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Hello, and welcome to this episode
of Superhero Ethics Today. Friends, I

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am taking not only you, but
Paul Hoppey, one of my most regular

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co hosts, into a garden of
contemplation. Paul doesn't actually know what the

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topic of today's podcast is, and
that's kind of intentional. We've had a

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little bit of a journey getting here. I had a podcast lined up,

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but my podcast host wasn't able to
take part last night because apparently they live

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in the darkest of Alaska and the
internet is not always great there. So

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I was trying to figure out what
I should do instead, and I wound

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up going on quite a journey over
the last couple of weeks, but especially

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over the last six hours or so
as I was driving to Wisconsin to see

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my partner Abbey, on a further
journey. I'm going to Cincinnati for a

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magic event, actually a Lolcana event, And during the time, I went

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on a journey that really was bringing
up all kinds of thoughts that are relevant

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to this podcast, because it was
really a journey into how do we as

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people and Paul and think they're part
of that group, but you know,

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how do we the human species and
Paul the Paul species. Deal with darkness,

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deal with despair, deal with tragedy, deal with the realization that we're

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in a terrible situation and we don't
think we can change it. And this

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is a topic. I think it's
very dear to me, particularly at Christmas

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time and at holiday time. Basically, so much of this time is about

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the return of light and the rebirth
of light and of heat and of hope

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and of warmth and abundance into a
time that is for us in the Northern

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hemisphere where a lot of these holidays
were created seen as for I think understandable

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reasons, the time of scarcity and
darkness and a loss of hope. And

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so I think there's a lot of
relevant topics here, but I really can't

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dance around it anymore. Those of
you who are fans of a certain podcast

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may know what I mean when I
say that I'm in the Garden of contemplation

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that we're going to be talking about
the shadow Man. For those who don't

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understand, this all starts with my
viewing of a movie called Paul Blart Mark

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Mall Cop two. Again, Paul's
no idea what's happening here, and so

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he's laughing a bit about this.
I didn't even know this was an episode

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of Superhero Ethics. I thought you
were like starting a new podcast and you're

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like, yeah, no, want
to just be on this podcast, and

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I'm not gonna tell you like what
it is, just like the very first

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episode of Superhero Ethics where you're like, hey, do you want to talk

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about Batman and press record? I
was like, yeah, sure, why

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not? And then here we are. However, many episodes later, hundreds

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of episodes later, I forgot that, yeah, that's what we did with

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that first episode. But I was
in a bad place, so you would

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helping. It's good, you know, you and Kevin Smith's been a journey.

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But so anyway, and let me
start by being clear, this is

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a horrendously bad movie. I'm not
in anyway encouraging anyone to watch this movie.

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I don't think anyone should watch this
movie. I think the movie is

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actively harmful to American society and isn't
like in the top ten or even the

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top twenty reasons why Trump got elected, but was probably somewhere on the list.

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But the only reason why I care
about this movie is that it was

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shown to me over the holiday break
a good friend of Mary's myself, ashe

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was staying with us for a couple
of weeks after some surgery they were going

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through, and she was like,
we were talking about holiday movie. She

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was like, we have to see
this Thanksgiving movie. And I had vaguely

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heard about Paul Blart mall copp.
I didn't realize there was a second one,

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and I knew that like Adam Sandler
Kevin James, kind of humor is

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generally not for me. I had
not paid any attention to it, and

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I didn't understand why she was claiming
it was a Thanksgiving movie. But as

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she went on to explain, it's
not itself a Thanksgiving movie. It's that

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the McElroy brothers, who many people
know from the podcast My Brother and My

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Brother and Me or their D and
D podcast, they become kind of like

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podcasting people of great renown, and
my spouse is a big fan of them.

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Apparently, they had teamed up with
people from another podcast called The Worst

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Idea of All Time, where they
take a particularly bad movie and watch it

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every week for fifty two weeks and
record on it each week. Had decided

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to take that concept and expand it, and that a Thanksgiving tradition for both

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of their communities would be that every
year they would come together to watch Paul

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Blart Mall Coop two and discuss it
and use it as a way to mark

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the passage of time. And they
made a very big deal about how this

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was going to be a forever thing, and they even were picking like when

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they passed away, who woul they
be their successors and all this kind of

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thing. You know, let me
stress again, this is a very bad

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movie. It is a movie where, as far as I can tell,

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the writing was actively competing to see
could it be more fat phobic, could

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it be more misogynistic, or could
it be more just generally insulting to the

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working class and security guards in space? The movie itself would not be worth

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talking about, and frankly, they
talk about it at great length and do

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it with great hilarity. But I
listened to one or two episodes over the

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last week or so, and then
on this aforementioned five hour drive, I

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listened to probably four full episodes of
Theirs, and it wound up being this

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startling insight into how we deal with
horror, how we deal with despair.

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Because every year they would come together
and they would talk about like the horrible

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experience of watching this movie and the
sense of impending dread. But something interesting

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started happening over those various years,
which is that they all started to deal

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with this horrible situation. And granted
I'm speaking in like you're watching a bad

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movie for two hours, this is
nothing compared to the acro tragedies of the

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world. And I think they're always
being very fairly tongue in cheek about their

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pain about it, but the pain
is quite real, and you could start

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to see the different ways that they
would react to it because for some of

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that, like the first year,
they're all just like, Okay, this

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is really bad and we're just gonna
have fun talking about how bad it is.

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But that wears off after a year
or two. You can't keep doing

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the same jokes again and again and
again, and so they started to diverge,

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and for some of them they started
it felt like it was the I

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am faced with this terrible thing in
my life. The best I can do

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is to find a way to be
okay with it, to find the good

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parts in it, to find the
things that can bring me joy, and

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that maybe it's not so bad and
that that's kind of a coping mechanism,

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and for others they would get very
angry at that and that no, no,

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we have to rage. We cannot
accept if there's anything acceptable about this

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situation. We have to live in
our grief and in our upsetness about this.

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And just those two positions alone speak
to me quite a lot about I

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think a lot of the things we
talk about podcast about what do you do

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in the midst of terrible situations?
And do you fight back? Do you

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try to think about how it could
be better, or do you just accept

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and find the beauty in the darkness
and all that kind of thing. And

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then as more years went on,
more and more this got some of them

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started looking for deeper meeting and so
they started taking scenes such as when a

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Kevin James playing Paul Blart the I
think some would argue the antagonist of the

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movie. Some would say the protagonist, many would say just a horrible person,

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although the director seems to want us
to have them redeemed by the end.

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But halfway through the movie they fight
a large bird for no real reason

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and the bird kicks their ass.
I think, to the cheers and joys

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of most and during that scene,
there's just a guy playing a piano throughout

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the whole thing, utterly like like
not responding in any way to Kevin James's

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pleased for help, to Paul Bart's
please for help, but clearly acknowledging Paul

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Bart, and even to the end
when Paul Blart has walked away from the

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fight beaten but not bloodied, but
not broken and kind of but there's no

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real damage to the bird, to
be very very clear, the bird is

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the victor in this fight. But
as he walks away, he looks at

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that man playing the piano and kind
of just nods, is like, thanks

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for the help, and the guy
just smiles at him and nods his head

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and acknowledgement and keeps playing the piano. And so that scene has now taken

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on like mythic proportions. Within their
watch of it, they're discussing like is

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it supposed to be that the bird
is God and the piano player is Satan

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or and challenging him, or that
like the piano player is actually urging him

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on to face his inner demons represented
by the bird. They're finding such deep

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meaning in this where clearly none was
meant to exist to begin with, and

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so I was hoping Paul would have
had more funny introjections along this whole path

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and maybe this whole podcast idea was
a ridiculous one. But we're here,

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we're gonna go through it. We're
gonna find a way to have a conversation.

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Well, I was thinking you should
flip the bird there the metaphor,

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because when you describe that scene to
me, that sounds to me more like

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the bird. Wait, yeah,
like the bird sounds more like a Satan

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figure, and the dude playing on
the piano seems to me like what I

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would imagine, like if I could
conceive of the idea that there was some

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omnipotent power in this world, which
I don't like, I think it would

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be about as interested in what humans
are doing as that piano player, just

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based on the reality that I see
in front of me, and the you

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know, and the bird seems like, you know, it's just there trying

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to you know, live its life. But I don't know, you know

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what I but yeah, it just
sounded backwards to me, And then I

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thought flip the bird. I'm like, hey, that sounds appropriate too,

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because that's what people want to do
to this movie, I think flip the

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bird, it's fitting and then and
then what so that actually will get back

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to the question of suffering and the
like. But that's actually a perfect example

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of the other thing that this movie
really struck me as is I kind of

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feel like I'm watching the birth of
mythology right now. Yeah, because like

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I'm telling you this ridiculous story and
how people finding ridiculous meaning, and now

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you're continuing this idea of like just
based on you haven't seen the movie,

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I hearing my retelling of other people
considering it, and you're coming up with

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your own stories and meaning around it. Mm hmm. Yeah. I mean

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not meaning that I am emotionally attaching
myself too, but that if you're gonna

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go down that path, you know, this sounds more logical to me.

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I will note that we did watch
the Star Wars Holiday special together with a

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group of people, and it did
not make that an annual tradition. We

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did not, We did not many
have Yeah. I chose that I love

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my fans and I love myself.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that particular

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kind of sadism or masochism is not
yeah, no thanks, no thanks.

