Kind: captions Language: en [Music] Hey fellow GMT, do those like our spirituality with a twist. So this is a special episode, a different kind of episode in our cult series we've been working on. Um we wanted to talk a little about trying to to unite to bridge the differences between people in such a alienated world. And uh I will try to share my experiences of trying to unite with two long-term friends I was estranged from. One from the left, one from the right. And this could be our little like a little bit more of a personal episode talking about this. So anyways, the cult thing was sometime around January. Daniel and I looked at one another and went, "Oh shit." And we were trying to figure out what to do about that in terms of our episodes. And because we're essentially an educational and spiritual podcast, we decided to do things on cults and cult psychology. So, we've done a lot of episodes about that kind of stuff if you're curing curious about looking back at those things. Talked about uh psychology of conformity and issues of social cohesion. And we got other episodes in the pipeline, but this one's a little bit different. And for me, Daniel, it was sort of trying to use like the materials of our episodes to see if I can like reconnect with people as the project of maybe what we all have to be trying to do at this point. See if we can kind of like reach across the aisles and reconnect with people. And I was specifically inspired to have us talk about it because I think the things that you and I have been talking about in these episodes were sort of helpful in trying to make these reconnections with people. So, I don't know. Um, have you had situations like this uh in the more recent in your life where you had to do this kind of stuff? Yeah, I mean I think this is always happening, right? This is happening whether there's, you know, any kind of ideological divide, whether they be social, cultural, political, religious, you know, difference of opinion at work, whatever the case is. It's sort of we're always dealing uh with how do we overcome division? what is the what are the methods to do this? And so it's you know and maybe we'll maybe even in this way that I'll say it, it'll be the sort of preamble for the rest of the episode. It's not about overcoming division. It's about fostering union. Yeah. Because even by even in like you know and this is a a deep kind of admission for myself when I am guiding somebody in a meditation or when I'm in the treatment room and I'm talking to somebody before they rest. I don't I just did it. It's hard to do. I intentionally use language that is affirmative meaning I avoid ne like more negative type language. Not bad language, but just say so instead of saying um don't focus on your feet, I'll say move your attention to the upper parts of your body. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, instead of saying let go of the guilt, I'll say focus on being free. Focus on feeling ease. So you move the attention to where it is that you want it to go as opposed to highlighting what it is that you don't want to highlight by simply mentioning it. So in this way we'll say now I don't know if I could do the entire episode like that. It would be very difficult. I'm sorry. Very like virtuoso podcasting move. Yes. Yes. But in in this case you know uh instead of overcoming division we could say we're helping to foster unification or helping to foster cohesion. Well, I was kind of interested, I get what you mean, like the to work on the things that unite people as opposed to putting the emphasis on the things that are polarizing art. I was really interested in, you know, kind of putting maybe the Buddhist money where one's mouth is or something. Yeah. Yep. episodes. I've been trying to learn. I've learned a lot through these episodes. So, you know, if you're hopefully people can go back if you're just catching this now for the first time. We did a lot of episodes around these questions. you know, vulnerability to cult psychology. the United States culture is maybe one that might be especially vulnerable to kind of cult thinking and then the cult thinking in the moment that seems to be so so uh in the in the thrral of and in the grips of right so we've been doing these educational episodes and I thought well okay let me let me really try to do it so and I don't know if I was always in the affirmative but um as good as you are but at least I thought well I try to be honest I'll try to share what we've been talking about and maybe we can make some reconnections with people and it was to the extent this might be inspiring to other folks, too. These are people that like I legitimately had like estrangement with, so I thought, okay, I'm gonna try. And and I didn't tell you, Eric, but I I did this last night, even though I didn't know this is what we're going to record on today, so I got, you know, Oh, you have one, too? Yeah. Oh, brilliant. Okay, so work in our favor. All righty. Okay, I'll share my tails. Daniel will share his. And again, a little bit more of a personal episode around this idea of how do we overcome these cult differences? Yeah. and and Eric and I'll