Perch "The Thoughtful Pause Podcast"
The concept of Perch is simple yet profound. It represents more than just a moment of stillness; it embodies a philosophy of life. Perch stands for Pause, Evaluate, Responses to Circumvent, Harm. It’s a call to rise above the noise and seek higher ground to gain a clearer view of the world around us. When we Perch, we create space to see the bigger picture, understand different perspectives, and make decisions that reflect our highest values.
Navigating complexities with empathy is one of the most significant challenges we face today, and it is the ability to understand and empathize with those who hold different views. Our experiences and backgrounds deeply influence our beliefs and the environments we are exposed to. Where you sit determines what you see, and what you see determines what you do. When we Perch, we acknowledge this truth and strive to see the world through the lens of others.
Perch "The Thoughtful Pause Podcast"
Who are we? Where do we stand if we are not united?
We open our hearts in this episode, delving deep into the timeless message of "We Are the World," a powerful testament to the unifying force of music, juxtaposed against the backdrop of today's fragmented society. As we navigate these turbulent waters, we confront the poignant irony of international aid amidst local homelessness, prompting a profound inquiry: Can we authentically uplift the global community without fortifying our own societal foundations? Join us on this introspective journey as we unravel the complexities of societal cohesion and individual responsibility, seeking to ignite transformative change through candid dialogue and heartfelt introspection.
Let's all keep searching to expand our view!
Good day Perch people Want to. Before I do anything, welcome Toby back. Welcome back, toby, glad you're in the land of the living, thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you Made it through, yes yes, any stories about her Me was grossly overrated. Yes, yes, it was. I wanted more money, so we had to renegotiate the deal.
Speaker 1:Fake news, fake news so.
Speaker 2:I got 100% raise.
Speaker 1:So, before we get into this today's topic I really want to discuss, I was led to come up with a what do you call it? A slogan model? What is it called?
Speaker 1:Like the meaning of the show. So literally of course it's called Perch. But I was given an epiphany or sign to call it the Thoughtful Pause podcast and I never really talked about that. And the reason why I'm bringing it up now is because this particular episode, we definitely need a thoughtful pause before we start it. And so what is a thoughtful pause? It's that pause. Literally it's in a name.
Speaker 2:You can't define a word. With a word you know you can't say pause is a pause.
Speaker 1:No, so I was going to say why thoughtful pause.
Speaker 2:Gotcha, but yeah, but okay, good All right, thank you. You're welcome.
Speaker 1:So the reason why I said no the reason why I say thoughtful pause is because we all kind of came up with the same expression saying thing before you speak, take a breath, take a beat. That's a common saying. But that's just a pause. It's just that this is intentionality behind it, meaning, you know, pause to really think clearly before we form such strong opinions. And so now that leads us in today's topic. Today's topic it came to me in a weird way and I'll get to that how it came to me. But what's today's topic, toby?
Speaker 2:The designated hitter and baseball. I don't know what it is.
Speaker 1:You don't know what today's topic is.
Speaker 2:I don't Military intelligence, how the two that can, I don't know. No, I just yeah.
Speaker 1:Today's topic is who are we? Who are we, who are we? And there's a reason I didn't say who are you? Who am I? Who are we? And the point of this topic is to say that we are collective. If we like it or not, we are. We were all created.
Speaker 2:The colloquial we, yes, yes.
Speaker 1:And I'm saying this with intention, because we were all created to need each other. We just were From science. You can bring in religion, you can bring in any factor it it. Man was not meant to live alone. So for us to say, you know who am I is one thing, but who are we as a collective body? And so, ironically, how I kind of I've been coming to this, this question has been lingering in my head for a while, but we're really bought it to the forefront, you know, in a weird way is I just watched that we are the world. What was it called the greatest night in? What was it called the greatest night in pop? I think, yeah, documentary, and I love we all the world, love the song. It was transformative for me and when I watched it I wonder if anyone had the same thoughts that I had. So if you haven't seen it, I really highly recommend it for people who are younger. You don't even know what we are the world is. Please go to YouTube. What year?
Speaker 2:was that 1985?
Speaker 1:Wow, okay Right. 1985 is when we, we are the world came out and we are the world was a collective group of the who's who and pop music at the time coming to get some kind of way. Dan Acroy got in there too. Don't ask me, that's a whole nother conversation. I don't know how he got in there, but it was a who's who would pop. The biggest artists on the planet at the time came together and they did it to help, charity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was the famine, what was going on in Africa. So that's why so. Charity, yes, but, and so this was the first time on the history of the planet where the planet came together. And how did it come together? So they pick we are the world charted. It was a hit. They picked one day where the world played and sung. We are the world at the same time around the globe. And the reason why this really resonated with me one is I love music. I love the way music transcends religion, culture, barriers, how powerful music is to the planet. But what really stayed with me is how far we have come.
Speaker 2:There's that we word again, there goes we.
Speaker 1:So here it is that all of these people came in. You have Michael Jackson, Paul.
Speaker 2:Quincy Jones.
Speaker 1:Bob Dylan. Prince didn't come, that's all. He was invited, he didn't show up, oh wow, but it was he. We look, I mean all the biggest people.
Speaker 2:So you lost her.
Speaker 1:Yes, came, and never, not one time, was politics bought up. No one said these liberals, no one said you know what's the agenda around the planet? There was no question. You got people of you know the highest caliber that's booked and busy all year round. That dropped everything.
Speaker 2:So who called in the favor? Who put it all together? Was it Quincy Jones?
Speaker 1:It was Quincy Jones and Lionel Richie were the main two behind it. But they they took that from the first one that people remember before that there was band aid, where they came together so that those bands over and where was somewhere in Europe.
