In that way. In human relationship with man or woman, or between a neighbor and so on, the image making is the process of registration, right. That is, when a wife says something ugly, to listen to it and end it, not to register it, you'd see. Or when the husband says something ugly, listen to it catholic edit, not carry it on. Then you will find that there is no image making at all, because if there is no image between the man and the woman, then relationship. Are quite different, entirely different. But when there is an image between the two, the relationship is between one thought opposed to one other. Right, And that we called relationship, which actually is not. It's just an idea that I am, that you're my wife or my girlfriend, just an idea. Do you get all this. A merty, don't be playing man, ladies and gentlemen. The voice of reason has returned to the scene of the conversation. I am rejuvenated, back in the building, ready to cook, got a barn burner of a topic. Here's the thing, And of course this topic is coming from a bunch of conversations that I've had recently. And whether it's an intimate relationship or a friendship or family member. Man, you gotta translate who you really are so their perception of you can align with your translation of you. Nah, I'm not doing it. I'm gonna let you be confused as to who you think I am. Do you understand like when I was younger, I was with the smoke. I want to argue, I want to I want to do it all day. I wanna clown. I don't want to do that no more. It's a waste of time for me. Do you you feel what I'm saying, like I gotta be doing something else. When I was younger, I was with it. Yeah, let's let's let's get to it. You're confused, and this is why, because nobody knows me better than me. Do you understand I am the experience of me internally? You are the experience of me externally. You don't understand what the inner workings under the hood. I can translate myself to you, but I can't rewrite myself for you. A deeper investigation into weather intimacy. This is gonna be a hard topic, and I know a lot of people want to talk about it too. Listen, nonjudgmental space, you can call in. I want to hear your thoughts one eight hundred and nine twenty fifteen eighty Do you find yourself stuck in a way trying to explain and interpret and help your partner understand you have to learn the language of their perception in order for them to understand man and vice versa. I would say that's a vice versa thing. A deeper investigation into whether intimate mastery requires learning the language of your partner's perception without rewriting your own interior to make their interpretation of you true? Are you loving me? Or your interpretation of me? Oh? My god? True intimacy asks each partner to become fluent enough in the other person's perceptual world to understand how meaning gets made there. That fluency carries an obligation towards translation, not surrender. I may need to learn why my silence registers as rejection to you, why my directness lands as hostility, Why why are you angry? Why you start turned up? Because I'm being misunderstood, because I'm being marginalized. My point is being thrown away as if it's as if nothing has been said. And then if, if if I intensify all of a sudden, I'm not who I am, right, I'm somebody else. Do you see? So? I may need to learn why my silence registers as rejection to you, why my directness comes across as hostility, why my need for space awakens fear, or why an action I experienced as neutral right acquired an entirely different meaning inside of you. Perceptual bilingualism gives love that range. It allows two people to cross the distance between separate intent without requiring either person to abandon their own point of origin. Yes, I said perceptual bilingualism. No, it's not a clinical term. But I need to understand the vocabulary of your perception and you need to understand the vocabulary of mine, or we're gonna run aground. We're not gonna understand each other clearly, Do you understand? The deeper conflict begins when understanding another person's perception becomes a demand to reinterpret yourself through their perception. I won't do it. Have you ever had somebody or been with somebody and they loved everything about you until there was conflict and then everything about you is wrong? Wait, I'm a genius when it's all good, but then I'm an a hole when we got conflict and somebody saying, well, maybe you're an a hole when there's conflict. Yeah, perception, I want to know. Your experience of me deserves consideration. Your interpretation of me deserves examination. Many people can't stomach the examination of their interpretation of another person. They think my interpretation of you is the actual truth of who you really are. Well, let's go back to Alfred Korzibski. The map is not the territory. Your perception of me is a map of me, it's not the actual reality of me. And that perception could go through some filters, whatever broken relationship construct that raised you. Right, you're looking at that person through those filters. Your experience of me deserves consideration. Your interpretation of me deserves examination. Right neither automatically possesses the final authority over who I am, what I intend, or what exists inside of me. The same limitation applies to me. I cannot use self knowledge as immunity from what you observe. You cannot use impact as proof that you possess complete knowledge of my interior. Have you ever been truly sorry that there was a miscommunication and maybe you said something that you wish you didn't say. And you apologize for it, and you genuinely say, hey, I apologize for that. That was not my intention. I did not mean it, and a person turned around and says, yes, you did, totally throwing out your sincere apology and your sincere acknowledgement of something that you may have done. They throw it out as if it's not real. Intimacy requires enough humility for both forms of information to remain in the room, to remain in the environment right. This makes revisibility indispensable. A perception capable