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Goodpain Podcast Season 02 Episode 19: The Architecture of Legacy and the Wisdom of Maturity
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Episode Summary
In this episode, Jeremy and Tyler explore the profound responsibility of becoming a good ancestor in a world that often prioritizes immediate gratification over long-term resonance. The hosts discuss how personal maturation is found in overcoming fear and the baser instincts that keep us trapped in predictable, reactive habits. By letting go of control and the impulse to stabilize or "ix every chaotic moment, we open ourselves up to a deeper curiosity and the ability to witness life's inherent beauty.
The conversation encourages a shift toward intentional living, moving from unconscious behaviors to conscious choices that align with the highest version of ourselves. Central to this discussion is a critique of modern society’s obsession with convenience, which the hosts argue can lead us to trade our humanity for predictability and comfort. Ultimately, they invite listeners to embrace the goodpain of self-governance and accountability to build a legacy that transcends the narrow limitations of the present.
Key Themes and Discussion Points:
- Legacy and Meaning: The hosts redefine legacy not as a monumental external lift, but as an expression of a higher version of oneself. They discuss the importance of contributing to a "reclamation" of the wisdom class, where being a "wisdom holder" becomes a primary life purpose for those moving into the second half of life.
- The Journey of Personal Growth: The conversation highlights the transition from immature to mature expression, which involves a migration from unconscious, reactive behaviors into intentional, conscious choosing. This personal growth requires transcending old habits and baser instincts to align with who we truly want to become.
- Developing Emotional Maturity and Self-Awareness: Emotional maturity is characterized by the expansion of internal roles—moving beyond being just a "problem solver" or "fixer" to becoming a "witness" to life as it unfolds. This requires deep self-awareness, questioning why we react to slights or chaos in predictable ways after decades of life.
- Navigating Fear and Control: Tyler shares a vulnerable account of a health scare that forced him to confront the fear and control that often drive our reactions. He describes the liberating mindset shift that occurs when one chooses curiosity over the need to "right the chaos" or predetermine how a situation should be solved.
- The Power of Conscious Living: Conscious living is presented as the practice of "catching one's breath" and taking a step back to get curious about the root of our actions. It involves setting aside the "idolatry of comfort" and convenience to embrace the necessary, and often "good," pain of self-governance and accountability.
- Fostering Human Connection through the "Bridges of Meghalaya": Using the metaphor of living root bridges that take generations to grow, the hosts discuss the necessity of human connection and intergenerational stewardship. They argue that true progress comes from "bumping into the messiness of other people" rather than retreating into algorithmic bubbles of certainty.
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Transcript
Overcoming Fear and Envisioning New Possibilities
00:00:01
Speaker
I'm Jeremy. And I'm Tyler. Welcome to GoodPing. the fear that many of us feel that we cannot overcome get us to the front lines? And then can we hold out that there is some possibility for something different? Whether that's a reclamation or is there something else that we haven't been exposed to yet, some other possibility. And we need to remember that it's our job to cultivate the possibility.
What Does It Mean to Leave a Meaningful Legacy?
00:00:42
Speaker
We continue the march to the end of season two, and this is our second to last, maybe third to last episode for the season. And in this one, Jeremy and I tackle one of our final conversations around legacy and what it means to leave a legacy.
00:00:58
Speaker
For the first time, we really move into more contemporary events right now and what legacy means in the context of this point in history. And within that conversation, we continue to ask ourselves, what does it mean to actually explore what we want to leave behind? Not because we're going to get to see it, not because we're going to get to benefit from it,
00:01:19
Speaker
But because it's something that must be expressed by a higher version of ourselves, one that's not trapped by fear, not trapped by anxiety, not trapped or shamed or guilted to be something less than what we are capable of being. We seek to ground it with our own examples, things that are meaningful to us, things that remind us that we can transcend our old habits. We can transcend and rise above the things that keep us trapped in behaving and thinking, in emoting, in the ways that are directly in conflict with who we want to be.
00:01:55
Speaker
And that truth that we can transcend our baser instincts. It doesn't feel like there's a better time to share this conversation than right now.
00:02:12
Speaker
What's the world want to leave behind without stepping into this same form of narcissism that we've also been talking about, which is is that my job is to change the world. Yeah. And I need to do something big. And that's a very external way of defining legacy as I need to change the paradigm of the world and the direction that it's heading. Gotta fix it. But we are having this conversation at a point in time where there is no escape from the nature of what is this world that we are leaving behind. And without us taking to our shoulders that I must change it, single-handedly through this monumental heroic lift, which is some of the very things that we've talked about are very dangerous for the masculine mythology of what must be done. What do we want to be a part of? What does it mean to be a good ancestor? You're talking about presenting a lot of burden or self-awareness and talking about the the subject of legacy, the concept of what to leave behind.
Maturation and the Role of Trauma in Personal Evolution
00:03:22
Speaker
I don't know. I don't know that everybody gives that the attention that it's due. Yeah.
00:03:28
Speaker
Do you think that people are walking around with that understanding and recognizing if I make this choice right now, that's not going to stay on brand. That's not going to be who I am as a person. And that's certainly not going to be the thing I'll be remembered for. Do you think that people carry that with them? And if not, what is there a defining moment that changes that for for everybody that ah starts to realize, oh, wow. Okay. I've gotten past this, whatever the, this is.
00:03:58
Speaker
Now I can focus on being a better person and being a better father, leader, coworker, spouse, whatever. Yes, I think that this is always something that is present. Okay. The degree of maturation that sometimes we talk about And the difference between immature and and mature expression as a man, as a person, I think has a lot to do with the migration of some of those things that are deep inside, maybe at an unconscious or an implicit level. into more conscious, intentional choosing.
00:04:36
Speaker
We talked about some of the mechanisms that moved that level of of unconscious things that were always there into a more conscious and and that the mechanism for that for me in a big way was something that I could never ask well or ethically say that, hey, you need to wake up. So let's find some really acute trauma to wake you up. Sure. What I hear in your question, which is what's the arc and do we see some form of similar shared experience across a development of
00:05:14
Speaker
ourself of that awareness over time and and setting aside the pop culture means of defining what a midlife crisis looks like i do believe there is something that points us to with even the name of a midlife crisis some form of a before and after yeah So what is it that is the before and after?
What is the Midlife Crisis' Impact on Time Perception?
00:05:43
Speaker
what What is happening at this demarcation line that happens at quote unquote midlife? What is the before and what is the after? I do think there is some waking up, some evaluation, some examination, whether that is again intentional or unintentional, that people feel what. And I think that when we talk about legacy,
00:06:05
Speaker
One of the biggest things that we're wrestling with is what is my relationship to time? And at the very least, the before and after many of us feel is this recognition.
00:06:17
Speaker
There was a before time when the limitations of my time was not as present to now afterwards and asking the question, what am I going to do with that time? And it's a choice point.
00:06:32
Speaker
It's a point where we have at least a body of evidence in the before that we can look at and say, that's a lot of activity that I was doing. Was that activity that is resonant with me?
00:06:47
Speaker
Did it give me what I want? And then we reach this point where we have a choice where we say, and will I continue to pursue that in a way that I believe I can continue to make myself happy?
Pursuing Happiness and Contentment Through Maturity
00:07:00
Speaker
Will I continue to center myself further as the arbiter of whether I can be happy or not? Or will I start to adopt what doing? more of a humility in light of what I can control, what I can't control, what actually makes me happy and what I reach for the surprise of, I don't know what ultimately makes me happy. And those start to approximate more of the things that we have talked about in terms of maturity, cultivating wisdom, cultivating the humility that's necessary to say and surrender to the fact that, wow, I tried a lot of things that I thought would make me happy. At the very least, some of them made me happy, maybe in ways I didn't expect them to make me happy. yeah Some of those things did not make me happy. And and even then within that is is that what the hell is happy? What is this term of happy?
00:07:55
Speaker
And what I believed when I was 18 years old, happiness equaled is vastly different than what I believe happiness or contentment or joy, awe, surprise, pain, and suffering being something that actually gives me more depth of experience and changing my relationship with that.
00:08:17
Speaker
Those are the kinds of things that I do believe that at some point we have to wrestle with those questions, whether we do them explicitly or whether we do them in in other ways is gonna vary. It is going to vary.
