Hello, and welcome to this episode of Superhero Ethics Today. Friends, I
am taking not only you, but Paul Hoppey, one of my most regular
co hosts, into a garden of contemplation. Paul doesn't actually know what the
topic of today's podcast is, and that's kind of intentional. We've had a
little bit of a journey getting here. I had a podcast lined up,
but my podcast host wasn't able to take part last night because apparently they live
in the darkest of Alaska and the internet is not always great there. So
I was trying to figure out what I should do instead, and I wound
up going on quite a journey over the last couple of weeks, but especially
over the last six hours or so as I was driving to Wisconsin to see
my partner Abbey, on a further journey. I'm going to Cincinnati for a
magic event, actually a Lolcana event, And during the time, I went
on a journey that really was bringing up all kinds of thoughts that are relevant
to this podcast, because it was really a journey into how do we as
people and Paul and think they're part of that group, but you know,
how do we the human species and Paul the Paul species. Deal with darkness,
deal with despair, deal with tragedy, deal with the realization that we're
in a terrible situation and we don't think we can change it. And this
is a topic. I think it's very dear to me, particularly at Christmas
time and at holiday time. Basically, so much of this time is about
the return of light and the rebirth of light and of heat and of hope
and of warmth and abundance into a time that is for us in the Northern
hemisphere where a lot of these holidays were created seen as for I think understandable
reasons, the time of scarcity and darkness and a loss of hope. And
so I think there's a lot of relevant topics here, but I really can't
dance around it anymore. Those of you who are fans of a certain podcast
may know what I mean when I say that I'm in the Garden of contemplation
that we're going to be talking about the shadow Man. For those who don't
understand, this all starts with my viewing of a movie called Paul Blart Mark
Mall Cop two. Again, Paul's no idea what's happening here, and so
he's laughing a bit about this. I didn't even know this was an episode
of Superhero Ethics. I thought you were like starting a new podcast and you're
like, yeah, no, want to just be on this podcast, and
I'm not gonna tell you like what it is, just like the very first
episode of Superhero Ethics where you're like, hey, do you want to talk
about Batman and press record? I was like, yeah, sure, why
not? And then here we are. However, many episodes later, hundreds
of episodes later, I forgot that, yeah, that's what we did with
that first episode. But I was in a bad place, so you would
helping. It's good, you know, you and Kevin Smith's been a journey.
But so anyway, and let me start by being clear, this is
a horrendously bad movie. I'm not in anyway encouraging anyone to watch this movie.
I don't think anyone should watch this movie. I think the movie is
actively harmful to American society and isn't like in the top ten or even the
top twenty reasons why Trump got elected, but was probably somewhere on the list.
But the only reason why I care about this movie is that it was
shown to me over the holiday break a good friend of Mary's myself, ashe
was staying with us for a couple of weeks after some surgery they were going
through, and she was like, we were talking about holiday movie. She
was like, we have to see this Thanksgiving movie. And I had vaguely
heard about Paul Blart mall copp. I didn't realize there was a second one,
and I knew that like Adam Sandler Kevin James, kind of humor is
generally not for me. I had not paid any attention to it, and
I didn't understand why she was claiming it was a Thanksgiving movie. But as
she went on to explain, it's not itself a Thanksgiving movie. It's that
the McElroy brothers, who many people know from the podcast My Brother and My
Brother and Me or their D and D podcast, they become kind of like
podcasting people of great renown, and my spouse is a big fan of them.
Apparently, they had teamed up with people from another podcast called The Worst
Idea of All Time, where they take a particularly bad movie and watch it
every week for fifty two weeks and record on it each week. Had decided
to take that concept and expand it, and that a Thanksgiving tradition for both
of their communities would be that every year they would come together to watch Paul
Blart Mall Coop two and discuss it and use it as a way to mark
the passage of time. And they made a very big deal about how this
was going to be a forever thing, and they even were picking like when
they passed away, who woul they be their successors and all this kind of
thing. You know, let me stress again, this is a very bad
movie. It is a movie where, as far as I can tell,
the writing was actively competing to see could it be more fat phobic, could
it be more misogynistic, or could it be more just generally insulting to the
working class and security guards in space? The movie itself would not be worth
talking about, and frankly, they talk about it at great length and do
it with great hilarity. But I listened to one or two episodes over the
last week or so, and then on this aforementioned five hour drive, I
listened to probably four full episodes of Theirs, and it wound up being this
startling insight into how we deal with horror, how we deal with despair.
Because every year they would come together and they would talk about like the horrible
experience of watching this movie and the sense of impending dread. But something interesting
started happening over those various years, which is that they all started to deal
with this horrible situation. And granted I'm speaking in like you're watching a bad
movie for two hours, this is nothing compared to the acro tragedies of the
world. And I think they're always being very fairly tongue in cheek about their
pain about it, but the pain is quite real, and you could start
to see the different ways that they would react to it because for some of
that, like the first year, they're all just like, Okay, this
is really bad and we're just gonna have fun talking about how bad it is.
But that wears off after a year or two. You can't keep doing
the same jokes again and again and again, and so they started to diverge,
and for some of them they started it felt like it was the I
am faced with this terrible thing in my life. The best I can do
is to find a way to be okay with it, to find the good
parts in it, to find the things that can bring me joy, and
that maybe it's not so bad and that that's kind of a coping mechanism,
and for others they would get very angry at that and that no, no,
we have to rage. We cannot accept if there's anything acceptable about this
situation. We have to live in our grief and in our upsetness about this.
And just those two positions alone speak to me quite a lot about I
think a lot of the things we talk about podcast about what do you do
in the midst of terrible situations? And do you fight back? Do you
try to think about how it could be better, or do you just accept
and find the beauty in the darkness and all that kind of thing. And
then as more years went on, more and more this got some of them
started looking for deeper meeting and so they started taking scenes such as when a
Kevin James playing Paul Blart the I think some would argue the antagonist of the
movie. Some would say the protagonist, many would say just a horrible person,
although the director seems to want us to have them redeemed by the end.