of love must remain capable of learning new behavior must have some power to disturb old conclusions. Clarification must remain eligible right to change meaning. Here's the clarify. I'm trying to clarify what I meant, and if you truly care about me, you would consider the clarification. If I matter, if I have meaning right, the living person must retain the right to contradict the image already formed of them. If you love me, I should be able to contradict the image you have of me. And I'm not talking about if I'm abusive or anything like that. I'm simply saying, if I said something that wasn't an alignment with your image. First off, you shouldn't take your image of me as the real mean anyway. Man, do you know how many people I've dated that said you the voice of reason? You should have the answer for that. Wait, you're gonna you're gonna bring up the radio. You the voice. So at no point in my life can I be confused about anything. I gotta have an answer on deck all the But wait a minute. When I do have answers, typically you rebuff those. I don't want your answers. Don't this ain't the radio. Don't come in here trying to I'm not on your cow. I don't hey what, don't try to teach me. But then you, the voice of reason, the irony again, the perception capable of love, must remain capable of learning new behavior, must have some power to disturb old conclusions. When we come forward the voice of reason, I'm going to open up the phone lines. Let's get started. Let's talk about tonight's conversation. Question is what is dialogue? So dialogue is basically a new way of talking, and it's broken down into three parts mirroring, validating, and empathizing. And the mirroring is an experience where you listen to another person and you get what they're saying and don't deflect it. Validating is when you see the logic and what they're saying and you don't have to agree with it, but you see it and you honor it. And empathy is when you experience the emotions they have with what they're saying and you really understand that that's the experience. Well, the biggest impact that dialogue has owned couples is that it transforms the relationship. Incrementally makes it better, but it actually transforms the relationship because couples partners begin to see each other in a new way, and they begin to relate to each other in a new way. What happens when you do this dialogue process is that you create a place of emotional safety, and in the place of emotional safety, people who are there begin to fuel themselves, expressing themselves in a new and different way. They become vulnerable to each other. And the reason they become vulnerable is that in a safe place, there's no judgment. You're holding each other's reality, without judgment, without criticism, without any kind of blame or disagreement, even of it's simply them being themselves and when you hold people in that space, the otherness of each other begins to emerge with great delineation and clarity. You see the other as not you, and they see you as not them. And when that otherness emerges, then what can happen is connection at a very deep level. And we think that also what happens here is that love can be born, because love is, in fact, two people who are an other to each other, caring for each other's welfare and being an advocate of each other's potential, the fascinating part of the. Other to each other. I love that. That was great? Who was that? Andy? He was cooking with the rarest Grease, Harville Hendricks ba bah bah bah he was cooking with the rares Grease. You know already know who these people are. I just love to ask Andy, Andy be keeping me on point here. Ish. Tonight's topic is one of those topics. Have you ever felt misunderstood by your partner over and over again? You feel like you're having the same conver or even your friends where sometimes their strength and just not responding. Oh, you going out of your way to misinterpret me. You making what I said align with what you think I meant. You don't want to know what I meant. You have no care for what I actually meant, because if you did, you would have did some investigation in your communication. You would have said, wait a minute, what do you mean by that? Can you expound before I give you my final evaluation? All right, let me say it again. A perception capable of love must remain capable of learning. If you're in a conversation with your friend, your lover, your family members, and you're not trying to learn from them, you're not communicating like I really want to know where you're coming from. I'm not trying to learn the language of your perception. I'm trying to impose my perception of who I think you are onto you. How many people have you dealt with that are like that? Twenty fifteen eighty listen to one of my new behaviors. Must have some power to disturb old conclusions. I've always thought that about you. Wait a minute, and then when they do something different, they now you're surprised. I never thought you would do that, of course, because you're leaning on old conclusions. Clarification must remain eligible to change meaning. In other words, if I bring clarity clarification for what is going on. You should be able to recontextualize that image. The living person must retain the right to contradict the image already formed of them. Once perception becomes impossible to revise, communication changes function. Explanation no longer carries new information. It becomes evidence possessed by a verdict already reached. When I come forward the voice of reason, we're going to continue cooking up this few right now. So with that conceptual background, I'd like to attempt a description of empathy which would seem satisfactory to me today. I would no longer be termining it a state of empathy, which was in my earlier definition, because I believe it to be a process rather than a state, And perhaps I can capture that quality the way of being with another person, which is termed empathic as several facets. It means entering the private, perceptual world of the other and becoming thoroughly at home in it. Hmm. It