Imagining a Better World for Future Generations
00:08:30
Speaker
But those start pointing us to if there is a point where I am no longer going to be here,
00:08:36
Speaker
If there is a point when the world continues to turn and I'm not going to be here to witness what goes on, what would I like to observe in that world? What's the kind of world that I imagine I want my kids to experience? And am I going to, with whatever time I have left, am I going to make choices that helps, that I believe is going to help set the table, make the conditions where that's a possibility, not a guarantee.
00:09:07
Speaker
it is a possibility that that world could emerge. Am I going to participate in that or not? I do feel that everybody at the at feels the impulse towards evaluating that.
00:09:19
Speaker
yeah Not everyone is equipped to evaluate it. not And what I mean by that is is that i think you have the I think everybody has the capacity to evaluate it. yeah But we don't have the, I mean, this is why going back to the wisdom and the elders and why we keep going back to this, it's navigating that world by yourself and figuring that out, that's a lot of remaking the wheel. That's a lot of having to invent things for yourself. That part of, for me, the legacy I want to leave is some picture of a reclamation, and reinvigoration of the wisdom class, of the elder class,
00:09:55
Speaker
that says we need to come alongside people across all of the hills of life, all of the peaks, all of the valleys to help answer or at least explore. i think the answer is even too definitive. To explore the questions that emerge over those peaks and valleys over time. And and that means we need people to step into the role of being wisdom holders.
00:10:20
Speaker
That's what legacy means for me. a purveyor of wisdom. I cannot nominate myself as I am wise, but what I can do is model what it means to continually be reaching for a beginner's mindset that over time denotes what what we collectively define as wisdom is people that have thick enough skin, have the ability to take a step back from being hooked into the noise, into the minutia, into the routine, take a step back and say, oh this is interesting.
00:10:56
Speaker
What's going on here? why Why am I still reacting to this in the way that I have for the last 40, 50, 60 years and holding it loosely enough that I'm not having to defend it any longer, holding it loosely enough to say, what's at the root of this? This is interesting.
00:11:13
Speaker
And, and ah extending the grace to an 18 year old who reacts without being able to do that because they're 18 years old, yeah but demonstrating and modeling that at the very least I can catch my breath and take a step back and get curious about this without needing to defend my behavior, my actions, because that's just what feels natural in that moment. Of course, I'm going to react to somebody sliding me in this way.
00:11:37
Speaker
Why? Why? Why am I reacting that way? What I'm hearing you say, though, is taking it out of the emotional reaction phase and being able to look at this ah much more analytically. The word analytically immediately brought to mind more of this. There's this is a problem that that I need to get figured out.
00:11:58
Speaker
Hmm. this is there's a cause here that i need to wrestle to the ground and understand so the analytically is like analyzing these things in a way that gives you even some degree of understanding yeah okay there's something about suspending the judgment of what comes up does not necessarily mean saying that you don't i don't feel what i want to feel i think we we talked about this example before but there was a a night where i thought i was i was on a path where I am going to die.
00:12:31
Speaker
I was wrestling with, I was right in that period where I was having some medical tests done and I was waiting for the results. and And my mind went towards a confidence that said, those results are going to come back saying, yes, you have cancer.
00:12:50
Speaker
It is advanced enough that it is going to lead to, your your you're not going to be here any longer. oh yeah And I believed that. And in that moment- How long ago was that? This was last year. Yeah, it was fairly recent.
00:13:05
Speaker
What that fear did for me is is that ah it got me out of the bed and came down with Tiffany and and and then hit the reset button, walk in. And in that moment, I had the opportunity to catch my breath. And this is why, for me, I think the analytic aspect is is for me doesn't feel like the right word. Because oftentimes when i think of analysis or being analytical about something, it's about driving understanding in a way that says, now that I have understanding, now I can pick a path through for what the optimal solution is going to be. But in this case, it was, i don't i can let go of i don't i don't need a solution here. i don't There's nothing there's not a problem that i need to fix.
00:13:56
Speaker
What's happening in this room is not itself a problem that needs to be analyzed. It needs to be, but that that a solution needs to be structured for it in order for us to solve it.
00:14:07
Speaker
We don't need to expend the energy to go through those steps. This is very simple. We're going to A, B, and c and then we can move on. What I would like to do, and and what snuck up on me was there's something going on here that I i actually just want to appreciate. Hmm.
00:14:24
Speaker
I didn't know it at the time, but but getting in that moment, choosing curiosity, not data gathering for the sake of fitting it into an analysis, just curiosity of, wow, what's happening here that that I am not seeing? Because I would like to see something bigger than this narrow picture of this is chaos and we need to right the chaos.
00:14:50
Speaker
What I want to see is the story. I want to experience that life is happening right now. And as long as I put it through the lens of a problem to be solved, as long as I put it, I've already predetermined what the story is supposed to be. There's a problem. There's something that I need to get figured out so that we can move to a resolution. And instead saying that I'm I'm here to observe. I'm here to see.
00:15:15
Speaker
I'm here to witness. and and and And that's a little bit of a redefinition of my role in a given context. Part of maturity is an expansion of the roles beyond just the analyst, just the problem solver. And that how I get there is does have some dance with how I involve myself or center myself in what whatever my experience is.
00:15:46
Speaker
Getting out of bed, coming downstairs, oftentimes is through this lens of, I am i amm a helper. I'm here to help right to stabilize. Is there a world though where I don't i don't need to wear only that hat?
00:16:01
Speaker
that in that moment, I can also be a witness to this. And that's exactly what happened that night, is is that I didn't know how to be a witness. I didn't know in that moment how to show up I didn't even know that's what I was doing. But by catching my breath and just asking some questions,
00:16:20
Speaker
I got surprised by what it started to resonate with in me. And when i asked Tiffany, what's happening in your heart? what do you what do you What's really important to you right now? And what was most important to her was the comfort and care of Claire. What was most important to her was Claire feeling that she was cared for.
00:16:43
Speaker
was most important to Tiffany was making sure that Claire felt regarded, wanted, safe, secure. And everything that Tiffany was doing in that moment may have been, was working somewhat in conflict with that.
00:17:00
Speaker
But that's what she was focusing on. And I, being able to see Tiffany's heart in that moment, gave me a view of the world in that moment that said that there's beauty happening right now.
00:17:14
Speaker
Through the chaos, Through everything that's gone through the noise, I got to see someone struggle for something that was a deep yearning within her. And I, and that gave me an appreciation for Tiffany that, that was always there, but now had a different flavor, had a different experience. I got to experience what it was like Looking at Tiffany through a lens that I intellectually knew, but I felt in my heart, like i was like, I, that is beautiful. And, and part of the question with, with legacy is, am I even equipped for being able to, again, answer that question when I don't have experiences like that to to reach for? When I look at the immaturity for my past is believing I'm doing the things that are aligned to who I am, the project of myself and what I'm becoming and what I'm supposed to be and the identity that I need to have is always somewhat limiting.
00:18:13
Speaker
The legacy that I'm trying to lead is limited by how I define myself. And that part of what I want to reach for is allowing myself to be more defined by things impacting me in ways where the curiosity reveals parts about myself that I didn't consciously know existed. and And that story is an example of that, where there was a before and after.
00:18:39
Speaker
There was before where fear could drive me to trying to control, to trying to right the chaos. The fear got me into the room. But when I was there, I had another choice to say, what is happening here?
00:18:52
Speaker
But there's another version that says, in other situations, that version of myself doesn't need to show up. In fact, I can show up. I still may not know how, but I can, there is the possibility. And and to me, that feels a little bit, i mean, there's ah there's an aspect of that that feels freeing.
How Can Discovering New Facets Foster Growth?
