190 - Exploring the Psyche: The Importance of Home

WEBVTT
1
00:00:00.110 --> 00:00:03.529
What is home? This is a question which, interestingly, I'm
2
00:00:03.629 --> 00:00:07.780
asking while I'm currently away from home. Actually, I'm between homes.
3
00:00:07.790 --> 00:00:12.220
I'm waiting for our new house to finish construction. But
4
00:00:12.560 --> 00:00:14.220
it does raise some questions. Because on one hand, I'm
5
00:00:15.039 --> 00:00:18.399
between homes, but I'm also exactly where it is that
6
00:00:18.420 --> 00:00:21.519
I'm supposed to be with the people that I love,
7
00:00:21.559 --> 00:00:23.879
with my family. And so, in a certain sense, I
8
00:00:23.879 --> 00:00:27.199
am home. And there are a number of questions that
9
00:00:27.359 --> 00:00:29.199
are raised when we talk about this idea of home. Like,
10
00:00:29.320 --> 00:00:31.519
what exactly is home? Is it the place where you
11
00:00:31.559 --> 00:00:33.840
happen to live? Is it the place where you come from?
12
00:00:34.359 --> 00:00:36.920
Is it the place where you belong, where things seem
13
00:00:36.939 --> 00:00:40.259
to be put into proper order? Is it the place
14
00:00:40.359 --> 00:00:43.539
where you are meant to be in this world or
15
00:00:43.659 --> 00:00:46.920
even in a broader, more eternal sense? Because the reality
16
00:00:47.090 --> 00:00:50.509
is that we're constantly shifting around. We live in a
17
00:00:50.649 --> 00:00:54.250
world that is shifting around. So is there any true
18
00:00:54.329 --> 00:00:57.820
home here? in this moving world? These are some of
19
00:00:57.840 --> 00:01:00.619
the questions that we're going to be asking today. How
20
00:01:00.679 --> 00:01:03.560
do we achieve home, and to what extent can we
21
00:01:03.719 --> 00:01:07.769
achieve the reality of home in this moving world, and
22
00:01:07.849 --> 00:01:11.870
why does that matter? This is Mythic Mind Exploring the Psyche,
23
00:01:12.269 --> 00:01:24.959
and today we are discussing the value of home. I
24
00:01:25.040 --> 00:01:28.459
am joined again by Jeremy Key and Tyler Finders, two
25
00:01:28.519 --> 00:01:31.480
licensed therapists who have been going on this journey with
26
00:01:31.530 --> 00:01:35.049
me to explore the psyche. Today, drawing on something that
27
00:01:35.060 --> 00:01:37.129
Jeremy said, and I believe it was our first conversation
28
00:01:37.209 --> 00:01:39.950
about home, that's what we're going to be focusing in on,
29
00:01:40.030 --> 00:01:43.109
the value of home, the significance of home, and what
30
00:01:43.150 --> 00:01:47.769
that means for your psychological well-being, the place of your soul.
31
00:01:50.109 --> 00:01:51.829
There are obviously a lot of ways we can go
32
00:01:51.870 --> 00:01:55.209
with this in that home, I suppose, like everything we're
33
00:01:55.230 --> 00:02:01.189
discussing is somewhat of an ambiguous term, which actually the
34
00:02:01.219 --> 00:02:03.260
problem that we were often run into is this is
35
00:02:03.319 --> 00:02:05.939
a little bit beside the point, but all words are
36
00:02:05.959 --> 00:02:10.039
a little bit ambiguous. I often think of in Paralandrum
37
00:02:10.759 --> 00:02:14.659
where C.S. Lewis makes the point that the difficulty in
38
00:02:14.699 --> 00:02:19.810
describing things is not that words are vague. Or it's
39
00:02:19.840 --> 00:02:23.159
not that experiences are vague. It's that experiences are concrete.
40
00:02:23.180 --> 00:02:26.099
It's words that are vague in trying to describe the phenomenon.
41
00:02:26.139 --> 00:02:28.780
But anyways, the idea of home. Let me just begin
42
00:02:28.800 --> 00:02:33.620
by asking you, how do you define home in the
43
00:02:33.699 --> 00:02:37.750
most important sense? Either of you want to take that
44
00:02:37.810 --> 00:02:38.159
up first?
45
00:02:38.189 --> 00:02:42.789
I guess I'll take it since we're talking about this
46
00:02:42.849 --> 00:02:46.949
because of an offhanded comment that I made. Though I'm
47
00:02:46.969 --> 00:02:51.219
glad we are because... without going into all the details,
48
00:02:51.240 --> 00:02:53.909
this isn't a therapy session, but I've been thinking a
49
00:02:54.000 --> 00:02:58.830
lot about the concept of home. Right before we started
50
00:02:58.870 --> 00:03:02.689
talking here, I mentioned that I turned 40 in a
51
00:03:02.729 --> 00:03:06.509
few days and there's some parts of my life that
52
00:03:06.530 --> 00:03:08.490
don't look quite how I thought they would be looking
53
00:03:08.509 --> 00:03:12.250
at 40. And so you start thinking about, okay, so
54
00:03:13.310 --> 00:03:18.020
what's missing? And there's some big parts that are missing.
55
00:03:18.120 --> 00:03:19.879
And as I've thought about that over the course of
56
00:03:19.900 --> 00:03:24.949
the summer, I've thought a lot about this idea of home,
57
00:03:24.990 --> 00:03:28.729
because what is home? Home is where you go. Fundamentally,
58
00:03:29.430 --> 00:03:33.069
your home is where you go to get away from
59
00:03:33.229 --> 00:03:39.879
or to seek refuge, respite from everything else, right? This is,
60
00:03:39.900 --> 00:03:45.080
you know, you come home and what happens in what
61
00:03:45.139 --> 00:03:47.919
I would call a perfect life You open the door,
62
00:03:48.419 --> 00:03:50.780
your wife or husband says, oh my gosh, I'm so
63
00:03:50.819 --> 00:03:53.090
glad you're home. Maybe your kids come and they're so
64
00:03:53.150 --> 00:03:56.930
excited to see daddy and your dog runs up and
65
00:03:56.969 --> 00:04:01.810
maybe dinner is cooking. You're comfortable, right? You walk through
66
00:04:01.849 --> 00:04:07.240
that door and Lord willing, all of the stress, all
67
00:04:07.280 --> 00:04:09.560
of the weight, all of the stuff that has been
68
00:04:09.599 --> 00:04:13.039
accumulating over the course of the day, it gets left
69
00:04:13.080 --> 00:04:16.319
at the front door. And now you're home. You can unwind.
70
00:04:16.360 --> 00:04:21.199
You can relax. You can be comfortable. You feel safe, right?
71
00:04:21.220 --> 00:04:24.220
And I think that that.
72
00:04:24.019 --> 00:04:24.560
Is what a.
73
00:04:26.060 --> 00:04:32.189
Home is, is safety. It's a dangerous business stepping out
74
00:04:32.290 --> 00:04:33.949
your front door because you don't know where it's going
75
00:04:33.970 --> 00:04:36.889
to take you, right? You step back in your front door.
76
00:04:36.930 --> 00:04:38.610
Now you know exactly.
77
00:04:38.110 --> 00:04:38.569
Where you are.
78
00:04:39.209 --> 00:04:41.529
This is where you belong. This is where life is.