involves having sensitive, being sensitive moment to moment to the changing felt meanings. Nah positives, hold on, hold on, is that my homeboy, Marshall? Wait? Who is that? That's positive? Unconditional positive regard Carl Rogers. Hold on, he said. Empathy is entering the perceptual world of another. I'm gonna let it. We're gonna start him over. But have you ever been grieving? Maybe you lost a job, you lost a girlfriend, you lost a boyfriend, uh, you lost a family member. And people will say I I'm gonna give you some time, and then they determine how much time you need. Then they come back talking crazy, as if you weren't grieving when they said they was gonna get So do you understand what I'm saying? People are so selfish Sometimes they want you to show up the way they need you when they need you. So in one moment, is I okay, I'm oh you you grieving? Oh this is heavy. Okay, I'm gonna give you a little time. Say a week go by, you should be good. Now we should have had a conversation. I've been trying to have. Wait, what so you gonna put a time limit on When it's been a week, you should be good and will come back talking to you as crazy as they did before. See, I done got to the point in my life when I stop talking to you. That's all the indication you need from me. I don't stop talking, man, play Carl Rogers man unconditional positive regard. So with that conceptual background, I'd like to attempt a description of empathy which would seem satisfactory to me today. I would no longer be termining it a state of empathy, which was in my earlier definition, because I believe it to be a process rather than a state, and perhaps I can capture that quality. The way of being with another person, which is termed empathic as several facets. It means entering the private, perceptual world of the other and becoming thoroughly at home in it. It involves having sensed it, being said sensitive moment to moment, to the changing felt meanings which flow in this other person, to the fear or rage or tenderness or confusion or whatever that he or she is experiencing. It means temporarily living in his life, moving about in it. Pause. Do you hear what he explained? Andy's shaking his head. Andy in here like damn, Because that's the real He's explaining the real reality of what it is to be in relationship with somebody and be in their perceptual reality from an empathetic lens. That's what it is Man, do you know how many people don't know how to be with another human being as their raw human selves? Carl Rogers is explaining it right there, Bring it back twenty seconds because he's on complete fire. Being sensitive moment to moment, do the changing felt meanings which flow in this other person to the fear or rage or tenderness or confusion or whatever that he or she is experiencing. It means temporarily living in his life, moving about in it delicately without making judgments, sensing meanings of which he is scarcely aware, but not trying to uncover feelings of which he is totally unaware. Pause without making judgments. Man, if you going through something and you say something crazy to me, it's up and it's stuck. Am I lying? Andy? I'm not even here to understand what you're going through. Can't you see I'm trying to help you. So because you care about me, that means you get to disrespect me all in the name of care. Right let him finish, Andy, I'm sorry. It includes communicating your sensings of his world as you look with fresh and unfrightened eyes at elements of which he is fearful. It means frequently checking with him as to the accuracy of your sensings and being guided by his responses. You are a confident companion to him in his world by pinting to the possible meanings in the flow of his or herds. Wait, wait, bring it back, Andy, at least thirty more seconds. He's just dropping too much, he said. You a companion in his world. You're not in control. You're walking with his process. Do you understand being in that perceptual world? No, don't nobody communicate like that. What's wrong with you? You got to get right so I can be good again with you. Go ahead andie this world as you look with fresh and unfrightened eyes at elements of which he is fearful. It means frequently checking with him as to the accuracy of your sensings and being guided by his responses. You are a confident companion to him in his world. By pinting to the possible meanings in the flow of his or her experiencing, you help him to focus on this useful type of reference, to experience his meanings more fully, and to move forward in his or her experiencing. Nah, this is too good to be true. Andy. People don't do that. People only care about their time, their co attribution, and their energy to another person, and ultimately they want to pay off from that. They could care less about the person they're dealing with. Listen what I Once perception becomes impossible to revise, Communication changes function, Explanation no longer carries new information. It becomes evidence possessed by a verdict already reached. The more one partner explains, the more they may find themselves editing the source rather than improving the translations. DC That marks the threshold. I can translate my experience into language you can receive. I can reconsider myself when your perception reveals something I have failed to see. But I cannot rewrite my interior merely to make your interpretation of me correct. There are so many people who just don't want to know what's going on with you. They just want the end result that they showed up to receive from you. Listen, when we come forward, the voice of reason is going to keep this fire lit. I was working with twenty three psychiatrists in one community, and I was giving them an exercise on empathic connection, and I asked them to write down what they would say to people to empathically connect with them who expressed certain things. So one of the things that I've said, in the role of a patient that came to see them was, I'm feeling so depressed. I don't know that I want to keep alive. I think the world would be better off without me. And I asked each