But halfway through the movie they fight a large bird for no real reason
and the bird kicks their ass. I think, to the cheers and joys
of most and during that scene, there's just a guy playing a piano throughout
the whole thing, utterly like like not responding in any way to Kevin James's
pleased for help, to Paul Bart's please for help, but clearly acknowledging Paul
Bart, and even to the end when Paul Blart has walked away from the
fight beaten but not bloodied, but not broken and kind of but there's no
real damage to the bird, to be very very clear, the bird is
the victor in this fight. But as he walks away, he looks at
that man playing the piano and kind of just nods, is like, thanks
for the help, and the guy just smiles at him and nods his head
and acknowledgement and keeps playing the piano. And so that scene has now taken
on like mythic proportions. Within their watch of it, they're discussing like is
it supposed to be that the bird is God and the piano player is Satan
or and challenging him, or that like the piano player is actually urging him
on to face his inner demons represented by the bird. They're finding such deep
meaning in this where clearly none was meant to exist to begin with, and
so I was hoping Paul would have had more funny introjections along this whole path
and maybe this whole podcast idea was a ridiculous one. But we're here,
we're gonna go through it. We're gonna find a way to have a conversation.
Well, I was thinking you should flip the bird there the metaphor,
because when you describe that scene to me, that sounds to me more like
the bird. Wait, yeah, like the bird sounds more like a Satan
figure, and the dude playing on the piano seems to me like what I
would imagine, like if I could conceive of the idea that there was some
omnipotent power in this world, which I don't like, I think it would
be about as interested in what humans are doing as that piano player, just
based on the reality that I see in front of me, and the you
know, and the bird seems like, you know, it's just there trying
to you know, live its life. But I don't know, you know
what I but yeah, it just sounded backwards to me, And then I
thought flip the bird. I'm like, hey, that sounds appropriate too,
because that's what people want to do to this movie, I think flip the
bird, it's fitting and then and then what so that actually will get back
to the question of suffering and the like. But that's actually a perfect example
of the other thing that this movie really struck me as is I kind of
feel like I'm watching the birth of mythology right now. Yeah, because like
I'm telling you this ridiculous story and how people finding ridiculous meaning, and now
you're continuing this idea of like just based on you haven't seen the movie,
I hearing my retelling of other people considering it, and you're coming up with
your own stories and meaning around it. Mm hmm. Yeah. I mean
not meaning that I am emotionally attaching myself too, but that if you're gonna
go down that path, you know, this sounds more logical to me.
I will note that we did watch the Star Wars Holiday special together with a
group of people, and it did not make that an annual tradition. We
did not, We did not many have Yeah. I chose that I love
my fans and I love myself. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that particular
kind of sadism or masochism is not yeah, no thanks, no thanks.
Yeah, although the good in that I got to see b Arthur singing to
a bunch of aliens, and right that scene is magnificent in its own really
it actually it feels kind of like this whole bird thing in a way,
and we got Boba Fett and the Mandalorians. That's true. Like I would
say that, like the Star Wars Christmas special to me, it sits in
a larger tableau, so we can understand it even if it is a particularly
like you know, it's a bad stitch in that tableau, and it felt
like I was able to laugh along with the pain the first time. I
think maybe if I watch it again and again, I would probably have similar
feelings. But to me that feels different because it does feel like it is
part of again, this larger Star Wars story, whereas this is just well,
this is part two. Who knows what part three may brain. But
the spin I have not yet seen the bird have a spin off it.
There have been some kind of there was some hope apparently that during the pandemic,
when when people were digging deeper and deeper into the bottom of the barrel
to find content, that somehow Paul Blart three might have risen to the top.
But such has yet to happen. Sadness for those people. I literally
don't care, although I will say, like I'm always mildly offended at just
how bad Paul's are in movies. You know, you know, I'd not
even considered that this was about a fellow Paul. Yeah you're so not this
person. Yeah yeah, well yeah, no, I mean, PAULA.
Trades is kind of cool, I guess, I guess, yeah, I
mean kind of a messiotic figure who saves the whole galaxy spoilers for books that
are almost one hundred years old. I thought that didn't work out super well.
Spoilers for something that I actually didn't read. But I've had I've had
the length of the Dune mythology explained to me by Ashley Coffin, And I
might not have the whole thing down straight, but I think it doesn't work
out for Will human the end, But like he does save the universe or
the galaxy or some right, okay portion of one for cinematic Paul's. Well,
who are some other anti Pauls? Then we have Paul Blart, Yeah,
there's Paul Spiricki in gross point blank. Who's the Jeremy Piven character who's
the kind of sort of slimy real estate. I don't have a whole bunch
that popped to mind, but that's kind of the point. The point is
that they're often kind of bland, like they're like the boyfriend of the love
interest who needs to be you know, like, yeah, it's like or
just like just kind of like nothing characters. A lot of the time.
I don't think this was always true. I think this was less true like
several many decades ago, you know, I mean the kind of like in
our very christianasized society, which is not a good thing, but it's just
the way it is what it is. The name does go back to the
guy who's the original, like, I'm not the protagonist of the story,
but I'm going to try to be right, you know, in terms of
the apostle Paul, who's like I used to be a schmuck, but now
I'm trying to be better and I want everyone to listen about this other guy,
but also listen to me a lot, and so I can kind of
see some things. Yeah, I'm trying to think of other good palls,
like I thinek there've been some good palls on TV, and mostly think of
Paul Riser characters, and probably the characters are not Paul. But I think
Paul Er is such a great actor. Sure, I think of him as
actually not as kind of dislikable in that same way though, where he just
feels a little Maybe that's just from like Aliens, but that's fair. I
feel like he's off it. Also, I just saw him in Beverly Hills
Cop, which I rewatched recently. How did that age? You know?