00:19:09
Speaker
And it's not only freeing for myself, liberating, not liberating, not fraying, fraying. Yeah. That's a great word. It's, it's liberating. Okay. There's a greater menu of possibility here that is impactful to me, expansive to me for imagining a world with some possibilities that is not as deterministic as not as narrow, yeah but it's also, it has planted a seed in Tiffany's mind. Yeah. that says there is a possibility that tyler is bigger than what she thought i was capable of sounds like that's exactly what happened it's kind of amazing and somebody as old as you are and i say this with all respect but uh at our at our sweet vintage um to be able to discover something truly new that we didn't know about ourselves
00:19:58
Speaker
is very rare and the fact that you're able to recognize that embrace it and also be able to ready it for another opportunity is kind of amazing i don't think a lot of people have those experiences or are there they're far fewer than when you're an adolescent right yeah and it sounds like getting back to the legacy conversation that's something that came through and having tiffany see you in that light as well which was surprising and very welcomed It was surprising for you. What's the legacy that's stalking you? What's sneaking up on you that that is um' maybe calling to you and and saying there's something broader. There's a bigger world out here that that is pulling on you and saying, imagine bigger. I don't think it's as readily available for me to respond to you as it was for you.
00:20:47
Speaker
The first thought that I have is have having been governed by the thing you were describing earlier about that unintentional caring that we all have about this legacy or doing the right thing or trying to be a good person. Anyway, we'd like to frame those things. I think that has always been a driver in my life. and um And so I think with that, showing people kindness is how that plays out. Helping people when they have need is another thing that I do and have done. i also recognize the value of that in front of my children because I think that that also creates legacy dynamics and conversation.
00:21:23
Speaker
The one that still eludes me a bit and the one that I would like to do is is the pursuit of dreams. The pursuit of dreams is pretty huge. And so as a creative person, the talk about solo exhibitions and being in the right galleries and those types of things.
00:21:42
Speaker
uh that's not lost on me that's still something that i carry that's still something that i want to do it used to be for selfish reasons it used to be because i wanted to put my mark on the world and that's how i thought i would do it now that's transitioned and i need to do it to show my kids that it's possible to do these things even when they're hard and especially because they're hard but it's because it's important to you is the reason you do it i think that's the one that's still just outside of my grasp and i I know the methods. I know I can do it. I know what I want to do. i just need to execute. and um And it's not just that easy. i mean, there's a lot of steps involved, but it's it's a thing. And it's something that i think it's a good pursuit.
Personal Pursuits and Inspiring Children
00:22:25
Speaker
It's important for you to demonstrate to your kids this this nature of it's possible.
00:22:32
Speaker
That it's important to at least hold possibility. What is it about possibility that's important to you regarding your kids? Very simply put, I think that if we, if we hold captive that desire and the ability to let ourselves freely pursue something that's of, of importance to us, that we hold dear, ah personal pursuit I've mentioned thing about marathons, running marathons and Ironmans and all those physical type of things. Yeah, those are super valuable. And I think that it shows people through hard work, determination, grit, sacrifice, like all of that, then you can accomplish these things. And there's value with that.
00:23:14
Speaker
And nobody could ever take that away from you. This is no different for me. And I think that modeling that, showing my kids that in that pursuit, there is value of staying true to yourself, doing this thing, being recognized in a way that is on a bigger stage. Those are all huge dynamics and very valid for not having the shackles of society and the norms and, you know, following that thing that I was told when I was growing up is, okay, so...
00:23:46
Speaker
You're going to graduate from high school. You're going to go to college. After college, you're going to get a job. You're going to work that job until you die. But in the meantime, you're going to buy a house. You're going to have one and a half kids and two cars or whatever the the metrics were at the time or the statistics.
00:24:01
Speaker
And if you're happy with that, then good on you. You've done great. If there's something else that you would like to do that doesn't fit that mold, then, oh my gosh, the world is available to you. You got to make that happen. You got to do that thing.
00:24:13
Speaker
You got to stay up the late nights. You have to make that difficult phone call. um You've got to share those dreams with people that are important to you that you trust in your inner circle.
00:24:25
Speaker
ah not tell the people that will easily squash those types of dreams and desires and and navigating your way through it. And um yeah, just like any pursuit, any any big goal, anything that's worth doing,
00:24:39
Speaker
these questions of legacy these questions of of what it means to fulfill a role what you just said in terms of what's required in order to you want that you want to go after that here's the requirements and and
What Qualifications Are Needed to Fulfill Dreams?
00:24:58
Speaker
that is a conversation that that over the last week we've that that i've had with multiple people around qualifications and disqualifications And and what I mean by that is is that we were all raised in an America, Western world, that inherently has this view that says you can be anything you want to based on the limits of what I'm able to perceive about myself and what my qualifications are for that.
00:25:24
Speaker
But if there's some version of myself that is bigger, more expansive, and and I don't know how to get there, or it it requires me to surrender to some wisdom that is bigger than my present self. Yeah.
00:25:41
Speaker
I've heard you just say is there is a version of yourself that is encapsulated in, you use the word, the dream. I did. This dream of yourself that hasn't yet fully evolved into existing Sure. yet sure And the path to get from the here to then, well, what's what's driving you is at the very least some aspect that says that version of you represents something.
00:26:08
Speaker
That version of you at the very least represents possibility, which is important for your kids to continue to hold on to that regardless of of what the world is going to do in, let's just say, their first half of life, which we know is going to beat you up, going to shape you into making it seem like, yeah, all those things I was told in terms of what was possible, what I could be, what was required for that.
00:26:39
Speaker
That's false. There's a great line in ah Tuesdays with Maury, the book. Have you read this one? So kind of the opening chapter, or opening paragraphs, possibly the author was talking about. i was told was sold this bill of goods, right? If I do this and then I do this, then life is going to become easier. And then doors are going to open for you.
00:27:00
Speaker
and then and ah And then he brought it home he's like, yeah, I did all the things buying into that process and realizing the world kind of doesn't give a crap. And it's like, oh okay, here we are. And I read it at a time where it's like, oh, yeah, I learned that a very long time ago. Sorry to what he told you. But yeah.
00:27:18
Speaker
You know, we read that and we all kind of feel it. But for a long time, there was still like, this is America. Like this is the land of possibility. And yet now 20 years later, when I talk to people, what you just said, the bill of goods, what was sold, like that is a prevailing experience. it's It's almost like we're at a midlife crisis where we're looking back and we're saying, oh yeah, I was told I could be anything that I want to do. That hard work would do it. Like all these...
00:27:47
Speaker
And we can't even agree on what hard work equals. We can't even agree on these things. right I'm walking of a fine line here with not turning this into a critique of, you know, who's right, who's wrong. What, you know, what, what's the right way out of this?
00:28:02
Speaker
And I think in order to do that, there is something that we're being reminded of though. And that something has been the nature of the conversations was is that my desire to want to be that future version of myself or to fulfill an office or to to be the one that is a good leader or that there are me wanting it is not a sufficient qualification. The office, the role,
00:28:32
Speaker
that version of myself that i can't touch without actually surrendering to some degree of what else am i being taught what else do i need to be taught what is the quality that must rise up within me that must be cultivated by surrendering to to the assessment on whether i'm qualified or disqualified presently Those are the things that that that we haven't reconciled.
Societal Roles and the Danger of Idolization
00:29:01
Speaker
And and as as men, we want to reach for, I mean, we we've we've mentioned the manosphere and defining masculinity exclusively through a lens of, and therefore leaving a legacy around what it means to be a human male.
00:29:19
Speaker
that is defined by status, achievement, and whether or not I was able to grab onto a role and claim it as my own fails to ask the question of what disqualifies me from those. And that disqualification is not what I get to define.
00:29:39
Speaker
It's what the role or the office itself defines. it's what and and And to bring this to life, I don't know if we have had a more stark example of that than the present moment, where what we essentially so have said is is that there is a specific office,
00:30:01
Speaker
that says, in order to be qualified for this office, we take an oath to the office itself and what it represents.
00:30:12
Speaker
And what that office represents is that in order, the the number one qualification is is that I will place the office above my own personal interests. Yep.
00:30:25
Speaker
And what that means is that when I take that office, I will always and I must always through my oath of saying i can fulfill the role of this office is to say i will place the unity of the country. I will place the law of the land. I will place the advancement and abundance, however it shows up, at the feet of serving the population first. and
00:30:59
Speaker
And that if I don't do that, then I am, or if I'm not going to do that, then I'm disqualified from that office. And so we can argue specifically about whether or not making certain decisions is placing the interests of the country, the interests of others ahead of that. It's really difficult to argue when an individual specifically says, is asked a question that says, what do you think?