of them to write down what would be an imp ethic reaction to this person's statement. I would then ask them to hand in these responses they made, and then I said, I'm going to read each of these out loud, and I'd like you to raise your hand. If you were that person expressing this pain, that you would really feel an empathic connection, an understanding of what you were feeling and needing hands. Who is this Andy? I think I know? Is is this Marshall? That Rosenberg? Right? Yes, yes, I'm gonna go back to them, but hold tight. You can't be empathic if you're holding a grudge. That's why most of y'all misinterpret what your person is saying. They have offended the image you've held in your mine about them, and once they've offended that image, you start building a case file, a dossier. This is what it is when the image is defiled. Now you can defile the person. It could be a person you once respected. And why is it that, in your misinterpretation or your declaration of what you think the person is, you get to be nasty, disrespectful, condescending, and then wrap it all up as the truth. Oh, I'm just telling the truth. What I can't translate myself to fit your perception of me. I'm no longer going listen when I'm explaining something to you. That's me caring enough to do so. Right, I'm saying, Hey, how you see it is not exactly the way it is. Let me give you some context, let me expound and share with you what's going on. If you right, or if you are like inflexible and you don't want to change your perspective after I've given you context, then that means you've already passed the verdict before you got the information. You see, I can't. I'm at a point now where there's power in skipping the translation. I can translate my experience into language you might be able to receive. I can also reconsider myself when your perception reveals something I may have failed to see some blind spots that I didn't see. I can also rewrite well before I even go there, let me stop, let me say it again. I can reconsider myself when your perception reveals something I have failed to see. So when you're talking to your partner and they point out something that you may have missed, and then you come back and say, you know what, You're right, I did miss that. Thank you for that clarification. Let me reorganize my perception around the blind spots you revealed. And then they act like they're superior to you because they showed you something. And first off, it is a gift to be acknowledged, and that goes both ways. When you acknowledge, like if your partner actually shows you a blind spot, thank you, that's gratitude, thank you so much for showing me that. I didn't see that. But they act like they're superior to you because they did that, and that reinforces their sense of rightness. You remember the last time I showed you something you missed? Do you understand what I'm saying? Here's the central question. Can two people learn each other's perceptual language deeply enough to understand one another while remaining free enough to revise what they believe, disagree without erasing each other, and allow the person they love to remain larger than the interpretation they have formed of them. It's I don't seen it. People can go It's almost like they going through something. Oh, this person is going through something. They're experiencing grief. I'm gonna wait for the grief to subside before I continue my war with them, the war of who I think they are versus who they really are, and that a deeper I can translate myself to you, I can't rewrite myself for you. A deeper investigation into whether healthy relationship communication ends and self abandonment begins when your partner's perception demands a different version of you Gosh one eight hundred nine twenty fifteen eighty translation versus alteration? Geesh, are you loving me or your interpretation of me? What happens to emotional intimacy when your image of your partner becomes more powerful than the person standing in front of you? Gosh, I can't become your version of me? How about that? I simply can't become your version of me. A deeper investigation and intriguing investigation into whether understanding your partner requires learning their perspective without surrendering your identity to their interpretation. When your perception of me becomes when I come forward, I'm gonna give you to rest it out. When this is on fire tonight, we got callers calling it. We're about to take it over the top. So let's start with what I heard. Men have used you as a sex object. Okay. There's a lot of women here and men who can identify with that. Okay, so let's hear what you've written. I am angry and saddened by I could put so many names in here, but I just wrote men. Because they win my trust and then they betray me. Okay, So what's an example of Okay, turn that around. Let's turn it around that I win my trust and then I betray myself. I win their trust and then I betray them. I win their trust and then I betray them. And how do you do that? By not telling them how I really feel? Yes? Yes, by not telling them how she really feels. Because I'm afraid to show my pain to them. And because you don't let them know, they just keep doing what they're doing. Thinking you both agree on it, right, Yeah. But I can't find that voice, honey, I mean. I want to find it. Yeah, I'm afraid to say it. Yeah. If I want something from my husband, I can do all kinds of lies about around it. I can be his sex goddess. I can cook him as great meal. I can do all this stuff so he'll give me what I want, you see. Or I can just say, you know, honey, I'm going to do all of this and then will you do this? Well, first I'll ask him, will you just do this? And if he says no, I say, well, what about this barter system? You know? What if I cook for you? What if I love you? What if I you know? Or at least pretend you know all of this because you do or you don't? You do, you do, you don't? You know, depending on what you get or what you want. So I can be honest with him, But you see, what it could cost me is what I want. So I delude myself. I'm his sex