Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
- What's up everybody? Welcome back to The Honest Drink. I'm Justin. Check out the description below if you want to reach us. And if you've been enjoying this podcast, you know what to do. Go ahead, comment, subscribe, rate the show. Now today, we kind of go back to our roots a little bit and we talk very personally and openly about a few very important issues. We talk about having thick skin, inclusion and diversity, and really just things that highlight all the complexities of being human and having judgmental nature.
This one was hosted by Howie, Eric, and myself. So, without further ado, please enjoy Our Honest Drink. Our Honest Drink
We just rip on each other, but Eric likes to rip on you more than anybody else. No, I know that, but I'm just saying it's like, of course, and I rip on him, and I've ripped on you before. Of course, we rip on each other, but I'm not sure if I'm just being overly sensitive about it. You are. It's a combination of two, I think. Honestly, I think you are being a little overly sensitive, but Eric does disproportionately...
rip on you more than anybody else. And more than we really rip on each other. When we rip on each other, it's just like glancing jokes and we move on. Eric kind of lingers on and just like drives it in. That's right. And even at times when it's unnecessary. Yeah. You know? That's true. Well, I do the, I would say that I probably direct stuff at you as well, but it's not like, it takes on a different form where it's more like an argument and then I'm like fighting you. Whereas with him, I'm kind of like,
doing it in a different way, but they're both aggressive and they're both antagonistic. So it's a little bit, it can cross the line. Yeah, definitely. I think also the difference, let's say between me and Howie is when you attack me, like I defend myself more, I feel. Right. And you'll come back and punch harder. Yeah. And Howie kind of just takes it and just like wallows there. Yeah. I think another thing for me is, uh,
Just the nature of my work. Because I'm always getting rejected. You know what I mean? When I lose all my bids. But you're also winning your projects too. Yeah, here and there. Otherwise you wouldn't be so busy. Yeah, of course. But the fact that I had to grow thick skin with that, it was a process. It took a while. Yeah.
Look, I think we're getting onto a topic that I actually think is really genuinely fascinating is the idea of thick skin. Is the idea of thick skin. It's a lesson I think a lot of people need to learn. It's something that I've had to, I've struggled with, and I think I've developed more and more over the years, is this idea of thick skin, man. Like, you need to be able to
to kind of just weather the blows of criticism, whether it's external criticism or internal criticism, right? Like internal ones can be just as devastating, if not even more, where you're judging yourself, right? And then you have, obviously you have external. You need to be weather that because like, that's always going to come no matter how good you are. Just think about it. Like fucking Mike, people were criticizing Michael fucking Jordan in his prime. He had critics, right?
Like if you're going to be fucking Michael Jordan and still have critics, who are we as normal fucking mortals to believe like we're not going to get criticized. We're not going to have moments of doubt. Right. We're not going to make mistakes and we're not going to be called out for it. Like that's absurd. So we are. The point is, how do you take it and how do you improve yourself from it? And instead of letting it batter you down.
And that, I think, is where thick skin comes from. And really, some people have it. Some people don't. Yeah, exactly. Some people have it. Some people don't. And I think for me, historically speaking, I've had thin skin. And the whole idea of not necessarily not standing up for myself, but taking shit and just kind of wallowing in that negativity or whatever. I mean, that was a big part of my childhood.
And so I feel like that is just natural for me to be that way. And I have to be conscious about it in order to get out. And even into adulthood. Definitely not as bad as when I was a kid. But yeah, even in adulthood. And like I said, in the world that I work in,
I'm constantly getting the text or the message or the email of, sorry, they picked somebody else. Sorry, they picked somebody else. Sorry, you're not fit for this. Sorry, blah, blah, blah, blah. Literally every day I get it. Every day. And at first, when it was happening, it was devastating because I was like, I really wanted that job. Am I not good enough? Actually, at first it wasn't, am I not good enough? It was more like, I really wanted that job. That sucks. I didn't get it.
But then after about the hundredth rejection, maybe the 200th rejection, then it became like, Jesus, do I just suck? Yes, of course. I'm working often and I get booked on jobs and I do get booked on some good ones, you know. Obviously, yes, 100%. I know that. And I am confident when I'm actually working, my mindset changes and I'm like overconfident, you know, and I'm very okay. I'm not indecisive. I'm like, bam, you know.
But then before that, yeah, that's when it's weird. It's like this weird feeling that I'm swimming in. Well, I think that's also in a way unique to the entertainment industry, right? The idea of dealing with rejection. And that's why we always hear about like, you know, there's the common stereotype, I guess,
that actors are like the most self-conscious people. Like these celebrities, they're actually the most self-conscious people because they're always in competition with wanting to get picked or selected and judged because they're constantly in the public's eye, whether it's their looks, whether it's their performance, whether it's their personal lives, their success.
They're constantly being judged and selected, right? Like the casting couch, quote unquote, you know, principle and the auditions they have to go through. And I think it's no different for you as a director. You're still in that entertainment industry. You're still bidding for projects and you're facing similar rejections in similar quantities, right? That come at you, right?
But I think that's just the name of the game. I don't think that says anything about you. I think that's just the industry. The numbers are always going to be, you're always going to have more rejections than you have projects that you get accepted for. For sure. Like no matter who you are. 100%. Like Spielberg would have the same thing. I came to terms with that a few years ago. And my reaction to that would be, or should I say is, I don't,
I don't sweat it. So when I get approached with a project, even if I really am into it, I don't sweat it. I'll say if I'm interested, I'll give my dates. I'll give my rate. Let me know. Let me know how it goes. You know, if I get to the next step, they want me to give like a treatment or something like that. All right, here you go. Here's my treatment. Let me know how it goes.
So it's like, I definitely detach myself from everything now. I don't, I don't even remember any projects anymore. It's just like, it's almost like automation now. I think that's my process of how to deal with it. And if I get booked, I'm like, great. Then I get excited. Then all of a sudden I get the nervous, you know, feeling. I'm like, Ooh, Ooh, this is going to be interesting. Mm-hmm.