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Yeah, although the good in that
I got to see b Arthur singing to

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a bunch of aliens, and right
that scene is magnificent in its own really

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it actually it feels kind of like
this whole bird thing in a way,

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and we got Boba Fett and the
Mandalorians. That's true. Like I would

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say that, like the Star Wars
Christmas special to me, it sits in

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a larger tableau, so we can
understand it even if it is a particularly

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like you know, it's a bad
stitch in that tableau, and it felt

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like I was able to laugh along
with the pain the first time. I

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think maybe if I watch it again
and again, I would probably have similar

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feelings. But to me that feels
different because it does feel like it is

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part of again, this larger Star
Wars story, whereas this is just well,

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this is part two. Who knows
what part three may brain. But

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the spin I have not yet seen
the bird have a spin off it.

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There have been some kind of there
was some hope apparently that during the pandemic,

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when when people were digging deeper and
deeper into the bottom of the barrel

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to find content, that somehow Paul
Blart three might have risen to the top.

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But such has yet to happen.
Sadness for those people. I literally

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don't care, although I will say, like I'm always mildly offended at just

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how bad Paul's are in movies.
You know, you know, I'd not

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even considered that this was about a
fellow Paul. Yeah you're so not this

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person. Yeah yeah, well yeah, no, I mean, PAULA.

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Trades is kind of cool, I
guess, I guess, yeah, I

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mean kind of a messiotic figure who
saves the whole galaxy spoilers for books that

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are almost one hundred years old.
I thought that didn't work out super well.

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Spoilers for something that I actually didn't
read. But I've had I've had

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the length of the Dune mythology explained
to me by Ashley Coffin, And I

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might not have the whole thing down
straight, but I think it doesn't work

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out for Will human the end,
But like he does save the universe or

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the galaxy or some right, okay
portion of one for cinematic Paul's. Well,

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who are some other anti Pauls?
Then we have Paul Blart, Yeah,

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there's Paul Spiricki in gross point blank. Who's the Jeremy Piven character who's

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the kind of sort of slimy real
estate. I don't have a whole bunch

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that popped to mind, but that's
kind of the point. The point is

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that they're often kind of bland,
like they're like the boyfriend of the love

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interest who needs to be you know, like, yeah, it's like or

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just like just kind of like nothing
characters. A lot of the time.

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I don't think this was always true. I think this was less true like

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several many decades ago, you know, I mean the kind of like in

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our very christianasized society, which is
not a good thing, but it's just

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the way it is what it is. The name does go back to the

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guy who's the original, like,
I'm not the protagonist of the story,

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but I'm going to try to be
right, you know, in terms of

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the apostle Paul, who's like I
used to be a schmuck, but now

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I'm trying to be better and I
want everyone to listen about this other guy,

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but also listen to me a lot, and so I can kind of

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see some things. Yeah, I'm
trying to think of other good palls,

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like I thinek there've been some good
palls on TV, and mostly think of

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Paul Riser characters, and probably the
characters are not Paul. But I think

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Paul Er is such a great actor. Sure, I think of him as

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actually not as kind of dislikable in
that same way though, where he just

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feels a little Maybe that's just from
like Aliens, but that's fair. I

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feel like he's off it. Also, I just saw him in Beverly Hills

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Cop, which I rewatched recently.
How did that age? You know?

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Okay, I mean there's certainly it's
the parts that were funny are still funny,

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you know. There's there's some jokes
that probably don't quite you know,

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work the same way. But yeah, it's it's interesting, you know,

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Yeah, because I recently watched Diehard
as again, you know, short Christmas

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movie. It's still a wonderful movie
of its time, but it has not

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aged well, particularly having central plot. Forgive me spoilers for a forty year

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old movie, but about will the
cop who shot a teenager be willing to

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find his copness again so he can
use his gun again as a great heroic

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moment like that doesn't really but it
wasn't as great as I thought it was

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in the time. I mean,
it was six, but also like just

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not great today in any way.
But back to these topics, just on

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the mythology thing further, like how
what do you what do you think of

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when when someone says the word mythology
or like this is a myth, Like

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what does that mean to you in
terms of how you feel about the stories

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you care about? Yeah, I
mean I think of mythology as basically stories

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that like have a tendency or goal
of like really grabbing the imagination in a

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in a like fundamental like visceral way, that are made up, but that

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people are very deeply attached to,
you know. And I mean, I

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think it's interesting that there are so
many similarities from mythologies to other mythologies,

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including in parts of the world that
like had no contact with one another,

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presumably, you know, there's things
that show up frequently, and you know,

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I find that very interesting. I
don't necessarily find a lot of meaning

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in that, or you know,
try to make like assumptions about like what

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happened to cause that or so much
as like, you know, maybe there

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are kind of certain psychological needs that
that people have, you know, that

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are are like, if not universal, very common, you know, and

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then you know, in addition to
that, though, I think drawing parallels

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between different stories or different mythologies,
it's it's easy to go too far and

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see everything as just like an arc
type and ignore the specifics, which you

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know, could be cultural specifics or
could be storytelling specifics, and and kind

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of be like, you know,
like I think that Joseph Campbell Hero with

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a thousand faces like speaks to certain
truth, but then you know, is

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reductive as well, right, And
so I think I think a lot of

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the times that's what's going to happen. But yeah, I mean, like

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from a personal enjoyment standpoint, I
often, you know, I find big

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mythological stories fun. I think is
kind of how I've always kind of viewed

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them all as a sort of entertainment, and to me sort of the the

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fewer people who care deeply about a
story like beyond just kind of like what

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happens and the characters and whatever,
kind of the easier I find it to

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enjoy, you know. And I
think the more that, you know,

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kind of modern mythology or modern stories
really overtly try to echo religious mythology that

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is currently followed or appreciating whatever capacity
I think for me that tends to be

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a turn off because it feels a
little too much like someone's trying to I

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never really enjoy feeling like the storytellers
are trying to make a really explicit point

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or a really specific point. I
enjoy stories more that tend to kind of

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raise questions and encourage the viewer or
the listener to or the reader to to

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just have some thoughts, you know, like which it sounds like Paul Blart

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mallcrop to kind of you know,
if you take in there, it sounds

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like it can do that. But
then maybe any story can, I don't.

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I think what you just said is
kind of the whole thesis statement that

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I've been wrestling with is because to
me, the fact that and a little

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exchange we have at the beginning,
I think it's kind of approof of it.

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How there's a bunch of what you
said that I want to respond to,

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but I want to kind of pull
on this thread and go back to

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something you said at the very beginning, which is that you know, mythologies

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are you know that if I Shudio
creg you, we're saying like mythologies are

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made up. And I think there's
a lot of truth to that certainly that

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I think part of what marks a
myth is that we don't in any way

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have knowledge or proof that it did
literally happen. And most of the time

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we have proof that it literally didn't
happen. But then a lot of the

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time my understanding at least is that
there is some kernel of truth that then

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like gets told and retold and it
becomes mythologized and becomes mythology that sometimes has

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basis in literal truth and sometimes it's
just stories that people made up. But

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to me, that's part of what
the Paul Blart process has been fascinating to

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me about. The podcast is called
Till Death do Us Blart? Oh oh

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it does, so death Blart is
maybe the best way to describe this whole

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thing. But yeah, it really
got me thinking about, like, can

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any story just become a myth like
that? And can we look for meaning

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like that? You know, almost
any story, because you're right, Like,

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I think a lot of the things
that often to me strike me about

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myths is that they're somewhat primordial,
like they they they touch upon kind of

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like fundamental questions or fundamental issues.
And so, for example, that scene

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in the Garden of contemplation. You
know, man verse nature is a story

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that I think is often mythologized,
and you, as a vegan, have

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helped me to see that. Like
like, I think one of the things

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that's happened in the last however many
decades is we're re examining a lot of

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our myths and say we I should
say, like, you know, those

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in the overculture, White Strait Cys, all, the American, British,

287
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whatever, have been looking a lot
more at the myths that we have always

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seen ourselves in as the heroes and
realizing the way a lot of people in

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the mid like see themselves as the
oppressed in the myth and and not seeing

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the myth as heroic. And I
think the man verse nature one is that

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you and talking with you about veganism
have really helped me to see in a

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different way. But still I think
that that that this kind of is the

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it's it's the primordial story of man
versus nature. And also then of you

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know, do you treat the suffering
of another of another human with empathy or

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with disdain or with like the kind
of like you know, because I think

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like to me, the I'm playing
music for you, buddy is like you

297
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know, thoughts and prayers, you
know. So yeah, that I think

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is just a fascinating way of kind
of looking at it all. Yeah,

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I mean it's interesting that like in
sporting events, like that's what cheering is,

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right, and it is actually you
hear athletes talk all the time about,

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you know, wanting to think the
fans and how much it means them

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to have their support and blah blah
blah. So you know, I mean,

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I don't know, I think sometimes
having someone you know, I mean,

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the thing about sporting events is the
fans can't really do much else unless

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they're like Jeffrey Mayor or something,
and they want to you know, either

306
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rob a home run or make a
home run. You know, something that

307
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wouldn't have wanted to catch it was
that was that one was a home run

308
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though that wasn't a foul ball,
right, the other the other day that

309
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was a foul ball. This was
Yeah, I just I just want to

310
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catch a ball. But like you
know, in general, fans can't really

311
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intercede on behalf of you know,
the people they're rooting for, Whereas here

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00:22:48.119 --> 00:22:53.319
maybe there's an idea, well this
guy could have done something but I don't

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know. Maybe he would have helped
the bird. I might have helped them

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bound by the rules, like you
know I On the Star Wars podcast,

315
00:23:00.079 --> 00:23:04.640
we recently discussed like why does why
is it that obi Wan says Luke,

316
00:23:04.680 --> 00:23:07.960
if you go to face Vader at
the end of Empire, I cannot interfere,

317
00:23:08.240 --> 00:23:12.039
Like, right, is it because
he like there's some Jedi rule.