79
00:04:44.379 --> 00:04:49.360
And not a lot of people, they may have a home,
80
00:04:49.819 --> 00:04:54.379
they may have a place that they go, but that
81
00:04:54.540 --> 00:04:56.480
in and of itself, I don't think is enough to
82
00:04:56.540 --> 00:05:01.670
necessarily make a home a safe place, right? Like a
83
00:05:01.829 --> 00:05:05.649
bomb shelter, if the bombs are dropping, a bomb shelter
84
00:05:05.970 --> 00:05:09.129
is a safe place, but is that all it takes
85
00:05:09.189 --> 00:05:10.889
to be a home? No, there needs to be other
86
00:05:11.459 --> 00:05:14.370
conditions you need to have more than just four walls
87
00:05:14.490 --> 00:05:20.850
and a roof um this is an idea that is
88
00:05:20.889 --> 00:05:23.569
continuing to evolve in my mind so i'll leave that
89
00:05:23.610 --> 00:05:25.889
there and see tyler if you want to pick anything up.
90
00:05:28.120 --> 00:05:31.100
Well i think there was one thing in particular that
91
00:05:31.439 --> 00:05:33.459
like an image popped into my head when you were
92
00:05:33.480 --> 00:05:36.790
you know describing that and it's It's that idea, you know,
93
00:05:37.149 --> 00:05:39.470
I don't know how many of us, you know, carry
94
00:05:39.509 --> 00:05:41.430
a bag around for me to go to work. You know,
95
00:05:41.449 --> 00:05:43.329
I always bring a bag with me to work or,
96
00:05:43.529 --> 00:05:46.170
you know, and that idea of when, when you're home
97
00:05:46.230 --> 00:05:47.449
is somewhere where you put your.
98
00:05:47.350 --> 00:05:49.600
Bag down, you know, by the door and then you
99
00:05:49.629 --> 00:05:50.199
walk in and.
100
00:05:50.779 --> 00:05:54.620
That bag kind of represents what like, you know, work or,
101
00:05:54.959 --> 00:05:57.399
you know, just the perils of life is that the, the,
102
00:05:57.579 --> 00:06:00.720
the stress of life, the work that's going on and that.
103
00:06:00.660 --> 00:06:01.459
You're able to be home.
104
00:06:01.680 --> 00:06:04.720
And, that was, you know, just like an interesting image
105
00:06:04.740 --> 00:06:06.439
that popped in and I could, I could definitely see
106
00:06:06.459 --> 00:06:10.670
that a lot, you know, when this, you know, topic
107
00:06:10.699 --> 00:06:14.410
was posed, I started thinking more about like, you know,
108
00:06:14.470 --> 00:06:19.449
just from like a conventional, you know, you know, like
109
00:06:19.709 --> 00:06:21.189
psychological theories, like what.
110
00:06:21.709 --> 00:06:24.509
What are, what are their ideas for something that would
111
00:06:24.529 --> 00:06:26.290
be like, like this.
112
00:06:26.389 --> 00:06:28.610
And essentially what kind of came to my mind is
113
00:06:28.649 --> 00:06:34.000
that there's, there's these concepts of trying to establish safety, security,
114
00:06:34.220 --> 00:06:36.930
and then we have our, and then you can go
115
00:06:36.959 --> 00:06:38.910
into like hierarchy of needs or you can go into.
116
00:06:38.790 --> 00:06:39.750
All these different things.
117
00:06:40.750 --> 00:06:43.689
And, and it's really interesting that they, they kind of
118
00:06:43.910 --> 00:06:48.110
start building a bridge that they can't complete in their,
119
00:06:48.209 --> 00:06:50.389
in their thoughts and what it means to be home.
120
00:06:51.699 --> 00:06:53.819
You know, where it's like, you know, you're looking at
121
00:06:54.379 --> 00:06:57.459
a lot of your, you know, typical frameworks where it's like,
122
00:06:57.920 --> 00:07:01.000
you know, I'm the one that, continuing to build and
123
00:07:01.040 --> 00:07:04.420
it's popular like the polyvagal theory like neuron form therapies
124
00:07:04.459 --> 00:07:07.360
where it's like you know you're trying to build a
125
00:07:07.399 --> 00:07:11.459
safe and social state calm connected capable of creativity learning
126
00:07:11.500 --> 00:07:14.550
genuine relationship this is like kind of like the physiological
127
00:07:14.629 --> 00:07:18.509
home base for the whole system versus like being in
128
00:07:18.550 --> 00:07:21.470
that sympathetic state which is that mobilized like fight or
129
00:07:21.509 --> 00:07:25.870
flight you know you're you're kind of constantly looking.
130
00:07:25.990 --> 00:07:29.509
For danger around the corner or a problem to solve.
131
00:07:29.990 --> 00:07:32.050
And then, you know, when we're in our, you know,
132
00:07:32.110 --> 00:07:35.149
trauma state, you know, it's where things really freeze down,
133
00:07:35.230 --> 00:07:36.550
shut down, and we're kind.
134
00:07:36.449 --> 00:07:39.240
Of unable to move on and get stuck.
135
00:07:40.259 --> 00:07:44.819
And, you know, the basic idea of that safety is like,
136
00:07:44.839 --> 00:07:48.240
you know, pretty in alignment, but it's like, how do
137
00:07:48.680 --> 00:07:51.709
we get there? I mean, where do we build like that,
138
00:07:51.730 --> 00:07:57.920
you know, because I think there's such an individualized aspect
139
00:07:58.100 --> 00:08:02.459
to trying to build that sense of being within yourself,
140
00:08:03.079 --> 00:08:06.040
but they all kind of, a lot of the theories
141
00:08:06.160 --> 00:08:08.160
do still look at it and say there is that
142
00:08:08.279 --> 00:08:11.550
social component to it. And then I would take it
143
00:08:11.610 --> 00:08:14.050
a step further and say the spiritual component as well,
144
00:08:14.569 --> 00:08:15.490
where they're.
145
00:08:16.110 --> 00:08:17.069
They kind of stack up.
146
00:08:17.350 --> 00:08:20.910
And for, building an entirety of what home can be,
147
00:08:21.410 --> 00:08:25.120
building what, you know, like, you know, the Shire would represent,
148
00:08:25.189 --> 00:08:29.600
you know, there is a spiritual, social component to it,
149
00:08:29.959 --> 00:08:31.180
as well as kind of like the.
150
00:08:31.180 --> 00:08:34.580
Individual being able to, you know, it's like being able to.
151
00:08:34.940 --> 00:08:38.379
When you're sifting through your own, know where your stuff is,
152
00:08:38.620 --> 00:08:40.960
you know, you know where things are versus when you're
153
00:08:41.000 --> 00:08:41.500
somewhere else.
154
00:08:41.539 --> 00:08:45.059
It's like, I don't know where anything is. And I
155
00:08:45.080 --> 00:08:45.750
think those....
156
00:08:47.250 --> 00:08:50.009
I want to jump in there before I lose this thought,
157
00:08:50.029 --> 00:08:51.730
because you brought something to mind.
158
00:08:54.789 --> 00:08:56.409
The Hobbit.
159
00:08:56.629 --> 00:08:59.769
Every year I read through The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, and
160
00:08:59.789 --> 00:09:02.700
The Three Lord of the Rings books. And I'm coming
161
00:09:02.799 --> 00:09:05.720
up on, I'm finishing Silmarillion, I'm getting to The Hobbit.