Well, do you think it's a product of also your environment growing up? Like when we're talking about like people who just naturally have thick skin or who we think naturally have thick skin versus thin skin. Do you think it's a product of their environment? 100%, I think. I think, okay, I think it's, I don't know what the percentage is, but if I were to say, let's say 50-50 with one side being DNA, you know, you're born a certain way. And then the second part being you're a...
you're the product of your environment, right? And I would say, for example, myself, as somebody with more thin skin, I would maybe equate it to the way my parents, you know, talked to me and treated me. Now, they were not, like, bad. They were not being like, oh, you're ugly, you're horrible, not like that. But it's always, I feel like it was always, it was always like,
So what does that mean? It means like my own thought almost didn't matter. You know what I mean? Like they didn't respect your opinions, your thoughts? I don't think it's... It's not about respect. I think it's just as a kid. You know, I think it's a lot... It's an Asian thing. You know, a lot of people joke about it. Like the whole Chinese parents very being controlling and, you know, and like telling you what to do. Micromanaging your life. Micromanaging every single aspect. And then growing up...
yeah just being in that environment it would that's what that's what i equate to a lot of my indecisiveness you know when i was younger because a lot of decisions were made for me and then it wasn't until i left and i got older older and i kind of like fought back and i kind of found my own voice like at the end of high school you know around that time where i became a little more rebellious well when you said a lot of decisions were being made for you at that time
Were you trying actively to make your own decisions that were just getting rejected or were you not? And you just kind of went with the flow. Like, what was the dynamic like? I don't know. I don't know. I just remember being very, cause I have very strong females in my family, which I've talked about in the past. And it's the females in my family that were around me the most. And yeah,
they're very strong-minded. Yeah, I know. And you know that just in. I've met them both. Yeah, very strong-minded. Whether they know it or not, if you're listening, ha ha ha. But yeah, they're very strong-minded. And they give their opinions, like potato chips. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. And when it comes to controlling things, they're on point. So when I'm growing up in that environment, I feel like that has affected me.
the way i am you know especially when i was a kid and growing up i'm being i'm able to be conscious of it and understand why i am the way i am and work at it work at trying to change or or at least find that better balance yeah yeah it's it has a lot to do i agree i think it has a lot to do with the upbringing um you know for me personally i started off with uh i've almost had very thin skin
You really? What? You don't know? Dude, you have such thick skin. Maybe now and maybe outwardly. Nah, man. In the beginning, I had super, super thin skin. I was super unsure of myself. I would take criticism so horribly.
Doubt myself. Like it would just hurt me like every little jab. Right. And I'm a cancer. Right. So it's like I take I'm a little more sensitive to things. And you always talk about my EQ. So imagine having an amplified EQ in combination with a thin skin. That's the worst combination. That's the worst combination because you're ultra sensitive to the things that are said. And you don't have like the thick skin barrier to defend yourself from it. Right. You don't have the immunity from it. And so I had that combination.
But what I think helped me in the early years was my environment. You know, like a classic example that I've brought up before is me growing up on the East Coast in New Jersey. You know, the kind of environment and people I grew up around in New Jersey, we were like our friends were pretty tough on each other.
like, you know, tough love kind of thing. Constantly cracking jokes at each other. Constantly cracking jokes on each other. If you couldn't weather it, you wouldn't survive. Like, it would just be relentless. But we didn't feel that at the time. It was just the norm. That was the status quo. And everything was like, you had to constantly fight, like fight for yourself, defend yourself with your friends. Otherwise, you're going to constantly lose face, right? And that was just the norm. And it was hilarious. And I loved it.
And so I thought that was the norm. And within that group, I was actually considered the more docile, quiet one. So here I am in New Jersey growing up all my life. And then I go out to school and university. I went to SCUSC in Los Angeles, right? So I've never really been to the West Coast in the United States before. I've never really spent any time in Cali before. So it's a new culture. I spent all my life in the East Coast. So here I am as a freshman now.
in SC, in California. And I don't know anybody. And I'm trying to go out and make a lot of friends, right? I'm trying to be like social and make friends and mingle. And about towards the end of my freshman year, I start hearing through the grapevine that like I am this like ultra alpha guy
kind of like dominating bully, this like super New Jersey quote unquote guy that just like, just has to dominate everything. And it's just like super, like I'm just an asshole basically. Like I'm an ultimate asshole. And that's what I hear and that blew my mind. That completely blew my mind because my self image of myself was completely polar opposite to that. And what I discovered after contemplating about this and talking to people about this
What I discovered is I was actually a product of my environment in New Jersey. And the culture there was so different than what these Cali kids were used to that I come in from New Jersey thinking that, okay, the more I bust your balls, right? The more I joke around with you and make fun of you and we go on back and forth, the more, the closer we are. We're like buddies. That's how we always treated people. And
People just took that in a completely different way out there thinking that I was just being super aggressive and being like really like bully-ish and like, and just being an asshole. And,
That's when I knew that you're kind of like this mentality and the way you portray yourself and the way you act, you really, even within the same country, you have to be careful in terms of what social circles you're talking to. Where are these people from and how this group and community engages with each other? You can't just take kind of your own ways into that because you can be outcasted very quickly.
Now, going past that, once I get into the working world and I graduate, I go back to New York and I'm working in the New York scene with a bunch of other business people and doing business in New York, especially in the garment sector, you're dealing with a lot of really hardcore people. And there was no mincing words.
in this environment. When you're doing business, there's no like, hey, you know, being polite and talking around the issue. No, like people are cursing at you. You're cursing back at them. They're telling you, fuck you, you fuck this up. Like it's brutal. And that was a crash course for me in my like adult life about...
how do you survive in this world? There are real sharks in this world. And if you want to swim among them, you got to have thick skin. Otherwise, you're just going to get eaten alive. So in the beginning years, I was getting eaten alive. And until I had to develop and be able to kind of like fight fire with fire. And that kind of built my mentality and my attitude in terms of how to develop thick skin. Now, another thing, my final point is
this podcast itself has also taught me to thicken up my skin a little bit in terms of criticism and overthinking myself. And going back to what we were talking about in the beginning is I honestly think that I am the dumbest one out of the three of you. Like that is my honest opinion of myself, but that doesn't stop me from being the most vocal one, you know, and speaking my mind. And I think that
is I'm very appreciative of having that ability where I can be like thinking I'm the dumbest one here, yet still not having that fear and not letting that stop me from vocalizing my thoughts and my opinions. Let's just sort of maybe kind of share a little bit about
the impact of certain things around thin and thick skin. Because if you're in an environment where no one's criticizing you or you're in a very positive environment, then you're not going to notice the thick skin because you're not weathering a barrage of all these attacks because no one's telling you, like, fuck you and all that stuff, right? And if you have really thick skin and you're in an environment that doesn't call for thick skin where you need to be able to recognize nuances, then...
you know, in that context, you might be perceived as this kind of bully. Right. But like, we can get into that, but that's what it is. Right. It's the self doubt. And it does like, for me, it, it brings back like memories that are not so, you know, positive. I think like, I think like what? Like, I'm genuinely want to know that. I think there may be some learning lessons. Well, when, when Howie mentioned like his family, um,
you know, making decisions for him during his childhood. I can totally relate to that because it's like our opinion didn't matter. Like for like when we woke up, what we did, what we studied, what we ate, how often we played piano, like there was no free will. Your parents controlled everything you did and there was no question. And, and that probably lasted longer than
for us than a lot of people who grew up in other cultures or even modern China, like where people have a lot more freedom, like my, like, and never grew up in that kind of environment.
and so i can totally relate to that and if anything maybe i don't i you know it's hard to compare who suffered more but i i suffered a lot from it it was really really painful because you're constantly being controlled by other people and anything you do is wrong like you didn't know what was best for you and so then you end up developing thin skin because and there's two possibilities right either you fight back
And you develop thick skin from the situation like in many of your examples, or your parents are so powerful. I mean, imagine you're like four years old or three years old, and you're not being treated with a lot of sort of thoughtfulness in that sense, emotional thoughtfulness. You're being obviously taken care of by your parents because it's all coming out of love, but it's missing certain angles of how children develop emotionally, right?