00:31:30
Speaker
How do you think about the population that you have been chosen, that the office is supposed to serve first and foremost? And the person who's fulfilling that office specifically says, I don't think about them at all. it's an amazing statement this is a callback to the collective legacy that we want to hold that says do we believe that the office it's important for that office to represent subjugating the self-interests and placing the interests of the collective because that's what the office represents
00:32:06
Speaker
It's a real interesting
Leadership's Role in Legacy and Collective Interests
00:32:07
Speaker
time right now. And I think it's going to call into question the way that the leadership in general is perceived. And what does it mean to be a leader? How to prepare for it? What skills do I need to have?
00:32:19
Speaker
Where is my level of sacrifice in doing so? And what is everybody going to accept? Where's the line? i think everything you just asked is is we're being asked of ourselves as our own legacy what does it mean is one of the qualifications not that not that you must be a martyr or or you know the victim to the office it is that what is the honor of serving When I come down here, what is the honor?
00:32:53
Speaker
What's the invitation when I am in front of Tiffany that I am being called towards that says, can I place the interests of this higher version of myself? Oh, wow. Yeah. As a married man.
00:33:08
Speaker
That's right. Yeah. As what I want to be for Tiffany, for us, balancing the sense of urgency that's needed in the moment. Can I see that? Or does it am I disqualifying myself by the choice that I make to say, wow, this is this is what is needed right now based on on what I think is needed?
00:33:31
Speaker
Can I instead reach for or can something else reach for me to say, at the very least, I can transcend this? and And I think that's one of the the questions that we ask when we talk, what that I ask of myself in legacy that that helps me be real skeptical about myself and whether I am qualified for a role or not. And going back to what you said in terms of the possibility,
00:33:56
Speaker
The part for me that is missing from the you can be anything that you want to be as long as you understand and are willing to submit to the the qualifying of your suitability for fulfilling a role.
00:34:14
Speaker
For you, it's like being that artist, being that standard bearer. for your kids requires this evaluation of what that takes, that there are trade-offs that are associated with that.
00:34:29
Speaker
You could, and there have been people that have chosen the starving artist route who's going after that. And yet you also made some decisions that that placed you in a position where where kids are going to rely on you and earning and putting food on the table says that I've got i've got to make trade-offs. and And when we talk about the picture that we see right now and the legacy that we want to leave, the the what we have inherited in terms of what this office represents,
00:35:04
Speaker
we We have to look in the mirror for ourselves and say, what is disqualifying? And when something is so stark that we say, one of the ground, the foundational qualifications here is is that you will suspend your own self-interest.
00:35:19
Speaker
Well, how will we measure that? We will measure that by having an emoluments c clause. And we will actually write that in and say that, you know what? It is hard sometimes to recognize.
00:35:31
Speaker
Sometimes we don't know. Sometimes I come down here and I say, I want to be more patient. I want to be more curious. I want to, well, what does that look like? What are the practices? What are the things that I am going to surrender my own judgment in that moment and reach for some requirements that I willingly submit myself to?
00:35:52
Speaker
I'm going to say that I might even need to say I've been cultivating the skills of patients. So what am I going to do to make sure that those come forward when I'm done? I'm going to count to five.
00:36:03
Speaker
when When this happens, I'm going to literally count to five. And for a lot of us, it's like that sounds infantile. That sounds ridiculous. That sounds like I'm a grown ass man. How dare you put that on to me? ah Trust that I will make the decisions that I need to. But that is a knowingness of myself that says the the deep worn grooves of of teaching moment, Tyler, of of coaching moment, Tyler, of all those, those are going to take over. Yeah.
00:36:35
Speaker
And if if what I know is is that there's some version of myself that needs to rise to that occasion, who needs to rise to the office, to the role in that moment, what am i what are the rules? What are the policies? Mm-hmm.
00:36:50
Speaker
What are the consequences that I'm going to surrender and submit myself to? What are the oaths that I'm going to take with myself? And those are things that I think we are at a point collectively, we don't understand what those things are.
Analyzing Qualifications and Responsibilities in Society
00:37:06
Speaker
We see them as constricting. We see them as restricting. And we say that I'd just rather trust the the individual and what they say. Okay.
00:37:16
Speaker
Okay, then then if that's the case and what we're going to set up, then I can't think of a more perfect picture of trusting what this individual is saying that automatically then says, if I trust what this person is saying, does that disqualify them from the office?
00:37:37
Speaker
It's the equivalent of going out for me and saying, I need to hire a babysitter for my child. and and i go and And I go to someone and they have a history of abuse, whether that's physical, emotional, psychological, sexual. yeah And asking the question, does that disqualify them from this role? They could be looking at me and saying, I'm a changed person. sure They could be looking me and say, I will never do that again.
00:38:06
Speaker
But the outstanding question is, is that are there certain things that disqualify you, regardless of the fact that we have a mythology that says you can be anything you want to?
00:38:18
Speaker
Well, if this person is on a list somewhere that says they have a history of abusing or emotionally, some form of abuse of children, is that disqualifying enough?
00:38:29
Speaker
Not because we have it out for that person, but because the nature of what it means to be able to trust that the the office, the role that must play when I make a decision that I'm going to hire a babysitter, that that role itself says,
00:38:47
Speaker
I need to be able to trust this person. I need to have a degree of confidence that they can fulfill the role. That's right. And based on their past, there are some things that disqualify that person from being a babysitter.
00:39:01
Speaker
Yes, you can be anything you want to as long as the role, the office has a say in the matter. Mm-hmm. That yes, I want to be an artist and i yes, I want to. And yet that that role, that office might say, you're going to be a starving artist for a while. yeah And if what I say is I made some choices that says what's also important to me is is that my kids be able to eat, then am I choosing to disqualify, at least for a period of time, myself from that role?
00:39:33
Speaker
And we don't want to have that conversation. And that's the conversation that I think a little bit here of what we're reaching for is is that we are at the very least capable of having that conversation in the terms of legacy.
00:39:49
Speaker
and that we set up certain roles and certain offices as a part of our collective legacy. And when someone says something, when someone raises their hands and says, oh yeah, I want to be a babysitter.
00:40:03
Speaker
However, my interests as a babysitter, I'm gonna place those above the children. then what I say is is that thank you, first of all, right for being that forthcoming.
00:40:16
Speaker
And if i as the parent, then decide to hire that person regardless, and then they say, I told you beforehand that I was going to put my interest. So guess what?
00:40:33
Speaker
While you were out, um I got this call from my girlfriend over here and I left. I abandoned. Your kids are still back at the house. ye I gave you the courtesy of telling you.
00:40:45
Speaker
and i start And I as the parent, I'm like, what do you mean I hired you as a babysitter? ah you you You had a role. And they're they're like, wait, wait. yeah I told you that I don't think about those children at all. that's i don't even think about their financial security. I don't think about the financial plight. i don't And I start saying, but you were supposed to.
00:41:09
Speaker
the office itself the role of it is to suspend your self-interest and to put the populations my children's well-being ahead of your own that's not on the person who broadcasts to me who they were who told me that is on me and part of what i think that but i'm asking myself as an individual. And what we collectively need to have the conversation is what are the qualifications that we want to hold out as a part of our legacy? And what are the disqualifications? Not because it's punitive, not because it's a...
00:41:50
Speaker
You're less than. But because the office, because the roles that we want to live up to have a point of view on what is required. And I hear that also in what you're saying is as that part of what's important for you, for your kids, is holding out the possibility. Because you know they are going to get beat up.
00:42:09
Speaker
Yep. They are going to get to a point where the world seems like it's rules. It's like, I have to follow this. The bill of goods that I was sold that that made me make decisions, it turned against me. And lies.
00:42:22
Speaker
And at the very least, when that happens, that what we have the ability to do is to transcend the narrowness of that thinking, the world beating us up and making us say like, become cynical, become small.
00:42:35
Speaker
And instead say that at the very least, I would like them to have some spark of light that reminds them that actually the world is bigger, but it requires choices.