318
00:23:12.240 --> 00:23:17.079
Is that like his force projection powers
won't work there? Like we don't know?

319
00:23:17.119 --> 00:23:19.720
And so maybe to Luke's perspective,
obi Wan is just the guy playing

320
00:23:19.720 --> 00:23:22.960
piano while he fights the Vader bird
or whatever it is. Yeah, he

321
00:23:23.039 --> 00:23:26.880
kind of is, you know,
He's like, if you strike me down,

322
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I will become more powerful than you
can possibly imagine. Like really obi

323
00:23:30.079 --> 00:23:34.680
Wan really like is that You're like, hey, go talk to Yoda,

324
00:23:34.880 --> 00:23:38.319
He'll help you. Like that.
That's like he doesn't. He doesn't.

325
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I think more powerful than you can
possibly imagine would would be. I can

326
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imagine that powerful, you know,
And I do think like in some ways,

327
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I think of one of the things
that to me is very much a

328
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big part of mythology. And this
is why I think that the glartification of

329
00:23:57.599 --> 00:24:02.359
it all is so relevant is that, Yes, there are these myths of

330
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things like King Arthur and Robin Hood
and you know, a thousand and one

331
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Nights and stuff like that that we
can find, whether there's historicity to it

332
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or not. But the stories have
taken on a power of their own.

333
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But there's also myths in our own
lives and in our own you know.

334
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And like I think Babe Ruth called
Shot is a great example to me of

335
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like I'd heard that story told to
me a hundred times, and then you

336
00:24:29.319 --> 00:24:30.839
dig deeper and there's a lot of
people who are there who were like,

337
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eh, he was kind of just
like pointing at a bird or something,

338
00:24:34.319 --> 00:24:38.119
or like you know, he Like
there's all these different versions. Is that

339
00:24:38.160 --> 00:24:42.039
what really happened? And even to
the point of, like you and I

340
00:24:42.079 --> 00:24:47.119
have been friends for red blaah number
of years, it's a very high number,

341
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and there are stories among us that
have become mythologized, you know,

342
00:24:53.319 --> 00:24:57.039
like the right number of chips for
the right number of salsa and like,

343
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yeah, you probably remember the exact
details, which better than I. But

344
00:25:03.599 --> 00:25:07.359
it's got like there are people in
my life who know that story because they've

345
00:25:07.359 --> 00:25:11.799
heard me make reference to like other
situations but whereas the metaphor, I just

346
00:25:11.920 --> 00:25:14.960
use the like there's not enough chips
for this salsa. Right. They have

347
00:25:14.960 --> 00:25:17.559
no idea what happened. They've just
heard my retelling of it. It's become

348
00:25:17.599 --> 00:25:22.400
a myth, but it's a myth
that holds meaning for those who don't know.

349
00:25:22.720 --> 00:25:25.079
We had a certain amount of salsa, a certain amount of chips among

350
00:25:25.359 --> 00:25:29.960
me, Paul and our friend Adam. Our friend Adam was eating chips without

351
00:25:29.960 --> 00:25:33.839
the salsa on exp which was very
concerning to Paul because upsetting the ratio therein

352
00:25:34.039 --> 00:25:37.119
And they're just gonna have a bunch
of salsa without any chips to eat it.

353
00:25:37.200 --> 00:25:44.160
I mean, what's that you want
me to drink salsa? I think

354
00:25:44.160 --> 00:25:45.599
that's a reason to go get more
chips. But you know that continues the

355
00:25:45.640 --> 00:25:49.799
life. Like we were like in
the middle of nowhere at someone's country house

356
00:25:49.839 --> 00:25:55.160
on like some island somewhere, like
there were not going to be more chips

357
00:25:55.240 --> 00:25:57.880
for a good three days, Like
these were the amount of chips we had.

358
00:25:59.079 --> 00:26:00.960
We had a certain amount of also, and they needed to go together.

359
00:26:02.279 --> 00:26:03.720
But it's okay, okay. We
were I think like fifth sixteen or

360
00:26:03.759 --> 00:26:07.000
seventeen. We were not like going
to go hop in a car and go

361
00:26:07.039 --> 00:26:10.119
get more chips at the store ten
miles away or something like that. Yeah,

362
00:26:10.200 --> 00:26:14.240
I mean we were like eighteen or
nineteen or almost twenty ish, maybe

363
00:26:14.279 --> 00:26:18.720
maybe less than twenty. But also
I don't think maybe you had a driver's

364
00:26:18.720 --> 00:26:21.680
license. I know you're right,
you're older, and I remember it,

365
00:26:21.720 --> 00:26:27.200
but again some details get forgotten.
Yeah, exactly right. So we'll come

366
00:26:27.240 --> 00:26:30.319
back to the myth point. But
I want to go back to what is

367
00:26:30.319 --> 00:26:33.440
for me. I think kind of
the fundamental thing, which is that this

368
00:26:33.519 --> 00:26:40.720
question of how do people respond to
horrible situations? And again, having to

369
00:26:40.799 --> 00:26:45.000
watch a bad movie once for two
hours out of a year is not the

370
00:26:45.000 --> 00:26:48.920
worst situation. It's kind of a
microcosm, but it was still very interesting

371
00:26:48.960 --> 00:26:52.920
to me. What have you observed
that you either find like this is helpful

372
00:26:52.960 --> 00:26:56.559
to me, or this is troubling
to me, or this I find tempting.

373
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But I don't want to do in
terms of like how you reson,

374
00:26:59.599 --> 00:27:03.200
how you were re spond or how
you see other people respond to really bad

375
00:27:03.240 --> 00:27:07.880
situations, but that people feel like
they can't do anything about. Yeah,

376
00:27:07.920 --> 00:27:15.160
I mean I guess from a fairly
young age I realized that the world was

377
00:27:15.359 --> 00:27:21.200
filled with things that I thought were
like unimaginably awful, and that I had

378
00:27:22.359 --> 00:27:27.279
very little ability to do anything about
any of those directly. And you know,

379
00:27:29.640 --> 00:27:33.279
my first reaction, I think is
generally like, well, what can

380
00:27:33.359 --> 00:27:37.720
I do about any of this?
And if the answer is, well,

381
00:27:37.759 --> 00:27:42.240
here's something you can do to actually
meaningfully make things better, then I usually

382
00:27:42.279 --> 00:27:47.920
try to do that, you know. But I think what we're talking about

383
00:27:47.960 --> 00:27:52.359
more is things where that's not you
know, I'm not going to go and

384
00:27:52.960 --> 00:27:59.079
a war somewhere. You know,
I'm not gonna stop people from oppressing one

385
00:27:59.079 --> 00:28:04.519
another or animals like globally in like
an afternoon. You know, it's not

386
00:28:04.559 --> 00:28:08.119
a thing or even in a lifetime, right, It's not a thing one

387
00:28:08.119 --> 00:28:11.480
person can do. But you know, there are things that we can do

388
00:28:11.599 --> 00:28:18.799
to try to either reduce some of
those things, like these huge horrible things

389
00:28:18.799 --> 00:28:23.200
that go on throughout the world,
or at least do our best to not

390
00:28:23.279 --> 00:28:26.519
contribute to furthering them, right.
I mean, to me, that's the

391
00:28:26.519 --> 00:28:30.480
first step is to try and understand, Okay, here's all this horrible stuff,

392
00:28:30.480 --> 00:28:36.880
all this harm that's being done,
and you know, oftentimes it's like,

393
00:28:36.960 --> 00:28:41.200
oh, I see how I'm not
intentionally a part of it, but

394
00:28:41.319 --> 00:28:44.759
am a part of it, you
know. And then it's like, how

395
00:28:44.799 --> 00:28:48.640
to what extent can I can I
reduce that, you know? And then

396
00:28:49.319 --> 00:28:56.519
beyond that, when there is still
so much suffering and horror in the world,

397
00:28:57.240 --> 00:29:00.920
I think finding a way to do
something else that's not engaging with that

398
00:29:02.279 --> 00:29:06.319
constantly, you know, I play
bullet chess, like you know. I

399
00:29:06.359 --> 00:29:12.960
mean people have the things, you
know, but like having something else to

400
00:29:12.960 --> 00:29:17.680
spend some mental energy on, right, I mean, even if you say,

401
00:29:17.920 --> 00:29:22.440
you know what, I've decided that
this situation is unacceptable, and I

402
00:29:22.480 --> 00:29:26.119
know I can't completely change it,
but I've decided to dedicate my entire life

403
00:29:26.200 --> 00:29:30.519
to trying to change this one thing
or make whatever impact I can. Yeah,

404
00:29:30.599 --> 00:29:37.319
if your goal, if that's your
goal is to just have the maximum

405
00:29:37.440 --> 00:29:42.640
effect on a thing, I don't
believe that spending all of your time trying

406
00:29:42.680 --> 00:29:47.440
to do that is the most efficient
way. I don't think that's the way

407
00:29:47.440 --> 00:29:49.200
you're going to have the biggest effect. I think burnout is very real.