say, you know, I mean, we haven't I haven't heard from a ton of people about this stuff in general, but if you've been listening to us for any length of time and uh there is a sense that we have veered away from the things that you know we used to talk about more regularly, we haven't we haven't I would say that during this particular period there was more of an effort to highlight the things that were uh running in society that seemed to lack a diagnosis. And as clinicians, we are looking to help and therefore the way to find a treatment strategy you one must have a diagnosis because we have to know if this diagnos based on the treatment if the treatment works or doesn't work. we have to go back and say, okay, was my diagnosis wrong? But if I don't have a diagnosis and I only apply treatment, well, I don't know if I was ever right or wrong. And maybe yes, if I helped, wonderful. But that doesn't help me as a clinician. And so, this is the difference between somebody using AI to give them a treatment program for any kind of disease and going to see somebody that is an actual clinician, that's an actual practitioner of whatever discipline. So, it's a long way to say we were doing the diagnosis of a very vast problem that involves both individual and social psychology happening simultaneous while it's happening while while we're living in it. We're trying to diagnose a problem while we're living in it. It's always easier to do afterwards because you can look back and point to this and that and say, "Oh, that's what that was." But while it's live, while it's, you know, occurring, while we're, you know, turned off and turned on by certain things, it's not the easiest thing to do. And so, I feel like we've done a pretty good job, you know, of of um acknowledging what what was happening, what is happening. And the goal, you know, probably moving forward is going to be how to how to how to work with this, how to overcome these things. So, um, yeah, maybe that's an example of how to do that on a personal level. We'll try. Yeah. Right. Yeah, like we can present three case studies at least now, you know. Um I had the same thought and I had one conversation with someone who was like, "Well, you're supposed to be talking about Buddhism and Dowoism and Sufi, you know, Sufism and Cabala and so on, right? These spiritual traditions, you know, Buddhist tantra obviously is a big one for us. So like what's up with this as you're talking about these other things, but you know what struck me? You went from the clinical side and I had those thoughts too, right? You have to diagnose something and come up with a theory of the case. Maybe we're right, maybe we're wrong, but we can come up with a theory of the case and present it, right? On the other side was more thinking like if you start thinking about even something very vast like enlightenment, you're supposed to be able to understand a whole bunch of stuff. Lama Glenn's a little bit like that. One of our teachers gone Marmalin Lamaglan he says you know one of the things about being a Buddha if you want to get really big about grand about things would be that you're supposed to understand all kinds of aspects of life including how the social system around you is working right as part of understanding what they call in Buddhist philosophy conventional truth I was like okay this is a special set of episodes for us on a very important part of conventional truth you know and how you We're talking about things in the now, but actually we're trying to be educational about it. So really, we're talking about things that are transcendent of the now, too. Applicable all over the place. So people screen back through the episodes, and please do if you find this stuff interesting. Um, you know, the stuff we were doing on social psychology, that's universal. That's not for the now. Correct. That's that's a deeper question, right? Yeah. The same with like what happens when you get groups of people and you're trying to like there's imposed uh solidarity to like hold the group together in ways that are artificial or destructive. You have to understand that. Yeah. If you want to like be a spiritual person or be a person who's trying to pursue enlightenment even, you know, like this is stuff you have to understand. So yeah, I had that thought too. had an interesting conversation with someone as well where I was like, you know, if you get to a huge Buddhist cosmos, right, and sometimes in Buddhism, you'll imagine that you're living in this vast multiverse, right? But the problems we're talking about in our little corner of this multiverse are still the problems that are probably happening everywhere. Sure, our little corner of this vast multiverse is just a little little smaller vision of stuff that's probably happening everywhere. So people suffering from, you know, cult inspired delusions or something or people fighting over ideological rigidities or people struggling to how to free themselves from mental entrapments. That's like everywhere. It's not just for us, you know. So yeah, I thought about those questions, too. I'm glad we talked about this as well. It's it's something I've been