00:42:48
Speaker
It requires trade-offs. And it's your job to weigh those things. Yeah. But at the very least, you have an example of someone who did weigh those things and showed that contextually, there was a period of time I couldn't pursue those
How Can Legacy Cultivate New Perspectives?
00:43:05
Speaker
things.
00:43:05
Speaker
But there might be something, some hope holding on to where it is possible. where we can imagine something different. And I think this the first time that we've that i have dived into this level of critique on what's happening right now.
00:43:21
Speaker
But why I think it's important and why it ties to this is is that we are all being asked to imagine something different. And it is hard to imagine that.
00:43:34
Speaker
When we look at the array of resources and power that just seems indomitable, that we cannot overcome that. And what holds out for me is this remembrance of coming downstairs, the fear that drove me down here, the fear that many of us feel that we cannot overcome. Mm-hmm. get us to the front lines. And then can we hold out that there is some possibility for something different, whether that's a reclamation of what was, of, of maybe needing to be the teaching moment, Tyler in that moment, but making that decision intentionally and not automatically, not out of fear, but seeing that that's, what's new to and maybe showing up
00:44:19
Speaker
in a new way, or is there something else that we haven't been exposed to yet? Some other possibility that despite everything pointing into the rules that says, well, you can't do anything new, any there is no possibility unless you satisfy the rules of what has always been, that it must be sustainable, that you must hold onto the resources, that you that we must compete, and that it's this is a zero sum game.
00:44:49
Speaker
that that there must be losers and there must be winners. And guess what? Similar what I said about what my experience was, there's a rationale for that. But that rationale is narrowing and points us towards the same conclusion over and over and over again. And we need to remember in our second life, in the in after the crisis, that it's our job to cultivate the possibility. And i hear that in what you said is, is that there's something for you is, is that being that holder of, there are other possibilities that currently are not present in your example and what you're modeling because you have other things that's still important to you.
00:45:32
Speaker
And I think it's important to all of us. Yeah, you know, i predicted this half hour ago that you would have a far more eloquent way of saying what the answer to your question. And you did not disappoint. So thank you for that. ah Yeah, it's so pervasive. And I think it's it's dangerous for me to think about the number of people that are not actively pursuing, reaching out, trying, sacrificing sleep or opportunity to fulfill that. Because I think it's disingenuous to who they are. And, um and I think that's every bit of legacy is to be true to yourself. And I think with that, the true you is going to come out that you're you is good. And, um and why not share that? Why not have that memory or that residue of who that fulfilled person is on the people around you in the form of legacy?
00:46:23
Speaker
That's huge. We have this second question. There's an element of it that the second half of it is what are the seeds that we are planting that we will never see the growth, the germination, yeah the
Generational Stewardship: The Living Root Bridges
00:46:37
Speaker
flowers of that. For myself, that is really hard to reconcile. Yeah, tell me why. Because I i i knew you were going to go with that. And I knew there's people that, there's two kinds of people in the world in this context. One that can play the long game and are okay with not seeing the fruits of that labor.
00:46:52
Speaker
And then the other people that they have to be able to see what their energies went into. The second part of what you said is you use the word they have to. Yeah.
00:47:04
Speaker
So much where I get trapped into it. This goes to what we were saying is the rules, the, the have to, I have to see the fruits of, of what, Yeah. My energy is being put toward and the metaphor around this that we reference oftentimes in good pain.
00:47:28
Speaker
what What we write is these bridges of Meghalaya in Northern India. Northern India and in the province or state of Meghalaya is known for having massive typhoon seasons, tremendous amounts of water.
00:47:44
Speaker
There are multiple villages throughout Meghalaya that rely on each other for trade, for for access to health care. And there are a tremendous number of of rivers that have to be traversed. And during the monsoon season, man-made bridges get washed out.
00:48:05
Speaker
wow And you are cut off from access to healthcare, care access to support, access to food in some cases. If there's a village there that gets wiped out, they rely on each other to sustain one another.
00:48:20
Speaker
And if you don't have access to that, you you may go through the grievous process of saying goodbye to entire villages. They recognize, well, our man-made bridges, they are susceptible from an engineering perspective. yeah So what emerged hundreds of years ago, if not millennia, was through the ingenuity of working directly with nature.
00:48:45
Speaker
And what nature had already solved, which was stability and rootedness, that allows when these floods come through for for trees to stay intact was ah was a sense of brilliance that didn't first come from from man. It was through the observation of of these villagers who said, wow, the rootedness of some of these trees keeps them intact, drives sustainability, helps to navigate the volatility. And what they started doing,
00:49:20
Speaker
was training some of these routes to traverse the rivers and take root on the other side of of the banks. There are these bridges of Megaliah, living root bridges, that have lasted hundreds of years, withstand these seasons, keep people connected. Here's the catch. A single generation, by and large, cannot build the bridges. Yeah. The stewardship that's required when you're building a new bridge with the roots of these trees, it takes multiple generations. yeah they have to They had to learn how to work with these trees without breaking them. You can imagine saying like, we need these bridges. We've got this great idea. We're going to, through sheer force,
00:50:11
Speaker
and determination, we're going need to force these routes to go across. And you fail to appreciate the patience that's required to slowly train these routes to cross over and take root.
00:50:24
Speaker
There's different documentaries that have been shown i of this of how they do this and how they slowly have to train the routes. They have to tie them and direct them. yeah They have to collaborate with these routes that recognizes the roots have a point of view as well they want to go down into and and and contribute to the overall rootedness of the tree and yet we have an intention as our humanity that says like hey we can collaborate with this and get something out of it as well but it takes time it takes patience it takes cultivating with successive generations the desire the intention the motivation
00:51:07
Speaker
the foresight that it's worth it. It takes somebody who gets the work started to reconcile the fact that they're going to do work on a bridge for which they will never set foot.
00:51:19
Speaker
yeah They will not get to live to take advantage of that. However, they do get to take advantage of the work and legacy of others that built trees before them, who built tree bridges before them. yeah They get to take advantage of that.
00:51:37
Speaker
And they do that by paying it forward, by reinvesting, by earning that legacy that they inherited.
The Responsibility of Planting Seeds for Future Generations
00:51:46
Speaker
That picture for me, in terms of asking the question,
00:51:51
Speaker
What are the seeds I am planting? What are the things that I am doing? Because that's a part of being a good ancestor, being a legacy holder, investing in things for which I am not going to see a benefit. Not because I'm driving on interstates or using internet that was put down by wires that that that that others invested in, the infrastructure that they built.
00:52:17
Speaker
That doesn't obligate to me, but it does call me to an expression that when I'm 18 years old and 20 years old and 30 years old and thinking about how I center myself and what I must get to do, that at some point I reach a period of reflection, contemplation that says I must leave something because I want to participate in the same legacy building that others participated in before me and it may be in some version of my expression the ways that i do it and yet i'm not doing it out of obligation i'm doing it because i am a part of humanity i'm a part of the fact that everything
00:52:59
Speaker
that is here regarding humanity, i am either taking advantage of or benefiting from because others set aside their present needs, their present extraction of as much as they could possibly get.
00:53:15
Speaker
They're setting aside the determinist view that says this is a zero sum. You're either a winner or a loser. You need to get as much as you possibly can. I'm setting that aside, even though when I look out on the landscape, that's all the noise.
00:53:30
Speaker
That's all that's pointing to. Sure. it Is that, wow, if this thing is going to fall apart, I better grab as much as I can for me, mine and ours. Yeah, that's right. Before my neighbor does. Mm-hmm. Basic survival, right? Absolutely. Yeah. And yet what I forget is is that what got me to this moment was a whole lot of people who faced similar things. I'm not the first one who believes this is the end of the world. In fact, I come out of wisdom tradition that every 10 years was saying, oh, now this is, now we're living in the end times. fair Now we're at the end. Yeah.
00:54:02
Speaker
And yet even, i mean, like, I don't know where we are in history. I just know that what's being presented to us now, what's being asked of me now is to confront the fact that I don't need to be convinced on what the future of of humanity is going to be in order to choose now. Going back to the other question, there are some of us that say that I have to see the future. I have to see the outcome.
00:54:29
Speaker
and And that's where I think the reconciliation for for myself is being asked is, why am I enslaving myself to this idea that unless I can convince myself of what's possible being possible, I'm just going to keep doing the same.