408
00:29:49.279 --> 00:29:52.839
It is, And like if you
spend ten years doing nothing but that thing

409
00:29:53.759 --> 00:29:57.279
and then just are done, yeah, Like, or you spend like fifty

410
00:29:57.359 --> 00:30:02.200
years spending seventy percent of your time
doing that thing, or even forty ten

411
00:30:02.240 --> 00:30:04.759
percent of your time, that's probably
a far more effective way of you know,

412
00:30:04.799 --> 00:30:07.519
making the change. Yeah, yeah, except for the ten percent,

413
00:30:07.519 --> 00:30:11.160
because then that would be only about
half as much unless effort over time is

414
00:30:11.200 --> 00:30:15.000
yeah, the math, but but
the point turns and all that. Yeah,

415
00:30:15.000 --> 00:30:18.680
the point matters though. The point
is like if you're but it's it's

416
00:30:18.680 --> 00:30:21.599
probably even ten percent, because if
you're trying to put one hundred percent of

417
00:30:21.599 --> 00:30:23.480
your energy at the end of it
in five years in, you're not going

418
00:30:23.519 --> 00:30:26.720
to have as much energy. Right. It's like if it's like, well,

419
00:30:26.720 --> 00:30:30.160
why are you sleeping? Really you
think you have the luxury to sleep

420
00:30:30.200 --> 00:30:33.319
while people are dying, Like,
yeah, yeah you do, because you

421
00:30:33.359 --> 00:30:37.480
can't. You can't do anything productive
if you never sleep, right, So

422
00:30:37.519 --> 00:30:41.759
it's like, obviously you have to
have some kind of rest, something,

423
00:30:41.799 --> 00:30:45.400
you have to eat, you you
have to mentally replenish yourself. You have

424
00:30:45.440 --> 00:30:48.960
to take care of yourself enough to
be able to take care of anybody else,

425
00:30:48.960 --> 00:30:52.559
to be able to help anybody else
in any way. Really, but

426
00:30:52.839 --> 00:30:56.400
you know, then you know,
if what you really do want to do

427
00:30:56.480 --> 00:30:59.480
is do as much as you can
for something. Then you have to understand,

428
00:30:59.519 --> 00:31:02.720
like at what point you're kind of
just making an excuse to like rest

429
00:31:02.720 --> 00:31:07.240
too much or whatever. And you
know, but you know, I wouldn't

430
00:31:07.279 --> 00:31:11.440
say that there's any anything that I've
decided like I'm gonna put all of myself

431
00:31:11.480 --> 00:31:15.160
into that, right, I mean, I wouldn't. I wouldn't be doing

432
00:31:15.279 --> 00:31:17.599
most of the things I do if
that's the case. You know, I

433
00:31:17.920 --> 00:31:23.160
mostly have tried to kind of withdraw
from from a lot of things, and

434
00:31:23.359 --> 00:31:30.759
basically, when when something seems really
messed up to me, I just generally

435
00:31:30.799 --> 00:31:36.240
tend to say that's really messed up
and try and help other people come to

436
00:31:36.279 --> 00:31:38.559
the or encourage other people to come
to the same conclusion, you know,

437
00:31:38.839 --> 00:31:44.400
to the best of my ability.
But yeah, I mean, I think

438
00:31:45.319 --> 00:31:49.480
finding a way to not be constantly
confronted with whatever horror it is, you

439
00:31:49.519 --> 00:31:53.480
know. And and even like I
mean, I'll take a I took someone

440
00:31:53.480 --> 00:31:57.319
of the dentists today, you know, And this is this is very Paul

441
00:31:57.319 --> 00:32:01.680
Blart, this is not you know, it's on the I think going to

442
00:32:01.720 --> 00:32:07.200
the dentist is probably more painful than
watching any movie. But maybe not.

443
00:32:07.559 --> 00:32:09.720
I mean physically anyway, right,
maybe not emotionally. I'm thinking about the

444
00:32:09.759 --> 00:32:13.400
things that I've hated the most,
and I'm like, mmm, I'd rather

445
00:32:13.480 --> 00:32:17.519
go to the dentist than like watch
the end of Dexter again or like y,

446
00:32:17.799 --> 00:32:21.359
you know, certain scenes from other
things or whatever. You know.

447
00:32:21.480 --> 00:32:25.079
So but like this is just like
a very it's just literal pain and discomfort,

448
00:32:25.240 --> 00:32:30.519
right And when I go to the
dentist, like often I'll like I'll

449
00:32:30.559 --> 00:32:34.599
like do all of my taekwondo patterns
in my head, you know, even

450
00:32:34.640 --> 00:32:37.799
if I'm not really practicing regularly,
or like now, like maybe I would

451
00:32:37.039 --> 00:32:42.400
try and do some like blindfold chess
problems in my head. Or like sometimes

452
00:32:42.480 --> 00:32:45.200
if I if my brain just isn't
like really going there, like I'll actually

453
00:32:45.200 --> 00:32:50.720
take my fingernails and like dig them
into the back of the other hand as

454
00:32:50.799 --> 00:32:53.160
just like a distraction. It's like, oh, well, this little discomfort

455
00:32:53.240 --> 00:32:58.640
is actually distracting me from this other
larger discomfort, you know. And so

456
00:32:58.759 --> 00:33:01.759
like if something just seems like overwhelming, like if you want to be trying

457
00:33:01.759 --> 00:33:06.640
to help people with things, and
you're like, well that thing's too much.

458
00:33:06.720 --> 00:33:08.839
It's just too much for me right
now, it's like, you know,

459
00:33:08.920 --> 00:33:13.640
you can try and find some smaller
thing where people also need help,

460
00:33:13.680 --> 00:33:15.920
but it just doesn't feel like too
much to you right now, and you

461
00:33:15.960 --> 00:33:22.440
can still be you know, constructive. In Judaism, there's a concept called

462
00:33:22.480 --> 00:33:28.400
takun alum, which is loosely,
I'm going to get this bad I'm a

463
00:33:28.440 --> 00:33:30.839
bit exposed to in all my life, but I'm not a juicy loads of

464
00:33:30.839 --> 00:33:35.519
money means. But it's basically the
idea of that to save a single life

465
00:33:35.559 --> 00:33:37.279
is to save the world entire you
know, and that like it's about you

466
00:33:37.279 --> 00:33:43.000
know, doing the little bit you
can. Yeah, it's a very interest

467
00:33:43.079 --> 00:33:46.000
question because part of what it got
me thinking as well is that in so

468
00:33:46.200 --> 00:33:52.799
many of the superhero type stories that
I care most about, the biggest thing

469
00:33:52.839 --> 00:33:59.279
that the hero can do is to
inspire others, is to give people the

470
00:33:59.599 --> 00:34:04.160
thought that there is something that they
can do that they don't have to just

471
00:34:04.880 --> 00:34:09.400
accept this crushing reality because there are
alternatives. I often go to V for

472
00:34:09.519 --> 00:34:13.440
Vendetta as my favorite example, but
I do think that it's a big part

473
00:34:13.440 --> 00:34:17.840
of that, but also many other
stories of you know, I think and

474
00:34:19.039 --> 00:34:22.599
Or the TV show is a perfect
example of this, as is rogue one

475
00:34:22.800 --> 00:34:29.159
of where one persons stand, like
specifically in Star Wars, they say fear

476
00:34:29.199 --> 00:34:32.239
is what will keep people in line
because when it's a minority of pressing a

477
00:34:32.280 --> 00:34:37.000
majority, they always know like if
every single person the majority rises up,

478
00:34:37.159 --> 00:34:40.960
the minority is gonna lose, but
a significant part of the majority you're gonna

479
00:34:40.960 --> 00:34:45.840
die. Yeah, And that fear, I think, for very legitimate reasons

480
00:34:45.960 --> 00:34:50.519
or keeps people from doing it.
But that the way horrible things can play

481
00:34:50.519 --> 00:34:53.199
into it is it just gets to
be so bad that it's not even like

482
00:34:53.239 --> 00:34:58.519
an actualized fear of this person has
a gun or this person's going to fire

483
00:34:58.599 --> 00:35:01.119
me. It's just a kind of
a generalized fear, you know. And

484
00:35:01.199 --> 00:35:05.719
so this is why, And I'm
skipping around a couple of topics here,

485
00:35:05.760 --> 00:35:07.760
but I think it all ties together. You know, friends of mine who

486
00:35:07.760 --> 00:35:12.360
were like the first woman pastor at
a church, like it was often the

487
00:35:12.400 --> 00:35:17.159
older women who had the most trouble
accepting them and in getting to know that

488
00:35:17.239 --> 00:35:21.079
this wasn't always the true, but
often it was because those were women who

489
00:35:21.159 --> 00:35:23.159
might have wanted to be pastors like
thirty four years ago and were told they

490
00:35:23.199 --> 00:35:28.119
couldn't be. But that once one
person was able to do it and show

491
00:35:28.239 --> 00:35:31.760
like wait it actually you can do
this. Other people can say, hey,

492
00:35:31.760 --> 00:35:35.320
wait, I can do this too. And I always thought that that's

493
00:35:36.159 --> 00:35:38.239
v frient ndetta, like, you
know, by blowing up the old Bailey

494
00:35:38.320 --> 00:35:43.760
at the beginning of the movie and
then continuing to challenge the government in ways

495
00:35:43.800 --> 00:35:50.039
that they see like you know,
the other people see like they're really it.