want like meaning to bring up too. I'm glad you brought it up because context of the whole picture. Yeah. And you and I had a great conversation where, you know, in a certain sense a lot of what we've been doing ever since we started, this is the phrase that you shared, so I don't want to steal your line, but it was something like we're trying to help people get out of the cult, right? Yeah. Yeah. So, anyways, yeah. Good. We're on the same page for sure. All right. So on my little personal tales, I'll start with my friend where I was estranged a little bit from like uh it was my friend from the left and we could talk about this problem in the culture overall, but there was like genuine estrangement and it's kind of amazing. We kept in touch a little bit via text here and there. We were still generally politely warm with one another, but when I really did the math on it, we hadn't seen each other in person in seven years. That's like pre- pandemic, y'all. M so it was a long time but you know like I think this can happen between people. It would be something like happy birthday. Love you. Hope you're doing okay. Yeah. Merry Christmas. Hope everything's going well. You know thinking of you. We do that with each other. And so the relationship never totally broke exactly but it was broken for sure. Now admittedly some of that was probably personal but a big chunk of it was actually is was kind of political or around these kind of uh I don't know culty questions we've been talking about right I had mentioned in a previous episode where um she had done this very strange thing it was the first time I ever heard anyone talk this way where she was saying we have to compare different types of suffering and like rank them certain like thing within certain leftist politics of doing this and I just never heard anybody do it before. So we talked about in the previous episode, but it was something like you want me to compare like a soldier in World War I who's charging into bullets and mustard gas and say that their suffering is less than a woman who, you know, uh was a victim of sexual violence. That's all horrible. I don't know how to compare those sufferings and I can't, you know, I'm against all of it and I don't know like how I can put those in some kind of ranking system and I don't know why I even would. Yeah, it's unne it's unnecessary outside of a an argument's case. like there's no real I mean one of the things that rings true for many of the teachings and the things that we study is that they're relevant. It's not some antiquated thing that was once present a long time ago. You know, they're they're now. So suffering is suffering is suffering, isn't it? like war is bad whether it was fought in 320 AD or 1556 BC. It it it's not a matter of you know of course we can say maybe in a grander scale you know someone being burned to death is uh worse than I don't know being shot but you know again we're talking about like levels of terrible and there's not a whole other than a purity test. I mean, and anybody could argue with me, and if you want to, please do. Um, I'm always happy to to, you know, take your, you know, criticism and compliments and all the things. Um, but we're still talking about bad [...] So, why do we need a purity test for? And as a Buddhist, there was something like, I have to have universal compassion. I can't try to rank sufferings. And as a clinician, you have your patient you see who has PTSD because they were in some terrible war. And then you have the next patient you see who was a victim of some horrible sexual violence. And I'm like, I don't know how to like these things. I can't do that from like a clinical mindset. It's impossible. But there was a politics like that. Yeah. And heard it before. So I was like, this is going back really like two decades. I just had never heard this kind of thing before. And I was like I was kind of flustered and just kind of like taken it back. So anyway, well, we also we also know, Eric, like people have different experiences in their life that some people would be like that's nothing. I've lived through X, Y, and Z. But for that person at that time, that's it's everything. That's the, you know, that's the hardest challenge they've ever had. But that's their challenge that's unique to them. And they the skills that they're going to come out hopefully of that challenge with are going to benefit their life in such a unique way. you know, in a very specific way. So, you can't [...] on someone else's experience because it's theirs, you know. Yeah. I mean, that was like an odd part of a certain kind of politics. Yeah. You know. Yeah. And uh I I guess just and again, if you don't like it, we're certainly unwilling to take criticism, but for me, it was like I you know, I can't do what you're asking me to do. I can't do it from a Buddhist perspective, and I can't do it from the perspective of trying to be a clinician. Mhm. where where traditional Chinese medicine doctors, acupuncture, herbalism, I can't sit there and and do what you're asking me to do. And I think it was it precipitated this really kind of long argument. And yeah, I was like, okay, that was