162
00:09:05.899 --> 00:09:08.840
And something I'm going to do this time, I say
163
00:09:08.860 --> 00:09:11.500
this every year, but I mean it this time. I
164
00:09:11.580 --> 00:09:14.419
want to count the number of times in The Hobbit
165
00:09:14.519 --> 00:09:18.419
that Bilbo has the thought of, I wish I was
166
00:09:18.500 --> 00:09:23.360
back at Bag End. Because Tolkien, he writes this in,
167
00:09:23.379 --> 00:09:27.899
it's like every other chapter. Bilbo has some experience and
168
00:09:27.950 --> 00:09:30.909
it makes him think, I wish I was back in
169
00:09:30.970 --> 00:09:33.809
front of my cozy fire, sitting in my cozy chair.
170
00:09:33.830 --> 00:09:37.889
And why is that? Because it's familiar and it's safe
171
00:09:38.230 --> 00:09:43.840
and it's comfortable. but fundamentally at least for that, that
172
00:09:43.960 --> 00:09:48.519
version of Bilbo before he becomes like the adventurer, it's
173
00:09:48.580 --> 00:09:52.039
where he belongs. It's where he feels like he belongs.
174
00:09:53.019 --> 00:09:53.279
Right.
175
00:09:53.610 --> 00:09:57.370
And his resistance to going on, on the adventure in
176
00:09:57.389 --> 00:10:00.480
the first place was because he felt like he didn't
177
00:10:01.139 --> 00:10:03.639
belong out in the big world. He felt like he
178
00:10:03.659 --> 00:10:09.740
belonged at home. And I think that that's, again, I've
179
00:10:09.759 --> 00:10:13.379
been thinking about this for months. I think that home
180
00:10:14.440 --> 00:10:18.529
is where we feel like we belong, right? And I
181
00:10:18.610 --> 00:10:21.480
think that there are a lot of a lot of people,
182
00:10:21.679 --> 00:10:25.820
at least in the work that I've personally done, there
183
00:10:25.840 --> 00:10:28.120
are a lot of people who just do not feel
184
00:10:29.100 --> 00:10:32.379
like they belong, whether it's in their careers or their
185
00:10:32.419 --> 00:10:36.399
relationships or maybe their family of origin, the city that
186
00:10:36.440 --> 00:10:40.419
they live in, whatever it may be. There seems to
187
00:10:40.460 --> 00:10:44.500
be this feeling of restlessness, like I'm not where I'm
188
00:10:44.539 --> 00:10:50.169
supposed to be. And that causes anxiety, causes depression, anger, Confusion,
189
00:10:50.230 --> 00:10:52.789
all sorts of things that Tyler and I deal with
190
00:10:52.929 --> 00:10:57.610
every day in our work. I had Dean Abbott on
191
00:10:57.730 --> 00:11:01.809
my own podcast a couple of years ago, and he
192
00:11:01.850 --> 00:11:08.220
and I talked a little bit about the importance of place, right?
193
00:11:08.700 --> 00:11:14.120
Millennials in particular, we're a very transient generation, right? We
194
00:11:14.159 --> 00:11:17.340
love to travel and you get on the dating apps
195
00:11:17.360 --> 00:11:19.879
and everyone says like, Must love to travel.
196
00:11:20.399 --> 00:11:21.779
Why? Right?
197
00:11:21.799 --> 00:11:24.340
Like, what's wrong with being home? All my stuff is here.
198
00:11:24.399 --> 00:11:26.200
My people are here. Why do I need to go
199
00:11:26.220 --> 00:11:29.789
to Abu Dhabi? Like, what's there for me? Nothing, because
200
00:11:29.950 --> 00:11:33.370
everything is here. This is my home. But we've built
201
00:11:33.409 --> 00:11:36.309
this idea that we have to be moving all the time,
202
00:11:36.350 --> 00:11:40.129
and we've become rooted, unrooted, rather. We've become rootless.
203
00:11:41.370 --> 00:11:41.629
Right?
204
00:11:43.080 --> 00:11:47.460
That is, I personally believe, not how we are supposed
205
00:11:47.480 --> 00:11:52.679
to be. I think that it's okay to expand outwards,
206
00:11:53.259 --> 00:11:56.059
but if we don't have the place to come home to,
207
00:11:56.440 --> 00:12:01.759
there's that word, we don't have the roots, then we're transient.
208
00:12:02.370 --> 00:12:06.090
We're homeless, right? You drive by people who are begging
209
00:12:06.110 --> 00:12:07.590
for food on the street and you don't say, oh,
210
00:12:07.610 --> 00:12:10.389
look at that guy. He's living his life, right? He
211
00:12:10.409 --> 00:12:12.210
can live on any street corner he wants and he
212
00:12:12.230 --> 00:12:15.509
chose this one. No, we say that guy's homeless. We
213
00:12:15.549 --> 00:12:18.379
need to help him. Just a thought.
214
00:12:19.799 --> 00:12:24.940
You know, I have some questions about that. So you
215
00:12:24.980 --> 00:12:28.309
said that home is the place where someone feels like
216
00:12:28.330 --> 00:12:31.269
they belong. To use the Bilbo example, because you already
217
00:12:31.289 --> 00:12:34.210
brought that up. You know, in all those occasions, when
218
00:12:34.230 --> 00:12:37.950
he's dreaming of being back home in Bag End, I mean, surely, though,
219
00:12:38.169 --> 00:12:40.870
being on the adventure is where he actually belonged for
220
00:12:40.889 --> 00:12:44.259
that time in his life, right? And so the question
221
00:12:44.279 --> 00:12:47.440
I would raise is, is home... where you feel that
222
00:12:47.460 --> 00:12:49.759
you belong or the place that you actually belong.
223
00:12:51.419 --> 00:12:53.019
Tyler, I've been talking a lot. I don't want to
224
00:12:53.039 --> 00:12:55.799
monopolize this. So I'll let you take that one first.
225
00:12:57.610 --> 00:13:01.769
I definitely think there's, I guess the belonging component of it,
226
00:13:03.169 --> 00:13:06.129
I guess my mind goes once again, more to like
227
00:13:06.629 --> 00:13:12.450
the spiritual component where home is not necessarily a physical
228
00:13:12.509 --> 00:13:17.519
place in itself. And that, You know, it also goes
229
00:13:17.580 --> 00:13:21.870
to like to answering the call of adventure is in
230
00:13:21.929 --> 00:13:25.509
itself an important thing, but being able to come back
231
00:13:25.590 --> 00:13:27.029
home is an important thing.
232
00:13:27.149 --> 00:13:28.850
And I think that we're.
233
00:13:29.289 --> 00:13:31.429
Kind of always going to be fighting this balance of
234
00:13:31.500 --> 00:13:33.360
like how much do I leave and how much do
235
00:13:33.419 --> 00:13:35.860
I come back kind of thing.
236
00:13:35.940 --> 00:13:40.940
And to me, it almost is like kind of encapsulating.
237
00:13:40.259 --> 00:13:44.690
The idea of like, you know, like a recovery and
238
00:13:44.730 --> 00:13:49.820
escape kind of thing and consolation, the on-fairy stories idea.