496
00:35:50.039 --> 00:35:53.400
The government isn't as scary and completely
ttalitarianly oppressive as we want as we

497
00:35:53.440 --> 00:35:57.079
seem to think. It is not
that it's better than we think it is,

498
00:35:57.119 --> 00:35:59.320
but just that it can be challenged. Yes, it's just not all

499
00:35:59.400 --> 00:36:04.440
powerful, yeah exactly. And you
know, and granted, like it's not

500
00:36:04.519 --> 00:36:07.119
quite the same in the Death Blart
because they voluntarily agreed to do this,

501
00:36:07.519 --> 00:36:12.719
right, and and it's of a
kind of a keeping watch thing. But

502
00:36:12.760 --> 00:36:15.599
I think I was thinking about all
this, especially because with some of them

503
00:36:15.639 --> 00:36:20.320
would start to you know, the
oh, well, it's not so bad,

504
00:36:20.599 --> 00:36:22.920
you know, like these are some
good parts to it, and then

505
00:36:22.920 --> 00:36:24.519
like when they were really pushed by
the others on the podcast, Okay,

506
00:36:24.559 --> 00:36:27.840
yeah, no, it's an awful
movie, don't get me wrong, But

507
00:36:27.880 --> 00:36:30.679
I kind of I had a good
watch this year, and I enjoyed some

508
00:36:30.760 --> 00:36:34.800
parts of it, you know,
and because I think, to me,

509
00:36:35.039 --> 00:36:37.679
one of the things, and granted
I'm not I haven't had I've only watched

510
00:36:37.679 --> 00:36:39.280
the movie once. I can't say
that if I'd watched it every year for

511
00:36:39.320 --> 00:36:44.159
seven years, where I would be
with it. But I know that for

512
00:36:44.280 --> 00:36:46.039
me, in some of the harder
situations we deal with, and I think

513
00:36:46.079 --> 00:36:52.400
COVID is the best example of this, but a lot of others. Capitalism

514
00:36:52.440 --> 00:36:54.519
I think is another great one,
Like it is easy to start to start

515
00:36:54.559 --> 00:36:59.960
basically kind of like being so used
to the hardest parts, the worst parts,

516
00:37:00.880 --> 00:37:02.400
that we kind of stop thinking about
them. We just kind of take

517
00:37:02.440 --> 00:37:06.639
for granted. Okay, well capitalism
sucks, but hey, it gave us

518
00:37:06.639 --> 00:37:09.079
twenty different kinds of cereal, so
maybe that's kind of cool. Or you

519
00:37:09.119 --> 00:37:15.000
know, COVID is bad, you
know, just the like how quickly people

520
00:37:15.239 --> 00:37:17.320
acclimated themselves too. We don't need
masks anymore, we don't need to be

521
00:37:17.360 --> 00:37:22.199
protected anymore. Jump in at some
point, because I think there's all a

522
00:37:22.199 --> 00:37:24.559
point here, but you know,
I'm not maybe articulating it. Well,

523
00:37:24.719 --> 00:37:30.519
yeah, I mean I love cereal. I don't like COVID haven't had it

524
00:37:30.559 --> 00:37:35.599
to my knowledge, which I think
I often get the reaction like that,

525
00:37:36.079 --> 00:37:42.119
you know, there's there's there's that's
not a large number of people who yeh,

526
00:37:42.159 --> 00:37:46.679
that's true, but yeah it is, you know, it's people.

527
00:37:46.719 --> 00:37:50.760
I mean, I had a conversation
with another friend who was saying, you

528
00:37:50.760 --> 00:37:52.360
know, I don't even know how
many times sat it now, but like

529
00:37:52.960 --> 00:37:55.000
it's it's a lot, and it's
like, well, I guess I'm just

530
00:37:55.320 --> 00:38:00.639
gonna get sick every so often if
I you know, he's a poker player,

531
00:38:00.920 --> 00:38:02.679
you know, and live poker player, so it's always a round,

532
00:38:02.719 --> 00:38:06.880
you know what I mean. Right
when when COVID was kind of still up

533
00:38:06.880 --> 00:38:09.599
and coming, it was I was
like, I think a poker table is

534
00:38:10.320 --> 00:38:14.639
just about one of the worst places
for like, is one of the most

535
00:38:14.679 --> 00:38:19.559
efficient ways of spreading something like this, right because everyone's facing it's not even

536
00:38:19.599 --> 00:38:22.360
like yeah, people breathing into the
back of your head. You're all facing

537
00:38:22.400 --> 00:38:24.719
each other a while you are making
like loud exclamations. Yeah, the air

538
00:38:24.800 --> 00:38:28.519
is very stale in those places,
you know. Like, I mean,

539
00:38:28.559 --> 00:38:31.880
I do think like a comedy is
probably worse than like a drama in terms

540
00:38:31.880 --> 00:38:36.320
of a movie theater. But like
you're right that, like in a movie

541
00:38:36.400 --> 00:38:38.800
theater, everybody's all facing the same
way, right, Yeah, so like

542
00:38:38.880 --> 00:38:40.760
people are going to breathe on the
back of your head. You go home,

543
00:38:40.800 --> 00:38:44.559
take a shower or whatever. You
know. I'm not saying people don't

544
00:38:44.559 --> 00:38:46.760
get COVID in movie theaters, but
like a poker table, you have a

545
00:38:46.880 --> 00:38:52.880
group of people sitting around just breathing
right at each other, which also without

546
00:38:52.920 --> 00:38:57.719
COVID isn't always the most pleasant experiences
on its own. But the point being

547
00:38:57.760 --> 00:39:00.159
that, like there is like yeah, you know, I mean there's certain

548
00:39:00.159 --> 00:39:05.480
bad things that you do, say, well, okay, in order to

549
00:39:05.519 --> 00:39:07.960
try and avoid this. What am
I giving up? What's the you know,

550
00:39:07.159 --> 00:39:12.320
you make your own calculations, right, But but there is a once

551
00:39:12.360 --> 00:39:15.639
you make those, you have to
accept kind of the consequences. Like I've

552
00:39:15.679 --> 00:39:17.480
accepted the consequences of like, yeah, I'm just not going to see people

553
00:39:17.519 --> 00:39:22.239
as often because this is something that
I actually care about being cautious about.

554
00:39:22.559 --> 00:39:25.320
Other people who don't want to be
as cautious have to accept that gonna get

555
00:39:25.360 --> 00:39:29.440
sick more often, you know,
And that's that's just you make That's a

556
00:39:29.440 --> 00:39:32.159
spot where at least like you have
some agency, you know, to some

557
00:39:32.239 --> 00:39:37.960
extent, Like that's one thing.
Whereas like let's say, let's say you

558
00:39:38.039 --> 00:39:45.079
lived somewhere that was getting bombed and
just random people were just getting killed on

559
00:39:45.119 --> 00:39:49.760
a regular basis. You don't have
agency there. You still have to accept

560
00:39:50.239 --> 00:39:54.000
that on any given day you might
just randomly get murdered. And that,

561
00:39:55.559 --> 00:40:00.000
to me, that sounds harder to
deal with. You know, even if

562
00:40:00.159 --> 00:40:02.400
the sort of percentages and the death
count was the same, It feels like

563
00:40:02.960 --> 00:40:07.119
and I mean, overall reality is
a little bit like that, because on

564
00:40:07.239 --> 00:40:09.960
any given day you could just you
know, just have a fatal stroke or

565
00:40:10.000 --> 00:40:15.159
whatever, like this is this is
life, right At any point, we

566
00:40:15.199 --> 00:40:21.039
could just no longer exist. But
there are circumstances under which those are unreasonably

567
00:40:21.119 --> 00:40:24.559
high chances. And yeah, so
yeah, I mean, I think the

568
00:40:24.559 --> 00:40:31.639
idea of the agency really matters because
like this happened early in the bombings of

569
00:40:31.679 --> 00:40:36.639
Gaza, but it's something that's really
struck with me. There was some some

570
00:40:36.760 --> 00:40:39.320
church was attacked or somewhere else where
there was like stained glass windows, and

571
00:40:39.400 --> 00:40:45.360
like you know, a gazin resident
like took a picture of you know,

572
00:40:45.480 --> 00:40:50.559
the way the light was hitting the
stained glass and the rubble on the on

573
00:40:50.639 --> 00:40:55.639
the ground at sunset, it was
absolutely gorgeous. And there was a lot

574
00:40:55.679 --> 00:41:01.559
of debate about like is this okay
and to be sharing talking about and somewhere

575
00:41:01.599 --> 00:41:05.119
in the thread comment, you know, someone asked, like, what if

576
00:41:05.159 --> 00:41:07.400
it Israeli took this picture? And
I feel like those would be to me

577
00:41:07.519 --> 00:41:12.000
too fundamentally different. Well, if
it Israeli soldier someone who is like actually

578
00:41:12.000 --> 00:41:15.679
supporting that. You know, again, governments aren't their people. But like,

579
00:41:15.719 --> 00:41:19.960
to me, yeah, if you're
the one getting bombed and you're able

580
00:41:20.000 --> 00:41:23.599
to find some beauty in the midst
of this horrible tragedy, like God bless

581
00:41:23.679 --> 00:41:25.800
you, like you know, and
if you can share that and help make

582
00:41:25.840 --> 00:41:30.639
it more bearable, that's fantastic.
If then other people are like, no,

583
00:41:30.719 --> 00:41:32.960
look it's not so bad, look
at the beauty they found. I'm

584
00:41:34.000 --> 00:41:37.239
like, you know, yeah,
of course not. But those who are

585
00:41:37.239 --> 00:41:42.000
in the midst of suffering finding beauty
I think is understandable. It's I think

586
00:41:42.079 --> 00:41:46.639
the idea of people looking at the
suffering of others and finding beauty in it,

587
00:41:46.880 --> 00:41:52.960
or looking at the beauty and then
using that as a way to be

588
00:41:52.159 --> 00:41:55.320
like well, no, we Like, I don't think individual person in Kaza

589
00:41:55.440 --> 00:41:59.920
could honestly do anything to stop the
bombing that's happening. And then what the

590
00:42:00.159 --> 00:42:02.599
doing clearly like you know, petitioningly
and like letting people know what's suffering,

591
00:42:02.639 --> 00:42:06.360
and it's on all of us to
try and try and stop that horrible events.

