trip to Nashville last weekend to hang with my best friend, and for almost the entirety of the 12 hours I was in the car to and from, I binged Taylor Swift: both her music and several podcasts deep diving into her music.

Now, I understand that everyone and her sister / daughter / mother is into T. Swift these days so this probably sounds wholly unremarkable. But, I am a person who is quite frankly much too intense and heady about a lot of things, and usually don’t deign to be all up to speed on pop culture. Pop culture has no educational value; it’s not helping anyone be a better version of themselves; it’s a distraction from what *really* matters, says my inner superego [superego, in Freudian thought, is basically the moral consciousness thought to be a version of internalized parental voices].

But I am a Swift appreciator — okay and have a giant crush on her, lol — if not an actual Swiftie, and I’ve discovered that falling down this rabbit hole is actually … fun.

Photo by ROSA RAFAEL on Unsplash. I actually had NO IDEA that this album was a response to the Kanye / Kim Kardashian drama. I thought she was just… mad? I am a LATE BLOOMER when it comes to pop culture!

It’s fun to sing loudly in my car about anti-heroes and cruel summers and doing something bad that feels so good. It’s fun to speculate about what real life circumstances influenced the writing of certain songs, and put together what melodies and lyrics are reaching back to previous songs in the canon. And (because I can’t not be slightly educational) it’s fun to take a bird’s eye view of this as a fascinating sociological and cultural phenomenon.

I am 35 years old, almost 10 years out of my intense deconstruction phase, and I’m still trying to figure out how to just have semi-meaningless fun. To enjoy something for the sake of enjoying it.

Part of this is probably a personality thing, but I’m sure a good portion of these tendencies are due to what I’m calling evangelical hustle culture. There’s hustle culture… and then there’s evangelical hustle culture. Having to be on at all times, to be growing and learning to love Jesus more and becoming sanctified and witnessing to your friends and generally trying to save the world. Where true rest is always a little guilt-laden, and doing something that won’t ultimately improve the status of your or others’ souls is anathema.

As I sit here writing in my favorite coffee shop, I can observe multiple pairs of devoted evangelicals (it’s the young men who tend to congregate here) poring over their Bibles, discussing their walks with Christ, confessing their struggles to each other. (Okay, I admit that I try my best NOT to listen so that’s a little bit conjecture, but I’m sure I’m not altogether wrong).

I remember so clearly how it felt to have received the “gift of grace” but still feel like I had to try so freaking hard to prove my worthiness. I remember the pressure I experienced to make this season feel not just festive and joyful (which was hard to begin with, as I’ve alluded to) but Religiously Meaningful in all the right holy, sacred, solemn, Jesus-centric ways.

Turns out, it’s so much easier for joy to show up when you stop putting pressure on it to be there exactly how we expect it to be.

Jamming in the car to T. Swift was exactly the carefree catharsis I needed this mid-December. It was okay to stop worrying about the state of the world or maximizing my learning about Important Things. It was okay to just sing and have fun and laugh. (Also, I’m not even giving credit to the perfect weekend with my bestie which was also exactly what I needed, but I’m okay having that be the cozy cocoon just between her and me).

And yes, I came back home and had to crash back into the real world with kid bedtimes and groceries and Christmas shopping and tantrums and work and and and. But man. Those frivolous hours cruising in my Civic through Kentucky and Ohio? And the extra hours I snuck in after the kids are in bed and I’m dancing in my kitchen to the Reputation concert on Netflix? Priceless!

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In other news! Hopefully by the time you’re reading this, I implemented some of the Longest Night traditions you all shared with me — attending the online music event late Thursday night and reading The Shortest Day with my family. I am so grateful for all of you who show up in the comment spaces — you are actually enriching my life. ❤️

And in other other news: my evangelical self would be just horrified, but one of the things I came away from my weekend with was a book about tarot. I’m not quite ready to dive in as a special interest (time-wise, not because I’m afraid of witchcraft-adjacent stuff…. I think), but I’m really excited to learn and use it as a tool for further self-discovery. Meanwhile, I’ll take suggestions for what tarot deck to buy, as well as general approaches to tarot, in the comments! 😁