239
00:13:50.149 --> 00:13:54.299
Because in my mind, it's like when I think of
240
00:13:54.379 --> 00:13:58.759
what the role of Rivendell played for Bilbo and for
241
00:13:58.820 --> 00:14:03.600
Frodo and for the Fellowship is that it wasn't necessarily
242
00:14:03.639 --> 00:14:06.779
like their home per se, but it was a place
243
00:14:06.820 --> 00:14:08.440
for them to go to heels and then they can
244
00:14:08.500 --> 00:14:11.879
continue their adventure. We have to find these pit stops
245
00:14:11.960 --> 00:14:15.169
along the way And I think that belonging in those
246
00:14:15.289 --> 00:14:20.299
instances are still, you know, in a rooted way without
247
00:14:20.320 --> 00:14:22.519
it being kind of like a physical place where it's like,
248
00:14:22.779 --> 00:14:27.179
you know, we have this call to go somewhere, but
249
00:14:27.200 --> 00:14:29.600
we have to fight it. But maybe that in those
250
00:14:29.639 --> 00:14:32.600
instances where Bilbo is finding that comfort, it is also
251
00:14:32.659 --> 00:14:35.450
kind of a reminder for him of what he's doing.
252
00:14:35.629 --> 00:14:36.769
And I think, I don't know.
253
00:14:37.490 --> 00:14:37.730
Yeah.
254
00:14:37.909 --> 00:14:41.029
I think that they're, at least three, probably more, at
255
00:14:41.049 --> 00:14:43.529
least three major ways of framing what we mean by home.
256
00:14:43.730 --> 00:14:46.879
On one hand, it's the place that you come from, right?
257
00:14:46.929 --> 00:14:49.480
That's something of home, foundations. I mean, if you don't
258
00:14:49.519 --> 00:14:51.259
live where you grew up and you go back, it
259
00:14:51.480 --> 00:14:54.000
might be natural to say, I'm taking a trip home, right?
260
00:14:54.179 --> 00:14:56.320
And so there's that sense of foundations. Where is it
261
00:14:56.340 --> 00:14:59.610
you come from? And then there's also where it is
262
00:14:59.620 --> 00:15:03.049
that you happen to be right now. Like, I think
263
00:15:03.090 --> 00:15:06.789
that we all have a responsibility to establish home, wherever
264
00:15:06.809 --> 00:15:09.299
it is that we find ourselves. whether it be in
265
00:15:10.179 --> 00:15:13.679
a place of mild luxury or whether it be in
266
00:15:14.220 --> 00:15:16.940
the frontier and you have to scrap it together. And
267
00:15:16.960 --> 00:15:19.279
it's never truly a safe place. I think we have
268
00:15:19.299 --> 00:15:23.259
an obligation to make home there. But also home is, well,
269
00:15:23.720 --> 00:15:25.889
it's where it is that we're headed, where it is
270
00:15:25.899 --> 00:15:29.230
that we ultimately belong, which as Christians, we believe ultimately
271
00:15:29.929 --> 00:15:33.870
that Christ alone opens the door to our true home,
272
00:15:33.929 --> 00:15:36.570
that our true home is something that we experience only
273
00:15:36.610 --> 00:15:38.919
as a foretaste in the here and now. And so
274
00:15:39.139 --> 00:15:40.940
we can think of home in all these different senses
275
00:15:40.960 --> 00:15:46.740
that I think are simultaneously true. But to go back
276
00:15:46.779 --> 00:15:51.629
to Tolkien, I mean, jumping up to Lord of the Rings, Frodo,
277
00:15:51.649 --> 00:15:53.570
all throughout his journey, well, he doesn't have all the
278
00:15:53.610 --> 00:15:57.070
same vivid thoughts of going home like Bilbo does. I mean,
279
00:15:57.129 --> 00:15:59.909
he still has those thoughts of the Shire that guide
280
00:15:59.929 --> 00:16:01.990
him throughout his journey up until the very end when
281
00:16:02.549 --> 00:16:04.929
Sam and Frodo are talking about the things that they
282
00:16:05.000 --> 00:16:08.139
experienced back home. But then once Frodo gets back home,
283
00:16:08.179 --> 00:16:11.720
he recognizes that's no longer home for him. That what
284
00:16:11.759 --> 00:16:14.120
he always thought that he was going to be going
285
00:16:14.159 --> 00:16:16.190
back to, well, there is no going back to it.
286
00:16:16.519 --> 00:16:18.929
And so his true home, he finally discovers, is something
287
00:16:19.049 --> 00:16:22.629
totally unlike what he thought that it was. And sometimes
288
00:16:22.730 --> 00:16:26.090
I think leaving the geographical home or even leaving our
289
00:16:26.149 --> 00:16:30.100
own idea of home can help us to find out
290
00:16:30.200 --> 00:16:32.820
where it is that we're actually supposed to be. And
291
00:16:32.860 --> 00:16:36.610
so I think that our... our vision of what home
292
00:16:36.710 --> 00:16:39.070
is can sometimes be a distraction from finding where it
293
00:16:39.129 --> 00:16:42.009
is that we actually belong. Um, and I, that's where
294
00:16:42.029 --> 00:16:44.789
I think that we, we really need that call to
295
00:16:44.830 --> 00:16:48.100
adventure or else, well, as, as Gildor says, you know,
296
00:16:48.120 --> 00:16:49.779
you can fence out the world for so long, but,
297
00:16:49.879 --> 00:16:52.480
but eventually, you know, I can't remember the exact line,
298
00:16:52.500 --> 00:16:54.120
but you know, you can't fence it out entirely. Eventually it's,
299
00:16:54.379 --> 00:16:56.139
it's going to open up to where you are. And
300
00:16:56.159 --> 00:16:57.399
so you need to be able to make a home
301
00:16:57.720 --> 00:16:59.100
where it is that you happen to find yourself.
302
00:17:00.840 --> 00:17:05.859
Tyler, you mentioned, uh, just in passing, you mentioned there
303
00:17:06.000 --> 00:17:10.319
needing to be a balance. And I think that that's
304
00:17:10.660 --> 00:17:17.940
an important qualifier here because, because to say like, to
305
00:17:17.980 --> 00:17:21.710
say that you are going out into the world would
306
00:17:21.750 --> 00:17:25.450
imply that there is somewhere that you are in, right?
307
00:17:25.490 --> 00:17:27.710
You can't go out if you're not first in, if
308
00:17:27.750 --> 00:17:31.609
you're always out, then you're always out, right? When I
309
00:17:31.670 --> 00:17:34.779
go out to dinner and, That means that I'm coming
310
00:17:34.900 --> 00:17:41.599
back somewhere, right? And so Bilbo goes out on these adventures.
311
00:17:43.420 --> 00:17:45.819
He can go out on the adventure because he knows,
312
00:17:45.900 --> 00:17:49.529
and this is the psychological aspect, he knows however far
313
00:17:49.609 --> 00:17:52.670
I go out into the world, there's somewhere to return to.
314
00:17:52.690 --> 00:17:57.750
And having that somewhere to return to, or someone to
315
00:17:57.769 --> 00:18:05.569
return to, Like you look at all the great adventure tales, right?
316
00:18:05.630 --> 00:18:10.140
All the stories about knights and all these sorts of things.
317
00:18:10.640 --> 00:18:13.759
They're fighting for a place or they're fighting for a person.