And, and all that trauma that like I've talked about before, right? Sometimes then when that subject gets onto it or, you know, we're in a situation where maybe we're talking about some things that can be perceived negatively, right?
Then all of that baggage just comes back and you can feel that. And then like your general positivity towards this, because having overcome some of these things then also shows, and that's a positive influence. You know, I don't know how you feel Howie in terms of like, how easy is it for you to kind of fall onto the other side? But for me, it's like, there's that trigger sometimes. And then all of a sudden I'm back,
you know, into that super self-doubting mode. And then it's not even because of me. Maybe it's like I was talking to someone else and then I projected those feelings back onto myself. And those weren't particularly happy times for you. Right. Yeah. I think for me, there's just a couple of topics in particular that I become like that, you know, where you just described I regress back to- Regress, yes. You know, a certain, you know, moment in life or something. Yeah.
And I don't even know what that moment is. But anything that has to do with challenging my intellect tends to bring me back. That's a nerve for you, right? And that's a nerve for me too. Because I am self-conscious. I don't care if I'm the strongest person. I don't care if I'm the fastest guy. I don't care if I'm the best cook or best looking. But when I feel like I am...
intellectually unworthy, that bothers me more than anything. Because that's like something, it's like, it just really eats at me. Going to what you guys just shared, like I can really appreciate that. And obviously we've talked about this before in the podcast, you know, we've had very different kind of upbringings, right? Especially with you, Eric. My parents were very liberal. And it makes me wonder if it's a matter of
Because we both kind of went through this, for lack of a better phrase, being thrown into the deep end of the pool moment, I guess. Like where we're just constantly being criticized. We don't have that power and we feel like we're attacked or controlled. And for you guys, it seemed to have happened very early on in your life, right? When you guys were children growing up and it seemed to have take place within your household.
And for me, that wasn't my situation. My situation was my parents were much more liberal with me. They had their moments, of course, but it was nowhere near as like super micromanaging and like dictating every single thing I had to do. I was more on my own.
so to speak. My dad wasn't around too often and my mom was, she had just immigrated to the United States from Asia and she didn't really know how to speak the language that well. So she had her own struggles, trying to raise two children basically alone in a new country, not knowing the culture and language.
And my dad was off, you know, working hard trying to make a living for the family. So he wasn't around. So anyway, I was pretty much on my own for a long period of time. And I kind of got to do things, whatever really I wanted to do and get into the trouble that I wanted to get into. So that, so my early experiences were not like yours, but later on in life, like I said, when I got, when I was an adult and got into the professional world,
that's when I had the wake up call and I was kind of thrown into the deep end with the sharks and it's kind of like learn to swim or you drown kind of moment. So I'm wondering if having gone through that situation later in life, as opposed to earlier in life, maybe, um,
I am not as, I don't know if this is the right word, but not as scarred from it maybe as you guys are in terms of having some trigger points where you regress into some earlier memories or an earlier state of feeling and emotion because I didn't have that kind of maybe trauma early on. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah.
It's worth thinking about. And it's worth thinking about in terms of how are you going to raise your kids, right? Like that's a reality that might be upcoming for me is maybe having kids. Like, you know, I don't know. I can't put a timeline to it, but it'll probably happen sooner or later, you know, sometime. And it's just like, well, okay, well, how are you going to raise yours? And how are you going to,
Kind of get your kid to maybe learn those lessons and kind of get thicker skin without, you know, traumatizing them, I guess. What's the best way to do it? I don't know.
Because there's that kind of fine line, like you said, you were mentioning, Eric, there's that fine line to cross. It can go two ways. One way is maybe a kid that is brought up in a lot of strife and struggle, maybe they get thicker skin because they had to grow up in very harsh environments. Or they get traumatized from it and it's the opposite effect and they have thinner skin because they're like... It's a gamble. Yeah. Because you hear stories from both sides. Exactly. And the results differ.
There is no right or wrong way. You have stories of kids getting beaten up as a child from their parents, physically abused, but they come out with anger issues or they come out really, really disciplined. Yeah, I don't know. And Eric turned out disciplined. Yeah, but Eric also has his own issues too. So it didn't come with its cost. Yeah.
right eric are you disciplined i'm i'm i'm you can't you can't use sort of a binary term like i'm disciplined or not disciplined like you know in a lot of ways like my life is um the narrative has been trying to harness certain talent and potential and building discipline and not having that discipline and struggling with that discipline and that being the um
you know, that being the biggest challenge, you know? And so like, we are definitely like the product of that environment. And it's very, very complex. You're like, you're, you're putting a human being in this crucible of pressure and how they end up reacting to that will evolve. And it's not just a, like a black and white outcome to like this, this type of evolution will happen the right, you know, your entire life. Like hopefully you can keep adapting. Yeah. Um,
It's a very interesting topic on, you know, how do we raise our kids and what that environment is, you know? Well, let's generalize for a second. And just for the fun of having the conversation, do you guys feel like whatever cultures we're talking about, and usually we talk about China or the U.S. because these are where we're from.
Do you feel like the younger generations, like the newer generations now have thinner skin compared to the older generations? Do you think it's a generational thing? Thinner skin, right? Like I get that feeling too, but I question whether that's just a biased kind of interpretation from our vantage point or if they are actually thinner skin at all, you know? Because you feel like,
Well, first of all, how many young people do you actually are you actually around? No, but if you look at society and the way culture is headed, it's dictated by the younger cultures in terms of like being politically correct, not saying the wrong things, being triggered. Like these are all terms that when we were growing up didn't even exist.
Like the idea of being triggered, like that was not a thing. Like that was not a thing. And I'm not, I'm not debating the, the, the morality or the positivity of this direction. I'm just saying, is there a difference or is it all pretty much the same, but we're just thinking there is just because we're biased. There is definitely a heightened sensitivity. I believe without scientific research backing this, but just from everyday, uh,
ingesting media. Just like we can't say the same things now that we could get away with saying when we were kids, right? Yeah, the sensitivity marker has been raised, you know, and every little word you have to kind of double check. So even, this actually reminds me of a conversation I had recently with a friend about...
workplace, just like interacting with your coworkers. And it got to the point where literally my friend was saying that he's now used to, he doesn't need to question his actions or words anymore because he had to do it for so long for the past couple of years that now it's natural that he'll never
touch anybody or even get close to even like hey you know even like a hey on the shoulder like that's a no-no now you know um and like always acknowledging with a positive comment first and making sure that you're including women and men and all people of color you know if there are people of color in the room look at them when they talk you know like literally like this all becomes automatic now because you've been trained to think about inclusivity yeah
Of all aspects. Now, is that wrong or right? I mean, I don't know, but I'm just saying that that's what it is now for many people. And that did not exist even in our day, let alone even earlier generations, right? Yeah. I don't know. Like, as a person of color... Yeah.