00:54:46
Speaker
What's enslaving myself to the same, the same, the same? And What's enslaving myself to getting up based on fear and coming down here and just doing the same, the same, the same.
00:54:59
Speaker
this This to me is a really, and I know this is rhetorical, but I'm going to go ahead and answer it. um I think it's so simple. The calculus on that is that people continue to do the same because the fear of the unknown is such a heavy driver,
How Does Fear of the Unknown Restrict Progress?
00:55:13
Speaker
right? And so having to branch out, having to try new things, having to explore avenues that they don't know, or it's going to be a lot of work or whatever. And I'm already busy with a lot of work. um But yeah, staying the same becomes the baseline.
00:55:27
Speaker
And that is not what makes changes in the world. That's not the names that remember in history. I mean, when we say the same, i mean, one of the things that that I look at across all of our technological advancements, we we oftentimes, by I oftentimes feel that we we i um we we determine our sense of progress by the technological advancements the new things that are available to us those are easy markers they are yeah they are and we say like look at what we've done and we we we do talk about things like there was a point in history where the world was susceptible to any kind of bug that that would wipe out a third of the population right If you want a picture of progress, go look at the very flu, first flu epidemic and what percentage of the population was decimated. Yeah.
00:56:20
Speaker
Died, vacated life. Scraped off the planet. That's right. That through technological advancements in medicine, we got to a point where that that was not a part of living. That was not a part of the human experience. The idea that we had to be, that that you could potentially, if you were in a family of six working the farm and you you relied on each other for for working that land, sustaining yourself and and... That over a period of when a plague hit you, that you looked around the table at one moment and there's six people all there. and and And the next day, the next month, the next year, two of you are gone. yeah
00:57:05
Speaker
That was a reality. You lived with that. that was That was a part of the human experience. you couldn't Everybody was touched by that. And that we moved into a world where...
00:57:17
Speaker
That, you couldn't even conceptualize that. We advanced to a world where we had technological innovations that allowed us the privilege of not thinking in those terms.
00:57:29
Speaker
We've done that in all manner of different ways of technological advancement that that speak to the ingenuity of us as humans for imagining.
Technological Progress and Its Impact on Human Experience
00:57:39
Speaker
Somebody had to imagine. In that world, we could have kept going and saying, like, that's a part of life.
00:57:44
Speaker
A third of the population is going to die every X number of years. But somebody had the audacity to imagine a possible world where that was different.
00:57:55
Speaker
It didn't have to be the norm. Didn't have to be the norm. And they changed the norm. Wow. But sometime at some point, we start to believe that through our technological advancements, we can we can actually eliminate.
00:58:11
Speaker
all of the negatives of human experience there's no limits to this we start actually defining human experience as void or absent of any kind of pain or suffering you take that to the next step and we say well now we're going to say pain and suffering is equated to convenience and comfort if i'm experiencing inconvenience or uncomfortable about a situation well that also needs to be eliminated as well and we are going to develop technologies that eliminate those things we get lost when we start to change the notion of our relationship to technology itself as being what rescues us from the human condition the fact that life is uncertain
00:58:59
Speaker
And we start reaching for this degree of, well, what it means to live is to establish certainty. And we call that progress. We call that sameness. And what you just said about the the same, what we said, like that same equals good.
00:59:19
Speaker
um is is that eventually what we start focusing on is predictability and stability moving from something that oftentimes brings us together. In fact, you know yeah we we consider but why why does society emerge in the first place? Why why do we have this legacy of of at some point in human history,
00:59:39
Speaker
that we inherited the idea we have inherited we are inheritors of society itself. Well, who who first made that decision? It was yeah two individuals out there fending on their own, finding out that, oh my God, we're... we This is a nightmare. This is a nightmare. And I've got to put food on the table for myself. I've got to protect myself. I've got to keep my head on a swivel, all these different things. And at some point, we just decide that, you know what? Hey, maybe...
01:00:09
Speaker
our survival together, we're better off than we are doing this on our Unlike group work in high school and college, collaboration here is very, very helpful. That's right. That's right. And then and then and then we expand and we start getting more specialization and people are doing some things that are of a value. and and Then you have a society. There's a culture. Exactly. yeah and but But there's also some point where it's like,
01:00:34
Speaker
Wow, what we've built, we've we've managed, our survival has improved. Similar to what we said is we've now got technological innovations that we, by coming together and allowing individuals to focus scientifically on isolating what is the cause of this disease and then developing solutions for that. Yeah.
01:00:52
Speaker
Then we extend into, well, you know what? Now we're going to have people who specialize in all these other areas. There's space for it. There's also need with a growing populace, right? That's right.
01:01:04
Speaker
This is how it develops. Yeah. And then we start saying, well, that gives room for some people starting to focus on improving quality of life. Eventually we get to a point where we, what we were talking about before is, is that we start redefining or believing having the privilege. We're so far away from death and dying that it feels like dying to be inconvenienced.
01:01:28
Speaker
We, we redefine it as it's like, what do you mean? I have to get up and i have to drive to Taco Bell to spend my, yeah i was going to say $5 that may have changed. Wow. You really, Yeah. You're showing some age now today. I don't know what happened. But but the the parallel though, the analogy that you're creating is the comforts that come with collaboration yeah quickly transition into pampering yeah or being pampered or feel pampered. And then at that point we've lost the script. Yeah. It's super dangerous.
01:02:00
Speaker
Going back to legacy, it's it's the some of the things we've inherited from an infrastructure perspective. was was based on similar to the bridges of Megaliah. They inherit infrastructure with these bridges that is still rooted in this inherent belief that this was a value to us because.
01:02:21
Speaker
And the because had a very much a rootedness in a shared experience that for the time that we have here, there are some things that we're all going to experience.
01:02:38
Speaker
Hunger, cold, fear, and anxiety associated with whether we're going to be dry tonight with a roof over our heads, hoping We're all, we're going to have kids that we're going to hope are going to have a better life, a higher quality of life than maybe what we did. Right.
01:02:56
Speaker
We are going to experience sickness. We're going to experience death. Yeah. Those are things that at the very least, most, if not all of us have experienced some version of those things. And those, yeah that experience of that kind of struggle, pain, suffering, pain,
01:03:13
Speaker
They brought us together. But when those get replaced with a legacy of, well, I don't want to drive to Taco Bell. I'd rather use my app to have it delivered to me. And this has nothing to do with denigrating that that's right or wrong. It's that It's an option that is presented right now. That's right. that's it It's that we we lost sight. You said we we lost the plot on what progress actually looks like, what quality of life actually looks like.
What Are the Negative Impacts of Social Media?
01:03:41
Speaker
and And we started driving towards this idea, this legacy of sameness.
01:03:48
Speaker
that says by by taking the volatility out that that is always constant with the human condition, with being trapped in time, that says life is going to be about positive experiences and it's going to involve some negative experiences. And we're going to move between those two things. And instead, what we're going to say is is like, no, I don't want to...
01:04:08
Speaker
move and swing. I want to eliminate all of those downside experiences and therefore we're going to make things same. Well, what we have created is a world that increasingly has technological advancements that we have to spend more of more of our time on managing the technology itself. In fact, so much so.
01:04:30
Speaker
that what we have now is not even technology, technologies that yield a net positive. We have technologies that have have that have been brought to bear.
01:04:42
Speaker
We want to say this is positive and this brings something that's good for us. And then the negatives start emerging from that. I'm to use social media as an example here. Oh, okay. Social media and the positives of actually allowing some people to find each other more effectively. For us actually identifying that i in my isolation, go into a broader addressable market that gives me access to a world that is so much bigger without the requirements of transversing geographic distance. Right.
01:05:12
Speaker
And I now feel that I'm not alone. I'm that meerkat coming up in the Savannah, popping my head above, looking out in the distance, being like, oh, there's another meerkat. I'm not alone. And then on top of that, I'm not going to litigate all of the negatives of social media. It's it's too hackneyed ah an approach.
01:05:29
Speaker
I'm just going to say there's a lot of negatives. sure And we, in our discomfort that came with that, didn't turn towards actually asking the question of, okay, we like some of these positives, but there's a hell of a lot of negatives here.