Okay, I mean there's certainly it's the parts that were funny are still funny,
you know. There's there's some jokes that probably don't quite you know,
work the same way. But yeah, it's it's interesting, you know,
Yeah, because I recently watched Diehard as again, you know, short Christmas
movie. It's still a wonderful movie of its time, but it has not
aged well, particularly having central plot. Forgive me spoilers for a forty year
old movie, but about will the cop who shot a teenager be willing to
find his copness again so he can use his gun again as a great heroic
moment like that doesn't really but it wasn't as great as I thought it was
in the time. I mean, it was six, but also like just
not great today in any way. But back to these topics, just on
the mythology thing further, like how what do you what do you think of
when when someone says the word mythology or like this is a myth, Like
what does that mean to you in terms of how you feel about the stories
you care about? Yeah, I mean I think of mythology as basically stories
that like have a tendency or goal of like really grabbing the imagination in a
in a like fundamental like visceral way, that are made up, but that
people are very deeply attached to, you know. And I mean, I
think it's interesting that there are so many similarities from mythologies to other mythologies,
including in parts of the world that like had no contact with one another,
presumably, you know, there's things that show up frequently, and you know,
I find that very interesting. I don't necessarily find a lot of meaning
in that, or you know, try to make like assumptions about like what
happened to cause that or so much as like, you know, maybe there
are kind of certain psychological needs that that people have, you know, that
are are like, if not universal, very common, you know, and
then you know, in addition to that, though, I think drawing parallels
between different stories or different mythologies, it's it's easy to go too far and
see everything as just like an arc type and ignore the specifics, which you
know, could be cultural specifics or could be storytelling specifics, and and kind
of be like, you know, like I think that Joseph Campbell Hero with
a thousand faces like speaks to certain truth, but then you know, is
reductive as well, right, And so I think I think a lot of
the times that's what's going to happen. But yeah, I mean, like
from a personal enjoyment standpoint, I often, you know, I find big
mythological stories fun. I think is kind of how I've always kind of viewed
them all as a sort of entertainment, and to me sort of the the
fewer people who care deeply about a story like beyond just kind of like what
happens and the characters and whatever, kind of the easier I find it to
enjoy, you know. And I think the more that, you know,
kind of modern mythology or modern stories really overtly try to echo religious mythology that
is currently followed or appreciating whatever capacity I think for me that tends to be
a turn off because it feels a little too much like someone's trying to I
never really enjoy feeling like the storytellers are trying to make a really explicit point
or a really specific point. I enjoy stories more that tend to kind of
raise questions and encourage the viewer or the listener to or the reader to to
just have some thoughts, you know, like which it sounds like Paul Blart
mallcrop to kind of you know, if you take in there, it sounds
like it can do that. But then maybe any story can, I don't.
I think what you just said is kind of the whole thesis statement that
I've been wrestling with is because to me, the fact that and a little
exchange we have at the beginning, I think it's kind of approof of it.
How there's a bunch of what you said that I want to respond to,
but I want to kind of pull on this thread and go back to
something you said at the very beginning, which is that you know, mythologies
are you know that if I Shudio creg you, we're saying like mythologies are
made up. And I think there's a lot of truth to that certainly that
I think part of what marks a myth is that we don't in any way
have knowledge or proof that it did literally happen. And most of the time
we have proof that it literally didn't happen. But then a lot of the
time my understanding at least is that there is some kernel of truth that then
like gets told and retold and it becomes mythologized and becomes mythology that sometimes has
basis in literal truth and sometimes it's just stories that people made up. But
to me, that's part of what the Paul Blart process has been fascinating to
me about. The podcast is called Till Death do Us Blart? Oh oh
it does, so death Blart is maybe the best way to describe this whole
thing. But yeah, it really got me thinking about, like, can
any story just become a myth like that? And can we look for meaning
like that? You know, almost any story, because you're right, Like,
I think a lot of the things that often to me strike me about
myths is that they're somewhat primordial, like they they they touch upon kind of
like fundamental questions or fundamental issues. And so, for example, that scene
in the Garden of contemplation. You know, man verse nature is a story
that I think is often mythologized, and you, as a vegan, have
helped me to see that. Like like, I think one of the things
that's happened in the last however many decades is we're re examining a lot of
our myths and say we I should say, like, you know, those
in the overculture, White Strait Cys, all, the American, British,
whatever, have been looking a lot more at the myths that we have always
seen ourselves in as the heroes and realizing the way a lot of people in
the mid like see themselves as the oppressed in the myth and and not seeing
the myth as heroic. And I think the man verse nature one is that
you and talking with you about veganism have really helped me to see in a
different way. But still I think that that that this kind of is the
it's it's the primordial story of man versus nature. And also then of you
know, do you treat the suffering of another of another human with empathy or
with disdain or with like the kind of like you know, because I think
like to me, the I'm playing music for you, buddy is like you
know, thoughts and prayers, you know. So yeah, that I think
is just a fascinating way of kind of looking at it all. Yeah,
I mean it's interesting that like in sporting events, like that's what cheering is,
right, and it is actually you hear athletes talk all the time about,
you know, wanting to think the fans and how much it means them
to have their support and blah blah blah. So you know, I mean,
I don't know, I think sometimes having someone you know, I mean,
the thing about sporting events is the fans can't really do much else unless
they're like Jeffrey Mayor or something, and they want to you know, either
rob a home run or make a home run. You know, something that
wouldn't have wanted to catch it was that was that one was a home run
though that wasn't a foul ball, right, the other the other day that
was a foul ball. This was Yeah, I just I just want to
catch a ball. But like you know, in general, fans can't really
intercede on behalf of you know, the people they're rooting for, Whereas here
maybe there's an idea, well this guy could have done something but I don't
know. Maybe he would have helped the bird. I might have helped them
bound by the rules, like you know I On the Star Wars podcast,
we recently discussed like why does why is it that obi Wan says Luke,
if you go to face Vader at the end of Empire, I cannot interfere,
Like, right, is it because he like there's some Jedi rule.