I would not want someone to specifically go out of their way to look at me to make me feel included in the conversation. That would just be awkward for me. I'd be like, what are you doing? You know what I mean? But I can only speak for myself. I don't know. But yeah, there's a huge shift, right? Now, what does that really do to? And is that more of a cultural thing? Does that exist in China? Or is that just more of a Western thing? Why are you so quiet now, Eric? Didn't get enough sleep yesterday? I'm just kind of thinking about...
this notion of like having no awareness of something and then having like almost heightened, but, um, you know, hyper awareness or debilitating awareness, you know? And so it's kind of like, we know that we know that it was very, it's, you know, it like, it was very, a very dark period of time for a long time from certain respects, um,
In a lot of places like the US where people were not treated fairly. I'll just kind of be very concise with that, but people weren't treated fairly. That's probably a massive understatement. But without going into all of that stuff, people not being treated fairly, people not being treated in a human way.
And there's all varying shades of that, right? From being like, you could be killed for your skin of your color to you could be completely marginalized, right? And we all know that that's not, that's just horrible. It's terrible. And we are like, the three of us are kind of like people of some kind of color, right? I mean, we're not white. And then on the other hand, like- Hold on, let's stop for a second there. I'm so sorry to just like-
Stop. I don't know. I don't know why. It doesn't sound, it's just sound weird. What you just said about the whole, like we're all some, somewhat, um, persons of color, but cause we're not white. Does that mean white is the standard?
Because that's what it comes across as. Well, white is the absence of color. Yeah. Like, it literally is the absence of color by definition. My statement was sort of like to caveat that I didn't want people to confuse when I said that we're people of color that like, that, you know, we, that I was trying to equate my situation to like African Americans or black people because like, you know, I think
that history is much... Yeah, of course, but Asians are people of color too. Right, right. In terms of the Western... But then sometimes it's like when you say people of color, it's like black people. Sometimes when you say people of color, it's all, you know, so the definition is a little bit, right? It's a little bit nuanced. But I think
Then going back to what we were saying is, but on the other hand, you know, we just talked about scenarios where like you're in a room and people who, you know, are not really, that are not racist. They grew up in an environment where they were probably taught like really good values, then feel like they're self-doubting and questioning themselves. Like, am I being, am I being fair enough to all the people in the room? And there's this hypersensitivity to it.
And so you're trying to conflate two very, very...
just different things. Like one is like hundreds of years of oppression or whatever, you know, like that whole topic, which is just, I mean, you can't condense it into anything. It's because you're talking about the experiences and the lives of hundreds of millions of people and what they went through. And there was a lot of suffering in that. And then on the other hand, you have a modern society where we're trying to address some of these things
But, you know, these people didn't live like 300 years ago. They weren't really part of that. And they're in a meeting. So like you're hyper local focus, right? Like we're not talking about hundreds of years of history. You're talking about a 10 minute conversation where it's like we're trying to address 400 years of bad shit in that 10 minutes. It's very, very complex then. And so what is the right answer? It's really like I just don't know.
I don't know either. None of us do. Right. But I would question like I question, right, the contrarian in me. I question, like, are we even addressing that? Like when you said like, like, you know, am I by making making sure I make eye contact with, let's say, an African-American person when I talk about people and make sure I include them in the conversation?
Am I really, by doing that, am I really addressing the fucking slavery and all the shit they had to went through? You know, and even more so than that, the actions. Where is it truly motivated from? Is it truly motivated because I genuinely want to be inclusive? Or is it more motivated because I fear that if I don't, I'll get called out and get in trouble? And obviously everyone's going to have their own different answers for that and they can only speak for themselves.
But like, I question that a lot in this society where it's like, where are we really being motivated by? Is it truly an inclusion? And if it's true inclusion, you don't need to go out of your way to make these like gestures and virtue signal about the inclusion. Like you would just be inclusive. It wouldn't be a thing for you. Okay. So I do think this requires conversation.
just ongoing deep thought conversation and and clarity and you know um this constant revisiting and we talked about this when the whole george floyd thing happened i was just like we just need to really talk about it and like i think at that point my thoughts were really really really like on you know vague and kind of murky right but number one is i think um
that 10 minute conversation or whatever that meeting is, it's not going to solve like the 400 years of slavery, right? That you can't, these are not equivalent things, obviously that like, it's not, they're not the same. It's not the same ballpark. It's not the intention. And you're not going to solve any of that stuff because it's already happened. And so I think that's, I think I feel fairly confident about that statement. The number two is then what's the, you know, what's the goal. It's like, you're trying to prevent some of these things from happening again, right?
You can't address that or have punitive damages of that stuff, but you're trying to make sure that we avoid this thing from ever happening again. And I think that it depends on the culture of the environment. So like
if we get to, it's all a matter of degree. Like we can talk about different countries without getting to the specifics, right? And we, if you get into situations like, let's say we were talking about control, but like everything is controlled to the extreme, whether it's like,
you know, the country that's controlling you or whether it's social customs or like call out culture that's controlling you. If it goes to that extreme, then you have created a different problem completely. Okay. Now in my work environments, like we talk about these things like inclusion and diversity and, you know, without commenting too much, I feel like it's healthy in the sense that I still feel like it's pointing out things that
I wasn't aware of before, or I intuitively might've known, but it's surfacing things that I should be more aware of, number one. And number two is that like we're trying to build a culture where, okay, like you see different people's colors,
and you're aware and you're avoiding behaviors that will marginalize them. And then just by kind of focusing that we know we have different people of different backgrounds. And if we just have that positive mindset, it gives people the opportunity to build relationships. Like before, like when you had like the systemic,
like oppression, it was like people were not even viewing each other as human beings. So they couldn't build these relationships. So I do agree. Like the hope is that you put in some of these sort of principles in place and then you let human nature sort of take its course in a positive way so that I'm not seeing you as like, it's like kids. They don't see someone as Asian or black or Indian or whatever it is. But I do think you have to put some guardrails into the system. Mm-hmm.