592
00:42:07.239 --> 00:42:09.519
But like, I don't know if
you see this, but I do

593
00:42:09.559 --> 00:42:15.880
feel that there are times where I
see people kind of like finding ways to

594
00:42:15.119 --> 00:42:20.920
enjoy terrible situations when they could be
doing more to get out of it,

595
00:42:20.960 --> 00:42:22.440
and when it's not just a terrible
situation for them, but also for others

596
00:42:22.480 --> 00:42:25.559
around them. And that's I think
often where I find kind of like I

597
00:42:25.599 --> 00:42:32.400
get frustrated somewhat, you know,
of the like they're and again because it's

598
00:42:32.440 --> 00:42:38.639
so it's very difficult for me to
critique someone who's in a situation I am

599
00:42:38.679 --> 00:42:42.320
not in, So it's like I
can only talk about it in terms of

600
00:42:42.639 --> 00:42:46.519
situations that I've been in, you
know, But yeah, it just it

601
00:42:47.239 --> 00:42:54.199
I find I often get frustrated watching
people using the sort of very human urge

602
00:42:54.280 --> 00:43:00.840
to find a way to make the
unacceptable acceptable, use that as a way

603
00:43:00.880 --> 00:43:07.840
to never actually question is this unalterably
unacceptable or could I change this? Yeah?

604
00:43:07.880 --> 00:43:16.400
And I mean that kind of you
knows the difference between unnecessary fatalism and

605
00:43:16.920 --> 00:43:21.480
like a true lack of agency,
you know. And that's that's sort of

606
00:43:21.559 --> 00:43:24.559
where where I was going with what
I said is you know, I said,

607
00:43:24.719 --> 00:43:28.440
is my first reaction, I'd like
it to be my first reaction.

608
00:43:28.559 --> 00:43:32.440
I'm not saying that it's necessarily always
that, but you know, I think

609
00:43:32.480 --> 00:43:37.400
the first question to ask is can
I do anything to change this? You

610
00:43:37.400 --> 00:43:43.800
know that? And so I if
you are suffering yourself, like asking can

611
00:43:43.880 --> 00:43:46.360
I do anything to change this?
I think is the best way to proceed

612
00:43:46.599 --> 00:43:50.119
if you're if you are able to
do that, right, I mean,

613
00:43:50.519 --> 00:43:54.920
there are certain conditions under which you
might not even be able to to have

614
00:43:55.039 --> 00:43:59.320
the time or the thought or whatever
to really really go there, but like

615
00:43:59.719 --> 00:44:02.079
prove that you are able. I
think that is that is a best first

616
00:44:02.119 --> 00:44:06.360
step. And when the answer is
yes, then it's like just get on

617
00:44:06.440 --> 00:44:09.280
it, you know. And when
the answer is no, then that I

618
00:44:09.320 --> 00:44:14.480
think is when you know, it's
not a fatalism, it's an acceptance of

619
00:44:14.920 --> 00:44:19.079
reality, right like this it's a
very real question, and there's not always

620
00:44:19.079 --> 00:44:21.320
going to be an obvious answer,
right, I mean, you don't always

621
00:44:21.480 --> 00:44:23.800
know whether you can do something about
something, Like it's like, well,

622
00:44:23.840 --> 00:44:29.320
here's the problem, and then it's
going to take some thought to figure out

623
00:44:29.360 --> 00:44:34.280
whether you can find any solutions to
it. And occasionally maybe it'll be like,

624
00:44:34.840 --> 00:44:37.039
yeah, no, there's there's no
there's nothing I can do about this,

625
00:44:37.119 --> 00:44:43.480
and then then acceptance has to occur. But or is useful anyway,

626
00:44:44.880 --> 00:44:45.960
I think that's a really good way
to put it, and I feel like

627
00:44:46.119 --> 00:44:50.519
I can go back to where we
were before. It's why to me,

628
00:44:51.320 --> 00:44:54.360
maybe the better way of in ap
phrasing the heroic act is to help people

629
00:44:54.400 --> 00:44:58.760
see they have agency that they didn't
think they had. Yeah, because I

630
00:44:58.760 --> 00:45:01.679
think that's that's kind of the whole
idea. It's a mythology of the mythology

631
00:45:01.679 --> 00:45:07.679
that you don't have a choice,
you know, and like sometimes in discords,

632
00:45:07.880 --> 00:45:12.320
in discussions, not like discord the
program, but just like discourse,

633
00:45:15.400 --> 00:45:19.440
I'll see people who have a choice
to do something today being very critical of

634
00:45:19.440 --> 00:45:22.199
those who didn't choose that in the
past, like people who may have been

635
00:45:22.360 --> 00:45:27.679
you know, we would look back
on and say that seems like someone who

636
00:45:27.719 --> 00:45:32.119
we would think of as homosexual or
transgender today, but they didn't lead that

637
00:45:32.199 --> 00:45:36.360
life at the time. And I
think it's really easy to be like,

638
00:45:36.400 --> 00:45:38.440
oh, that was because they were
a coward or they were like no,

639
00:45:38.679 --> 00:45:43.559
Like, part of the things people
have really fought for is that in a

640
00:45:43.599 --> 00:45:45.480
lot of parts of the world,
absolutely not enough, but in a lot

641
00:45:45.519 --> 00:45:51.119
of parts of the world, people
who feel like being straight or being cis

642
00:45:51.280 --> 00:45:54.880
or being you know, a particular
gender identity, or being you know,

643
00:45:55.000 --> 00:46:00.159
like preppy or any of these things, like it isn't they do have agency.

644
00:46:00.199 --> 00:46:04.679
They could be something else. But
not everyone knows that, and not

645
00:46:04.719 --> 00:46:07.559
everyone understands that. And that's certainly
true today, is absolutely true of different

646
00:46:07.599 --> 00:46:12.199
situations, and so yeah, the
heroic thing can often be just like,

647
00:46:12.239 --> 00:46:15.079
no, you don't have to accept
the tyranny of this government. You can

648
00:46:15.159 --> 00:46:20.360
stand up to the empire. You
can stand up to what do they call

649
00:46:20.400 --> 00:46:25.119
themselves, the Nords Party in the
Vendetta or whatever it is. You can

650
00:46:25.280 --> 00:46:30.119
vote for I'm not even you know, like, yeah, you can vote

651
00:46:30.159 --> 00:46:34.440
for for people who you don't think
are going to win, but you think

652
00:46:35.079 --> 00:46:37.280
it's a better place for your vote
to go to. And yeah, you

653
00:46:37.320 --> 00:46:40.960
can you can try to change things
politically, even when it seems hopeless.

654
00:46:42.239 --> 00:46:46.440
And a lot of the times that
fails, and sometimes it doesn't, right,

655
00:46:46.519 --> 00:46:53.239
I mean, democracy is a thing
that is not perfectly executed really anywhere

656
00:46:53.519 --> 00:46:58.559
on the planet as far as I
know. But there are elections, and

657
00:46:58.920 --> 00:47:05.480
they they are one aspect of like
deciding how things go right, And I'm

658
00:47:05.519 --> 00:47:07.360
certainly not gonna say, oh,
just vote and you know, and that's

659
00:47:07.400 --> 00:47:13.320
it. You've done everything you can't
But like there are there are things that

660
00:47:13.320 --> 00:47:16.480
people don't think that they can do
that they can do, you know.

661
00:47:16.519 --> 00:47:21.679
And as you were saying before,
like if everybody who doesn't think they have

662
00:47:21.760 --> 00:47:25.320
power decides to stand up and use
their power together, you know, and

663
00:47:25.440 --> 00:47:29.440
on the year end thing, you
know, I was talking about unions and

664
00:47:29.480 --> 00:47:34.519
how that they can't you know,
their power structures and they're not always necessarily

665
00:47:34.639 --> 00:47:40.519
going to do things that everybody else
thinks are the best things to do.

666
00:47:40.679 --> 00:47:46.679
But that is like, that's the
prime example of like people in a collective

667
00:47:46.760 --> 00:47:50.119
saying, you know what, individually, we don't have that much power,

668
00:47:50.159 --> 00:47:52.199
but when we act together, we
do have a lot of power. Well,

669
00:47:52.599 --> 00:47:57.400
I think one of the mythologies that
was built in this country and around

670
00:47:57.440 --> 00:48:00.519
in England and a lot of other
places was that union's were fundamental corrupt,

671
00:48:00.800 --> 00:48:04.320
right, and there was an awful
lot of truth to that mythology, and

672
00:48:04.800 --> 00:48:07.280
it became in many ways a self
fulfilling narrative because a lot of people who

673
00:48:07.320 --> 00:48:10.960
weren't corrupt and wanted nothing to do
with the unions. And a large part

674
00:48:10.960 --> 00:48:15.000
of the more recent union movement is
a lot of people challenging that mythology and

675
00:48:15.039 --> 00:48:17.079
we're like, wait, unions don't
have to be old boys clubs. Unions

676
00:48:17.079 --> 00:48:22.679
don't have to be for you know, these particular professions. They can be

677
00:48:22.800 --> 00:48:28.039
for things that are The term that's
often used is like a janitor's union fifty

678
00:48:28.119 --> 00:48:30.480
years ago, would like we would
never think of something like SEIU, which

679
00:48:30.519 --> 00:48:34.159
is now one of the strongest unions, Like I think it'sill existed, but

680
00:48:34.199 --> 00:48:36.039
it was, you know, much
more thought that it was for like you

681
00:48:36.039 --> 00:48:38.280
know again quote unquote skilled labor.
Yeah, you know, and in a

682
00:48:38.320 --> 00:48:46.760
way it makes the most sense for
I guess less skilled labor or for that's

683
00:48:46.800 --> 00:48:51.039
not the way to say it.
I think it makes the most sense for

684
00:48:51.079 --> 00:48:53.119
the people with the least power.
I think, Yeah, is what I

685
00:48:53.119 --> 00:48:55.800
would say, which isn't to say
it doesn't make sense for people with more

686
00:48:55.840 --> 00:49:00.119
power, you know, but I
do think there's a difference between like people

687
00:49:00.159 --> 00:49:07.119
doing physical labor that's somewhat sort of
fungible, right, Like one person's work

688
00:49:07.239 --> 00:49:10.519
is going to be very similar in
quality to another person's, not identical,

689
00:49:10.639 --> 00:49:13.639
but just it's like there's a job
to be done, and you do the

690
00:49:13.760 --> 00:49:16.559
job. And I think that's kind
of different from like writing a Hollywood movie,

691
00:49:16.599 --> 00:49:22.920
where it's like, you know,
art is different from craft and from

692
00:49:23.000 --> 00:49:27.360
different types of work. You know, different types of work are different from

693
00:49:27.360 --> 00:49:29.719
one another. But that's not to
say there shouldn't be a writer skill.