Is that like his force projection powers won't work there? Like we don't know?
And so maybe to Luke's perspective, obi Wan is just the guy playing
piano while he fights the Vader bird or whatever it is. Yeah, he
kind of is, you know, He's like, if you strike me down,
I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine. Like really obi
Wan really like is that You're like, hey, go talk to Yoda,
He'll help you. Like that. That's like he doesn't. He doesn't.
I think more powerful than you can possibly imagine would would be. I can
imagine that powerful, you know, And I do think like in some ways,
I think of one of the things that to me is very much a
big part of mythology. And this is why I think that the glartification of
it all is so relevant is that, Yes, there are these myths of
things like King Arthur and Robin Hood and you know, a thousand and one
Nights and stuff like that that we can find, whether there's historicity to it
or not. But the stories have taken on a power of their own.
But there's also myths in our own lives and in our own you know.
And like I think Babe Ruth called Shot is a great example to me of
like I'd heard that story told to me a hundred times, and then you
dig deeper and there's a lot of people who are there who were like,
eh, he was kind of just like pointing at a bird or something,
or like you know, he Like there's all these different versions. Is that
what really happened? And even to the point of, like you and I
have been friends for red blaah number of years, it's a very high number,
and there are stories among us that have become mythologized, you know,
like the right number of chips for the right number of salsa and like,
yeah, you probably remember the exact details, which better than I. But
it's got like there are people in my life who know that story because they've
heard me make reference to like other situations but whereas the metaphor, I just
use the like there's not enough chips for this salsa. Right. They have
no idea what happened. They've just heard my retelling of it. It's become
a myth, but it's a myth that holds meaning for those who don't know.
We had a certain amount of salsa, a certain amount of chips among
me, Paul and our friend Adam. Our friend Adam was eating chips without
the salsa on exp which was very concerning to Paul because upsetting the ratio therein
And they're just gonna have a bunch of salsa without any chips to eat it.
I mean, what's that you want me to drink salsa? I think
that's a reason to go get more chips. But you know that continues the
life. Like we were like in the middle of nowhere at someone's country house
on like some island somewhere, like there were not going to be more chips
for a good three days, Like these were the amount of chips we had.
We had a certain amount of also, and they needed to go together.
But it's okay, okay. We were I think like fifth sixteen or
seventeen. We were not like going to go hop in a car and go
get more chips at the store ten miles away or something like that. Yeah,
I mean we were like eighteen or nineteen or almost twenty ish, maybe
maybe less than twenty. But also I don't think maybe you had a driver's
license. I know you're right, you're older, and I remember it,
but again some details get forgotten. Yeah, exactly right. So we'll come
back to the myth point. But I want to go back to what is
for me. I think kind of the fundamental thing, which is that this
question of how do people respond to horrible situations? And again, having to
watch a bad movie once for two hours out of a year is not the
worst situation. It's kind of a microcosm, but it was still very interesting
to me. What have you observed that you either find like this is helpful
to me, or this is troubling to me, or this I find tempting.
But I don't want to do in terms of like how you reson,
how you were re spond or how you see other people respond to really bad
situations, but that people feel like they can't do anything about. Yeah,
I mean I guess from a fairly young age I realized that the world was
filled with things that I thought were like unimaginably awful, and that I had
very little ability to do anything about any of those directly. And you know,
my first reaction, I think is generally like, well, what can
I do about any of this? And if the answer is, well,
here's something you can do to actually meaningfully make things better, then I usually
try to do that, you know. But I think what we're talking about
more is things where that's not you know, I'm not going to go and
a war somewhere. You know, I'm not gonna stop people from oppressing one
another or animals like globally in like an afternoon. You know, it's not
a thing or even in a lifetime, right, It's not a thing one
person can do. But you know, there are things that we can do
to try to either reduce some of those things, like these huge horrible things
that go on throughout the world, or at least do our best to not
contribute to furthering them, right. I mean, to me, that's the
first step is to try and understand, Okay, here's all this horrible stuff,
all this harm that's being done, and you know, oftentimes it's like,
oh, I see how I'm not intentionally a part of it, but
am a part of it, you know. And then it's like, how
to what extent can I can I reduce that, you know? And then
beyond that, when there is still so much suffering and horror in the world,
I think finding a way to do something else that's not engaging with that
constantly, you know, I play bullet chess, like you know. I
mean people have the things, you know, but like having something else to
spend some mental energy on, right, I mean, even if you say,
you know what, I've decided that this situation is unacceptable, and I
know I can't completely change it, but I've decided to dedicate my entire life
to trying to change this one thing or make whatever impact I can. Yeah,
if your goal, if that's your goal is to just have the maximum
effect on a thing, I don't believe that spending all of your time trying
to do that is the most efficient way. I don't think that's the way
you're going to have the biggest effect. I think burnout is very real.