some that was a while ago. Yeah. Very last time we saw each other seven years ago. I was like, you know, one of the things we talk about a lot is like relationship stuff. I'm definitely a person who tries to work on the uniqueness front of things, which is kind of like relationships that are more flexible and open. And I happened to be going through a little period where I was having conflict with someone and it was pretty painful. And you can remember seven years ago, so you know exactly what I'm talking about. For sure. It was a big deal. So I was out there and we were hanging. I wasn't even there just to talk about, you know, the set of issues that was going on with me, but we had conversations. It was part of it. And at a certain point, she said to me, "Well, you know what? real problem is. And she got very serious and she said, "Your real problem is is you're not teaching your daughter enough about her white privilege." And I went, I went, "Okay." And you know, just to like talk about my daughter a little bit who just graduated. Congrats to her. Um she earned it. But um you know, my daughter maybe at the time had gone to like Costa Rica to do some special things about environmentalism. So she was in programs to go to places to learn about environmental, you know, like saving the planet. You know, she has strong feelings about that. And at the same time when she was in high school, she was also donating her time giving art lessons to like a place called Marwin in Chicago. It's a really great place. It's an art center where they have art programs, especially for kids who otherwise wouldn't be able to have resources that would be able to give them those opportunities. So it was like she was donating her time to do this and she would go to soup kitchens. Now that she's graduated she, you know, we were helping her get her resume together and her main project that she did or one of her main projects was like doing a documentary film on people who were like falsely imprisoned. So she's not like a non-concious person. We can debate that white privilege phrase is like so explosive or has been historically. But I was like, "Okay, well, we're talking about my daughter and I mean, she's off doing a lot of things, you know, and she's a very conscious and conscientious person." So, I was just kind of like taken it back. And I it was like almost like an odd like something cracked in that moment. And uh I remember driving back and I called her as I was driving home and I was like, "Well, listen, if you can't see the difference between me and people who would be reactionary or racist or, you know, there's something wrong in this, you know." Um, and so we had kind of a conversation around it and I think she was getting like, "Maybe there's some truth in what you're saying." I grew up in what would be call like Trump's America. And I was like, I know the darker parts of, you know, that part of the world, those parts that are dark. I'm very familiar with them. It's like to be around people who are racist and homophobic. And, you know, I had lots of conflicts with those folks growing up. I wouldn't give up my gay friends. I wouldn't not be friends with anyone from any background, you know, like I've talked about that in the podcast before. Yeah. Lots of fights with people, you know. So I was like, I I know this part of the world really well and if you can't see the difference, I don't know. So anyways, I wanted to share the tale because it was something that was it was real. There was a real estrangement that happened and we never saw each other in person after that at all. My uncle was ill a few years ago and we talked a little bit around that. But the whole relationship like basically just collapsed and it was really under what I have heard from some people who've been listening to this has been we're going to be hard on this culty thing wherever we see it episodes were inspired by cultism that's a problem in the ma movement that was part of the inspiration just straight up but I hear from people like well you have to be acknowledging of the cultish stuff all over the place and I'm like yeah I agree Hey, you know, that's being an honest actor. Yeah. So, I was like, "No, I'm I'm willing to call any of this where I feel like it's potentially divisive or problematic or or just doesn't seem true to me, you know." Yeah. Though, of course, you know, we've had lots of episodes where we talked about the kinds of issues that, you know, we did uh episodes with uh, you know, Pete before, you know, where we were talking about problems of racism in the culture. Yeah. Like, we're not dodging those questions either. No. So anyways, it's complicated stuff and if people get mad, okay, but you know, I was like, okay, on the very personal level, I was like, okay, we're not understanding each other at all. So what how did you resolve this political place and you're running me through a political filter? I can't I can't get on the same page uh of you. And I think that's where a lot of people felt alienated by that part of the world, you know, that part that was left. They thought that there was purity tests that were being given to