Speaker 2:I think it was the UK, wasn't it the band?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that start feed the world Lots of them. I think that was like.
Speaker 1:Wham, and that was George Michael and those guys, everybody that was big back then, and so they took that and people didn't Most of these people in this room didn't know why they were there, what was their purpose. They just showed up because you know. Someone said you know we need to come together and there's a famine and we need help. And so when I said you know, who are we Meaning? That was 1985 and this is 2024. And as much as I like to be positive and optimistic, it doesn't seem like we can do that today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't think logistically, absolutely, and well, there's so much divisiveness. Yeah, it'd be hard to.
Speaker 1:So I was going to say now, when you say logistics, you know where my head goes. It's an orchestrating thing. Well, I mean the idea of trying to get all that many people together on a given day.
Speaker 2:I mean you shared a little bit about the fact that you did it right after an award show or something right.
Speaker 1:The American Music Award, but no. So you're thinking logistically, it's a problem. I'm thinking culturally, and where we are as a planet is a problem, because it's not just America, it's. Look what happened over with Brexit, look what happened around the planet, where you have this. Can we come together one day and put everything aside just for the greater good? And now we can't even agree on should we support Ukraine or should we not support Ukraine? Can we get out of this? Palestine versus? There's so much division, and so when I say who are we, that's a long way to get to that point who we are.
Speaker 1:So Toby and I was having a conversation and I bought up this topic and I'm going to put this on me I won't put it on you when I go and I didn't want to get it wrong and I don't want to quote all of it. But at one point I remember we used to quote the words on a Statue of Liberty all the time, so I'm just going to take a snippet where, on the Statue of Liberty, the writing says give me. You're tired, you're poor, you're huddled, mess is yearning to breathe free. And I said Anand goes on. Anand says send me your homeless. And we live by this creed. This is who we were as Americans. And now we talk about immigration and open borders and I was like wait. So we used to say send me.
Speaker 2:And we were laying in the immigrants In the French right, yes, so they probably wanted us to take their tired and their homeless and their hungry.
Speaker 1:But you know, if we didn't agree, we could have Returned it. We could have returned it or we could have taken it back.
Speaker 2:How do you re-gift the Statue of Liberty? Stop it.
Speaker 1:But you know what's fascinating too and I learned this and really looking to the Francis gift, because there was a lot of intentionality behind it, because what we don't talk about is what most of us don't know that there's broken chains on the Statue of Liberty. And the reason why they changed the structure like right at the end is because right after that we got the Statue of Liberty came over. When was this? It was in 1883. And the Confederate the Civil War had in 1865. So they didn't want to offend Americans by having to change so prevalent.
Speaker 1:But there's so much intentionality in the Statue of Liberty. So what they did is you can't see it from afar, but they said, if you look over it, you can see the chains at her feet. And so that was saying and the chains were broken. So the broken chains you know the Francis way of saying we see that there's a change happening, some freedom, but they left the chains there because they knew that this was a process that had begun and as I recall, the Statue of Liberty is actually a larger version of a small one than actually exists in Paris somewhere.
Speaker 2:And we talked about this the other day. Most people don't recognize that through really the American Revolution as well as the War of 1812, the French were our allies against, of all people, the English. And today most people look at the French and go eh, french, and they look at the British as our allies. And what's very interesting is you know, that was really the heyday of our relationship with the French, was you know? If it wasn't for the French, we probably would have never gained our independence and if it wasn't for the French, we probably wouldn't have won the War of 1812. So it is an interesting case state. The history is very interesting.
Speaker 1:It is. And the last thing, because I find it's fascinating too they said if you pay attention to the Statue of Liberty. They said her right foot is slightly tilted forward, saying that's a step toward progression, like movement moving forward. So what does all this have to do with? You know who are we, and that was a symbol. And so when we're at a time when we have had Make America Great Again, we have different sayings. How do we define ourselves? Who are we? And some people reference the good old days. I'm not sure what those days were, but one thing is for sure change is heart for people, and that's something that we know. Change is heart. But I do want to back up and go back to we Are the World for a minute, and there's a lot of lyrics. I'm not going to read them all, I just picked the verses, put it together, Because they say we Are the World. They say the chorus over and over and over again.
Speaker 1:I never realized like I guess you had like originally. I think it was 70 people in that room and I forgot how many got a solo, so they had to make sure 70 people with her. But it starts off saying there comes a time when we heed a certain call, when the world must come together as one. There are people dying. Oh, it's time to lend a hand to life, the greatest gift of all.
Speaker 1:We cannot go on pretending day by day that someone, somewhere, will soon make a change. We are a part of God's great big family, and it's true. You know, love is all we need. And then the last verse goes send them your heart so they know that someone cares, and their lives will be stronger and free, as God has shown us by turning stone to bread. And so we must lend a helping hand. When you're down and out, there seems no hope at all. You just believe there's no way you can fall. Let's realize that a change can only come when we stand together as one. And the reason why I felt the need to state those words, it's because there's a lot in there. There's a lot, there's religion, there's poor and poverty and helping out your fellow man. That's saying recognize in life and let's prioritize life and come together as one and all of those things are the things that divide us Now. Class divides us, Religion divides us.
Speaker 2:But to be fair, I think those things have always divided us. I think there's a difference in terms of how pervasive the conversation is about how much it divides us. You look at the Crusades right and go back to medieval times. I mean people killed over religion. Look at Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. They've killed for centuries over religion. So I don't think that that's anything new.
Speaker 1:Can I add another layer? Sure, so I do agree that that's not anything new, but I think honest conversations about who we are is we don't talk about poverty. And I said this to you. I said please tell me, please tell me when you've heard a politician say the poor. Like those words, the poor poverty. We talk about broken systems, we talk about welfare, but seeing people, seeing people and talking about them and that's new. This, literally, was saying it's time for us to lend a hand. These were people. There are people dying, there are homeless. And now we say on house, it's the same thing, but we won't even acknowledge the poor.