318
00:18:14.099 --> 00:18:16.380
Or they're fighting for maybe like treasure and glory and
319
00:18:16.440 --> 00:18:19.960
fame or whatever. We'll put those off the table. There's
320
00:18:20.059 --> 00:18:27.369
something that is propelling us out. But we don't keep
321
00:18:27.450 --> 00:18:30.329
going out. Because then we're just wanderers.
322
00:18:31.019 --> 00:18:31.220
Right.
323
00:18:31.259 --> 00:18:34.880
Then we're just we're errant in our own lives. There
324
00:18:34.900 --> 00:18:36.759
was an example I was going to use there and
325
00:18:36.799 --> 00:18:40.349
I've completely lost it. It'll come back to me. But
326
00:18:40.390 --> 00:18:43.609
what do you all think of that? That that it's
327
00:18:43.650 --> 00:18:46.829
almost like that's what it was. I don't remember the
328
00:18:46.890 --> 00:18:49.049
exact quote. So this is a paraphrase of G.K.
329
00:18:49.089 --> 00:18:49.690
Chesterton.
330
00:18:50.950 --> 00:18:53.910
The soldier fights not for what not because he hates
331
00:18:53.950 --> 00:18:55.950
what's in front of him, but because he loves what's
332
00:18:55.990 --> 00:18:59.799
behind him. He's not fighting because he wants to go
333
00:18:59.839 --> 00:19:02.779
out and fight a war. He's fighting because there's something
334
00:19:02.819 --> 00:19:08.019
worth fighting for. That's home. That's family. That is place.
335
00:19:08.099 --> 00:19:10.400
Why did the Hobbits go out and destroy the One Ring?
336
00:19:10.420 --> 00:19:13.420
It wasn't just to destroy the Ring. It was to
337
00:19:13.480 --> 00:19:17.400
save the Shire. They went all the way across Middle-earth
338
00:19:17.599 --> 00:19:21.799
because they left home because of home. Or at least
339
00:19:21.940 --> 00:19:24.720
that's what Frodo did and Sam followed Frodo and so on.
340
00:19:25.460 --> 00:19:25.559
Um.
341
00:19:26.240 --> 00:19:28.640
So I think that it's not a simple matter of
342
00:19:30.359 --> 00:19:33.480
where is home. I think it's more a matter of,
343
00:19:34.829 --> 00:19:36.730
you know, Andrew, kind of like you pointed out, there
344
00:19:36.789 --> 00:19:46.789
are different aspects of home and understanding how all of
345
00:19:46.829 --> 00:19:48.690
those fit together. Because if I was to go to
346
00:19:48.750 --> 00:19:53.170
my childhood home in Leander, Texas, people live there. That's
347
00:19:53.210 --> 00:19:56.299
not my home anymore, but it was at a time.
348
00:19:56.339 --> 00:19:59.019
And why is that? Because that's where my family was.
349
00:19:59.819 --> 00:20:01.940
That's where my friends lived. They would come, they would
350
00:20:01.980 --> 00:20:04.480
visit me and I'd go visit them. But that's not
351
00:20:04.519 --> 00:20:08.140
home anymore. My family recently sold our family farm after
352
00:20:08.160 --> 00:20:11.450
my grandfather passed away. I love that place. That was
353
00:20:11.490 --> 00:20:13.690
my safe place for the longest time. I would call
354
00:20:13.730 --> 00:20:17.279
that place basically my true home for most of my
355
00:20:17.319 --> 00:20:19.980
life up to this point. I have no access to
356
00:20:20.039 --> 00:20:25.680
it now anymore. It's no longer home. Um, and so
357
00:20:25.740 --> 00:20:28.099
it's not, you know, go, go back to my earlier point.
358
00:20:28.119 --> 00:20:30.059
It's not just four walls and a roof. There are
359
00:20:30.140 --> 00:20:34.420
other things that define other things or other people that
360
00:20:34.460 --> 00:20:37.640
define what makes something home.
361
00:20:38.480 --> 00:20:45.009
Um, So, yeah, I'm deep in thought about kind of
362
00:20:45.029 --> 00:20:49.769
like these internal like arguments with myself. I'm like, you
363
00:20:49.809 --> 00:20:53.730
know what, you know, trying to come up with like
364
00:20:53.779 --> 00:21:01.319
a grounded, you know, response to like this idea of. Well,
365
00:21:01.339 --> 00:21:03.720
what home is, I guess, you know, as you go
366
00:21:03.779 --> 00:21:06.059
and try to conceptualize it. And then, you know, Andrew
367
00:21:06.099 --> 00:21:08.400
says something that's like, well, man, that makes me want
368
00:21:08.420 --> 00:21:10.480
to change it a little bit. Then Jeremy says, well,
369
00:21:10.519 --> 00:21:11.079
maybe I want to.
370
00:21:11.059 --> 00:21:12.279
Change it because of that too.
371
00:21:12.339 --> 00:21:14.289
But it's, you know, but I think there was one
372
00:21:14.309 --> 00:21:18.309
thing that I think Andrew said is that like, you know,
373
00:21:18.630 --> 00:21:22.609
there's this idea of like, for us as humans on
374
00:21:22.630 --> 00:21:25.599
this earth, like home, the idea of home is like
375
00:21:25.630 --> 00:21:28.799
something that we can taste, but not fully, you know,
376
00:21:29.470 --> 00:21:33.089
be in because there is something else. There is a,
377
00:21:33.549 --> 00:21:35.789
you know, and I think this probably goes with a
378
00:21:35.869 --> 00:21:38.220
lot of different things where it's like we see aspects
379
00:21:38.579 --> 00:21:44.119
or we see, you know, like, you know, like shades
380
00:21:44.180 --> 00:21:47.119
of it, but we don't, we don't see the whole picture. And,
381
00:21:47.339 --> 00:21:50.950
and I think then going back to the belonging aspect
382
00:21:50.990 --> 00:21:58.720
where it's like, is home not just the thing that
383
00:21:59.039 --> 00:22:02.920
helps keep us grounded and propel us forward, I guess
384
00:22:03.000 --> 00:22:05.740
is kind of where I'm coming from, where it's, where
385
00:22:05.799 --> 00:22:09.220
it's this idea or, and it, and it could be
386
00:22:09.240 --> 00:22:13.220
a place too, but it, but it's what helps us.
387
00:22:14.839 --> 00:22:16.799
It helps guide us on our, on our adventure of
388
00:22:16.859 --> 00:22:19.779
life in a way. And I, and it may change,
389
00:22:19.799 --> 00:22:21.859
it may morph in it.
390
00:22:23.759 --> 00:22:27.400
But yeah, I don't, So looking at the idea of
391
00:22:27.579 --> 00:22:31.789
home from a strictly temporal framework, our life on the
392
00:22:31.829 --> 00:22:35.990
side of things, would you say we have more of
393
00:22:36.009 --> 00:22:41.039
a responsibility to establish a home or to find a home? I.
394
00:22:44.380 --> 00:22:50.440
Establish or find? I'm not sure that it's either of
395
00:22:51.700 --> 00:22:57.420
those necessarily, but I'm not sure... what the secret third
396
00:22:57.480 --> 00:23:02.660
thing would be. If we, if we establish a home,
397
00:23:03.680 --> 00:23:08.549
then it becomes something completely of our choosing, or at
398
00:23:08.589 --> 00:23:11.670
least primarily of our choosing. And that doesn't feel quite right.