people and if you didn't meet the whole purity test you know then you know that was a problem with them and I I don't think it was now you can correct me if you think I'm wrong. I don't know if some of that had to do with the government per se. A lot of that had to do with people's experiences in their personal lives and what happened with people in their work settings. Yeah. Yeah. There were some failings like I live in Chicago and there were failings of our mayor in Chicago to like do proper protection of neighborhoods. Like I I did talk with people who are like, man, you know, I was I'm in favor of so many things. Yeah. You know, that are maybe more on the left part of their perspective spectrum, but like I'm having a hard time walking my dog in my neighborhood because, you know, there's just a bunch of people who are allowed just to camp in this area and they don't feel safe, right? So, anyways, these are all touchy issues, but we're going to try to be honest about it. So, how did you how did you reconcile with your friend? Well, I went and I I I said, "Well, let's get together first of all. Let's sit down face to face and actually talk." Mhm. And I went from the clinic uh you know, over to her over to her place and we sat down. And what I really tried to do in terms of what I think we were trying to do in the podcast was I tried to be honest about it. We did these episodes on disscent and I'll try to reference back to them. So, if you go back and peek back some of the episodes we've done within this series, we did ones on the social psychology of descent. And part of it is like to be perceived as an honest person is important in like uh situations of disagreement, right? And I just kind of this one was relatively easy. My other one's going to be harder, but this one was relatively easy because I said, "Well, listen, can we get to the point where it's okay if we agree about 91.6% of the [...] and maybe we have differences on this other 8.4%. Mhm. Is that okay? Can we get to this spot where it's like that and maybe we're both motivated to get along with each other, too?" But she was like, "Yeah." She's like, "Yes, it's something had moved and now it's kind of resolved." And it's something that I've known like really since my early 20s and they've been in contact with all that time. So for us not to talk for seven years, that's that wasn't a small thing. Mhm. So I did it, you know, I gave peace a chance and I went and I said, "Okay, I'm going to try to resolve this with you." I think I mean once I was kind of there and I said, "Listen, this is how I'm framing this problem." sat on her couch and I was like, "Okay, here's how I'm seeing part of this between us and it's not a small part. We got to fix this." And it was really like, "Can we stop doing litmus tests and and stop you like what you were saying, stop letting the whatever small percentage of things that we might disagree with um be the thing that alienates from one another." She agreed. So, actually, that one was relatively simple. H yeah, there's um I made this point before over the last couple episodes. I don't know exactly which one I said it, but when you talk with people who you have generally a difference of opinion on, if you're doing it in a one-on-one setting, there is a natural tendency and I don't know what this is called. Maybe I don't know if it's a psychological term if you know it, congruence or something like this. You want to you want to find common ground. There's a natural uh desire for most people to try and make it nice. Even if you disagree on a lot of things, you will work to find you'll you will you'll disagree, but you'll come back and be like, "Well, you're not totally wrong about blank or whatever." Oh, we see the same problem. We have different solutions. You'll you'll concede points and try and make things nice nice. So that there's, you know, congruence between the two of you. That like group psychology element that we were talking about with social psychology. Exactly. Group psychology, you'll get potential polarization and conformity problems, right? Personalities go kind of artificial, you know, in the group setting. That's one of the, you know, unless you really develop a strong sense of like, no, I'm going to hold to my own authenticity. But it's hard for people. That's not easy. We can all agree on that. Yeah, that's a good point. And so I feel like if you're taking the time to meet with somebody face to face, you'll find your way through because you've taken the time. You've taken the step. And usually in my experience, people are pretty grateful when you do that, when you make the effort to say, "Hey, I'm going I'm going to lead with vulnerability here." And it's hard, you know. It's definitely hard, especially when it's their long, their deep, their significant relationships that have been damaged, you know. Yeah. And you might even feel justified in the damage. And if you were to give your story to somebody else, they might be like, "Oh, yeah, totally. That person's a [...] jackass." You know, you didn't do anything wrong. They're piece of [...] Right. And maybe they could say the other thing on the other