Speaker 2:But you know the irony behind that, and I'm not saying this is at all a bad cause.
Speaker 1:I got a feeling where you're going, but I'm listening.
Speaker 2:This was a cause for Africa and we had people dying on the streets of Chicago and LA and New York and yet somehow we felt compelled to help people about three quarters of the way around the world. And my challenge has always been that, whether or not you like to hear it or not, I think charity begins at home and I think every country has a sovereign right to take care of its own.
Speaker 1:But I think two. What do I say to you all the time?
Speaker 2:Two things can be true.
Speaker 1:Two things can be true. We can, we do have a right. That's why I bought up. Even here in this country, we struggle with seeing the poor and saying the poor, and saying their name and addressing them. However, this was a famine that millions were dying instantly just because of food.
Speaker 2:I don't remember the circumstances and I'm sure it was a noble cause.
Speaker 1:But this is why I'm saying, even as day, this is why something like this can't happen, because the planet came together and say do you don't think, when the planet, when this was going on, that they weren't suffering in India, they weren't suffering around the world? But the world said this is the house that's burning and we all going to attend to this house.
Speaker 2:We are, and I don't know if we were at the time but we are one of the top 10% wealthiest nations in the world and we cannot take care of our own people, and so it's an insult, it's embarrassing to say that, but the reality is true.
Speaker 2:All you need to do is drive down Main Street in Austin, texas, or in San Francisco, california, or in Chicago, and the number of people that you will encounter that are, whether you want to call them unhoused or homeless, the poverty, the mental health issues, and yet and, by the way, everything I say today is my opinion, so I don't have to keep saying in my opinion but we send millions of dollars to other countries to help them through various things. Some of them, as you said, some of them are somewhat confrontational or somewhat questionable, whether it be the Ukraine or other things and yet, at the same point in time, we don't have time to take care of our own people, and that should be a national embarrassment that we don't deal with things as basic as mental health or housing situations. It's reached the point now where people can't afford even middle class people can't afford housing.
Speaker 1:So We've lost our way, we've lost our priorities and uh, you know and I'm going to keep saying every time you say something I think redundancy is important here Then who are we? Then who are we? And I hope that resonates with everyone on listening. I hope that everyone, because it's so easy to say I do this and I prioritize and I.
Speaker 1:But when I tell you people, if we don't start with we, if we don't start with the collective and I've told Toby this, I've been accused multiple times of voting against my interests and I said, because it cannot always be about me, it cannot. I say if the collective is suffering and I'm not in that collective, then I still have to care about the collective. That means if poverty is, is, is out of control, and the unhoused and all of these numbers are growing, and mental health and I and I don't fit in any of those kick those, those categories Then it's still my interest because we are one. And that's why when I say who are we, I want to keep saying it, because if we say we are and we used to say you know we are, you know a Christian nation, because Christianity used to be the dominant religion in America and in those times I have turned to, people are turning away from religion like no other, because we aren't being who we say.
Speaker 2:It's also the, the. The country is becoming more and more diluted right as as different cultures come into the, into the world, into our country. But you know the thing, and we've talked about this, you know, we all like to present ourselves as whole here than that, and I'm I'm as guilty as many other folks. But so we'll say you know, yes, we need to build low cost housing, yes, we need to do this. We've talked about this. And and all of a sudden people say, well, so glad you feel that way because right there, next door to you, we're going to build low cost housing. And what's the first thing? People say Not right, not my neighborhood, not my backyard. And so we all suffer from the hypocrisy gene. And there are obviously people out there that say you know, I don't know we all suffer, but I understand what you're saying.
Speaker 1:All is a generalization.
Speaker 2:But you know, we, we all believe that we do the right thing and in reality it's very hard to do the right thing and it's hard to have those conversations and and please, and, and. Politically speaking they're not politically pop popular. I mean, nobody wants to go as a politician to hey, we're going to build this low cost housing in your neighborhood or we're going to build this nuclear power plant in your neighborhood because people need cheap energy. You know the nuclear argument is long over. You know it is safe. We've got millions, of millions, hundreds of nuclear power plants throughout the world, yet they're still a bugaboo about it. Nobody wants a nuclear power plant in their backyard any more than they want at low cost housing in their backyard.
Speaker 2:So who are we? We're, we're, we're a group of people that tend to be very self-serving. We care very much about ourselves. Part of that is genetic. You know it's. It's called, you know, survival of the fittest. And the reality is is we don't like the idea that we have to suffer where other people aren't suffering, or we believe that we've we've earned our right to to something greater than other people do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and and I know someone's listening to that those are grandiose, very, you know generalizations, but I will pose this question. So, as we search ourselves to say who are we? What do you believe, like like at your core, what do you truly believe? Because? And then, if you believe those things, then search yourself again and say how was it showing up in your life? Because we can have a belief system or we want, but if you, if we have no residue or no remnants of the things that we believe um actionable in our life, then again I ask who are we? Well, how?
Speaker 2:about if what you believe conflicts with what I believe.
Speaker 1:Right, but. But when you're soul searching it's. It's about getting my own house in order, right, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:But, for instance, there are some organized religions that will say this is the way it is and there are no. It teaches absolutes and it says this is the way it is. And if you know of anybody who thinks otherwise, they're wrong, they're heathens, they, they're going to hell, all of that. So. So my philosophy has always been you can believe in what you want, as long as what you believe it never interferes with my ability to believe what I want.