01:05:45
Speaker
Let's develop some wisdom and some, what would be our legacy to actually change this, to lean into it. Instead, what we're going to do is we're going to develop another technology yeah to address the negatives that we don't want to. So we don't at any point actually look back and say, we got to this We developed through our ingenuity, through we're going to just go build another bridge. We're not going to steward the one that we have. I thought you were going to go a different direction with um not addressing the negatives, but let's make the pauses more efficient and effective. And so we just totally forget about where the, uh, that, that dead end coming up ahead of us is, is going to present itself. Um, and that's, I think every variation of whatever the next social media is, it's just taking what worked, making it better, making it more of a dopamine drip and, uh, making it people so that people can't live without it. what What you just described, I mean, social media in its in what it promised was you were going to be able to find your unique pride. It's like this long tail aspect that says you have these very unique interests. You are so unique. yeah You need to find the others who are unique to you. And so what you're going to be able to do through access to all of this, this very large data set of individuals, yeah you're going to be able to find those unique pieces. Okay, that did that. You got you ah addicted to this. It has all of these other...
01:07:09
Speaker
fallout components to it. So then we're going to say, well, you know what? Part of those problems are that, yeah, you found some of those unique people, but man, being with people is hard. Bumping into them is hard. sure and And actually negotiating and developing a a pluralistic view that says, hey, we're going to struggle a little bit together. I'm not going to be able to get exactly what I want.
01:07:32
Speaker
What was the next big step of innovation? You will be able to algorithmically find somebody that is only speaking to you and your version of yourself at that point and they will love you exactly as you are none of this need for actually dealing with the messiness of other people who might have some autonomy and agency, we're going to build something for you that is always just you're perfect as you are. And there's an element of truth that says i can find in my own solitude, my own sense of confidence.
01:08:12
Speaker
my own sense of self-worth i don't need to be going and measuring based on the likes that i get the number of likes that's what the problem is is is that i predicated my validity my worthiness on how many external likes that i'm going to get Well, that drove me crazy. That made me anxious. That made me sure further divorce for myself. Well, instead of actually reconciling that, what we're going to do is we're going to say, well, wouldn't it be nice if someone just loved you for who you are?
01:08:45
Speaker
The problem with that is is that by bumping into other people, by walking across the
AI, Democracy, and the Hindrance to Growth
01:08:52
Speaker
bridges and going to other villages and then returning back to my village, is is that we get this learning, this expansion. I'm to go back to the example. By me getting out of the bed and going downstairs and actually submitting and surrendering to the stickiness of the situation.
01:09:10
Speaker
not going downstairs and showing up however I wanted to in my present state. And Tiffany saying, you showed up exactly the way you were supposed to, the way you lectured me and the way you told me all the things that I was doing wrong. It was brilliant.
01:09:26
Speaker
I did not see it in the way, how could I have been? You are brilliant. And if you are reading the the what I am saying, it is in the voice of chat GPT and AI and the sycophancy that is there, that is what was our way of hiding from ourselves. Social media was an invitation to say, we we found some new things that are positive, yeah some ingenuity that opened us up into the world that solved some problems with people that felt isolated over here. But then the moment that we actually bumped into each other, we found these things that were sticky. We ran away from that as fast as possible and found a sycophantic algorithmic thing
01:10:10
Speaker
that will tell us exactly what we want to hear and we divorced ourselves from the possibility of who we can become because there's no way for us to reach that without bumping into our own limitations and when we have something that is constantly telling us you're you're just right to the way you are. All of that pain and suffering that you're feeling, that's because of these things that are wrong outside of you. Yeah, it's not you. And I think this for me starts to go back to historically, even Plato and Aristotle and a lot of our Western thinkers, we're terrified.
01:10:47
Speaker
of democracy as a governing structure.
Choosing Convenience Over Personal Growth
01:10:50
Speaker
Because of this exact sycophancy, what we have embedded into AI is an inherent Western view that says your comfort, your convenience, whoever you are at this point in time, regardless of who you need to become in the highest version of yourself, in the most evolved version of what you can be,
01:11:16
Speaker
in holding out the possibility, going through the struggle, going through the bumping into each other, they were terrified of a democracy that would say, if you have two candidates in front of you, one of it saying, I can see who we want to be. I can see the legacy we actually want to lead and leave.
01:11:34
Speaker
I can see the legacy in the future that future generations will hold and stand on those shoulders and you are never going to see it. And that calls to a version of myself that I don't have access to yet, but I know that in the future, I want to live up to that. Versus a candidate that comes aside and says, hey, that sounds really hard.
01:11:58
Speaker
What that person is telling to you, like, what do you mean you're not going to get to see that? You deserve that whatever you want right now, you should you want a bag of candy? I'm going to give you a bag of candy.
01:12:10
Speaker
And what we have in the picture of AI and what we have in the picture of where we are politically, socially, is is we have a view that says we chose convenience, we chose the easy, we chose all of all of those paths that take us further and further away from ourselves because what we wanted was the same. We wanted to predictability, we wanted certainty. and and and And here's what we get when we want certainty.
01:12:39
Speaker
When you want predictability, when you want stability, when you want absolute structure and you want somebody to promise to you that things can be certain, what you get is a machine. You get repeatable parts.
01:12:51
Speaker
We get a manufacturing, an industrial age that says any form of deviation. If you, if the machine doesn't fit you, the problem is you. And what we're going to do is we're going to make you into a cog and you're going to fit into that machine. And if you do not,
01:13:07
Speaker
fit, then you have no business being a part of this machine. And the question we have to be asking ourselves as legacy builders is, do we want to be building a machine?
Humanity's Core Essence of Diversity and Expression
01:13:17
Speaker
Do we want to be parts in a machine? And I think that's one of the beauty of what it actually means to be human. Why we came together as a society is we do want some threshold quality of life. We do want some threshold survivability, but in that,
01:13:34
Speaker
We do it yeah because we want the variety of expression. We want the variety of art. We want people that create artists as a remind us of the variety of experiences, remind us that, man, it is terrifying at times to live in the realm of uncertainty. But we can come together and collectively say, this life sucks sometimes. Navigating this sucks sometimes, but we're doing it together. And instead, what we've traded is people who are promising us the bag of candy that I will eliminate uncertainty for you. I will give you a certainty. And it is a false promise. It is a lie because the cost is our humanity. The cost is our legacy that we actually want to leave.
01:14:22
Speaker
and And that is, i don't know if we, it was not planned, but that part of what we just, our next season is about art and the artful living and actually leaning into that. And why, even within the art that we're creating and what has happened with this extraction of art and expression of making it more predictable of all these sequels of conglomeration of aggregating up media so that we can make it more predictable. We are,
01:14:52
Speaker
We are violating our humanity and we are doing it in every direction. And it feels like once again, but that's the way the world is.
01:15:03
Speaker
And part of what we are saying, part of your story of the possible, holding out the possibility is, but what if we can do this differently? Yeah. What if we can reach for at our core, some of the things that make us the most human is the ability to imagine a world that doesn't exist yet. That is possible.
01:15:23
Speaker
but it requires us setting aside our idolatry of comfortability, of convenience, of considering what is the legacy that we're going to leave and stepping into that unknown and doing it because we must, not because there's an outcome that says it's guaranteed.
01:15:40
Speaker
there are so many strings attached behind that guarantee and it's an empty promise it's false because it's not ever going to be true to what you really need no matter what you think you need or want but um just to recognize What we're doing here, the title of the podcast, good pain, pain is in fact good in these contexts,
Understanding Good Pain and Growth Through Discomfort
01:16:02
Speaker
right? That discomfort creates pain. This is why we're having these conversations is we recognize that in order to get to that place, we've got to push through some stuff. And the guarantee is, is not going to get you any of that.
01:16:14
Speaker
The easy road is not going to get you there. And also recognizing being alone is not something that you have to do. It feels alone sometimes, but there are other people that are doing that too. There's other people that have had that same concern, problem, struggle, battle, argument, whatever.
