In October 2005, one of my college law enforcement students asked me for a meeting. He was also a football player on my Canadian college football team that I coached, a non-profit team sponsored by my wife and me. The team was called the Niagara X-Men. We played exclusively in the USA for the singular purpose of helping Canadian student-athletes reach the next-level and the next and the next. At the beginning of the fall semester, this student told me his dream was to earn a football scholarship to an American University. I told him, “Your dream is now my dream.” At this October meeting, he said he had to go to his sister’s wedding in Aruba. He asked me if he could write all his fall mid-term exams before everyone else. I told him, “No, because we would both get fired for committing a scandal that would make headlines.” Additionally, he stated he would miss two football games and asked if he could keep his starting linebacker job when he returned. I said, “No, because we would both get fired for committing a scandal that would make headlines.” The following conversation ensued:

I asked him, “Does your sister like living in Aruba?”

He said, “She lives in Canada.”

I asked, “Why is the wedding in Aruba?”

He said, “It’s a “Destination Wedding. They were getting married on a beach and over 100 people were flying to Aruba for the wedding.”

I told him, “Nice try.”

I told the student I didn’t believe him. I said that I had been a cop for 15 years. I told him that policing made me an expert lie detector. I wasn’t easily fooled. I said that “Destination Wedding” was 1 of the top 26 craziest fabrications I’d ever heard of, including all the professional lies and alibis made up by violent criminals I had arrested and interrogated.

Two hours later, I said at a faculty meeting, “Kids these days. A student just lied through his teeth about missing exams and 2 Gamedays. He’s going on vacation to Aruba but covered it up with a made-up story about a Destination Wedding to get sympathy. Can you believe it? Destination Wedding! Can you imagine? Getting married on a beach a thousand miles away? Come on. There’s no end to student lies.”

Someone in the meeting said, “It’s true. Destination Weddings are becoming a big deal.”

The first thing I thought was, good thing people got married in a Church in The 60s. Destination Weddings in The 60s would have cost me a fortune in lost Wedding-Money altar-boy income. Destination Weddings would have caused a recession—receding altar boy income.

The second thing I thought was having to move away from Port Colborne or Ontario or Canada, if my wife and I had been married on a beach. What does that mean? There’s an Italian phrase called “Che Vergogna.” Translation. What an embarrassment. Not just any embarrassment. Next-Level Embarrassment. 5th-Degree Embarrassment. The type that would force you to have to move out of the community, far away, out of sight. Long distance move. Maybe to Aruba. Why? My poor illiterate Southern Italian parents Antonio and Maria were not Post-Modern parents. In Southern Italian Culture, you got married in a Church. A Catholic Church. No sand, no beach, no sun, no fun. With a Priest. A Catholic priest. The same priest you received communion from every Sunday, no…matter… what. The same priest you confessed all your sins to every single Saturday at 4 pm, no…matter…what. Then, you all said, “I do.” Then, you did. Then you did it the same way that everybody did it. You did it the same way because the same way worked. Dual meaning. It got the job done and you got the job done. Culture was a Magnetic Force back then. Culture attracted. Culture was a Gravitational Force that kept you grounded. You didn’t take flight away from a fight. Or for a Destination Wedding.

Antonio and Maria didn’t compromise their faith for no one, including me. They weren’t easily influenced by Post-Modern peer pressure to abandon their faith or their culture or their principles or their values. They were minimalists, immune to trends, spending sprees, and luxury. They taught me the 3 Basis Rules of Italianomics:

1. Do the most with the least.
2. Earn the most and spend the least.
3. Say the least while you work the most, earn the most, save the most.

Italianomics was based on the deep-rooted Southern Italian mentality called Arrangiarsi—the will and capacity to endure, no matter what, no matter where, no matter when. No matter how hard it got. No matter how little you had. No matter the risk. No matter how impossible it looked. The Southern Italian Culture had zero tolerance for Code-Breaking. There was only one C.F.L. in the Southern Italian Culture—Consequence-Full Life. You paid for your Culture Crimes. No leniency. No defence. No presumption of innocence. Just presumption of guilt, dual meaning. Guilt without a trial and trial resulting from guilt. Guilt was a driving force back then, dual meaning. Guilt drove you to High Achievement or drove you crazy. It depended on Cultural Worldview and Workview, and what effect it had on you.

The heresy and controversy of me getting married on a beach would have been the equivalent of Canada changing it’s flag colours to red, white and blue. I would have faced the same outrage we Canadians are feeling at the thought of becoming the 51st State. That outrage would have led to rebellion. To protest. To exclusion. I would have had to immigrate to another county or another country. I would have become a dual citizen: second-generation Southern Italian and first-generation immigrant to wherever I would have moved.