399
00:23:12.609 --> 00:23:19.849
If we find a home, then it's something that we
400
00:23:19.910 --> 00:23:24.710
had no, no contribution to, or very little contribution to.
401
00:23:24.750 --> 00:23:32.480
I'm thinking of like, So the gospel reading yesterday, I'm
402
00:23:32.799 --> 00:23:38.319
Catholic and the liturgy, the gospel reading yesterday was the
403
00:23:38.339 --> 00:23:43.809
Canaanite woman who said, you know, even the dogs are
404
00:23:43.849 --> 00:23:47.690
grateful for the scraps from their master's table. And I've
405
00:23:47.710 --> 00:23:51.990
been thinking a lot about like old dogs at a shelter.
406
00:23:53.539 --> 00:23:55.980
They get passed over because everyone wants a puppy. But
407
00:23:56.000 --> 00:23:59.880
when the old dog gets adopted, you always hear people say,
408
00:24:00.309 --> 00:24:04.269
that dog is the sweetest dog I have ever had.
409
00:24:04.509 --> 00:24:08.890
Just so full of love and tail is always wagging.
410
00:24:08.910 --> 00:24:12.329
And even if they're only here for six months, we're
411
00:24:12.349 --> 00:24:14.789
going to make every hour of that six months the
412
00:24:14.849 --> 00:24:20.140
best of that dog's life. That dog has a home, right?
413
00:24:20.380 --> 00:24:25.410
But it was welcomed into a home. So do we
414
00:24:25.529 --> 00:24:30.440
find a home? I don't know that we do. Do
415
00:24:30.480 --> 00:24:32.960
we create a home? I don't know that we do.
416
00:24:34.660 --> 00:24:36.880
But again, I don't know what that secret third thing...
417
00:24:36.759 --> 00:24:38.980
It feels like there's something in between those two, but
418
00:24:39.019 --> 00:24:41.329
I'm not sure what it might be. Tyler, what are
419
00:24:41.369 --> 00:24:41.829
you thinking?
420
00:24:43.450 --> 00:24:45.970
I'm thinking I want to hear Andrew answer this question himself.
421
00:24:48.009 --> 00:24:48.289
Good one.
422
00:24:49.369 --> 00:24:50.500
Well, my concern for.
423
00:24:52.089 --> 00:24:57.059
Just about everything regarding identity, what we do with our
424
00:24:57.559 --> 00:24:59.859
time on this earth is I want to make sure
425
00:24:59.880 --> 00:25:06.170
that I'm emphasizing human responsibility, our own responsibility to make
426
00:25:06.250 --> 00:25:09.769
choices and to fulfill the human task. And so I
427
00:25:09.990 --> 00:25:12.369
think that there is a certain danger that can come
428
00:25:12.430 --> 00:25:14.599
in saying, well, I don't have home just because I
429
00:25:14.640 --> 00:25:17.220
haven't found it yet. There may be some truth to that,
430
00:25:17.539 --> 00:25:19.549
but I think if that's your leading idea, well, then
431
00:25:19.589 --> 00:25:21.069
now you're just sort of at the whims of fortune,
432
00:25:21.109 --> 00:25:23.829
which is a dangerous position to be in. At the
433
00:25:23.849 --> 00:25:26.019
same time, I mean, obviously we're talking about something like
434
00:25:26.079 --> 00:25:30.279
home the place where you belong, it's not entirely created
435
00:25:30.400 --> 00:25:32.920
by yourself because, well, you're not entirely created by yourself.
436
00:25:32.940 --> 00:25:37.470
You're not self-creating, right? You are put together in a
437
00:25:37.490 --> 00:25:39.710
certain way. You're put together in a certain social setting.
438
00:25:39.730 --> 00:25:42.190
You're put together in a certain geographical setting. So much
439
00:25:42.210 --> 00:25:44.549
of your life is not created by yourself, but at
440
00:25:44.569 --> 00:25:47.190
the same time, you do have some responsibility for what
441
00:25:47.250 --> 00:25:50.779
you do with that. And so, I mean, do you find,
442
00:25:50.799 --> 00:25:55.920
do you establish, I mean... perhaps you find it in
443
00:25:56.240 --> 00:26:00.319
your establishing, right? I suppose we kind of get into
444
00:26:00.339 --> 00:26:07.900
how time relates to itself, but sometimes it's by working
445
00:26:07.980 --> 00:26:09.980
out your salvation with fear and trembling that you make
446
00:26:10.019 --> 00:26:12.460
your calling and election sure. And I think that that
447
00:26:12.509 --> 00:26:15.990
same principle can apply to something like establishing and thereby
448
00:26:16.049 --> 00:26:19.190
discovering your home, but you have the responsibility to do that.
449
00:26:22.049 --> 00:26:28.549
I'm glad that you said discovering because, and this may
450
00:26:28.609 --> 00:26:34.009
be splitting hairs, but it seems like discovering is, is
451
00:26:34.490 --> 00:26:37.690
at least closer to the right idea. And here's why
452
00:26:37.710 --> 00:26:42.130
I say that. And I'm coming at this primarily from a,
453
00:26:42.519 --> 00:26:49.880
a psychological mental health practitioner perspective. Um, I think I've
454
00:26:49.920 --> 00:26:53.880
mentioned one of our past conversations, how I view my
455
00:26:53.940 --> 00:26:58.630
job largely as just helping people remember what they already know,
456
00:26:59.309 --> 00:27:03.730
helping people rediscover what they already know. Maybe they have
457
00:27:03.869 --> 00:27:09.130
forgotten it and now let's recover it. And that's a
458
00:27:09.210 --> 00:27:11.190
lot of what I do with my clients is I
459
00:27:11.230 --> 00:27:13.789
help them. I know that we've talked about values before.
460
00:27:13.829 --> 00:27:15.829
I think we talked about that for the entire episode
461
00:27:16.269 --> 00:27:22.430
at one point. But it's helping people better identify and
462
00:27:22.569 --> 00:27:28.910
understand what their values are, what things, what qualities, what characteristics, aspects,
463
00:27:29.269 --> 00:27:37.670
whatever in life that they, that they consciously or unconsciously
464
00:27:37.730 --> 00:27:42.559
build their lives around. I have a, this is not
465
00:27:42.970 --> 00:27:45.680
a reliable, it's not validated. This is something that I've
466
00:27:45.720 --> 00:27:48.450
completely made up on my own. But I have a
467
00:27:48.690 --> 00:27:52.950
values assessment that I give my clients and it's 181 items,
468
00:27:53.190 --> 00:27:55.890
I think, just.
469
00:27:56.430 --> 00:27:57.809
Values, right?
470
00:27:58.089 --> 00:28:00.490
Like when I ask people what their values are, they'll
471
00:28:00.509 --> 00:28:03.650
say like, be honest, don't hurt anybody. Like, yeah, those
472
00:28:03.690 --> 00:28:07.069
are obvious. Those don't count because everyone agrees with those.
473
00:28:07.690 --> 00:28:12.480
And then I'll say like, how much do you value accountability? Well,
474
00:28:12.500 --> 00:28:15.220
they think about it. I've never thought about that. Exactly.