694
00:49:29.800 --> 00:49:32.719
That's just say on a previous episode, I said some things about like not

695
00:49:34.639 --> 00:49:37.679
thinking it was all the best,
and I want to make sure it's clear

696
00:49:37.719 --> 00:49:40.719
that like I'm not saying that I
don't think it should exist. And overall,

697
00:49:40.760 --> 00:49:46.119
I think unions are very important,
but that you know, it's just

698
00:49:46.239 --> 00:49:50.599
it's always you know, always be
concrete. Is kind of one of my

699
00:49:50.960 --> 00:49:54.199
sort of mottos of thinking, which
is like, let's look at exactly what's

700
00:49:54.239 --> 00:49:58.639
going on here, you know,
And a lot of a lot of unions

701
00:49:58.679 --> 00:50:04.519
got slandered for as being corrupts,
but then there also is some corruption sometimes

702
00:50:04.559 --> 00:50:08.599
and say, you know, just
like trying to draw large conclusions, I

703
00:50:08.639 --> 00:50:15.519
think often leads to very poor thinking
and then poor results or good results for

704
00:50:15.559 --> 00:50:21.280
the people who are deliberately spreading such
things, right, the misinformation and theology,

705
00:50:21.360 --> 00:50:22.920
Yeah, yeah, exact exactly,
Like I think the welfare mom is

706
00:50:22.960 --> 00:50:28.840
one hundred percent of mythology that was
constructed in this country very intentionally for very

707
00:50:28.880 --> 00:50:34.639
specific reasons, you know, and
is now being largely dismantled in a lot

708
00:50:34.639 --> 00:50:37.880
of areas, but not in all. One thing I was thinking before,

709
00:50:37.880 --> 00:50:40.760
when you're talking about mythology and how
like people will look to see like,

710
00:50:42.119 --> 00:50:45.639
is there like a spiritual meaning to
the fact that these communities that seem so

711
00:50:45.760 --> 00:50:51.079
unconnected come up with similar myths And
this is kind of a divergence, but

712
00:50:51.239 --> 00:50:54.800
it's all kind of connected. To
me. There are two myths that I

713
00:50:54.840 --> 00:51:00.599
think of that from like biblical times, that to me speak to two ways

714
00:51:00.639 --> 00:51:06.559
they can be created that as a
person of faith, I find spirituality in,

715
00:51:06.719 --> 00:51:08.760
but I don't think are integrally.
I think you can understand them without

716
00:51:08.840 --> 00:51:13.559
any sense of spirituality whatsoever. One
of which, as I said, is

717
00:51:13.559 --> 00:51:22.559
that like most communities that experience a
winter and experience a spring have holidays built

718
00:51:22.599 --> 00:51:28.679
around that calendar that celebrate those things
in some way. There's often a celebration

719
00:51:28.880 --> 00:51:31.400
of abundance at the time of the
harvest. There is often a sense of

720
00:51:32.119 --> 00:51:37.239
hope in the time of the darkness
most darkness. There's a time of renewal

721
00:51:37.280 --> 00:51:39.800
and rebirth in the time of spring. And people can say, like,

722
00:51:39.800 --> 00:51:44.039
oh, it's all stolen from Pagans, like many of the ways that it's

723
00:51:44.079 --> 00:51:46.559
done is true, But like a
lot of these cultures that have no connection

724
00:51:46.639 --> 00:51:51.719
to each other whatsoever, still have
that kind of celebration of some kind.

725
00:51:52.480 --> 00:51:57.199
And I think, yeah, so
like it. You can find spiritual meaning

726
00:51:57.239 --> 00:52:00.239
in that. But you're also to
say, like that makes sociological sense for

727
00:52:00.280 --> 00:52:04.320
how we'd react to these cycles of
the year in a totally different way.

728
00:52:04.639 --> 00:52:07.880
Another thing that like you know,
truthers of the Bible like to point to,

729
00:52:07.440 --> 00:52:14.519
is that a number of different Middle
Eastern cultures that had, as far

730
00:52:14.559 --> 00:52:20.880
as we know archaeologically no contact with
each other, have their own myth of

731
00:52:20.920 --> 00:52:24.039
a flood, and that the flood
mythology appears in a lot of these different

732
00:52:24.079 --> 00:52:27.719
cultures, and so a lot of
people point to and say, oh,

733
00:52:27.800 --> 00:52:30.440
look, that's proof that, like, you know, Noah's ark in God's

734
00:52:30.480 --> 00:52:35.239
Flood is real. Then some archaeologists
looked into this a lot more and discovered

735
00:52:35.920 --> 00:52:38.079
that there was a time when that
part of the world was covered by a

736
00:52:38.119 --> 00:52:43.159
glacier and at the end of the
last Ice Age, that glacier melted and

737
00:52:43.199 --> 00:52:46.119
there was intense flooding in a lot
of the world, and that flooding is

738
00:52:46.239 --> 00:52:50.360
I mean it's literally called the Fertile
Crescent, and that flooding led to that,

739
00:52:50.920 --> 00:52:54.000
but that the flooding caused massive disruption
at the time it happened, and

740
00:52:54.760 --> 00:53:00.400
so like of course all these people
would have like a story about a flood

741
00:53:00.400 --> 00:53:04.840
because there was flooding, but it
wasn't like it is easily scientifically explained,

742
00:53:04.920 --> 00:53:08.440
not necessarily, you know, God
got angry and thus became incredibly genocidal,

743
00:53:09.280 --> 00:53:13.880
you know whatever the story is.
So I think, and it's funny because

744
00:53:13.880 --> 00:53:16.280
I I knew, well, I
thought that you were going to mention the

745
00:53:16.280 --> 00:53:24.440
flood because when I was like much
like in school, I remember like actually

746
00:53:24.480 --> 00:53:29.760
doing some sort of like just like
comparative method, just like looking at like

747
00:53:30.239 --> 00:53:35.559
several different mythologies, not even just
in in that area, but like throughout

748
00:53:35.559 --> 00:53:39.119
the world. And this like idea
of a flood does seem to be like

749
00:53:39.239 --> 00:53:44.199
recurring in many places. And you
know, the idea that like, yeah,

750
00:53:44.239 --> 00:53:46.920
well there was a nice age and
the glaciers melted and like, you

751
00:53:46.920 --> 00:53:54.320
know it like something being inspired by
history doesn't mean that it's like you know

752
00:53:54.480 --> 00:53:59.840
exactly what happened, right And and
so if you know, if you look

753
00:53:59.840 --> 00:54:07.559
at one mythology or another, and
and if if you draw some you know,

754
00:54:07.840 --> 00:54:12.960
whatever kind of feelings from that,
you know, that's cool. I'm

755
00:54:12.960 --> 00:54:16.840
not saying you shouldn't, you know, but it definitely you know, I

756
00:54:16.880 --> 00:54:23.320
mean we can see where where certain
stories can presumably have come from. And

757
00:54:23.920 --> 00:54:28.639
how you know, stories change over
time, right, I mean especially before

758
00:54:28.840 --> 00:54:32.239
before the written word, right,
like stories, Yeah, you know,

759
00:54:32.320 --> 00:54:38.199
stories were passed down generation generation and
you know, probably combined and split into

760
00:54:38.239 --> 00:54:44.000
different versions. And I mean this, I mean certainly we know of that

761
00:54:44.039 --> 00:54:47.119
happening, like it certainly happened biblically, and that you know, we have

762
00:54:47.639 --> 00:54:52.639
different creation stories that are not only
logically contradictory in terms of the number of

763
00:54:52.719 --> 00:54:57.599
days, but like you know,
one God is this primordial force that moves

764
00:54:57.639 --> 00:55:00.960
over the waters. And in another
is this being that walks in the garden

765
00:55:00.960 --> 00:55:06.320
with Adam and Eve, and like
all these differences, and the Hebrew that

766
00:55:06.320 --> 00:55:10.199
they're written in is two fundamentally different
dialects. And so now a lot of

767
00:55:10.239 --> 00:55:15.440
people have come to understand that there
were a number of different Hebraic groups that,

768
00:55:15.519 --> 00:55:20.920
like when the Hebrew people were formed
like people as a way of building

769
00:55:20.920 --> 00:55:24.639
a national mythology to pull people together, like combine all these stories in the

770
00:55:24.679 --> 00:55:30.639
same way. We know that like
the Saxon and other peoples who lived in

771
00:55:31.840 --> 00:55:37.360
pre Norman invasion Britain had these stories
about a king Arthur and a round table

772
00:55:37.400 --> 00:55:40.239
and all these kind of like epic
stories, and that the Norman invaders the