Imagine the outrage today if your favourite hockey team changed their uniform colour from blue to green. Imagine what Toronto Maple Leafs fans would do if the Leafs abandoned their culture and ditched their iconic blue uniforms for green or purple or yellow. Or if they played their home games on a beach. Or in Aruba. Or away games on a beach. Or in Aruba. There would be a rebellion. Online and offline. There would be protests. Online and offline. The economy would collapse. People would book off sick…indefinitely. No one would work, nothing would work. The health care system would collapse. Hockey fans would fight back with deep, profound passion trying to preserve Leafs Culture. That’s why Cultures endure—by fighting, not taking flight. By fighting for beliefs and for The Leafs, not taking flight from beliefs or from The Leafs. By fighting to follow their conscience, not fighting against their conscience.   

My poor illiterate Italian parents Antonio and Maria were not hockey fans or sports fans. They were Culture Fans. There were fanatic about Southern Italian Culture that was based on 3 F’s: Faith, Family, Fatica. In Italian, “Fatica” means gut-spilling work. Manual labour. Lifting heavy weight, carrying heavy weight. “Fatica” is the essential element of building structure, triple meaning. Structure of family, structure for family to live in, structure for family to work in. “Fatica” is also the essential element of building Structure of Faith. It works for you when you work at it. And vice-versa.

Faith, Family, Fatica start with the same two letters for  a reason. “Fa” in Broken Uneducated Illiterate Southern Italian means “do.” It means “do it forthwith, do it consistently, do it passionately, do it without complaining, do it without excuses, do it to endure, do it as an expression of love for God and for family, and Do It No Matter What.” The 3 Fs were unconditional, non-negotiable, and binding. Dual meaning. The 3 F’s bind the conscience, and the 3 Fs bind God with family and with Fatica. When it works and when humans work at it, the 3 Fs bind for life. Binding life-time contracts. No escape clause. No exceptions, no appeals, no grievances. Binding agreement. Binding alignment. Binding assignment.

Bad news. No bind, starts to unwind. Result? Big Mess, no success, just a lot of stress.

The 3 Fs were Basic Survival Needs for Southern Italians. Like oxygen. Every strong relationship, personal or professional, with humans or work or activities, needs oxygen to survive. Same with faith. No oxygen, suffer asphyxiation. Any relationship without oxygen asphyxiates. When you need it like oxygen, you will fight for it. It becomes a matter of life and death. When you don’t, the relationship suffocates. Every human builds a personal List of Basic Survival Needs composed of Fixed Needs and Flux Needs. Fixed Needs are universal prerequisites for all human survival: food, water, shelter, love. Flux Needs are the changing needs, good or bad, that each individual customizes through positive or negative growth, to form Personal Ethos, their distinguishing character, that defines identity through intensity of consistency. In the 60s, the 3 Fs were indelibly etched in the psyche of society’s collective Basic Survival Needs Lists. There was no “delete” function. The 3 Fs were saved on your Inner Hard Drive forever. Hardwired and Wired Hard. Bound together, dual meaning. The 3 Fs remained culturally-based until Post-Modern Society launched an attack against them, starting a War of Worlds—a war on your world and a war on the world of your Loved Ones.

Bad news, we are not our ancestors. We didn’t fight back. We took flight. Why? Comfort. Complacency. Weak. Spoiled. Soft. Reason? Weak struggle. Our struggle was weaker than the struggle of our ancestors. We struggled less than our ancestors because we were given more. When you’re given more, more is expected. Except when you get comfortable, complacent, spoiled, soft, fragile and weak. That’s what happens when you get it handed to you. You get it handed to you. We had it handed to us. We handed more to our kids. They handed more to their kids.

My generation had unprecedented comfort handed to us. Then we gave the next generation even more comfort. More comfort, less effort. And vice-versa. Applies on/in Any Field. Replacement Therapy took over. Indulgence and affluence replaced perseverance, endurance, and adherence. There’s a direct relationship between degree of struggle and degree of faith. It’s one of the Laws of Proportion. The more struggle you face, the more faith you practice. And vice-versa.

Our struggle and sacrifice never has and never will match the struggle and sacrifice our ancestors. Instead of honouring the sacrifices and struggles of our ancestors, we dishonour them. We made it easy, now it’s become hard.

Hard to believe, dual meaning. Hard to believe in what our ancestors believed in, and hard to believe the mess we’ve created. It’s hard to believe that we let other people tell us and our families what to believe and not believe. It’s hard to believe that we let our culture die. It’s hard to believe that we find it so hard to believe. If our ancestors were alive, they would find all this hard to believe.