Speaker 1:So how do we do that? And so it's funny we talked about this on the last podcast with Monica Bay the mere fact of you know, I grew up being told that meditation, meditating, was evil, you know. I was like, well, that's not godly. And I'm like, literally, you are telling people to breathe, center yourself, you know, clear your mind, relax, that's all it is. And so people believe that because some minister told them that, some church told them that, and so they won't meditate.
Speaker 1:But for me, this is, and I can only speak for myself. I will look in a camera, I will look anywhere and tell everybody I am a Christian. I am. I don't subscribe to a lot of things that some ministers say I don't and I won't. I am spiritual and I say what is my? Okay, god, what do you have for me? What are you trying to show me? I have to drown out the noise. I really do, because literally, like you just said, you turn religion into something that's a statement of belief. That's what religion is. It's a statement of belief into an absolute, which is a statement of fact.
Speaker 2:But people kill still over this.
Speaker 2:You know I've told the story a thousand times. Much tame her circumstance, but I had a roommate out of college who would always want me to go to church with him and I would always make up polite excuses every week. And finally, after about the seventh week of saying no for various reasons, I said why is it so important to you? He says I don't want you to go to hell. And so what makes you believe I'm going to hell? And he says the Bible says so and I said so.
Speaker 2:Let me understand this correctly. I live a virtuous life. I have never hurt anybody. I've never raised a fist. I pay my bills, I give to charity. What makes me a horrible person? He says you don't go to my church. I said so. Everybody doesn't go to your church is going to hell. And he said yes. And I said you know, there are another 420 religions out there. Give or take a couple hundred, they feel the same way. They can't all be wrong, are they? And all of a sudden you can't get an argument from that. Well, there are 420 and 419 of them are wrong. So to me, who are we is a disparate set of people with different beliefs that have to coexist on a planet and somehow make it work, while recognizing that there are some core values that hold us together.
Speaker 1:Absolutely that's it. Well, not that's it Boom.
Speaker 2:That's it, we're done. Thanks for coming. Thanks for coming. We'll catch you later.
Speaker 1:The core, no, but I think part of that. What I hear you say, I think is at the core what we need to recognize, when it comes down to religion, economics, economics, culture, all of these things, that our differences aren't deficiencies. Our differences are not deficiencies. I want to say that and that's what's at the core of that, because even when it comes down to religion, you know, we look at it and we think different from us. They're God. They have their own God. They have their own. You know, our differences are not our deficiencies. They worship in a different way. They believe. But if you believe that God is all powerful and all knowing, why are you trying to label him? Why are you trying to define? You know what he is, because he's too great.
Speaker 2:Oh, why do you worry about? People don't believe in God at all. Right, you know how people do believe in what they believe in. There's really really, if you want to boil the world down to two simple things, there are laws. That are things that people have come together and said this is simple.
Speaker 1:We're not going to boil the world down to two simple things.
Speaker 2:This is it. This is it. This is the world in 20 seconds.
Speaker 1:That's told me Can.
Speaker 2:I just say again there are things that people have gotten together over the course of years to create, and they call them laws, and even those change from time to time, and those are things that we've all agreed collectively are bad. You know and we know what those are. And then there's everything else. You know the other 99.7% of things around, which are your beliefs, your values and what you hold to be dear, and the two of them we handle very differently and we should handle them very, very differently. And the moment we start to take beliefs and somehow try to legalize them or illegalize them and I know this is not such a word, but let's do it anyway Then we get ourselves into trouble. So you know, you and I talk about this all the time. You know, when we start to look at something, say I don't like what he just said, I don't like what she just said, I don't like what this person just posted, that's not breaking the law, unless they literally broke a law. They're entitled to that opinion, whether you like it or not.
Speaker 2:And we talk about this with comedians. You know a comedian will say something you find unpleasant. I may find it unpleasant to guess what. You don't listen to it. You move along. There's no reason to try to make it illegal or to censor them unless it is de facto illegal, but for some reason we've decided that anything that's unpleasant to us as people should be removed from the world, and I don't know when that started. I don't know when that happened, but instead of just saying there are so many great things that we can agree on, we seem to be in a space right now where we're more happy to talk about things we disagree about.
Speaker 1:And I think that it's funny because and this sounds so overly simplified what I'm about to say but you know, we say change, and some people don't want things to change and some people say things it's time to change. Well, who doesn't?
Speaker 2:want change. Who would not want change?
Speaker 1:I guess whoever is winning.
Speaker 2:You're playing a board game and I'm winning, we can quit now, but if I'm not winning, I don't want to quit yet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but the conversation we are having is like going back to some greater times and then, for a lot of people, is moving forward to something better. And I guess I'm saying that to say doesn't matter if we, if your desire is to go back to greater times or if your desire is to create something new, the bottom line is you have to change posture, whatever you do. If you go forward, you got to change. If you go backwards, you have to change. But we wrestle with change consistently. You know, be it gone back. It seems like we're going back historically, we kind of undoing things that have been done. But I guess I want to kind of switch this when I say who are we? Because we talked a little about history, we talked a little about religion, but let's talk about now, now, with technology, who, what have we become in this age of? You know, see me, like me, follow me and flow, and I just even think please, please, please, hear me when I say this because I don't want to be a hypocrite. Yes, we have a podcast and that's using, that's using technology and it's using social media, but I'm very and I'm just going to be honest and transparent, because we've talked about it in private.
Speaker 1:It can be disheartening when I see what we gravitate to and when I say and I pray that this hits on one spirit be honest with yourself. If you are on social media and you gravitate to every car wreck, every accident, every fight, every graphic. Here's somebody tearing somebody else down, here's someone else. And you know how we know that this is a true statement, because now that's where we are. We have to get Canva and put a big caption to draw your attention to. Oh, this one is taking, calling us on out, oh, this person is taking us to task and what they say. And this is what we're gravitating to.