It is, And like if you spend ten years doing nothing but that thing
and then just are done, yeah, Like, or you spend like fifty
years spending seventy percent of your time doing that thing, or even forty ten
percent of your time, that's probably a far more effective way of you know,
making the change. Yeah, yeah, except for the ten percent,
because then that would be only about half as much unless effort over time is
yeah, the math, but but the point turns and all that. Yeah,
the point matters though. The point is like if you're but it's it's
probably even ten percent, because if you're trying to put one hundred percent of
your energy at the end of it in five years in, you're not going
to have as much energy. Right. It's like if it's like, well,
why are you sleeping? Really you think you have the luxury to sleep
while people are dying, Like, yeah, yeah you do, because you
can't. You can't do anything productive if you never sleep, right, So
it's like, obviously you have to have some kind of rest, something,
you have to eat, you you have to mentally replenish yourself. You have
to take care of yourself enough to be able to take care of anybody else,
to be able to help anybody else in any way. Really, but
you know, then you know, if what you really do want to do
is do as much as you can for something. Then you have to understand,
like at what point you're kind of just making an excuse to like rest
too much or whatever. And you know, but you know, I wouldn't
say that there's any anything that I've decided like I'm gonna put all of myself
into that, right, I mean, I wouldn't. I wouldn't be doing
most of the things I do if that's the case. You know, I
mostly have tried to kind of withdraw from from a lot of things, and
basically, when when something seems really messed up to me, I just generally
tend to say that's really messed up and try and help other people come to
the or encourage other people to come to the same conclusion, you know,
to the best of my ability. But yeah, I mean, I think
finding a way to not be constantly confronted with whatever horror it is, you
know. And and even like I mean, I'll take a I took someone
of the dentists today, you know, And this is this is very Paul
Blart, this is not you know, it's on the I think going to
the dentist is probably more painful than watching any movie. But maybe not.
I mean physically anyway, right, maybe not emotionally. I'm thinking about the
things that I've hated the most, and I'm like, mmm, I'd rather
go to the dentist than like watch the end of Dexter again or like y,
you know, certain scenes from other things or whatever. You know.
So but like this is just like a very it's just literal pain and discomfort,
right And when I go to the dentist, like often I'll like I'll
like do all of my taekwondo patterns in my head, you know, even
if I'm not really practicing regularly, or like now, like maybe I would
try and do some like blindfold chess problems in my head. Or like sometimes
if I if my brain just isn't like really going there, like I'll actually
take my fingernails and like dig them into the back of the other hand as
just like a distraction. It's like, oh, well, this little discomfort
is actually distracting me from this other larger discomfort, you know. And so
like if something just seems like overwhelming, like if you want to be trying
to help people with things, and you're like, well that thing's too much.
It's just too much for me right now, it's like, you know,
you can try and find some smaller thing where people also need help,
but it just doesn't feel like too much to you right now, and you
can still be you know, constructive. In Judaism, there's a concept called
takun alum, which is loosely, I'm going to get this bad I'm a
bit exposed to in all my life, but I'm not a juicy loads of
money means. But it's basically the idea of that to save a single life
is to save the world entire you know, and that like it's about you
know, doing the little bit you can. Yeah, it's a very interest
question because part of what it got me thinking as well is that in so
many of the superhero type stories that I care most about, the biggest thing
that the hero can do is to inspire others, is to give people the
thought that there is something that they can do that they don't have to just
accept this crushing reality because there are alternatives. I often go to V for
Vendetta as my favorite example, but I do think that it's a big part
of that, but also many other stories of you know, I think and
Or the TV show is a perfect example of this, as is rogue one
of where one persons stand, like specifically in Star Wars, they say fear
is what will keep people in line because when it's a minority of pressing a
majority, they always know like if every single person the majority rises up,
the minority is gonna lose, but a significant part of the majority you're gonna
die. Yeah, And that fear, I think, for very legitimate reasons
or keeps people from doing it. But that the way horrible things can play
into it is it just gets to be so bad that it's not even like
an actualized fear of this person has a gun or this person's going to fire
me. It's just a kind of a generalized fear, you know. And
so this is why, And I'm skipping around a couple of topics here,
but I think it all ties together. You know, friends of mine who
were like the first woman pastor at a church, like it was often the
older women who had the most trouble accepting them and in getting to know that
this wasn't always the true, but often it was because those were women who
might have wanted to be pastors like thirty four years ago and were told they
couldn't be. But that once one person was able to do it and show
like wait it actually you can do this. Other people can say, hey,
wait, I can do this too. And I always thought that that's
v frient ndetta, like, you know, by blowing up the old Bailey
at the beginning of the movie and then continuing to challenge the government in ways
that they see like you know, the other people see like they're really it.
The government isn't as scary and completely ttalitarianly oppressive as we want as we
seem to think. It is not that it's better than we think it is,
but just that it can be challenged. Yes, it's just not all
powerful, yeah exactly. And you know, and granted, like it's not
quite the same in the Death Blart because they voluntarily agreed to do this,
right, and and it's of a kind of a keeping watch thing. But
I think I was thinking about all this, especially because with some of them
would start to you know, the oh, well, it's not so bad,
you know, like these are some good parts to it, and then
like when they were really pushed by the others on the podcast, Okay,
yeah, no, it's an awful movie, don't get me wrong, But
I kind of I had a good watch this year, and I enjoyed some
parts of it, you know, and because I think, to me,
one of the things, and granted I'm not I haven't had I've only watched
the movie once. I can't say that if I'd watched it every year for
seven years, where I would be with it. But I know that for
me, in some of the harder situations we deal with, and I think
COVID is the best example of this, but a lot of others. Capitalism
I think is another great one, Like it is easy to start to start
basically kind of like being so used to the hardest parts, the worst parts,
that we kind of stop thinking about them. We just kind of take
for granted. Okay, well capitalism sucks, but hey, it gave us
twenty different kinds of cereal, so maybe that's kind of cool. Or you
know, COVID is bad, you know, just the like how quickly people
acclimated themselves too. We don't need masks anymore, we don't need to be
protected anymore. Jump in at some point, because I think there's all a
point here, but you know, I'm not maybe articulating it. Well,
yeah, I mean I love cereal. I don't like COVID haven't had it
to my knowledge, which I think I often get the reaction like that,
you know, there's there's there's that's not a large number of people who yeh,
that's true, but yeah it is, you know, it's people.