01:16:32
Speaker
And yeah, you don't have to you don't figure it out on your own. What you just described and put words to is is the, is I think the question for all of us is, yeahho you know, glibly of what is the legacy that we want to lead? What's the kind of ancestor we want to be ancestors, right? We want to be. And at this moment in history, it is you know going back to instead of the simplicity of I can so within myself, I can curate a life that defines when I have arrived as being I've arrived when I've reached this status level, when making X amount of money, when when convenience and comfortability means I get to coast. Yeah.
01:17:17
Speaker
Whatever that may be and whatever shape form that is. some type of external validation, something possibly that would give you the reflection that you think you need. That's right. Recognizing that there's a part of me that's like, oh, there's a siren call in that. That's like, oh, I want that.
01:17:36
Speaker
Particularly if I've gone through a period of time where things have felt bleak, small. It's like, oh man, if I could just win that lottery. And it's also so funny that we anchor so much of this to financial.
01:17:50
Speaker
Yes. Right. And so I get it. I've had that game too, but I guess all I need to do is 85 million. I'm not asking for the world, yeah but as long as I get the 85 million that they're offering this week, I can make this problem go away. This one goes away. yeah. Yeah.
01:18:04
Speaker
but yeah yeah and it And it is, i think we say these things as if they they are, we we take them for granted. We take things for granted that says like, you know, money doesn't buy happiness and all these different things. It's it's a bit trade at this point. Everybody says this. it But we are at a point where I think we are confronting and looking, we we are having the mirrors of what that means, of what the trade-offs actually mean.
The Role of Self-Awareness in Legacy Building
01:18:31
Speaker
The trade-offs actually come with this. If I believe somebody who who is making the promise, trust me, put me in the role, and I will give you everything that you need. Oh, wow. I will take care of all of this. I will eliminate all of the all of the spiky edges that make your life uncomfortable, whether that is the spiky edges of finances, of rising gas prices, of of rising grocery prices, of of people that look different than you.
01:19:06
Speaker
i will eliminate all that. And you will therefore be happy. but What you're describing is the foundational ah ah temptation of everybody that we've had in history. We have all had in history, I should say, ah difference of good and evil, right?
01:19:23
Speaker
what you you like if i failed What you just said, if I fail to take those promises and reflect on what parts of me resonate with wanting that, yeah okay then I blindly accept it yeah without evaluating the costs, without evaluating the trade-offs, without asking the question,
01:19:43
Speaker
Oh, you're qualifying within me all those things that that sound like a siren call. They sound great. They sound awesome. That's like warm cookies in the oven. Exactly. But if i say yes, what are the disqualifications I am overlooking?
01:20:01
Speaker
Not just in that person who's making the promises. Experientially. But myself, i am disqualifying myself potentially from being a good citizen.
01:20:15
Speaker
What are the qualifications that are required of a good citizen? ah The qualifications that are required of a good citizen, the civic duties that I have within self-governance is I must continue to embrace the discomfort of self-governance. The inconvenience of being involved, the inconvenience of holding people accountable.
01:20:38
Speaker
One of the things that I think is hard as a parent is accepting the role that comes with being a parent. Part of that is the discomfort of holding your kids accountable at times. Yeah, sure. We've all been there. Of actually saying like what means to be a good citizen in this household is is some degree of age appropriate pulling your weight. yeah And not everybody agrees with that.
01:21:01
Speaker
Not here to. It's different for every home. That's right. But let's say that you whatever your threshold is, if that child decides to say like, nope, but I refuse.
01:21:13
Speaker
You have a choice as a parent. are you go The convenient thing is to be like, to wave hands at it and be like, okay, you called my bluff. I'm done. As citizens, if we choose the the promise of someone without regard for even whether they can fulfill that promise reasonably, whether it's mythical, whether it's lies, whether it's... it's We are at that moment outsourcing the very things we're supposed to be fulfilling.
01:21:42
Speaker
And and i that's the part for me that that we continue to be called towards that, I think, collectively to reconcile the choices that we have made that could have been based on the wanting to believe the lie.
01:22:02
Speaker
because that exists within us we want to believe that we can craft a world that masters and dominates uncertainty but we all are subject to the fact that nobody here has access to you a future version that says if we do this this will happen and yet That's kind of how we participate as citizens. is is that And this was the nature of Plato and Aristotle, understanding the human condition that says we want to. And when when there's individuals that figure out that it is easier to speak to the the mythical wants that will never be satisfied. And when the population then turns to forsaking their own role
01:22:54
Speaker
for evaluating the trade-offs, for making tough decisions, when they when they glibly relinquish their own role is when you have those who will recognize, well, I can step into this role that has a purpose, that has qualifications and disqualifications. And I can say whatever it is, even if they're in conflict with why that role exists, And those individuals will continue to sanction this behavior as long as they refuse to look in the mirror and take the responsibility for how they chose their own fantasy land within them rather than the tough work of what it means to become and bump into one another so that we embrace versions of ourselves that are not here yet.
Confronting Fears to Preserve Legacy
01:23:46
Speaker
and and And that's what, when we start talking about legacy, I want to bump into those that will increasingly call me towards the more mature versions of myself that I know is possible.
01:24:03
Speaker
Despite my fears, despite my anxieties, despite my sometimes immature beliefs that, yeah, I can have my cake and eat it too. Yes, I can be free of these things. Yes, the good life will equal no discomfort, no inconvenience. And that if I allow that part of me to win out, I forsake that version of myself.
01:24:28
Speaker
I forsake who I want to be for the people I love most. I forsake my legacy. We spent the past two episodes talking about legacy and the importance it is, but tracking some of the the points here, start off with the abilities to recognize from that recognition, then choice needs to be made about how I go about it. What do I do? What am I giving up?
01:24:56
Speaker
What am am I called into this position? Do I have to abandon that position? Cause I don't have the wherewithal yet, but I think, Transitioning into this last bit of the conversation, talking about the integrity and accountability of making those choices every single day. And it's sometimes in big ways, sometimes it's in very subtle ways. And having that be part of who you are, you don't have a choice. You're going to create a lasting legacy that people are going to be drawn to. If you're doing the things that are in keeping with yourself and your values, and it doesn't have to be showy, it doesn't have to be grand. It's a call. It's a constant call every day, right? It's a constant call.
01:25:40
Speaker
It's inconvenient. It's uncomfortable. that The choice whether you're going to choose the discomfort of, of enjoining on the road that never guaranteed a comfortable hike. That wasn't that, that, that was never a part of the deal.
01:25:59
Speaker
But you do you want the muscles of of doing the hike? do you want Do you want to give yourself the chance of summiting and seeing the view? Yeah. or the benefits are are you going to believe that that you can hire somebody to carry you up there and and somehow skip all of it? The choices is each of ours.
01:26:21
Speaker
That's right. And, and it's a hard choice. This this is life is hard. And, and the question is is, that for me, it's the developing, not in the skepticism of, of other people who are promising easy life. Yeah.
01:26:39
Speaker
Yeah, that's right. It is developing the skepticism within myself for when I choose easy and and when my choice of easy impacts myself, impacts the people around me, and puts me on a path that takes me further away from myself. It's a cost I i just don't, I'm unwilling to pay. That's a trade-off that I'm unwilling to make. That is, and and and that's for me. And that doesn't mean because I'm making that choice that others need to make it as well or in the way that that I'm making it.
01:27:10
Speaker
It's that that is our humanity is rooted in increasingly starting to recognize the choices that we have, letting go of blame, letting go of the external, even though those matter, even though those may be there, simply to make the choice even more stark, making it more challenging. It doesn't take away from the fact that I do have some choice in the matter.
01:27:38
Speaker
Thank you for sitting with us in this conversation, for bringing your own story, your own questions, and your own hard-won wisdom to what we're building together.
Inviting Community Engagement and Subscription
01:27:47
Speaker
If you want to keep this going, subscribe to Good Pain on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, where you can also leave us a review that helps others find their way to these conversations.
01:27:57
Speaker
And for weekly doses of conversations that go beyond quick fixes or surface level advice, subscribe to our kindling newsletter at goodpainco.com. Good Pain is recorded in Colorado on Arapahoe, Ute, and Cheyenne Ancestral Alliance.
01:28:13
Speaker
And let's remember, we are not alone in this. Our struggle is not our shame. Whatever we are carrying today, we don't have to carry it alone. We will see you next time.