Lost the struggle, lost faith. And vice-versa. They removed First Generation struggle for us. We removed Second Generation struggle for our families. They removed Third Generation struggle for their families. Now we all struggle when there’s real struggle. Now we all struggle when there’s life and death struggle of our culture. Now we all struggle to show up. Why? Because of the Law of Unintended Consequences: by removing struggle, we added struggle. We added struggle to show up when it’s time to step up. And vice-versa. We added struggle to step up when it’s time to show up. No wonder Post-Modern Society doesn’t show up. It’s the consequence of evolution. The strong keep showing up, the weak don’t. We became a victim of Darwinism… the strong survive, the weak get eaten alive.

Our ancestor’s culture got eaten alive. We surrendered without a fight. We replaced our ancestor’s values with the values of government who told us what to think, when to think it, and where. We voted for it, we celebrated it, we promoted it, we spectated it, we became fans. We sat in the stands at a standstill. Stuck in neutral. Lost our backbone, lost our nerve, lost our strength, lost our faith. We got tired easily. Got out-of-shape in mind, body, and soul. Screen Size shrunk Life Size. Our lives shrunk to the size of our screens. Miniature Lives. Artificial Lives. Superficial Lives. Stressful Lives.

We became Blind Conformists in exchange for anything free and legal. Vote for me, I’ll give it to you legal and free. Didn’t have to pay for it, then we paid for it. Now we ask, “Where did they go? Where did it all go?”

Answer. We watched from the sideline. We abandoned the frontline. In less than one generation we wasted our Cultural Inheritance. If we had  protected our Cultural Inheritance with the same energy as we protect our financial inheritance, we would show up. They would show up We would enjoy Attendance Abundance. Places would be packed like they were in The 60s. Instead, my generation got soft and weak, easy to defeat. We made the next generation softer and weaker, easier to defeat. We should have ignored Post-Modern influence that warped and twisted our mind’s and our Loved One’s Minds. On Small Screens, on Big Screens. We voted against our conscience. We voted against our faith. We selected and elected superficially and artificially. In less than one generation, we destroyed the structure that an entire culture had built over centuries. Why? Laziness.

We were warned. But we didn’t listen, dual meaning. Didn’t listen to our conscience. Didn’t listen to our culture. Reason? Ignorance and arrogance. We think we we’re smarter than our parents. Our kids think they’re smarter than us. Their kids think they’re smarter than our kids. Ignorance and arrogance is contagious. Left unchecked, ignorance and arrogance spread easily, dual meaning. Ignorance and arrogance goes viral and then spreads the dangerous. It spreads the dangerous lie that life will always be easy. That life will be easier because of more technology. That life will be easier with Artificial Intelligence. That life must be easier because of the lie that we are entitled to an Easy Life. We have become Enablers of Entitlement. Then we complain about it. Don’t complain about that which you tolerate. And vice-versa… don’t tolerate what you complain about.

We were warned long ago. St. Thomas Aquinas warned us that laziness was a symptom of Acedia way back in the13th Century. There was no artificial intelligence back then. There was “real intelligence.” Spiritual intelligence. Generations listened. They listened and warned us. So did our parents. Even the ones who were illiterate and uneducated. Reason? They had to work for it. They had to work for their spiritual intelligence. They had to work for all their relationships. Our ancestors didn’t discard relationships when the work got too hard. Including Spiritual Relationships. Post-Modern Society has normalized Disposable Relationships and Decomposable Relationships. Can’t relate, don’t tolerate, just terminate.

We’ve normalized superficial and artificial relationships, intelligence, excellence, strength, and character. When relationships became disposal, character followed. Character became disposal, superficial, and artificial. And weak character easily followed Post-Modern Leaders who taught us to abandon faith, to vote against it, to vote it out, to cut it out. My generation allowed our kids to be taught to ignore the voice of their conscience in exchange for campaign promises to make life more comfortable, more pleasurable, regardless of the cost. Now the cost has skyrocketed just like the cost of houses, food, clothes, cars, gas. And Destination Weddings.

I got paid a lot of money to show up for funerals in The 60s. In My 60s, we all are paying for the Death of Character. And the cost keeps skyrocketing just like the cost of living in a Canadian economy that is unaffordable. It’s hard to believe how much it costs to live, to eat, to survive, to thrive. No wonder it’s hard to believe that it’s hard to believe.

Good news. There’s a solution.

Bad news. We already know it.

We already learned it.

But we keep failing the test.

Continued in Part 6.

#MuchLove

Blessings & all good things

#peace

Gino Arcaro

March 4, 2025