I mean, I had a conversation with another friend who was saying, you
know, I don't even know how many times sat it now, but like
it's it's a lot, and it's like, well, I guess I'm just
gonna get sick every so often if I you know, he's a poker player,
you know, and live poker player, so it's always a round,
you know what I mean. Right when when COVID was kind of still up
and coming, it was I was like, I think a poker table is
just about one of the worst places for like, is one of the most
efficient ways of spreading something like this, right because everyone's facing it's not even
like yeah, people breathing into the back of your head. You're all facing
each other a while you are making like loud exclamations. Yeah, the air
is very stale in those places, you know. Like, I mean,
I do think like a comedy is probably worse than like a drama in terms
of a movie theater. But like you're right that, like in a movie
theater, everybody's all facing the same way, right, Yeah, so like
people are going to breathe on the back of your head. You go home,
take a shower or whatever. You know. I'm not saying people don't
get COVID in movie theaters, but like a poker table, you have a
group of people sitting around just breathing right at each other, which also without
COVID isn't always the most pleasant experiences on its own. But the point being
that, like there is like yeah, you know, I mean there's certain
bad things that you do, say, well, okay, in order to
try and avoid this. What am I giving up? What's the you know,
you make your own calculations, right, But but there is a once
you make those, you have to accept kind of the consequences. Like I've
accepted the consequences of like, yeah, I'm just not going to see people
as often because this is something that I actually care about being cautious about.
Other people who don't want to be as cautious have to accept that gonna get
sick more often, you know, And that's that's just you make That's a
spot where at least like you have some agency, you know, to some
extent, Like that's one thing. Whereas like let's say, let's say you
lived somewhere that was getting bombed and just random people were just getting killed on
a regular basis. You don't have agency there. You still have to accept
that on any given day you might just randomly get murdered. And that,
to me, that sounds harder to deal with. You know, even if
the sort of percentages and the death count was the same, It feels like
and I mean, overall reality is a little bit like that, because on
any given day you could just you know, just have a fatal stroke or
whatever, like this is this is life, right At any point, we
could just no longer exist. But there are circumstances under which those are unreasonably
high chances. And yeah, so yeah, I mean, I think the
idea of the agency really matters because like this happened early in the bombings of
Gaza, but it's something that's really struck with me. There was some some
church was attacked or somewhere else where there was like stained glass windows, and
like you know, a gazin resident like took a picture of you know,
the way the light was hitting the stained glass and the rubble on the on
the ground at sunset, it was absolutely gorgeous. And there was a lot
of debate about like is this okay and to be sharing talking about and somewhere
in the thread comment, you know, someone asked, like, what if
it Israeli took this picture? And I feel like those would be to me
too fundamentally different. Well, if it Israeli soldier someone who is like actually
supporting that. You know, again, governments aren't their people. But like,
to me, yeah, if you're the one getting bombed and you're able
to find some beauty in the midst of this horrible tragedy, like God bless
you, like you know, and if you can share that and help make
it more bearable, that's fantastic. If then other people are like, no,
look it's not so bad, look at the beauty they found. I'm
like, you know, yeah, of course not. But those who are
in the midst of suffering finding beauty I think is understandable. It's I think
the idea of people looking at the suffering of others and finding beauty in it,
or looking at the beauty and then using that as a way to be
like well, no, we Like, I don't think individual person in Kaza
could honestly do anything to stop the bombing that's happening. And then what the
doing clearly like you know, petitioningly and like letting people know what's suffering,
and it's on all of us to try and try and stop that horrible events.
But like, I don't know if you see this, but I do
feel that there are times where I see people kind of like finding ways to
enjoy terrible situations when they could be doing more to get out of it,
and when it's not just a terrible situation for them, but also for others
around them. And that's I think often where I find kind of like I
get frustrated somewhat, you know, of the like they're and again because it's
so it's very difficult for me to critique someone who's in a situation I am
not in, So it's like I can only talk about it in terms of
situations that I've been in, you know, But yeah, it just it
I find I often get frustrated watching people using the sort of very human urge
to find a way to make the unacceptable acceptable, use that as a way
to never actually question is this unalterably unacceptable or could I change this? Yeah?
And I mean that kind of you knows the difference between unnecessary fatalism and
like a true lack of agency, you know. And that's that's sort of
where where I was going with what I said is you know, I said,
is my first reaction, I'd like it to be my first reaction.
I'm not saying that it's necessarily always that, but you know, I think
the first question to ask is can I do anything to change this? You
know that? And so I if you are suffering yourself, like asking can
I do anything to change this? I think is the best way to proceed
if you're if you are able to do that, right, I mean,
there are certain conditions under which you might not even be able to to have
the time or the thought or whatever to really really go there, but like
prove that you are able. I think that is that is a best first
step. And when the answer is yes, then it's like just get on
it, you know. And when the answer is no, then that I
think is when you know, it's not a fatalism, it's an acceptance of
reality, right like this it's a very real question, and there's not always
going to be an obvious answer, right, I mean, you don't always
know whether you can do something about something, Like it's like, well,
here's the problem, and then it's going to take some thought to figure out
whether you can find any solutions to it. And occasionally maybe it'll be like,
yeah, no, there's there's no there's nothing I can do about this,
and then then acceptance has to occur. But or is useful anyway,
I think that's a really good way to put it, and I feel like
I can go back to where we were before. It's why to me,
maybe the better way of in ap phrasing the heroic act is to help people
see they have agency that they didn't think they had. Yeah, because I
think that's that's kind of the whole idea. It's a mythology of the mythology
that you don't have a choice, you know, and like sometimes in discords,
in discussions, not like discord the program, but just like discourse,
I'll see people who have a choice to do something today being very critical of
those who didn't choose that in the past, like people who may have been
you know, we would look back on and say that seems like someone who
we would think of as homosexual or transgender today, but they didn't lead that
life at the time. And I think it's really easy to be like,
oh, that was because they were a coward or they were like no,
Like, part of the things people have really fought for is that in a
lot of parts of the world, absolutely not enough, but in a lot
of parts of the world, people who feel like being straight or being cis
or being you know, a particular gender identity, or being you know,
like preppy or any of these things, like it isn't they do have agency.