side, too. You know, they'll say, "Oh, yeah. can tell their story to someone else and you'll look like the [...] Yeah, totally. You know, so so you're justified, you know, quote unquote, justified in your behavior and yet you're not. But when someone I think, especially if it's a good person who you have connection with, you have a bond of some type of any significance when you go and you break the ice, they appreciate it. I'll I'll tell mine. So, uh, I, you know, have been helping to organize, uh, a drum kind of drumming community on the north side, north side of Chicago for the, you know, better part of the last decade plus. Um, it's called the dog beach drummers and dancers because we play near Montro dog beach. And um you know there's a a small group of us who are kind of like the nucleus but there'll be anywhere from 50 60 people to a couple hundred people you know any given we usually play on Monday nights and um there was a friend of mine who owned a music shop on the north side of Chicago uh way back you know almost 10 years or more at this time and uh called worlds of music and you know it's a nice music store we play music there. He let you play with all his instruments. He, you know, we bought stuff. We fre, you know, patron his his business, him and his wife's business. And um around 20 before the election, you know, in 2016, uh but you know, Trump verse Hillary there, he the owner of the shop, the man in particular began to voice his far more rightle leaning opinion online and it kind of rubs some of the people the wrong way because these are you're talking about these are musicians. These are world musicians. They come from a very wide ranging background of, you know, people from South America, various parts of Africa, African-Americans, like all kind people all over the world, you know, whatever. It's a world music. It's literally the place is called worlds of music, you know. Yeah. So, it rubbed people the wrong way because they're like, "This is not an inclusive ideology for a your business, but b the people you're learning from and playing with are multithnic." Multithnic. So, how you know what? So, it rubbed people the wrong way and eventually it started to affect their business. Uh, so much so that they ended up moving. So they sold the business or let their lease evaporate and then they moved away and that was in probably 2017 that they moved away. So we're talking you know eight years now. Yeah. And um I haven't seen this person since then. And you know the algorithm of of Facebook is designed to get you to engage. So they're not going to show you your your mom's pictures of her flowers on your feed first. They're going to give you your friends posts on something that you highly dislike. You know what's going to get you to engage? They're going to show you this first. Okay. So, uh he said, "This person has said various things that I don't agree with. Numerous times over the years. Actually, more than numerous times over the years, I would say I don't agree with anything this person says or thinks at all in any way, shape, or form. Not even a little bit." Uh but of course, it's shown to me because I read it to see am I wrong about something? I'm not but okay fine. But he said something about um a famous musician who I won't give the name because no one will know who they are but this very famous percussionist um of Indian descent who passed away in the beginning of this year. I know who that is. Yeah. Zakir Hussein. Yeah. I love him. It's great. Yeah. Fantastic. Rest in peace. Was fantastic. Fantastic. Times he was like always Yeah. So my guy was like, "Oh, should have never got the COVID vaccine." And here's a here's an article that talks about the things. First of all, Zakir was in his late 70s. Second of all, this article was from like 2022. So my like my friend let me know when he passed away. I got a good friend who's a percussionist, too. Did he die of COVID? No. No. He died supposedly he died of like cardiovascular stuff and so dude right he's an older dude so but my my friend made the made the link that this was from co vaccines because Zakira was telling people to get vaccinated and so he gave this article as like a evidence of his thing and I was like bro first of all that article is three plus years old stop second and more important let's celebrate the man's life, not use his death as an argument that you're having with no one. Yeah. It's not that's not how we that's not how we celebrate art. That's not how you celebrate somebody who was influential and inspirational to you and so many other people, you know? Like I don't make I don't comment on [...] because I don't want to get into stupid debates with people and their dumbass opinions and whatever. Even my opinion is dumbass anyway, so [...] me, you know? But I don't want to get into these I don't like this [...] But I that that really rubbed me the wrong way. Dragged into something where you're like, "Okay, this is just stupid." Purposely pmical or purposely argumentative. You know, it's trying to be provocative. It's almost trolly. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I don't want to be involved in trolly conversations. If we want to talk, we'll talk, but if it's trolling, I don't want to be involved, right? Because you ain't going to troll in real life. Yeah. People don't troll and really It's not that way. Um because there's consequences. Anyways, so we went his back and forth and I just left it. I said, "Hey, man. Listen, you start insulting me, I'm going to get very nasty and I don't want to do that. So, I'm going to wish you well and hope that you learn something from this. I'm done playing in this chat room. And that was, you know, earlier this year, but before then, we hadn't spoken in a long time cuz I just like whatever. He came to our drumming event last night. Yaza, he's in town visiting his mother who is ill and his brother is local. So he came in, he sat down on the opposite side of the of our little gathering. And I know he saw me. We made eye contact a bunch of times. And before I left, I made a point to go over there and to shake his hand, give him a hug, you know, and and say what's up. And it was very interesting, man. Like we shook hands, you know, and I gave I gave him like a little bro hug, you know, and we just held hands. We just shook hands for about the entire length of our conversation. And I just said, "Hey man, been a long time. I hope you know, glad to see you. I hope you know that like whatever. I'm not even going to talk about it. I'm just saying whatever. This here is a creative space and you are welcome anytime. Anytime and every time. You're always welcome here, you know. Um, and we said a few more words and whatnot, but we we never we never let go of our hands until we until again I gave him a hug, you know, we hugged up again and then and then I moved on." But I remember that moment and I know he would not have come up to me because it's not like I was playing drums the entire time. I took breaks and I walked around and whatever. Um, but I had to go to him. And so what I'm saying to, you know, in in reference to what you said and what reference to I said earlier, I've had many conversations with friends that we believe everything identical. No problem. But we get in arguments, miscommunications, someone says something, somebody's sensitive on one day for whatever reason. It doesn't matter. What ends up happening though is that that divide between where you believe you are and they believe they are begins to widen and it gets worse with time. And unless you're willing to like put down your your armor, lower the drawbridge, and really lead with some heartfelt things that that gap will probably ride out for the rest of the life because there's people have a very hard time breaking through that like impenetrable impenetrable barrier of silence and distance. But really it's one decibel that breaks it and it's a millimeter of movement in the other direction towards that person that will break them and melt the invisible ice. Like that little bit of thing will just push things through. Yeah. And you have to do it. So you know when people talk about how do you build a bridge with people who don't believe the same as you? I think it's twofold. You got to do it in person. You have to do it in person. And you have to be vulnerable. If you're not gonna if you're gonna play patty cakes, if you're gonna give talking points, if you want your to puff up your ego to show yourself that you're right and they're wrong and you're going to own the libs or you're going to, you know, whatever the whatever the thing is to, you know, troll somebody or whatever, then you're not being yourself. You have to be in person, vulnerable, authentic. Yeah. Yeah. Things will melt away and they'll do what they do. And because you know what you can also do? Agree to disagree. It's not the end of the world. You don't have to change everybody's opinion. I don't even care to change anybody's opinion to be totally honest. It's just can we be a little bit more agreeable to say I don't see the way things you do. But that doesn't mean that you're a piece of [...] You know, just because I don't agree with you doesn't mean I'm crazy. I was already crazy even when I agreed with you. Yeah. My my being crazy was a precondition for my agreement. Totally. Why we're friends in the first place, dude. Yo, crazy. Yeah, really crazy. Um, yeah, I agree with all of that. I think that was one of the other things I heard like wanted to make clear or what I heard from people a little bit who had listened to some of these episodes was like just because I feel like you know there's a there's an element of like I am one of those people who agree who do feel that there's an element of like totalitarianis authoritarianism thing going on like I do think that that's the case and I'm strong on that point but that doesn't mean that I think everyone who's on the opposite opposite side of a question on a personal level is like a bad person. They're not. No, more than like my friend who I ended up not talking for seven years with. she's not a bad person and I never thought that you know and it's there's something about and I don't know how even to talk about this from our Buddhist and spiritual or even our social psychology point of