Speaker 1:And it makes me sad. It really does, because the fact that this is the information technology age and when we get a chance to, with all this toxicity, we continue to gravitate to it. So who are we if that's what's trending, if that's what we're investing our time in and what you put into you comes out of you? So if you put all of that toxic tearing down, destroying each other, seeing each other is less than divisiveness, republicans, libtards, all of these name calling, and if we become this thing, this is who we are. You don't get to say that that's not me and it's even worse than that.
Speaker 2:When Tree First asked me to do podcasts, I had never watched very many of them. It was not a medium that I was all that interested in. I remember coming back and saying it's like five pieces of content that 75 people talk about and one person says something whether it's a Candace Owens or a Jordan Peterson or somebody on the liberal side, you can tell I tend to lean to the right and then 2,500 people pile on and say see what they said, see what this is. There's nothing creative about it. And it just completely takes one soundbite that they said during a five, not five two hour conversation, which in many cases is very interesting, and it takes a two minute soundbite where they disagree with somebody or make some snippy comment and they make a two hour podcast about this one particular piece. It is so divisive and it takes things out of context. So, for instance, I tend to be a fan of Jordan Peterson. Now some of you will roll your eyes and turn us off right now.
Speaker 2:But one of the things that he talks about. Very much is data and he will say something that data will lead me to believe this. He doesn't say I don't believe you or you're wrong. He says the data tends to lead me to this. And then his soundbite will be and that's why women get paid less money. So what do you think makes it into the podcast? It's not all of the things that led up to it. This is why women make less than men.
Speaker 1:And all of a sudden that becomes the controversy and we get 50,000 podcasts off of that and I'm going to say this and this is going to sound like such a ridiculous statement, but this just came to me while you were speaking. So if you're going to buy cologne or perfume and after a while you smell a sample, right and you smell another sample, it gets in your nasal passages. So that's why they have coffee beans out for you to like clear out all of that. So I need you to smell those notes. That's in the next one. And you can't do that if you don't use coffee. And then I'm going to go to food Food when you're doing the tasting and sampling, they want to tell you palate cleansing right.
Speaker 1:Clean your palate. So what I'm saying to everyone is that we are taking, we're working in toxic environments, we're living in toxic times or all this you have. It's incumbent upon us to clean our palate. I mean, start putting good in, because if you can't get blood from a turnip, you can't get something out of something that's not in there. You just can't. You can try. So I mean, this toxicity and negativity has to come out of you if you're putting it in you.
Speaker 2:But you know, what's interesting and somebody I think it was actually a comedian that talked about this is that good news doesn't sell. Nobody has made a successful career from the beginning of talking about good things and only good things, and that's I hope. I hope this isn't true, but it almost seems like that's human nature, that we like to hear about other people's suffering. It's a horrible thing, but you know, people say well, oprah, oprah brings up all these good things. Well, look at Oprah's past. There were times when Oprah talked about some pretty strange stuff or had some pretty interesting guests and she cleaned up her act because she built up such cred and such a following that she could then go in that direction. But she couldn't do it initially. So therefore it created it's a different scenario. I don't know of anybody that just stepped right out and said from day one I'm going to only talk about positive things, I'm only going to bring up positive but can I talk about that part though?
Speaker 1:Sure, so since you bought up Oprah, what we know for sure is go back to your data point, go back to it. And even Oprah said this in her own words when she first started she was doing a bringing a spouse on the husband. The first five years Oprah did not become Oprah until she consciously decided to like, I'm not going to do that. And they said, well, you're going to fail, it's not going to succeed. And she took the mantra. She was like, if it doesn't educate, inform, enlighten, I'm not going to do it. And she became her most successful self with that model. So there you go, and now you see a lot of it. You see your Bernadette Brown, you see your Jay Shedding, you see all of these people, the Adam Grants, you see all of these people who have been educational, teaching, and people like me gravitate to it. Because I am determined to drown out this noise with positivity, good information and education, because I need it, because I needed to get in me so it can come out of me.
Speaker 2:I would challenge folks who listen to this podcast to give us your positive role models, because I believe that most people and I hope I'm wrong don't even know the people that you just mentioned, because you have made a point of bringing positivity into your life as opposed to negativity. So do people know about Adam Grant? Do people know about Bernadette?
Speaker 1:Brown, new York Times bestsellers, and the last one of them.
Speaker 2:So how do we make sure that those people are raised and other people we look at as just being poisonous? Because I believe the poison gets into the system much easier than the goodness gets into the system.
Speaker 1:And I feel compelled to say this too, because I don't know. It's like, for whatever reason, this energy behind this show. It's like I'm hearing voices. People say yeah, because I've heard people say that they call it wretchedness, wretchedness, and it's like the Real Housewives. I'm sorry. All of those reality shows and they were like I need to see a train wreck and so for those people it's trash.
Speaker 1:It's absolute trash. But I'm just. I'm speaking for those people who say reality for me is too real sometime and I need to. I watched that because I need to disconnect, I need to separate, I know it's trash and sometimes I need that.
Speaker 2:But it's not reality. It's a contrived version to make people's lives feel better.
Speaker 1:But most people that watch well, the comments I see, and the people I know that watch it, say they know it's not reality. So it's just you know and that's why they can watch it. It's like it's just a train wreck and I watch it because the train, that's why I bought up. If you run towards a train wreck, if you run towards fires, if you want to fight, what does it say about? About you that you need to see because there are there are blurred lines. So, even though it's a reality, some of these people really have fault.