They could be something else. But not everyone knows that, and not
everyone understands that. And that's certainly true today, is absolutely true of different
situations, and so yeah, the heroic thing can often be just like,
no, you don't have to accept the tyranny of this government. You can
stand up to the empire. You can stand up to what do they call
themselves, the Nords Party in the Vendetta or whatever it is. You can
vote for I'm not even you know, like, yeah, you can vote
for for people who you don't think are going to win, but you think
it's a better place for your vote to go to. And yeah, you
can you can try to change things politically, even when it seems hopeless.
And a lot of the times that fails, and sometimes it doesn't, right,
I mean, democracy is a thing that is not perfectly executed really anywhere
on the planet as far as I know. But there are elections, and
they they are one aspect of like deciding how things go right, And I'm
certainly not gonna say, oh, just vote and you know, and that's
it. You've done everything you can't But like there are there are things that
people don't think that they can do that they can do, you know.
And as you were saying before, like if everybody who doesn't think they have
power decides to stand up and use their power together, you know, and
on the year end thing, you know, I was talking about unions and
how that they can't you know, their power structures and they're not always necessarily
going to do things that everybody else thinks are the best things to do.
But that is like, that's the prime example of like people in a collective
saying, you know what, individually, we don't have that much power,
but when we act together, we do have a lot of power. Well,
I think one of the mythologies that was built in this country and around
in England and a lot of other places was that union's were fundamental corrupt,
right, and there was an awful lot of truth to that mythology, and
it became in many ways a self fulfilling narrative because a lot of people who
weren't corrupt and wanted nothing to do with the unions. And a large part
of the more recent union movement is a lot of people challenging that mythology and
we're like, wait, unions don't have to be old boys clubs. Unions
don't have to be for you know, these particular professions. They can be
for things that are The term that's often used is like a janitor's union fifty
years ago, would like we would never think of something like SEIU, which
is now one of the strongest unions, Like I think it'sill existed, but
it was, you know, much more thought that it was for like you
know again quote unquote skilled labor. Yeah, you know, and in a
way it makes the most sense for I guess less skilled labor or for that's
not the way to say it. I think it makes the most sense for
the people with the least power. I think, Yeah, is what I
would say, which isn't to say it doesn't make sense for people with more
power, you know, but I do think there's a difference between like people
doing physical labor that's somewhat sort of fungible, right, Like one person's work
is going to be very similar in quality to another person's, not identical,
but just it's like there's a job to be done, and you do the
job. And I think that's kind of different from like writing a Hollywood movie,
where it's like, you know, art is different from craft and from
different types of work. You know, different types of work are different from
one another. But that's not to say there shouldn't be a writer skill.
That's just say on a previous episode, I said some things about like not
thinking it was all the best, and I want to make sure it's clear
that like I'm not saying that I don't think it should exist. And overall,
I think unions are very important, but that you know, it's just
it's always you know, always be concrete. Is kind of one of my
sort of mottos of thinking, which is like, let's look at exactly what's
going on here, you know, And a lot of a lot of unions
got slandered for as being corrupts, but then there also is some corruption sometimes
and say, you know, just like trying to draw large conclusions, I
think often leads to very poor thinking and then poor results or good results for
the people who are deliberately spreading such things, right, the misinformation and theology,
Yeah, yeah, exact exactly, Like I think the welfare mom is
one hundred percent of mythology that was constructed in this country very intentionally for very
specific reasons, you know, and is now being largely dismantled in a lot
of areas, but not in all. One thing I was thinking before,
when you're talking about mythology and how like people will look to see like,
is there like a spiritual meaning to the fact that these communities that seem so
unconnected come up with similar myths And this is kind of a divergence, but
it's all kind of connected. To me. There are two myths that I
think of that from like biblical times, that to me speak to two ways
they can be created that as a person of faith, I find spirituality in,
but I don't think are integrally. I think you can understand them without
any sense of spirituality whatsoever. One of which, as I said, is
that like most communities that experience a winter and experience a spring have holidays built
around that calendar that celebrate those things in some way. There's often a celebration
of abundance at the time of the harvest. There is often a sense of
hope in the time of the darkness most darkness. There's a time of renewal
and rebirth in the time of spring. And people can say, like,
oh, it's all stolen from Pagans, like many of the ways that it's
done is true, But like a lot of these cultures that have no connection
to each other whatsoever, still have that kind of celebration of some kind.
And I think, yeah, so like it. You can find spiritual meaning
in that. But you're also to say, like that makes sociological sense for
how we'd react to these cycles of the year in a totally different way.