So that like if people are, you know, transgressing or doing things that are running counter to an inclusive environment, we're calling that out and we're solving for it. But you don't obviously want to get to the other extreme where it's like everything I do, I'm doing it because I don't want to get punished for it. But I don't think it's gotten to that point. And we have to be very careful not to let the racists know
call out the possibility of the slippery slope and say, oh, we're in an environment where we can't say anything anymore. We're not there yet. When you look at these motherfuckers that are like sexual predators and all that shit, it's not like every single day your friends are being persecuted. Even when you do see these things, people being called out, most of the time they're being called out for a reason and it's still a very small percentage of the population. But I do agree there is a slippery slope
But you can never use a slippery slope argument to be like, oh, we should just all be racists. Because that's the easiest argument to make to create inaction for the people who don't want to see change.
The biggest champion of that whole slippery slope argument is Fox News' Tucker Carlson. Have you ever seen that shit? He's like, well, what do we do now? The liberals are fucking taking over. We're not going to have freedom of speech anymore. He goes off the rails in terms of saying this whole diversity, inclusion, and BLM thing is taking us in a direction where none of us are going to be able to say anything anymore. It's a straw man argument. You can't equate something that no one wants with something else completely different.
It's a form of attack rather than any kind of true type of argument with merit. True. I agree. But there is, I think, a level of caution that has to be taken where you don't create a culture and an environment, even if it's within a company, right? A fear. A fear and being kind of like the diversity police where all of a sudden if someone doesn't
let's say, use all the pronouns or doesn't make eye contact with all the minorities in the room when they're talking about all the people, all of a sudden they get called out for it and it's like hammered down for it where it's like it's our way or the highway buddy. Meanwhile, this person can be very inclusive in heart. He's just not doing the, what maybe he thinks is like empty gestures. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, absolutely. I totally agree. And to that point, I think two things, right? One is that, but that hasn't,
historically been the problem. So we can't call out something that hasn't been the problem and then be like, oh, we got to be afraid of that. The problem has been racism, right? Like, it's like, like, like that's where you have to zoom out and be like, okay, like of all the potential slippery slopes, like,
We've already fell into the motherfucking off the cliff. That's called racism. Like, you know, like people are talking about, oh, what if this, what if this is like, no, actually we just, we persecuted hundreds of millions of people for the last 400 years. Yeah. So like, hey, let's look at that first and always have that as the backdrop. And then I think the second thing is that slippery slopes, these things, slippery slopes all connect to one another.
And so it's all about a balance. Like, like you're always going to move from one extreme to the other. And there's no rule you can put in place to ever stop that. That's humanity. We're going to go in one direction until we self-destruct or come on the brink of self-destruction. And we're going to be like, oh shit. And then we're going to come back. Look at the Republicans, right? They're going to go to one end of the extreme. I've been listening to some things around them. And because they haven't really suffered massive defeats in,
But at one point, if they keep going, they keep going, they're going to implode and then they're going to have to basically rebuild. And so that's just human beings. Like sometimes society, like Sodom and Gomorrah, all these biblical stories, sometimes we have to go to the brink of destruction before we can come back. It's unfortunate. That's actually, wow. Like that's a really good point because I...
That's really true, right? Like human society is a pendulum. And that pendulum is always on one extreme or the other. It's never still in the middle. You know, sometimes it might briefly sweep by the middle, but it's always on the direction of going to one extreme or the other, right? Like a pendulum is. A perpetual pendulum is human society. And the Confucian, and it's like China, like probably, you know, was...
I mean, if you were to say any society, did we ever get to a point where we might've achieved that harmony or that sort of like point in the middle? Like I think Chinese society and Confucian values was like,
probably one of the best strategies towards achieving that. And even America, like, I mean, the, you know, the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, like probably. But like, I love what your analogy was. It's like human society, though. Like we forget that traditionally it's on, it is on the pendulum and it's usually on the extreme swinging out of control. And that like when it actually reaches the middle, like that's actually the outlier.
It's out there and it's almost fleeting because it's almost just passing through the middle on its way to the other extreme. It's very fleeting. And I think, I mean, we've been seeing that through these past couple of years,
We've talked about this ad nauseum on this show, the conflicts between, the tensions between America and the U.S., COVID, BLM riots, everything that's been happening around the world. And now lately we've been seeing Israel and Palestine flare up again. And it's this whole idea of this divisiveness of human nature. Well, I would say that, kind of also referencing Blueprint from Nicholas Christakis' book,
whom we've referenced many times, is that human beings are characterized by forces that are on either side of the pendulum. And the net force is a positive one that is not divisive and that brings people together. But there are forces
that are pushing against each other. And then over time, the net effect is that we build society. Like we can do, like the fact that we can actually be in the room and do the podcast, I think we've talked about is pretty fucking amazing. Yeah. And so,
that general, general optimism that, Hey, things are moving in the right direction. That bigger backdrop is something that sometimes we lose sight of. Like as you were just talking and like, I was feeling the empathy and I'm like, God, man, the world's really fucked up. My life's fucked up. How is life fucked up? You know? And then like, it's easy to get into that negativity. Like it's really easy to activate these feelings and negativity and
But when you really zoom out, it's like you've got to remind yourself that we wouldn't be here if there wasn't an overall net positive factor of human beings making progress, being optimistic, having beliefs, you know, and all the pluses happening.
outweighing the minuses, even if it's just a small little increment. The fact that we come to the show every week, the fact that we're doing all these positive things, like we just focus so much on the negative. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - I just like-- - Well, that's human nature, right? - It's such human nature and it's like, how many moments, again, that pie chart we talked about last week of like, are doing things that you think are meaningful versus not meaningful. But think about the moments in the day
where you have a positive mindset, where the moments of the day you have a negative mindset and really just think about it and be honest with yourself, you know, what that balance looks like. And for me, it's awful. Like that fucking negative mindset sometimes can consume the whole fucking pie. And even in this show, we've had like these emotional ups and downs and like the thin skin thing makes us less resilient. Like the thin skin thing is great because it helps you be reflective. And I think it helps us be, you know, like,
it helps us be fluid in our states. But the bad thing is that allows us to be impressionable sometimes. And sometimes you need to weather the storm, like you said, and then be able to kind of fight through certain things. Yeah. And going back to that whole, like kind of human negativity, um,
We've talked about this too, we see signs of it in terms of social media algorithms. And what do social media algorithms play on? It plays on human nature. That's exactly what it's programmed for, to play on your human nature. And it's been proven, study after study, there's overwhelming data shows that negative headlines are more captivating than positive headlines. They get longer watch times, get far more clicks and views.