Speaker 2:These marriages are really destroyed in some of these what I'm saying there are adults are really Do you know the genesis of where reality TV came from. It was it was studios that didn't want to pay for actors. Studi studios didn't want to pay for writers. Studios didn't want to pay union dues for people and they said let's just put some schmoes on stage and see what happens. That way we don't have to pay writers, we don't have a script, we don't have to. So it was the studios being cheap. And all of a sudden they found out that people bought the dog food.
Speaker 1:Right, they're like oh, my God people like this crap.
Speaker 2:Well, let's do some more of this crap. And the more bizarre it was, the better it was. Who was the guy who did those, those talk shows where people would beat each other up the first time when it happened and the ratings went through the series?
Speaker 1:Jerry Springer.
Speaker 2:No, the other clown there's some more clowns, more Polish. Well, you just keep naming clowns.
Speaker 1:Donahue, who's the?
Speaker 2:guy who died a couple of years ago and used to like yell at his audience, and then he anyway, if you guys remember. But they found that this was popular. Oh my God, oh my God, this is like a dog whistle. I mean, people come running to this stuff, but it wasn't created because somebody had a genius idea. It was created because the studios were cheap and they got tired of it. They didn't want to pay actors and they didn't want to write scripts, and so they're like, let's try this, I think, but how? And not all that worked.
Speaker 1:But how we got there. I don't think anybody cares though. I don't think anyone watching cares. More downy, more downy. Julia, I was seeing a teeth too.
Speaker 2:He had the big teeth like coming at you yeah.
Speaker 1:It scared me Unbelievable.
Speaker 2:And I just, I don't know why.
Speaker 1:Not Robert Downey Morton, not just Claire, yeah.
Speaker 2:But you look at it and say I don't know why people somehow feel, is it because they say I had a really shitty day and I'm going to watch this and see how dysfunctional they are and it's going to make me feel that much better? But I just think it's kind of just race to the bottom.
Speaker 1:I think too, and sometimes and this is what has been often said too Sometimes people just want to, to know when they, because it's a lot of dysfunction. So when you think your family is dysfunctional oh my God, did you see it's like, let me know. Sometimes they think let me know, I'm not in this alone. You know, and I have seen, you know, and I know my family is dysfunctional.
Speaker 2:Hello family we are.
Speaker 1:And then when I see things and I'm like who, then I'm not alone, but I don't, I don't need to see other people, I don't even. I don't like this function period, so I definitely don't like it around me.
Speaker 2:But to get back to your theme, who are we? You know, someday an alien is going to land on this planet. I hope not. They're not going to be here.
Speaker 2:See, what is this? What is this drivel that these people have been watching? Nothing about bettering yourself, nothing about home self-improvement. You know, I just I don't want to sound like that, but you know, at some point you look at the stuff and you go don't you want to learn a little bit more about another country? Or don't you want to learn how to do this? And I mean being a homeowner.
Speaker 2:I spend a lot of time on YouTube, but I don't watch the stuff. You think I look at things like how do I fix this air conditioner, or how do I do this, and every one of those things makes me a little bit smarter. And now, all of a sudden, when somebody says, hey, have you ever fixed that? I can go do that. So who am I? I believe that every day you're not every day you're learning, you're living, and every day you're not learning something, you're dying. So pick which one you want to do. You can either continue to live or continue to die, and I just I'm lost at why there's any interest in watching other people suffer, it just or even worse, creating false suffering, filming it and then putting it on TV. So people who are also suffering say, at least I'm not suffering that much.
Speaker 1:I don't get it. I don't get it either. I just know that and you hate when I use this word, but there needs to be a reckoning Like we really do. We really need to go through and cleanse and a reset button. Something has to break because we cannot continue to generation after generation. And I do have to say this I had a conversation with my nieces and my nephews all of them and now they aren't kids, they're young adults and I said to them and I implore that everyone go to their family and have similar conversations it's not okay that we're so disconnected.
Speaker 1:It's not okay that we have a whole you know iPad, tablet generation. It's not okay that they have no connection to aunts and uncles and grandmothers and cousins and they look like strangers and they only come around for weddings and funerals. This is not. This is who we are. And we can say well, that's not me and it's not, but it is. And I had to say to my nephew and bless his heart, kalo, I love you. He got it. But I said to him.
Speaker 1:I said have you ever thought that you will soon have a family and have you ever thought that, like you know your cousins and you're close to your cousins that your kids won't have that. Have you ever thought about that? And it's a fact that they won't have it. Because if your generation has stopped reaching out and like, oh, I'm too busy to pick up a phone, or you know, I text you every blue moon and we become a text, how do they have any connectivity to family? How do they know what family is? How do they know that it's normal for aunties to be nosy? That's just that's what aunts do? How do they know that? You know, uncles, I normally don't give you much advice and just stay in a background. How do they know family doesn't have grandma's coming in just to spoil you picture? So whatever that and it's a stereotype? Yes, it is, and you know. But how do they know any of that?
Speaker 2:But take it into your context I mean, and that is that if we disconnect socially, we break the links of history, we break the links of understanding where we come from, and this came to light really just recently. We live in just outside of Birmingham, alabama. We went to the Civil Rights Museum several weeks ago. Talk about eye opening. First of all, fantastic museum, but just eye opening to the level of suffering and things that went on that even many of us who are alive during that time weren't aware of. So that brings it to light. Fast forward. A couple of weeks later we were down in New Orleans. We went to the World War Two Museum, another one Don't do it in a day, you would be just overwhelmed. But the number of things that have gone on in the history of the world that we don't have to atone for but we have to know about, because those who do not learn from history as somebody, once said, are damned to repeat it.