Another thing that like you know, truthers of the Bible like to point to,
is that a number of different Middle Eastern cultures that had, as far
as we know archaeologically no contact with each other, have their own myth of
a flood, and that the flood mythology appears in a lot of these different
cultures, and so a lot of people point to and say, oh,
look, that's proof that, like, you know, Noah's ark in God's
Flood is real. Then some archaeologists looked into this a lot more and discovered
that there was a time when that part of the world was covered by a
glacier and at the end of the last Ice Age, that glacier melted and
there was intense flooding in a lot of the world, and that flooding is
I mean it's literally called the Fertile Crescent, and that flooding led to that,
but that the flooding caused massive disruption at the time it happened, and
so like of course all these people would have like a story about a flood
because there was flooding, but it wasn't like it is easily scientifically explained,
not necessarily, you know, God got angry and thus became incredibly genocidal,
you know whatever the story is. So I think, and it's funny because
I I knew, well, I thought that you were going to mention the
flood because when I was like much like in school, I remember like actually
doing some sort of like just like comparative method, just like looking at like
several different mythologies, not even just in in that area, but like throughout
the world. And this like idea of a flood does seem to be like
recurring in many places. And you know, the idea that like, yeah,
well there was a nice age and the glaciers melted and like, you
know it like something being inspired by history doesn't mean that it's like you know
exactly what happened, right And and so if you know, if you look
at one mythology or another, and and if if you draw some you know,
whatever kind of feelings from that, you know, that's cool. I'm
not saying you shouldn't, you know, but it definitely you know, I
mean we can see where where certain stories can presumably have come from. And
how you know, stories change over time, right, I mean especially before
before the written word, right, like stories, Yeah, you know,
stories were passed down generation generation and you know, probably combined and split into
different versions. And I mean this, I mean certainly we know of that
happening, like it certainly happened biblically, and that you know, we have
different creation stories that are not only logically contradictory in terms of the number of
days, but like you know, one God is this primordial force that moves
over the waters. And in another is this being that walks in the garden
with Adam and Eve, and like all these differences, and the Hebrew that
they're written in is two fundamentally different dialects. And so now a lot of
people have come to understand that there were a number of different Hebraic groups that,
like when the Hebrew people were formed like people as a way of building
a national mythology to pull people together, like combine all these stories in the
same way. We know that like the Saxon and other peoples who lived in
pre Norman invasion Britain had these stories about a king Arthur and a round table
and all these kind of like epic stories, and that the Norman invaders the
French, brought with them the story of Lancelot and the story of a king
and a knight and a queen and this like love triangle they had. Today
we think of them all as part of the Arthur's story of you know,
Arthur's cycle of stories, and the version we have fits together. But you
know, you go back into the records of the stories, it's pretty fundamentally
clear that they are two totally different origins two total different stories. They've just
kind of come together, you know, and similar like did he pull the
sword out of a stone or did he get the sword given to him by
the lady of the lake? Like some versions now will kind of combine the
two and have like, you know, he got it out of a stone,
but then it's lost in a lake or vice versa. There were just
two different stories like a combined into one mythological cycle. Doesn't Beowulf have like
a lady in a lake with a sword or something like that? Also or
I read I read the book was twenty five years ago and saw the movie
and mostly was noticing Angelina Julie, but like the main woman in that is
the mother of Grendel, Like Grendel is the first monster and then his mother
Julie is the second. But yeah, there's probably some there may well be
some origin to that. It's interesting. I watched most of the first episode
of The Last Kingdom. I think it's like Saxon, It's it's by It's
based on a set of novels by Bernard Cornwell, who did the Sharps novels,
which I did not read these ones, and I don't think I'm gonna
keep watching the series, but it's it's maybe good, I don't know,
but it's you know, it's just interesting to see kind of that that's the
period of I think it's like the eight hundreds or something. It's it's the
pre you know, Norman invasion, right, And I so I think I'm
wondering whether it kind of goes a little bit into the Arthurian kind of like
you know, the older story, you know, or the the Saxon story
as opposed to the you know, the Norman story. Also, today or
yesterday, I was looking. I was trying to figure out why they keep
saying al slash NL records like in MLB instead of just saying MLB, and
I still don't understand why. But somehow I went down some like reddit hole
and like saw something about how the the NFC and the NFL absorbed all sports
ball terms. By the way, for those who totally lost, MLB is
Major League Baseball, American League and National League and NFC is National Football Conference.
That's right, there's an audience for this. I'm not just talking to
you. But anyway, like this, one large football league absorbed a smaller
football league but took on their two point conversion rule, Like apparently the NFC
didn't have the two point conversion and so it's like, you know, they
absorbed this other you know, and I mean, I guess these leagues didn't
have like huge mythologies built up, although you know, you were referencing baseball
mythology earlier, so it just kind of it It just it just felt like
a weird parallel of like, you know, two things merging that were similar
but different. But how then they they end up making something new that has
aspect of you know, both. Yeah, it's kind of totally irrelevant,
but you know, I mean, this whole thing has been so you know,
well, I'm glad we could still find an hour of things to discuss
in this. I'm not surprised we probably go a lot longer. But I'll
just say, do you have any last thoughts about the whole this whole Blart
experience and thoughts that leads you to on on perspectives and suffering and hope and
mythology or idiots doing podcasts for no good reason or anything else. I guess
that the the here on the you know, kind of at the conclusion of
the holiday season, I feel thankful that the people that I like to podcast
with and the person I most podcast with did not want me to do that
specific thing no, because I would have said no and probably maybe not felt
that bad about it. But you know, I'm glad that you didn't ask
me to watch the movie. This was much better and I and I appreciate
it. So yeah, it's funny because they did one year, they did
a thing where one of them didn't watch the movie and they tried to see
if they could guess who hadn't watched it. I do think it would be
fun as an idea is to have like a once a month podcast where five
people get together to talk about a movie, but every month one person hasn't
seen it and they just try to like, guess who that is? I
love that page a new podcast? Did you come up with right here?
Now? No? I love it? I love it. Can I always
be the one who didn't watch the movie? Though? This is not in
service of laziness, No, not laziness. I would have to look at
the Wikipedia page. I'd have to watch like you know, pitch meetings and
like get all the references and stuff. You know. Yep, yep,
that could be fun especially because like me going back and keep harping on this,
but like, there are definitely mythologies around movies that aren't true. Oh
yeah, I mean play it again, Sam, Yeah, literally, I
am not your father. Yeah, it's all there. So all right,
we're gonna talk a little bit morebout mythology and a bonus section till then,
though, thank you all so much for listening. This has been a little
bit of a strange episode, but strange is what we do here. But
the point is we can find something to discuss in anything. Definitely check out
the podcast Till Death do us Blart. You're not watching the movie when Paul
was saying they were thankful that I didn't ask them to watch it. I
think it's the cinematic equivalent of oh this smells so bad. Here smell this,
and I feel like a better person because I've stopped feeling a need to
get people to smell this. Yeah, I think so. Last was the
last one that you said to anything about smell this? Yeah, exactly,
exactly so Yeah. So check out their podcast. Check out our other podcasts,
this Star Wars Universe podcast of course. Please become a member five dollars
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show notes until then, not today, death, not today,