view but there's a disconnect in people's personalities maybe happens on the individual level and what they find acceptable on the individual level what they find acceptable on political levels or higher levels there's some divorce going on and that's something we'll all have to bridge but anyways I want to make that clear too in these episodes Because you know obviously I have there's the divisions with my family that are pretty sharp. Sure. And I I talked with my brother and I said well you know other family members and I said we're we have we have trouble in this group. Like this is very polarized between us. And it was something like well if we're going to figure this out at some point we'll have to figure out some way where we can meet and come to some kind of uh point of agreement. Yeah. Yeah. I can't. It's very complicated obviously. You know, I'll get to it when I tell my next tale. But for my friend on the on the left, totally agreed. And I think there was a couple things that happened. One was I didn't want to relitigate the past either. I did the same thing. I don't want to releigate questions. I'm not going to go back and revisit. I just want to make this one quintessential point, which is I don't want to argue with you about we agree on so many things. Can we not be alienated from one another on the things that we disagree with? I wanted to do that. That was my lead. Now being honest when we talked there were some things not in that part of our relationship but other parts that she wanted to relitigate and I was like okay relitigate them and I didn't agree with her. Nothing's changed. She re we relitigated and it was like I don't remember anything you're talking about and uh whats. But I also was like, "Okay, if that's the way, you know, I was like, I don't remember even those incidents." And but if I did that, I'm sorry. And if you felt that way, I'm sorry. And I let it go. So, I let that part go, too. But I do think there's something about not religating the past. Yeah. You know, and the other part was I think when you're talking about authenticity, I know when I first arrived, and again, we're telling these tales to maybe have it be useful for all of us. When I first arrived, I could tell that she was going to be like uh a little evasive on things. We hadn't seen each other in seven years and it was, you know, a little bit she probably didn't know what to say or what to do. And so, she was just going to be avoidant. And I said, "Okay, listen. This is hard, but I'm going to go right to the heart of this thing." Now we did a little bit of nicities of seeing one another initially but I said okay this is going to feel not real if I don't cut to the chase of what I think this issue has been so in that circumstance I decided I think we have to be honest about this and I mean I have a few points that I think we ended up splitting on and this was like one of the major points we split around this set of issues and I just said authenticity we got to be direct on this I can't I can't do a dance around this and that was sort of something I realized that she could potentially do. Yeah. So, I said, "No, let's just get to the heart of this and we resolved it." All right, I'll share one last tale. Well, I think we should hold on one second. One, so we had a uh a slight meeting off mic and we're gonna uh we're going to call it right here. So, uh for you guys, it seems like was judged A+ a total success. Yes. Yes. Exactly. Everything worked out perfect. Gave each other A+ and we said that's it. No more. We can't do any better than this. We're gonna hang. We're gonna end on a high note. Um, so yeah, that's that's that's it for today. Make make it happen, you know. I mean, make Yeah, maybe we can we can start to do this, you know, and like reach reach across and find places of commonality. I don't know. We can try. Yeah. Well, we're trying. Yeah, we are trying actually. Yeah, we are trying. That's all we could do. Go us. That's right. Yay. All right. Go everybody here, too. Let's do it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. Well, Eric, as always, thank you so much for uh riding with us. Audience, thank you so much for tuning in. Whether it's your first or your thousandth or whatever, uh we are by the time this episode's post, we have we'll be in um we'll be in our fifth year. So, you know, what once was a a a passion project hatched in the dining room of of Eric's uh flat in Chicago now is a uh multi uh multinational expose into the uh psychology of one Eric and one Daniel. And for anybody deepest parts of the human soul, yeah, we're we're we're we're hanging out in the in the in the nooks and the crannies. Um, and so yeah, there's some joke there that I want to make about crooks and granny's, but I won't. Um, anyways, uh, please hit us up if you want, you know, um, for questions, comments, concerns, hate, love, all the things. We're all good. Uh, you can leave a comment in the YouTube section or send us a DM at the Jin and Tantra podcast, the Jyn andtantra podcast on the gram or at uh, Jyn and Tantragmail.com. For Eric, this is Daniel. We'll catch you guys in the next one. Peace. [Music]