goddess, I'm the great cook. I sacrifice my whole life and he still doesn't give me what I want. So I'm angry at him. I think he's psychic, you know, And it turns out he's not. He's not. So now I just ask but I don't try to buy it with my body, or am I cooking? See now, I have honest sex and I cook honestly. I do it for me. Yeah, looking too, Ladies and gentlemen. Who the Voice of Reason is on complete fire tonight? Andy? Who is that Byron? Katie? Got got got got got got out here cooking with the rares Grease? Tonight's topic is a deep one man. We got callers on the line. I want to get to him, our number two, the Voice of Reason, non judgmental zone. If you want to join the conversation, all you have to do is call us at one eight hundred and nine twenty fifteen eighty. When your perception of me becomes more real to you than I am. How projection, relationship history, and fixed interpretations can make two people stop encountering each other in the present. Is your relationship experiencing that? How long do I have to keep explaining who I am to you? Hey? An intriguing look into when relationship communications stop creating understanding and start becoming an endless trial against your partner's perception. I'm exhausted explaining who I am. See, here's the thing I have to explain who I am because you've never accepted who I am. You're only on board and at the table for negotiation with the version of me that you accept that you want. Huh one fifteen eighty You heard my words? But did you hear me? Why couples can communicate constantly yet remain strangers to the meaning behind each other's words? Yikes? Let me ask it another question another way, because I'm tired of playing with y'all. Are you fluent in the person you love? Are you fluent in them? Because your damn show? Fluent in you? Because whenever there's a conflict, you're understanding Trump's theirs, don't don't, don't act brand new tonight because I'm calling it out? Are you fluent in the person you love? Fascinating investigation exploration into perceptual bilingualism, partner understanding and whether two people can learn each other's language without losing fluency in their own? Do you really know me? Are you concerned about what I'm concerned about? Stop making me prove I'm not who you decided I am. What happens when every explanation, apology, emotion, and silence gets used to confirm your partner's existing story about you fifteen eighty. We got callers on the line. I'm gonna get him in here right now. Who's been on the longest, Denver, Colorado CALLI from Denver, Colorado. What are your thoughts on tonight's topic. I'm triggered and I don't do it. You should be triggered. Yes, I definitely appreciate the topic as I was. I've experienced this recently with the companion of mine where it was communicating. They sent a message and I just sent what I thought in the moment that would be funny back. And I did did contemplate before I sent what I sent to ask for clarification, but I pushed it. I plowed straight past that thought and just went to straight to what I thought. And Yeah, again, I definitely appreciate the topic tonight because I'm like, totally confirms that I should spend more time doing some investigative work when I'm unclear about something that someone is saying, because that's how so how mess becomes mess in relationships and resentments become resentments. Well, let's go even deeper. You said investigative work, Well, what kind of investigative work. Let's play the word game. Investigative work is one way? What's some other ways? I would just say, asking a simple question in the moment to get clarity. That's investigative. I like that. That's investigative. Let's see it. Are there other ways? Silence? Oh? Mindfulness? Wow? How novel of an idea? Mindfulness? How about sit down? Just be still? Ain't that what big Mama say? Here's a piece of candy? Be still? So that's the mindfulness? What else? I think empathy too. Goes along with yes, yes, now we're cooking. You've given them a blueprint. You said investigate. So is the investigation an inward investigation like self inquiry, like I'm looking inside in crey? Right? I think there is that, and then there's also, you know, with your loved one as well with whoever you're doing with this outside of you. Yeah. So you gave the investigative piece, you gave the mindfulness piece. Uh, then you gave an empathy piece trying to understand where they're coming from. Right? Do you think the lack of those three things is what actually creates this kind of intransient, kind of intractable, you know, unforgiveness energy that many people experience. Yeah, because if you have many moments like that. It just piles up and piles up and piles up, or packs down and packs down and packs down until somebody explodes. And then maybe something that is in a moment not necessarily a big deal. It's like, whoa, you're blown up about that, right, And it's like, nah, it was two months worth of stuff for two years, or you know whatever. How many other times I suppressed my thoughts or went too deep into my thoughts and fun out, went down the rabbit hole of my own deceptive illusions, started painting a picture of this person that wasn't true. Wow, I love it. I love it. This is good stuff. Cally's. So you're on the smooth Sounds of Zoe Williams's Voice of Reason live on KBLA Talk fifteen eighty. I just have one question to ask you, young lady. Guess what you just did. Brought Denver into the building. Denver, Colorado is in the building. If you want to bring your city in the building to join this non judgmental conversation, all you gotta do is call us at one eight hundred nine twenty fifteen eighty. Listen, we got more callers on the line. Let's get them in here. You already know what it is. We got the legendary Deaconess Nicki from the SIP is in the building, Nicki. What are your thoughts on tonight's topic? So the fam Hey, Hey, food for thought. Food for thought. Here we go. Isn't it interesting? Particularly in family relationships around grieving, that experience brings forward this word perception, which has to do