And it's just like, we are drawn to negativity. We are just, we are just drawn to negativity as human beings. Well, here's a headline. Speaking of headlines that just popped in my mind when you said headline, and I'm curious to see what you guys think. Did you see this headline where, first of all, you know, the, the actress, well, the actor, Ellen Page,
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And... Yeah. Umbrella Academy. Yeah. Because we're fans of that show. Yeah. Ellen Page. Yeah. Exactly. And then did you know that she is now called Elliot Page? Yeah. I had no idea. What do you mean? What do you mean she's called... She decided to change her name to Elliot? Yes. No. Well, she decided to... Did she get any... Does she identify as a male or something? This was last year. Yeah. This was last year. Last year. I don't know. I don't read... So she changed to Elliot Page and now recently...
Even in the article that I saw the headline, she is not referenced as she anymore, nor he. Now it's they. So they want to be referenced as they. So, okay, I'm asking honestly because I'm ignorant to this and I don't know and I want to be educated is what is, and you guys aren't the experts, I know, but maybe you guys know more than me.
what does that mean? So she identifies as both male and female or she doesn't even, she doesn't want to do away with gender roles entirely and it's just like an amorphous ambiguous thing. I'm just a human being. She's against it. I'm binary. Is she against even the concept of having this stuff where we're just all us?
It could be a good thing, right? Because sometimes we view this as like, oh my God, they're trying to be so fussy about it. Maybe what she's saying is like, there shouldn't even be boys and girls. Like we're all just human beings. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. That's a whole different can of worms. I think that like the notion of like us dividing, you know, the whole world into sort of A and B. Mm-hmm.
I can understand that there could be people that don't necessarily buy into it because that every human being can be a little bit different. And while we might fit neatly into this A and B category, and most people probably feel like they fit into A and B, honestly, right? Just because it's pretty obvious. But-
Just looking at nature, there's whole spectrums of things and I can totally understand where there might be a group of people that are in different parts of the spectrum that say, hey, I'm not an A, I'm not a B, I don't fit into this. Or I was born with A sort of anatomy, but I'm a B.
Like, you know, like, and I think the tone, the terms not while I'm not going to start using A and B like more frequently, but I think when you start saying the letters A and B, it brings perspective because I think we're sort of brainwashed by male and female. And that's the whole, like the gender sort of the gender roles. Cause we, we attach so much stigma and stereotype just knowing their gender. Exactly. We attach too many things to the word male and female that don't necessarily belong when it is much more individual. Yeah.
And so like, you know, I don't expect like everyone in the world that will have the same opinion. But if someone does have that, we should respect that. It's just like, like, let's say that I'm much more thin skinned than most people. And then like all the thick skinned people are like, man, you're just a fucking pussy. Just suck it up. Get some experiences, you know, whatever. You shouldn't be thin skinned. And I'm like, but I am. Yeah.
So I don't know. It's a tough one because you don't want to start creating infinite amount of categories because sometimes it can be in your head because the more I think I'm thin skin, at the same time, you do have to respect people. So again, it goes back to balance. I think you just can't go to like the pendulum thing was a great example.
way of looking at it. It's like, you can't make massive swings because massive swings are like upheavals and like revolutions. And sometimes like society needs that to like go back to a, a normal point. But ideally you're making incremental changes so that you can find a really good balance and equilibrium. Sorry, let me, let me correct myself. Um,
Yeah. Elliot Page is getting referenced as he or they, right? Why he or they? Yeah. Just, I guess, the usage of description. If you're not using his name, you can say, you can reference him as he or they. Oh, okay. We can be they too then. Yeah. No, no, no, no. Hold on, hold on. I have to correct myself. So the article I was reading was actually not Elliot Page. It was Demi Lovato. Dude. Oh,
Oh, the singer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry, sorry. That's what it was. Demi Lovato. Is now named Elliot? No. Demi Lovato announced that she wants to change her pronoun to they or them. And she sees herself as non-binary. Wait, so it's not Ellen Page or Ellen Page did the same thing? Well, also Ellen Page, but that was just because Ellen Page was, well, Elliot Page was also referenced in the article.
And that's what I... So someone who is transgender may also be non-binary. Like, Elliot Page identifies, like, how he said both as he and they, but that's not always the case. So, like, someone who's transgender could just be like, I'm only he and I'm not they. But I guess Elliot Page has decided that they want to be he and they. No, no, see, what throws me off of this is the he and they thing. Because doesn't they also include he? Mm-hmm.
So why not just be they? Because they includes all of them, right? Like, why distinct he and they because he is already included in they, right? Or am I missing something? Well, I don't know. It's for people who identify as non-binary. Non-binary being not male or not female. Like, not a boy, not a girl, not he, not she. So they would use they as the singular pronoun. Right.
Well, this is another topic, right? Without like maybe going, jumping off the deep end, but maybe the, what I will say is that perhaps we need to explore whether or not sex is binary because my understanding was different than yours. And my, like the original comment about color and other things, my, my, my intuition or whatever my understanding was, my uninformed understanding was that sex is not binary.
necessarily binary and that's probably just something we should look into. I was just sort of looking at Scientific American, some articles, and it actually says that sex is much more complex. You can have X, Y, because males, the traditional males have Y chromosomes that actually have ovaries. So in the animal kingdom, it's not as clean as we think it is and it could be some bias that we have that sex is binary.
It's actually a little bit more, it might be fairly clean. Like maybe it's not like color where there's like a whole spectrum. It's not like, it's not monochrome or black and white in that sense. But at the same time, there is some shades of differences.
Oh, okay. Yeah, I don't know what the latest research is. But it seems like even just using the term of non-binary or if one says that they identify themselves as non-binary, it's not... I don't think it's actually... It's not... Just the headline. It's not saying, you know, I'm...
anatomically speaking a male or a female not a male or a female you know it's saying that they identify yeah what i'm struggling with and i'm honestly trying i'm i'm trying to dig in because i want to understand more otherwise i'd just be like you know just deny the whole thing you're like fuck out of here what i'm saying is okay if we're not talking about sexuality which is a discussion on its own if we're not talking about anatomy then what are we talking about
If we're not talking about sexuality, we're not talking about anatomy, what is the discussion? That's what I'm struggling with. Like, what are we... The soul. What is the discussion? Your soul. Okay. Well, let me read this, right? Like, I mean, because we don't know what... Like, we're... Like, look, we're using, like, USA Today. It's like fucking shit media, right? Yeah, I know. I know. And it's easy to just go off the wrong end, right? And...
I'm reading from Scientific American. It's not like an authoritative source or anything like that. It's probably a little bit better than USA Today. But just knowing that this type of commentary exists is good. It says that, you know, everyone really in middle... Nearly everyone in middle school biology learn that if you've got, like...