475
00:28:15.779 --> 00:28:19.019
But it's pretty important, right? Well, yeah, okay, so it's
476
00:28:19.059 --> 00:28:22.240
something that you might value. Yeah, I guess so. Okay,
477
00:28:22.259 --> 00:28:27.430
then it's a value, right? And so the more we understand,
478
00:28:28.289 --> 00:28:31.349
the more clearly we see what our values are, the
479
00:28:31.369 --> 00:28:36.309
more clearly we have a direction. The more clearly we
480
00:28:36.369 --> 00:28:42.740
can make a good decision. If I don't know what
481
00:28:42.779 --> 00:28:45.900
my sexual ethics are, then I may be presented... with
482
00:28:46.059 --> 00:28:48.710
a sexual opportunity. And I may just make up my
483
00:28:48.750 --> 00:28:52.069
mind based on the moment, but if I have clear direction,
484
00:28:52.609 --> 00:28:55.490
I'll be able to say, yeah, that sounds fun, but
485
00:28:55.549 --> 00:28:59.210
I probably shouldn't do that thing because in the longterm,
486
00:28:59.349 --> 00:29:04.500
it may be against my, my best interests. That person
487
00:29:04.519 --> 00:29:10.700
has discovered something about themselves. And the more clearly, the
488
00:29:10.740 --> 00:29:15.660
more we discover about ourselves, the more likely we are
489
00:29:15.740 --> 00:29:20.259
to find the places or the people or the activities
490
00:29:20.480 --> 00:29:26.740
or whatever that naturally appeal to us. Another way of
491
00:29:26.799 --> 00:29:29.960
saying that in my mind is, you know, people and
492
00:29:30.009 --> 00:29:33.569
places and activities where we belong. I keep coming back
493
00:29:33.609 --> 00:29:37.490
to this idea of belonging. And so I like the
494
00:29:37.549 --> 00:29:41.500
idea of discovering because it seems to me like it
495
00:29:41.660 --> 00:29:50.589
is a gradual uncovering of this is the man I
496
00:29:50.630 --> 00:29:53.269
belong with, the woman I belong with, the place I belong,
497
00:29:53.309 --> 00:29:55.490
the career I belong to. These are the reasons.
498
00:29:57.859 --> 00:30:00.910
That I am here, or these are the things that
499
00:30:01.349 --> 00:30:03.930
are natural outgrowths of my vocation.
500
00:30:03.950 --> 00:30:07.730
Yeah.
501
00:30:08.430 --> 00:30:09.349
Tyler, what do you think?
502
00:30:09.369 --> 00:30:23.380
I hate to turn this into a Tolkien podcast episode.
503
00:30:23.440 --> 00:30:26.200
It's just so easy to do that, isn't it? Right.
504
00:30:26.240 --> 00:30:32.730
But I think Honestly, this question could be so, I mean,
505
00:30:33.130 --> 00:30:38.619
interestingly explored through the Shire itself and its progression of
506
00:30:38.779 --> 00:30:40.980
what it is, what it goes through, and how the
507
00:30:41.019 --> 00:30:45.160
hobbits relate to it as the story unfolds. And I
508
00:30:45.220 --> 00:30:50.960
think when you kind of ask the question of establishing
509
00:30:51.019 --> 00:30:56.170
versus finding, it's interesting to see you know, when the
510
00:30:56.210 --> 00:30:58.670
adventure is over or when the ring is destroyed, the
511
00:30:58.690 --> 00:31:01.150
Hopperts are coming home and what do they find?
512
00:31:01.170 --> 00:31:03.779
They found a Shire that wasn't the Shire they left,
513
00:31:03.890 --> 00:31:04.490
you know?
514
00:31:05.039 --> 00:31:08.519
And in a sense like that, and then it was,
515
00:31:09.240 --> 00:31:11.619
you know, they took the duty upon themselves to, well,
516
00:31:13.359 --> 00:31:16.700
I mean, to bring the Shire into a new age,
517
00:31:16.819 --> 00:31:22.029
into a new era of, and using, you know, the
518
00:31:22.089 --> 00:31:27.630
adventure that they had gone through to help then shape
519
00:31:27.670 --> 00:31:30.430
the Shire into something greater than.
520
00:31:30.349 --> 00:31:31.430
It was before.
521
00:31:32.109 --> 00:31:34.859
And, you know, I mean, between, you know, Sam bringing
522
00:31:34.880 --> 00:31:38.440
in the dirt to plant the tree, how it, you know,
523
00:31:39.539 --> 00:31:42.900
it created an even more beautiful.
524
00:31:44.019 --> 00:31:46.000
Shire than what they had left.
525
00:31:46.079 --> 00:31:52.230
And I think this idea of like what they found
526
00:31:53.039 --> 00:31:55.710
was that what they had left? And it wasn't even
527
00:31:55.789 --> 00:31:58.789
the vision that had kept them going, but then they
528
00:31:58.829 --> 00:32:03.609
had to establish themselves and take the responsibility upon themselves
529
00:32:04.210 --> 00:32:09.539
to imprint home back onto the state because all the
530
00:32:09.599 --> 00:32:11.920
hobbits lost home at that point.
531
00:32:11.960 --> 00:32:14.220
It wasn't just them. I mean, it was a completely
532
00:32:14.299 --> 00:32:14.980
changed place.
533
00:32:15.440 --> 00:32:18.579
And so I guess, and then going back to that
534
00:32:18.660 --> 00:32:21.430
responsibility aspect of like, you know, we.
535
00:32:22.670 --> 00:32:28.069
we are given instances in which we, or.
536
00:32:28.069 --> 00:32:30.630
Time that we have to act upon and we have
537
00:32:30.650 --> 00:32:34.349
the responsibility then to, you know, to take that action
538
00:32:34.369 --> 00:32:39.769
in accordance with, you know, some type of value set
539
00:32:39.869 --> 00:32:44.150
or even the tools that we have or the experience
540
00:32:44.170 --> 00:32:48.900
that we have. So, yeah, I just, I guess, and I,
541
00:32:49.339 --> 00:32:53.240
and I, upon my reading to of Lord of the Rings,
542
00:32:53.319 --> 00:32:57.640
like it is my favorite part of the entire story
543
00:32:57.779 --> 00:33:01.029
is the scouring of the Shire. Like I cry every
544
00:33:01.069 --> 00:33:05.529
time that it, it, it get goosebumps every time where,
545
00:33:05.609 --> 00:33:09.490
you know, they're, they're, they're doing all the things that
546
00:33:09.509 --> 00:33:12.190
they do in that, because you can see that this
547
00:33:12.329 --> 00:33:16.960
was the story of home and story of what Tolkien
548
00:33:17.000 --> 00:33:19.740
is trying to tell us what happens in this final part.
549
00:33:20.420 --> 00:33:28.049
Um, Related to that idea of they went back to
550
00:33:28.170 --> 00:33:31.190
what they saw as home, but they had to work
551
00:33:31.269 --> 00:33:33.490
at it. They had to maintain it. They had to
552
00:33:33.569 --> 00:33:37.509
continually establish it. It's not a fixed reality. I think
553
00:33:37.569 --> 00:33:42.039
of that Chesterton quote when he says that men didn't
554
00:33:42.079 --> 00:33:44.059
love Rome because she was great, but Rome was great
555
00:33:44.119 --> 00:33:44.960
because men loved her.