with experiencing people who you say you love through your senses see here touch tastemau. I find often in familial relationships where perception is concerned, the people who you have the most trouble with understand that perception is their reality. They're not necessarily in tune with the deeper, particularly if you're a person who is showing up real as yourself to people who don't operate in real self realms. They only stay in perceived realms. That's why it's easy for them to say, there's a times on how long you get to be grieving before I come back to you with whatever that it is, because in reality, one cannot put a time stamp on another person's grief. You can observe their behavior to determine where they are in it, but not if you operate in the realm of perception. Then you asked earlier what happened when in relationships there is a breakdown in the translation. Well, particularly if you've had an opportunity to be exposed to the real me and you still operate in perception, what happens is you get to experience the absence of me. Wait, wait, hold on, don't go nowhere, Nikki, Nikki out here? Why now you get to experience the void when we come forward? More from Niki from the sill. This is UH the practice of the fourth mindful extraining, loving, peace, loving speech, and deep listening. H A bodhisa is someone who can talk. He can speak with a kind of language called gentle loving speech. Is someone who can listen with compassion. And if you can for three days, you might become able and you might talk to him or to her with that kind of langue wish and you might listen to him to her with that kind of compassion. You don't have to stractice ten years in order to do that. A few days maybe enough. Father that I know you have suffered so much in the past many years, I was not able to help you to suffer less. Instead, I have reacted angrily in such a way that makes the situation worse. That they is not my intention to make you suffer. That's only because I did not see the suffering in you. I did not understand the suffering in you. So please that they tell me what is in your heart. Tell me what is in the difficulties, no despair, the conflict in your heart. Please help me so that I will understand. If I understand, I will not act like the way I have in the past. Please help me. If you don't have me, who will help. That is the kind of loving speech, kind speech that you can you can do, you can heuse. That's the homie teach not Han rest in peace. Born in nineteen twenty six, passed away in nineteen twenty two. He was speaking of the energy of a bodies satphah. Just being in the very presence of a bodies satfah uh induces some type of self realization. And he was saying, you only need two days in their presence, not years. That was very interesting and I'm a big believer in that. I believe the mask creates perception, right, and we have a perception of ourselves, which is the mask. We want people to accept that perception. We try to project it out onto others, and then we have a perception of others and we want them to accept our perception of them. I'm gonna tell you right now, I don't give a damn who you think I am. Whatever you think of me can't be true because it's coming from you. It can't be true because I'm me. Now. You might be able to experience me in a certain way. You might be able to ascertain from your perspective through your lens, maybe a fractal right of the totality of who I am as a being, But your definition of that fractal means absolutely nothing to me. Stop making me prove I'm not who you decided I am. And many people in relationships are dating the image, are loving on the image right, and this is why they never make contact with the real person. Nikki from the sip, stay with me. I'm gonna carry you to the other side because I want you to have time to land your plane and then we're going to go to OKAC. When we come forward, the callers are still coming in. Let's get it today. I'll talk about consciousness and the interface theory of perception. One third of your brain's cortex is engaged in vision. When you simply open your eyes and look around, you're using billions of neurons and trillions of synapses just to see the world in this room. This might be a bit surprising to most of us because to the extent that we think about vision at all, we think of it as like a camera. Vision is just a process of taking a snapshot of a world that exists out there, that has objects, colors, shapes, and motions. So there is a part of vision that is like a camera, and that is the eye. The eye has a lens which focuses an image on the back of the eye, where there's a piece of tissue called the retina, about one hundred and twenty million photoreceptors and two hundred million inter neurons that do sophisticated processing, a very very sophisticated piece of computational hardware. It's also an example of unintelligent design. The light goes through the lens and it has to go through all the inter neurons and blood vessels before it reaches the photoreceptors which are behind. That's really bad. That's true of vertebrate eyes, thought eyes. They have it right. The photo receptors are in front, the interneurons and the blood vessels are behind. We got the B model, So why all this horsepower in the brain just to look. The idea from cognitive neuroscience is that perception vision is really a reality engine. In real time, you're creating all the depths, colors, motions, shapes, textures and objects that you see. So you are creating the reality that you experience right now. You're not just taking a snapshot of a world that was already there. So, for example, just a couple concrete examples, this table and that table have exactly the same shape of the tabletop. One might look low, gosh. Who was that, Andy Donald Hoffman? I let your reality down. I didn't let you down. You had a reality of me that I let down. Gosh, this is why you can't see me as another human being that's flawed like you. I let your reality of me down. The name of sweet baby raised barbecue sauce. Let me get Nikki in here to finish her final thought. Then