Speaker 2:We don't have to atone because it didn't happen on our watch. I think we need to be aware of them. I think we need to recognize that we can learn from these things. There are a lot of horrible things that have happened in the history of the world, the history of our country, maybe even our own history, that I don't know if we necessarily want to use the word atone, but you learn the Japanese in term and is a perfect example the way we treated Japanese during World War Two, the way blacks were treated during a number of protest movements throughout the history. I think if we don't learn from things like that, we are not again. We're not evolving as people, so we continue to devolve, especially if we keep making the same damn mistakes.
Speaker 1:But what I have to say to that is I just want to speak truth to power and to say that so yeah, that was the Civil War, but what was the Civil Liberties Act was like in 1985 when Reagan sat down and he apologized and now that's such a dirty word Like he apologized? That's atonement. Why should we not atone? Why? And he didn't do it. You could say that generation didn't do it.
Speaker 1:But atonement is necessary because that's part of like you and I talked about in South Africa, about the reconciliation In order, for apartheid was so horrific and you know the genocide that there had to be an atonement. There had to be a reconciliation and no one could say, well, I didn't do it, it happened on my watch, but I wanted the Germans we talked about that. Well, hitler and his atrocity that there had to be an atonement when no one said, well, I didn't do that. It was like you know what I don't want the residue. I don't want this to go another generation, I don't want it, I needed to stop.
Speaker 1:So whatever we have to do to clean this up is what we need to do, and I think that's why America struggles so much is because of divisiveness and saying well, that wasn't on my watch or that wasn't in my time, and it's like and like everything I just said about myself earlier. I'm not going to do things that's so called in my best interest. It doesn't matter. I care about healing a world, and so if people need peace, people need forgiveness, people need an apology, whatever, why do we care? If it makes us stronger and it brings us together and we want to in the song where we are to real set heal the land, why are we fighting that's?
Speaker 2:more than actually.
Speaker 2:It's more than words.
Speaker 2:There have to be actions behind them, and all I'm getting at is that what I found fascinating is I enjoy history.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't say that I'm a student of history, but when you, when you realize some of these things and you recognize the number of mistakes in retrospect that have been made through the years, through the decades of the centuries and you know, obviously the history of the United States is quite short, small compared to Europe or other parts of the world you know Roman Empire, you know there have been mistakes made throughout the course of history and you know one of the things that I learned very early on is it's not what mistakes you made, but how you learn from them and how you move on from them and everybody moves on in their own way and how those occur.
Speaker 2:But I guess what I'm getting at is as we disconnect as people and you're talking about technology, there's some stuff around this as we disconnect from each other and stop the social unit that is us having conversation and handing down history, and whether it's personal history or family history or the history of the world, the number of people today don't know what 9-11 is all about. You know when you lose that, you lose and you say 9-11, never forget.
Speaker 2:But they forgot and they forgot and that gets lost in the cloud of well, I got 12,000 likes on TikTok or I got that. That's irrelevant to what is really going on and what the world is made of and how it will continue to progress, moving forward and technology becomes a scary thing because information is power and if we allow that information to be monitored or diagnosed or changed, we're in trouble.
Speaker 1:Right, and I know again this sounds like another simplification of a complex issue. But If we have learned and some of us are still learning, and this is not a general thing I'm about to say but we've changed the way. When they said, when someone hurts you, when someone hurts you, now we have more communication on. If I come to you and say, toby, you hurt me, now we become better communicators my response should be if I offended you or if I hurt you, we're learning emotional intelligence. Some of us it's a slow learn. We're learning that never say if I.
Speaker 1:If someone comes to you and say you hurt me, you know to acknowledge to see their pain, to say, wow, you know, I see you hurt, not really sure what I did, but how, what can we do to rectify this? And that little small, subtle tweak goes a long way. You know, in the minute we say, well, if I, because I have no idea what I did to you, it shuts down conversation. And how does it? How does that tie into? Who are we? But those we have to care enough to start recognize those little hear me when we ask, when women say you know, hear me, see me.
Speaker 1:It was like well, you know I'm hiring you, you know you're sitting in that seat and I was like, and I'm like but it goes back to what I was saying about diversity and inclusion. I was like you know, diversity is getting on the team, you know inclusion is getting in the game. So when people are saying to me, as we try to be a better nation and we try to come together as one, we have to change our language. We have to be able to hear people and stop saying it wasn't me, I didn't do it, I'm going to push back a little bit only because you surprising, right?
Speaker 2:I just think that we've become an overly sensitized culture, and I can't speak for other parts of the world, but I think here here we've become overly sensitized and we've now gotten into a situation where if somebody says something that offends you, all of a sudden, it should be removed from the face of the earth, it should be completely to. You know, I could say something because I don't like that, I don't like the way you said that, or something I said. Okay, I can understand how that could be perceived. As you know, not liked, I'm okay with that. But the moment we start to censor or we start wrong word, we start to say, oh, because I don't like that color, I think it should be eliminated. Then you start to repeat on my ability to say what I think. So if I walk into a restaurant and I say I really don't think this food is very good, the restaurant consumed me because I hurt their feelings.
Speaker 1:Where does it stop? Well, you can, I'll let you have that overly sensitive and I'll leave you on the island by yourself and you're entitled.
Speaker 2:Certainly not by myself.
Speaker 1:I'm not there with you because I think that this deal to me goes back a quarter of progression is change, and change are steps, and so and how that relates to sensitivity is we were insensitive.
Speaker 2:So when you recognize that we kind of Were we or were we independent? Were we independently minded, and therefore my independent mind was different from your independent mind, you don't think we could be both. Yes, we can, oh, absolutely. But we're not today Because in a reason why Because a speaker can't go on a campus because people are going to protest and throw stuff and lay down and roll over whether that's a liberal or conservative. We've lost our objectivity.