X, X chromosomes, you're female. Like that's our mindset, right? And if you got X, Y, you're a male. And he said, they say that this simplification is good for like teaching kids about the importance of chromosomes, but it's not actually the true nature of like sex biologically. So the popular belief that your sex arises only from like X, X, X, Y is actually wrong. The truth is it's your
your sex is not carved in stone, but it's actually has a potential for change because it's much, much more complicated. So XX individuals. So traditionally what we would call females could actually have male gonads or, you know, whatever, right. Male, um, sexual reproducing, um, anatomy and XY individuals can have ovaries, et cetera, et cetera. So now I'm not trying to say that there's a direct connection between what these people believe, but, um,
what I'm trying to say is that our understanding of what sex is probably needs an update. It's not complete. It's not complete. And then now we're taking our like middle school scientific knowledge and then trying to apply it to these folks, which is very dangerous because that creates like transphobia and all kinds of things. And to your point, you're trying to be open-minded. So we're just trying to acknowledge that there are people now like the Demi Lovato's, the Elliot pages, who I think we respect in terms of their art, but,
And they're trying to be a symbol for, hey, there are people out there that maybe identify a little bit differently. Can you take us a little bit more seriously? Because if an average person did that, you might not take them that seriously. But like we have seen these people on the screen and we're like, hey, these people are pretty talented. They look like they're, you know, they've really put time and effort into what they do. And so now they're saying something and then we're more likely to listen. I don't feel like it's a mainstream thing.
mainstream acceptance or understanding even of this whole topic of
and non-binary and identification. It's not the mainstream yet. Is it not? In America, I feel it's pretty freaking mainstream. I get what you're saying. In terms of positivity of being like, yeah, I have support. But it's a mainstream discussion being had, right? I would say a couple of points, right? I mean, I get what you're saying. But number one is that
if an average person came out and said it, like no one would ever listen anyway. So you would never know about it. Number two is that I give them the, I give these guys the benefit of the doubt for now, just because I don't think that this is the best way to chase publicity. It's a very innovative way. But like, you look at Ellen Page. I mean, like she was doing so well, like Umbrella Academy. And like, she was like on top of the world. My,
reaction was like oh shit what are they gonna do with the character it was just like she was on top of the world and she was even an inception and i was just like whoa she's like like she's such a great actor yeah and she's so amazing and i was like wow and then i just i i felt that they is such a great day i was like i respected that i was like wow you're on top of the world you've been identified in a certain way and you've reached the pinnacle of that
And you're willing to give it all up. And I can't imagine how hard it is for them. So I'm kind of thinking, trying to think like, I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt, but everyone has the freedom to do whatever. I don't think there's a bandwagon where people are like, hey, I'm just going to change my gender and I'm going to be like- It's not cool right now. You know what I'm saying? Well, it's like trying to apply the earthly laws of physics to a different dimension or a different planet that has-
a different gravity, you know what I mean? It's like the same things don't necessarily work out the same when I think we're talking about the ecosystem that is Hollywood. And I think for most people, we're unaware about how things are so differently distorted and the laws of physics are just different in the Hollywood world, right?
in the entertainment world where everything is just getting that next gig everything is about your clout everything is you know you're only as good as what you did last you know and there's this constant competition and constant like self-doubt and i don't know attention seeking like everything is just different in hollywood i feel and we we cannot we cannot empathize with
their mindset in that world. But I mean, just let's talk about with Demi Lovato coming out as non-binary and wanting to be called they or them. I mean, that's not going to help her career. I mean...
I mean, in actuality. I mean, you think these big record labels and studio execs would be like, oh yeah, now we're going to ride the wave. Maybe. Because Hollywood, and if you watch the Oscars and you listen to celebrities talk, you understand that Hollywood is dominated by...
the liberal left in terms of their political views, in terms of their social views. So a lot of these executives, and I'm speaking completely out of school, I'm assuming a lot of things, right? But I'm just, this is what I've heard, okay? Take it with a grain of salt. But
the popular movement. And this is why there's cancel culture did not come from anywhere else, but Hollywood culture. When we talk about people getting canceled, it's people getting actors, celebrities, artists getting canceled. That came, that whole verbiage came out of Hollywood. That culture has come out of Hollywood. So if we apply that and understand that,
The environment and culture within Hollywood in terms of the executives, the networks, the production companies, and how they're deciding how they're going to choose their next leads. You know, this is no secret about Hollywood in terms of where they lie on that spectrum of social and political topics. I mean, that's not a secret at all. They're very vocal about that.
I don't know. What's interesting is how we got from thin and thick skin to this fucking topic. But I love it because it's like, I feel like we're back to our old ways, you know, where we just go on a rollercoaster ride of conversation. And this just shows that she has thick skin for coming out and announcing to the world. Way to make a full circle. Well, it just shows that...
And it shows that like thin skin has its benefits because you're constantly like reflecting and you're willing to acknowledge different things and willing to question and challenge different things. I think with her, so again, like these are all shaped by, you know, our own experiences and the information that we have.
I just don't think we know enough about any of this stuff, right? Because like I'm reading about now from some sources about, you know, all kinds of different things personally. And it's kind of weird to read about, you know, a celebrity because like no one would know anything about us, right? But like,
there are factors that impact. Think about what we talked about. We talked a little bit about the factors that have shaped us as human beings. Human beings are just so, so, so complex. And when you read about her, she's gone through experiences that none of us have ever gone through. I mean, abuse, whatever it is, right? Who, Demi Lovato or Ellen Page? Or Elliot Page, I'm sorry. No, Demi Lovato. Okay. I mean, it's pretty crazy. It's pretty crazy. If you just like, I don't want to like...
you know, like start reading about people's lives on online, but just let's just say that there's a math, you know, if you read about it in Wikipedia or whatever, like there's a lot of stuff, right? Yeah. And so it's hard to take the Hollywood backdrop and then apply it to this specific individual. One single person. Exactly. Well, also this also coincides with, um, this recent documentary series that just got released like a month ago. Mm. What was that on her dancing with the devil? Oh,
Demi Lovato documentary. Yeah. And where she revealed a lot of what Eric was alluding to. That's crazy. I mean, it's like you could write books about this stuff. Yeah. The shit that she went through. Oh, wow. Yeah. Which, you know, she was on the Rogan podcast too. Yeah. Which I think also leads, you know, to this announcement that she made, you know? Yeah. I mean, they're all tied together, right? I don't know. Human beings are just very complex creatures.
This reminds me of something that I started listening to a recent podcast episode. It's The Armchair Expert by Dax Shepard. It's a great podcast. And one of their latest episodes, they had Daniel Kahneman on, who is kind of like the godfather of behavioral economics and nudge theory and all these things.
And basically it's so such a great podcast. The, um, he was talking about like, um, Daniel Kahneman was talking about like the complexity of humans. And if you, he, he talked a little bit about his childhood and he grew up in a Nazi occupied France at the time he was a child. And he was telling this one story and he just, he's, he's doing this to highlight the complexity of human beings. And as a Jew himself, he, uh, he was recounting, um,
an event one time as a child where there were, there was curfews, right? And if you were Jewish, you had the Star of David embroidered onto your shirt to identify yourself and you had to wear it out. And if you were caught past curfew, obviously there were consequences for that. So one day he was at a friend's house. He was a little kid and he was over at someone else's house and he had stayed past curfew. So he was, he was kind of running home.