we're going to Okay, see Nikki, please land your plain sweetheart the song. If you don't know me by now ooh, simply read. Okay, Now, it is not a coincidence that that song resonates, particularly as it rates to this topic, because that song isn't talking about a perception. It's talking it's not talking about a performer person. It is talking about the real you, whoever you are. And when people are sincere in knowing the reallyion, we don't have to talk about translating you over and over and over again. So if you need that translation, particularly after significant exposure passed the three days, for example, then perhaps you will understand better with the absence of me. People generally get clearer when their absence, when. They got just themselves. Hey, Nikki, I love you to death. You already know that, right? You know that? Right, Nikki? You know. I appreciate you. Guess what you just did about to sip. In the building and I still love it. We love you. Mississippi is in the building because of Nikki from the sip. But hey, is this our first call from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma is in the building, Duke? What up? What are your thoughts on tonight's topic? And because this is your first call? I gotta tell you no profanity talk to us? What else with you? Thoe? What's up? Good? Brother man. I mean, uh, I thought you I thought you was going in and I want to comment on the specifically two points that you made as far as and I got my phone on speaker. If I need to take it off, I can if its. You sound pretty good right now? Yeah, you sound pretty good. Just no profanity and we good. What are your thoughts on the topic? So, yeah, you were speaking about you know, can you speak your the person? And you're in you're in a relationship with can you speak the language? And the other topic is living up to other people's expectations. I do think these things are parallel, kind the one and the same. They kind of butchets off of each other. And I will say that I can speak my significant other language, but do I want to know? Because I'll end up play I'll end up play caten and compromising on ship on things. Excuse excuse me, I apologize, end up compromising on things that I don't want to and that and that goes into the living up to other people's expectations. Right. I think men are coming into themselves and realizing that we don't have to live up into up to nobody's expectations, but our. Own hold on Now you can't say in one breath you don't want to speak their language because you wind up, you know, play Caten. Then I'm gonna say, is that their problem or your problem? I'm gonna say it's a relationship issue. Nah, it's it's a strength issue. It's an internal strength issue. If you play Caten, who they didn't make you play Kate? You did, so why would you blame them for play Kating. I'm not blaming anybody for play Caden. What I'm saying is society has these rules already in place. For example, monogamy is the norm. What if I don't want to deal with monogamy with it exactly. But what I'm saying to you as a young man, it was hard for me to say that. Now that I'm in my mere forties, I'm coming into myself and I don't have to play k right. I don't have to live up to these expectations that the world put on me, or that you're trying to put on me. I can say, get with this program, right, I'm accepting. I'm accepting. I'm accepting responsibility because I think that in my younger years I did try to conform to what the world around me said I should be, and I don't want to live up to those expectations. I'm a man. You were young, and I have my home. Yeah, you were young, and that's okay. It sounds like you found your strength. But again, be comfortable with saying when I was young, I was weak and now I'm stronger and I can stand on my own. Oftentimes men are so afraid of the word weakness that they can't be honest about the time when they were weak. I'm simply listening to you talk and you're talking about play caton. That's weakness you talking about. You understand what I'm saying. Just be honest and say, you know what, I was weak at that moment. I'm not weak like that no more. Now I can stand on the truth of who I am. Does that make sense? No, that makes absolutely sense. And I want to take it a bit further because I think that also you know, and you probably won't agree with me on this, but I would even throw religion into the mix too. I don't want to. I don't want I don't want to agree to those terms. You feel me and you won't you won't take it that far. But also, these are terms and conditions that other people are projecting on meat that are not my own, and I don't have to accept as a. Man hundred percent. Wait, that's a hundred perent. I agree with that one hundred percent. But let me ask you this. How old are you? Brother? You said you're in your forties, right, forty three? Forty three? Come on, grown man. I love it. I love what you're doing here. But do you speak Aramaic, Hebrew, Aderbic, Greek? I don't. Then, don't back off of religion until you study it all the way to the bone to the bone marrow. See, it's easy to quit something before you learned it. See, I've studied it, so I am qualified to go. No, I'm good. I see how you change the translation? The translation in twenty twenty six, it's different than the translation in nineteen ninety six, which is different than the translation in nineteen fifty six. See, I've studied. Oh, I see you trying to hide that word there? Oh? Why are you? Why is this word still transliterated? What's the difference between translation and transliteration? See, if you don't know, don't back out. Figure do you understand? What do you understand? What I'm saying that's fair and. Stay right there. Don't go nowhere. No, don't go nowhere. I need you stay right there, don't go nowhere. Okay, se is on the line, he cooking. When we come forward, more heat. From the v O R. We need the black version that simply read did not create this song. Simply read version is a remake. I need the soul and grit's version I need, we need something was missing. Did y'all you see the way he