Speaker 1:Well, that's, but it's the. Would you agree? And I go back to Newton's Law For every action there's an opposite and equal reaction. Just hear me out. So, because of insensitivity and the quest for sensitivity, that's the pendulum, that's how it goes, and so the point of it is, and I think everything that we talked about we talked about a lot of subjects today and who are? We comes back to the middle. The middle is your core. The middle is your core.
Speaker 2:There should be core values that we agree with, and the other things are things that we should be able to agree to disagree without being disagreeable, which is the nature of what we do on this podcast, and I don't believe that a situation like If you're in a university, which should be the bastion of learning, open-mindedness, thought, and you have somebody that you can't bring on campus because people are going to protest or throw things protesting, is fine. By the way, let me take that back.
Speaker 1:I was gonna say I don't have a problem with protesting.
Speaker 2:They act out, they don't allow the speaker to speak. That is the antithesis of learning, because learning is both good and bad. You can learn things that you dislike. You can learn things about Nazism and say I don't wanna ever do that again. You can learn things about anything that you say this is great. But the moment you stop learning, you're dying. So whether you're learning, good or bad or otherwise. So stopping somebody from teaching you something is counterproductive.
Speaker 1:I agree, but just again, we need to have that same vigor across the board. Agree, I do believe that people should be allowed to speak and you should be allowed to protest, but you have to hear people out. If you don't like what they say, then you protest.
Speaker 1:Then turn it off, hear them out. But that same in reverse goes back to you can't ban books. People should be allowed to read and make up their own mind. If you don't like it, then don't buy it. If you don't like that television show, turn it off, all of these things. But to say you get to exist and I don't, vice versa, I don't like that at all.
Speaker 2:So not knowing where we were gonna go. I just printed out a couple things that I thought was interesting, and for anybody who watches the podcast knows I'm a real big believer in the fact that people should be allowed to say what they feel and you have the right to turn that off. So I thought to myself I wonder if this is a new culture, a new thing, and I printed out something from 2000.
Speaker 1:What's a new? I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:I don't ban people for things that they say that we somehow cancel them, I guess is the time.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, it hasn't.
Speaker 2:So I found this interesting article from therapcom August of 2015, 15 comedians that were under fire for jokes that they said. Some of these names are gonna blow your mind. Okay, ready, these are the 15th. I'm not gonna know all.
Speaker 1:I thought you went back to like the. You know the early 1900s. No, no, no, no. We'll go back to the 15th.
Speaker 2:No, no, not that I had trouble with it, yeah, but no. 10 years ago we still had this. Okay, and people know the ones like George Carlin got in trouble for his seven dirty words. But Louis K made a joke about molestation, okay. 15 years ago Amy Schumer made a joke about dating Hispanic men. She said I used to date Hispanic guys.
Speaker 2:But, now, I prefer consensual. Yes, so she got in trouble for that Another guy, I don't know, I'll skip him your friend Trevor Noah. Trevor Noah got in trouble because he said a hot wife woman, a hot white woman with ass, is like a unicorn. Even if you do see one, you'll probably never get to ride it. Okay, trevor Noah, 10 years ago, said this okay, pretty sure he's still on TV. We didn't cancel him. Okay, stephen Colbert, remember him? Stephen Colbert said on his official Twitter account he made a joke about the Qingchong Dingdong Foundation for sensitivity for orientals.
Speaker 2:Okay, Oriental yes for orientals, all from top to bottom, okay, and it goes on. 10 years ago, these people are still in mainstream. Okay, we're not canceling them, we're not trying to get rid of them. Very interesting article in the LA Times. It actually calls us out and says for as long as people have existed, we've had people going through this. The big difference today and I'm calling it out because you did social media Social media okay, because it happened 10 years ago that somebody said something like that and people said, oh, I don't find him very funny. Andrew Dice Clay never found him funny. You know a number of people. George Carlin I didn't think was a big fan. You know people like Bill Burr are saying things like we should literally kill people by sinking cruise ships. Bobby Collins, who's been out there forever Talks about chlorinating the gene pool.
Speaker 2:He's suggesting genocide and somehow that's okay. But now it's now a big deal because social media beats us with it. Did you hear what So-and-So said today? Did you hear what they said yesterday? Turn it off. In fact, we should turn off social media, Not us. We're cool, but just turn it off. It's poison, and make your own decisions. If you find the comedian funny, go see them. If you don't turn it off, we don't have to cancel them. You don't have to get your feelings hurt. You don't have to ball up in the corner and eat Oreos.
Speaker 1:I like Oreos. Hey, don't talk about Oreos Double stuff.
Speaker 2:I mean just live, enjoy your life, Don't let the negative things kill your buzz.
Speaker 1:So, on that note people, we're gonna wrap it up and bring it home. So who are we? We are work in progress and we will always be work in progress, but I think, as long as we keep remembering it's not about I, it's about the collective.
Speaker 2:And she can put up with me.
Speaker 1:I'm doing it because I should get some special credit to have it, I believe that it's like a lottery. Have it as like a lottery.
Speaker 2:The IRS. I don't know if I'm a tax deduction but and you don't.
Speaker 1:when you put up with really crazy people, you get a higher seat in heaven.
Speaker 2:So I'm looking for the best here. Crazy old white people deduction on the IRS form. It's like line 23 or something. White man's blues, I tell you, the white man's blues. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Anyway, thank you for joining us. This was a lot and it was a serious subject and I only put out there because I try to live by it. I try to search myself. That's why I create a purge to continue to sit higher, to see further, to be more understanding, to be more informed. And we can only be more passionate, caring, loving, insightful if we are looking higher, because we need to see better and again remember what we put in us comes out of us. So yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's me, and these fatty foods too, so. I gotta hey, I want to fat to keep coming out. I gotta stop eating fatty foods. That's what happens. But thank you for joining us. Until we meet again. We'll see you on the purge. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