And before he ran home, he had turned his shirt inside out so you couldn't see the Star of David. And on his way home, he had caught the eye of an SS officer. And in his own words, he said, if you know anything about the SS officers, the Nazi officers, they were the worst of the worst. Like the SS Nazi officers were like the worst of the worst. And this SS guy saw him, stopped him and called him over. And as a kid, you're shaking your boots.
And he walks over and the SS officer looks at him, hugs him, shows him a picture of his own son and gives him some money, you know, just to buy food, blah, blah. Didn't know he was a Jew and sent him on his way. And he used this story, he used this memory in his life, in his childhood, to
as a portrait to kind of highlight and underscore the complexity of human beings and the in and out group. Because on one hand, he is in the in-group of being a Nazi, the worst of the worst, committing horrible crimes against humanity, right? But on the other hand, he's also a father.
And he hugged this guy, this kid. He hugged him, gave him money. And so on that aspect of him and his encounter, this was a super nice guy. But obviously he's not standing, he's not representing a super nice thing. So like it's these complex layers of human beings that kind of make,
society so messy, make our perspectives so messy, make our relationships so messy and how we think about things. - Well, it brings up a couple of points, right? So the first point is that context really matters, right? Human complexity is determined by context as well. You put people in different contexts, they can behave completely differently. What does that tell us about good human beings is that
good human beings then, regardless of the context. Because it's a self-reflection as well. Because like, I mean, we get, I get angry probably more than anyone at certain groups of people in certain contexts. But it reminds me that there's a very slippery slope there as well. It's that in whatever context you're in, it all matters. And that if you truly want to be a good human being, it doesn't matter what context, you have a lot of consistency in your behavior. And when we go back again to Blueprint, it's like,
He talks about human beings have the capacity to love, friendship, social networks, cooperation, but they also have a preference for their own groups. It's called in-group bias. Human beings also like to organize themselves based on some type of hierarchy.
That's just the natural nature, right? And so there's all these different characteristics and applied to different contexts, it can bring out the best of us and can bring out the worst of us. And so I think, I think it's a really great reminder that you're constantly, even this theme of the show is like, we're trying to activate the best of us in every moment, the
the positivity, like we need to have thick skin when we need thick skin and we need to have thin skin when it calls for vulnerability. But like going into a battle and having, and being vulnerable, like, like I'm literally going to a fight and be like, Oh, like I'm kind of weak. Are you going to hurt me? It's probably not the best idea.
But then going into like- - A therapy session. - A therapy session, you don't wanna, exactly, then you don't wanna have, so I think it's very, you don't wanna be a hippopotamus. - Okay, well look, look, to wrap it up here, I think you hit the nail on the head when it comes to context because my belief is that 99.999999999% of all of us, maybe even 100%, right? We don't have the full context of things.
And I think that's where so much conflict arises and so much heated debate and argument and vitriol and hate arises from is because we are all working off of our own vantage points based off of incomplete context and different information to build that context. No one has the full picture, yet we're all still so committed passionately to
to our sides that will fight for it. Where do you go from there if that is the disease? If ignorance is the disease that we're all guilty of, that we all have, where can you really go from there? And I'm not trying to paint a really pessimistic ending to this. I'm just saying, I think the first step to progress is understanding that and being aware of that. - So, Justin, I think you pointed out something. What I love doing is,
sort of validating that we're on the right track. And I also love just sort of like having the last word, but we all do. Yeah, you do. But it's more about learning and synthesis, right? And what you said, Justin, was like, what can we do? What can this show do for the world? Like, how can we help? Like, we've got to go back to the Post-it notes. It's like, do it for the world, do it for the family. Like, you got to go back to something that
is true every moment of the day. Like you can go to fucking Greenland and- Go back, you know, back streets back, you know? Yeah, exactly. You can go, you can travel these places and all of a sudden experience these fleeting moments and whatever it is, right? But what is always universally true is,
Like, how can we help others? How can we make things better? How can we get the world a little bit closer together, right? And so you actually very brilliantly just articulated something that one of my favorite authors articulated, Morgan Housel. He's written a lot of great books. He's a financial sort of wizard and he's written some books.
And in one of his recent books, he wrote, your personal experiences make up maybe 0.00000000, lots of zeros, 1% of what's happened in the world.
But probably 80% of how you think the world works. Oh yeah, that's brilliant. Right? That's so true. And it's exactly what you're saying. So I really wanted to call out sort of like your, your, your intuition and your instincts. Cause I think on a show we've got a good instincts, but we're trying to, we struggle to articulate our words. Right. And so sometimes I just borrow words from other authors. So, and so people believe what they've seen themselves as,
exponentially, right? More than what they read about has happened to other people if they read other people at all. Like basically it's like we just take our limited information, USA Today, whatever it is, our observations, and we construct a view of the world. So we are all biased to our personal history. And it doesn't have to be a, it's a disease that's curable.
Right? So I love what you said. It's like a disease. It's not chronic. It can be cured. And how can it be cured? It's that we need to seek understanding. We always need to remind ourselves that 99% of things should be trying to seek understanding. And even if there was any type of judgment, it should be like less than 1%.
That simple filter of like not telling people what you know, not making these judgments, not saying, okay, we should do this or do that, or this is that, or, you know,
it's seeking that understanding, which is so hard because in the moment you take that .0000001%, you're like, I fucking know what's going on. I just read the Wikipedia, guys. I just read Economist, so I know. I'm the last word on this show. But the reality is we don't know shit. The only thing we do know is the curiosity didn't kill the cat. The curiosity actually helped save the world. Yeah, man.
Right on, brother. We are all the frog at the bottom of the well, looking up at the sky, thinking that small little circle is the whole world. You know what I mean? We're all that frog at the bottom of the well.
Anyway, love you guys. Hope you feel better, Javi. Yeah, wake up, Javi. I hate it. It's like he comes on and he complains about like, oh, I didn't say that much. It's because you're fucking stayed out till 5 a.m., asshole. He complains like, oh, guys, am I like the dumbest guy here? Meanwhile, he just sits back. He's hung over. He puts himself. He's hung over like 30% of the show. He compromises himself every time. Anyway, stayed out till 5 last night, huh?
Anyway, we'll share those stories after we stop recording. After dark. The Honest Drink, after dark. Stay tuned. The Honest Drink, squared edition. All right, guys. That's it for today. Be good. Be well. I'm Justin. I'm Howie. And I've got thin skin. All right, brothers, sisters, they, whoever. Be good. Be well. Peace. The rest of the stars will see my bright, bright, bright, bright.
I wish you my time.