came in and the grit wasn't there. I need the grit where Uncle Tony at Tony said we need black people on the show. Here we go see this that black church, right, I gotta understand this, that break up church music. Now, baby, I know the difference. Come on, that's wheat right at wrong. My, my, my, I ain't gonna do nothing, so up said I have that. My question is how can we maintain our own entailor to your identity and a relationship, especially a close one, without compromising me in take other. Strock listen, I wanted I wanted to cook because that was a new Ramdas clip and he was gonna cook. But my caller, Duke from OKAC is on the line, and I want him to have a little bit more time to say what he needs to say, but he must not use profanity. Duke from OKC, get back in here your thoughts, man, Come on, share with me. You were cooking, man, You was cooking too, And I appreciate you for letting me go. And I apologize for you know, talking out of bounds. But like we were saying, you made the point as far as just like maybe I haven't studied enough. Right, well, then the owners, Well, the onus is on you, then, sir, because I would challenge you to tell me and your audience something profound that you learned in another language that I didn't in English, that you may have to make make me look in a different manner. Nope, the onus is not on me. You came here with your own purpose. The onness is not on me. It's on you to discover. But you found me, nonetheless, right indeed, all right then, so it's not on me to point you in the right direction. You found the which is why you're here right now. But again, if you understand what you're saying, you're saying, I'm not going to be beholden to any concept or construct, right your perception of me, the book's perception of me, the religion's perception of that's what you're saying, correct. I'm saying that I am entitled to create my. Own one hundred percent. So look, we walking the same path, so I'm not beholden. Then if we're on the same path, we're learning together. So I. I agree. I agree to a certain extent because my brother, I still think you have hurdles, and that is the religious hurdles, because like you're telling me that, maybe I don't know enough. But I'm thinking that because I don't know the language. I have read translations and transliterations, and I read a lot. Also, I got a nice little library myself, nice right, and I have not. I have not come to the same conclusion that you have. And maybe you may be more well studied, and maybe we can have this conversation about religion and maybe you can enlighten me on things because I come from a I have an agnostic point of view right then that I don't know and I haven't. I haven't been I haven't seen substantial enough evidence to make me, you know, just certain, right, I would love to be certain. I think the other side is beautiful. I think that that. If that is true, then it's great, But I'm just not convinced. Then you can't say you're agnostic if you would love it to be the opposite. Agnostic. It's a Greek word, and whenever you see a Greek word, just know when there's an A in front of a Greek word, that a means against. So when you see atheist, a thought us against God. When you see agnostic, a gnosis against knowledge? D you see did you know that? Uh? Well, that may be how the word No, No, no, that's not that's not what I asked you. I asked you, did you know that? No, then don't claim it. Do you understand? Hold on? But no, I hear exactly what you're saying, But the definition doesn't say that you hear me. I know, I'm just listen. I'm trying to give you the game. Can break down hold on, hold on, You can break down a word at the etymologically speaking, when you did this word means this, this word means that. But when you put these words two words together, it's a. It's a. It's a definition for the new word, right, So you are correcting what those words mean. Separate When when you put those two words again, there's a concept behind it, and agnostic means that you know, you don't know if they're is a god or there isn't a god, but he hasn't made himself known. And you don't have no, Uh you don't. You don't have enough evidence to substantiate. Now, look, let. Me just ask, I mean, pull up, pull up the definition. No, No, I don't have to. I already know the definition. It's cool, Uh that that that's not the point that I'm trying to make. When people say there's no evidence of God, I always take you're a proponent of science, aren't you. Uh, yes, if you're an agnostic, come on, quantum mechanics. Against But I'm not. I'm not against the other side because I know, like when you say anti, right, that's the literal. But I'm saying that I'm just not convinced. You know, I'm so you're open. It's not that I'm against exactly. I'm good. That's a good place to be. Being open is the greatest place to be because that's where the information comes in unfiltered. But open also means unconditioned, so you can't come from the perspective of I'm agnostic, which is your You said that, you said I'm more of an agnostic, so and I'm saying, don't claim that. Right. If you're open, then you're in the gate. That's where all the probabilities are superposition. You should be there right. Yes, in a way, but in a way let me okay, yeah, because so So this is why I say that agnostic is a person who believes that nothing is known or can be known about the existence or nature of God. So whenever you say that, I'm in that position because whenever I ask, though, I say, how do you know about God? You can only reference scriptures and the feeling that you that you've had. But to me, it don't mean shit. There you go again. See gosh, we was having a great conversation and then you start cussing. Oh goodness, Andy, you called it, didn't you? Andy said if he cursed one more time, I'm gonna drop him in the name of sweet baby raised barbecue sauce. Well, listen, we got Monday off to a bang. Guess what. I'm gonna be back here tomorrow with another slapper. It's gonna be great. I'm Zoe Williams, the Voice of Reason, I'll see y all tomorrow with another Eater, Douce