773
00:55:40.559 --> 00:55:45.199
French, brought with them the story
of Lancelot and the story of a king

774
00:55:45.280 --> 00:55:50.480
and a knight and a queen and
this like love triangle they had. Today

775
00:55:50.559 --> 00:55:52.199
we think of them all as part
of the Arthur's story of you know,

776
00:55:52.360 --> 00:55:58.599
Arthur's cycle of stories, and the
version we have fits together. But you

777
00:55:58.639 --> 00:56:00.360
know, you go back into the
records of the stories, it's pretty fundamentally

778
00:56:00.360 --> 00:56:05.360
clear that they are two totally different
origins two total different stories. They've just

779
00:56:05.440 --> 00:56:07.360
kind of come together, you know, and similar like did he pull the

780
00:56:07.360 --> 00:56:10.719
sword out of a stone or did
he get the sword given to him by

781
00:56:10.760 --> 00:56:15.840
the lady of the lake? Like
some versions now will kind of combine the

782
00:56:15.880 --> 00:56:17.199
two and have like, you know, he got it out of a stone,

783
00:56:17.239 --> 00:56:21.159
but then it's lost in a lake
or vice versa. There were just

784
00:56:21.199 --> 00:56:25.679
two different stories like a combined into
one mythological cycle. Doesn't Beowulf have like

785
00:56:25.719 --> 00:56:30.440
a lady in a lake with a
sword or something like that? Also or

786
00:56:31.440 --> 00:56:36.199
I read I read the book was
twenty five years ago and saw the movie

787
00:56:36.599 --> 00:56:43.719
and mostly was noticing Angelina Julie,
but like the main woman in that is

788
00:56:43.760 --> 00:56:46.360
the mother of Grendel, Like Grendel
is the first monster and then his mother

789
00:56:47.079 --> 00:56:51.559
Julie is the second. But yeah, there's probably some there may well be

790
00:56:51.599 --> 00:56:57.599
some origin to that. It's interesting. I watched most of the first episode

791
00:56:57.639 --> 00:57:05.039
of The Last Kingdom. I think
it's like Saxon, It's it's by It's

792
00:57:05.079 --> 00:57:08.079
based on a set of novels by
Bernard Cornwell, who did the Sharps novels,

793
00:57:08.719 --> 00:57:12.800
which I did not read these ones, and I don't think I'm gonna

794
00:57:12.880 --> 00:57:17.239
keep watching the series, but it's
it's maybe good, I don't know,

795
00:57:19.159 --> 00:57:22.840
but it's you know, it's just
interesting to see kind of that that's the

796
00:57:23.000 --> 00:57:25.920
period of I think it's like the
eight hundreds or something. It's it's the

797
00:57:27.000 --> 00:57:31.840
pre you know, Norman invasion,
right, And I so I think I'm

798
00:57:31.880 --> 00:57:37.480
wondering whether it kind of goes a
little bit into the Arthurian kind of like

799
00:57:37.960 --> 00:57:42.880
you know, the older story,
you know, or the the Saxon story

800
00:57:42.920 --> 00:57:45.920
as opposed to the you know,
the Norman story. Also, today or

801
00:57:46.000 --> 00:57:50.239
yesterday, I was looking. I
was trying to figure out why they keep

802
00:57:50.320 --> 00:57:55.760
saying al slash NL records like in
MLB instead of just saying MLB, and

803
00:57:55.800 --> 00:58:01.159
I still don't understand why. But
somehow I went down some like reddit hole

804
00:58:01.800 --> 00:58:08.280
and like saw something about how the
the NFC and the NFL absorbed all sports

805
00:58:08.320 --> 00:58:12.239
ball terms. By the way,
for those who totally lost, MLB is

806
00:58:12.280 --> 00:58:16.199
Major League Baseball, American League and
National League and NFC is National Football Conference.

807
00:58:16.360 --> 00:58:20.480
That's right, there's an audience for
this. I'm not just talking to

808
00:58:20.559 --> 00:58:25.440
you. But anyway, like this, one large football league absorbed a smaller

809
00:58:25.440 --> 00:58:31.400
football league but took on their two
point conversion rule, Like apparently the NFC

810
00:58:31.480 --> 00:58:36.320
didn't have the two point conversion and
so it's like, you know, they

811
00:58:36.639 --> 00:58:38.840
absorbed this other you know, and
I mean, I guess these leagues didn't

812
00:58:38.840 --> 00:58:44.679
have like huge mythologies built up,
although you know, you were referencing baseball

813
00:58:44.719 --> 00:58:47.960
mythology earlier, so it just kind
of it It just it just felt like

814
00:58:47.960 --> 00:58:52.199
a weird parallel of like, you
know, two things merging that were similar

815
00:58:52.320 --> 00:58:59.280
but different. But how then they
they end up making something new that has

816
00:58:59.480 --> 00:59:02.639
aspect of you know, both.
Yeah, it's kind of totally irrelevant,

817
00:59:02.679 --> 00:59:07.280
but you know, I mean,
this whole thing has been so you know,

818
00:59:07.119 --> 00:59:10.280
well, I'm glad we could still
find an hour of things to discuss

819
00:59:10.320 --> 00:59:14.079
in this. I'm not surprised we
probably go a lot longer. But I'll

820
00:59:14.119 --> 00:59:16.880
just say, do you have any
last thoughts about the whole this whole Blart

821
00:59:16.960 --> 00:59:22.920
experience and thoughts that leads you to
on on perspectives and suffering and hope and

822
00:59:22.960 --> 00:59:28.760
mythology or idiots doing podcasts for no
good reason or anything else. I guess

823
00:59:28.760 --> 00:59:31.000
that the the here on the you
know, kind of at the conclusion of

824
00:59:31.039 --> 00:59:37.199
the holiday season, I feel thankful
that the people that I like to podcast

825
00:59:37.280 --> 00:59:44.360
with and the person I most podcast
with did not want me to do that

826
00:59:44.800 --> 00:59:50.719
specific thing no, because I would
have said no and probably maybe not felt

827
00:59:50.760 --> 00:59:53.960
that bad about it. But you
know, I'm glad that you didn't ask

828
00:59:54.079 --> 00:59:59.519
me to watch the movie. This
was much better and I and I appreciate

829
00:59:59.599 --> 01:00:02.679
it. So yeah, it's funny
because they did one year, they did

830
01:00:02.679 --> 01:00:07.719
a thing where one of them didn't
watch the movie and they tried to see

831
01:00:07.719 --> 01:00:09.960
if they could guess who hadn't watched
it. I do think it would be

832
01:00:09.960 --> 01:00:14.400
fun as an idea is to have
like a once a month podcast where five

833
01:00:14.480 --> 01:00:16.800
people get together to talk about a
movie, but every month one person hasn't

834
01:00:16.800 --> 01:00:21.159
seen it and they just try to
like, guess who that is? I

835
01:00:21.599 --> 01:00:23.400
love that page a new podcast?
Did you come up with right here?

836
01:00:23.480 --> 01:00:25.440
Now? No? I love it? I love it. Can I always

837
01:00:25.440 --> 01:00:30.320
be the one who didn't watch the
movie? Though? This is not in

838
01:00:30.400 --> 01:00:32.920
service of laziness, No, not
laziness. I would have to look at

839
01:00:32.920 --> 01:00:37.880
the Wikipedia page. I'd have to
watch like you know, pitch meetings and

840
01:00:37.920 --> 01:00:42.199
like get all the references and stuff. You know. Yep, yep,

841
01:00:42.280 --> 01:00:45.639
that could be fun especially because like
me going back and keep harping on this,

842
01:00:45.719 --> 01:00:50.760
but like, there are definitely mythologies
around movies that aren't true. Oh

843
01:00:50.840 --> 01:00:53.320
yeah, I mean play it again, Sam, Yeah, literally, I

844
01:00:53.360 --> 01:00:58.280
am not your father. Yeah,
it's all there. So all right,

845
01:00:58.320 --> 01:01:00.760
we're gonna talk a little bit morebout
mythology and a bonus section till then,

846
01:01:00.800 --> 01:01:02.880
though, thank you all so much
for listening. This has been a little

847
01:01:02.880 --> 01:01:07.039
bit of a strange episode, but
strange is what we do here. But

848
01:01:07.719 --> 01:01:10.280
the point is we can find something
to discuss in anything. Definitely check out

849
01:01:10.360 --> 01:01:15.119
the podcast Till Death do us Blart. You're not watching the movie when Paul

850
01:01:15.119 --> 01:01:19.599
was saying they were thankful that I
didn't ask them to watch it. I

851
01:01:20.199 --> 01:01:24.360
think it's the cinematic equivalent of oh
this smells so bad. Here smell this,

852
01:01:24.880 --> 01:01:28.639
and I feel like a better person
because I've stopped feeling a need to

853
01:01:28.639 --> 01:01:30.199
get people to smell this. Yeah, I think so. Last was the

854
01:01:30.280 --> 01:01:35.280
last one that you said to anything
about smell this? Yeah, exactly,

855
01:01:35.440 --> 01:01:40.519
exactly so Yeah. So check out
their podcast. Check out our other podcasts,

856
01:01:40.559 --> 01:01:45.199
this Star Wars Universe podcast of course. Please become a member five dollars

857
01:01:45.199 --> 01:01:47.760
a month. Fifty five dollars a
year, free access to all the bonus

858
01:01:47.800 --> 01:01:51.519
content, all the ad free content, and you're just getting to support us,

859
01:01:51.559 --> 01:01:54.519
which is so incredibly helpful. Find
all of Paul Animize information in the

860
01:01:54.519 --> 01:01:59.840
show notes until then, not today, death, not today,