556
00:33:44.980 --> 00:33:45.619
Yeah.
557
00:33:46.009 --> 00:33:49.349
And that commitment to the idea of Rome is part
558
00:33:49.390 --> 00:33:52.390
of what made it home for the Romans. And so
559
00:33:54.190 --> 00:33:57.420
I think both sides of this reality are important, that
560
00:33:57.720 --> 00:33:59.380
home is something that we need to discover, as we've
561
00:33:59.400 --> 00:34:02.119
been talking about, but also is something that you just
562
00:34:02.160 --> 00:34:05.599
need to commit yourself to if you're going to actually
563
00:34:05.680 --> 00:34:07.400
find it, you're going to actually discover it. I think
564
00:34:07.460 --> 00:34:10.530
of one of Tolkien's letters in which he says that
565
00:34:11.070 --> 00:34:13.590
the real soulmate is simply the person that you happen
566
00:34:13.610 --> 00:34:14.130
to be married to.
567
00:34:15.280 --> 00:34:15.380
Right.
568
00:34:15.440 --> 00:34:17.719
And so some people will spend their lives looking for
569
00:34:17.739 --> 00:34:19.420
their soulmate or maybe they'll get married and feel like
570
00:34:19.539 --> 00:34:21.340
maybe I made a mistake and the right person is
571
00:34:21.360 --> 00:34:23.480
still out there. Well, no, if you committed yourself to
572
00:34:23.519 --> 00:34:25.909
this person, this is the right person for you. That's
573
00:34:25.929 --> 00:34:29.349
what Tolkien's saying. I think it's exactly right. And so sometimes,
574
00:34:29.989 --> 00:34:35.989
you know, home is it's not necessarily this like ethereal wish,
575
00:34:36.030 --> 00:34:38.510
even though I think we all have that deep subconscious
576
00:34:38.570 --> 00:34:43.059
desire for home. Home is also that that that to
577
00:34:43.079 --> 00:34:46.940
which we happen to commit ourselves. I think of some
578
00:34:46.960 --> 00:34:49.420
of the seasons in my own life in which things
579
00:34:49.519 --> 00:34:52.400
weren't what I thought they were going to be. For example,
580
00:34:52.619 --> 00:34:55.320
I spent some time working in insurance, which as a
581
00:34:55.340 --> 00:34:59.590
humanities guy was absolutely terrible. I hated it. But at
582
00:34:59.610 --> 00:35:03.550
the same time, I recognized it. to a certain extent,
583
00:35:03.570 --> 00:35:05.429
I mean, yeah, it's work because I'm using home kind
584
00:35:05.449 --> 00:35:09.230
of ambiguously, but in a life state idea, like that
585
00:35:09.250 --> 00:35:11.650
didn't feel like home, but it's where I was. And
586
00:35:11.690 --> 00:35:13.909
so I committed to it and I did the best
587
00:35:13.929 --> 00:35:16.030
that I could within that field, even though it didn't
588
00:35:16.090 --> 00:35:18.269
feel native to me. And so to a sense, that
589
00:35:18.329 --> 00:35:21.670
was home, even if I desired something else. And so
590
00:35:22.489 --> 00:35:26.219
I think that we, that reality at home is what
591
00:35:26.239 --> 00:35:29.579
you commit yourself to is an important part of this conversation.
592
00:35:29.599 --> 00:35:29.670
Was.
593
00:35:32.750 --> 00:35:37.699
Was that home or was that the adventure? Because, because
594
00:35:38.099 --> 00:35:40.840
let me, let me draw that out because as you
595
00:35:40.860 --> 00:35:45.179
were saying, I remember, I remember that period of, of Dr.
596
00:35:45.280 --> 00:35:48.420
Andrew Snyder before you were even doctor. I remember you
597
00:35:48.460 --> 00:35:51.130
working in insurance. Cause I was thinking like, in this guy,
598
00:35:51.150 --> 00:35:53.690
like an academic, what's he doing in insurance? And then
599
00:35:53.710 --> 00:35:54.570
I realized like, Oh yeah.
600
00:35:54.610 --> 00:35:54.909
I get it.
601
00:35:55.429 --> 00:35:59.210
Um, but why were you doing that? Why were you
602
00:35:59.250 --> 00:36:01.610
working in insurance? Um, The way I see it, and
603
00:36:01.690 --> 00:36:03.389
I'm not trying to write your story for you, but
604
00:36:03.409 --> 00:36:06.050
the way I see it is that you were doing
605
00:36:06.090 --> 00:36:08.929
this thing that you didn't want to do because there
606
00:36:08.949 --> 00:36:12.019
was something behind you that was important enough to do
607
00:36:12.079 --> 00:36:14.119
this thing that you didn't want to do. You went
608
00:36:14.300 --> 00:36:19.519
out into the world and slayed a really boring dragon
609
00:36:19.599 --> 00:36:23.119
for a while because it allowed you to come home
610
00:36:23.139 --> 00:36:25.829
and do the home thing.
611
00:36:26.500 --> 00:36:26.679
Right?
612
00:36:26.699 --> 00:36:28.659
And so there was something out there that was not
613
00:36:28.679 --> 00:36:32.519
appealing because there was something back there that was. That's
614
00:36:32.539 --> 00:36:32.989
what I think.
615
00:36:33.010 --> 00:36:33.550
What do you think?
616
00:36:34.849 --> 00:36:37.650
I think that is a fair assessment. I think that's
617
00:36:37.670 --> 00:36:42.070
a perfectly legitimate way to frame things. But I suppose
618
00:36:42.150 --> 00:36:48.739
looking at home more holistically, the work that I was
619
00:36:48.800 --> 00:36:53.170
doing was part of that same home system in that
620
00:36:53.250 --> 00:36:55.719
the money that I worked for directly fed, you know,
621
00:36:55.739 --> 00:36:58.179
my family at home, so to speak. And so I
622
00:36:58.219 --> 00:37:01.559
think of like, you know, in, I think it's easier
623
00:37:01.579 --> 00:37:04.760
to separate those out as adventure and home. in our
624
00:37:04.820 --> 00:37:08.050
current context in which those things are generally pretty well divided.
625
00:37:08.170 --> 00:37:10.210
But I mean, if you think historically, you know, the,
626
00:37:10.510 --> 00:37:13.909
the pioneer settlement or whatever, where, you know, the home
627
00:37:13.969 --> 00:37:16.769
and the work are essentially the same thing and you
628
00:37:16.829 --> 00:37:19.110
can't fully separate those out. And so I think what
629
00:37:19.130 --> 00:37:20.809
you're saying is, I think it's perfectly legitimate way to
630
00:37:20.849 --> 00:37:22.409
frame it. I think that's very helpful way to frame it.
631
00:37:23.030 --> 00:37:24.570
But I think that there are other ways looking at
632
00:37:24.590 --> 00:37:28.210
it as well, where basically the whole ecosystem, what you
633
00:37:28.269 --> 00:37:31.599
find yourself can be thought of as home. And I, I,
634
00:37:33.639 --> 00:37:38.070
I find that more useful simply because it forces me
635
00:37:38.269 --> 00:37:41.389
in whatever area of my life I'm currently focusing. Like
636
00:37:42.230 --> 00:37:44.449
I have an obligation to treat that as an extension
637
00:37:44.489 --> 00:37:46.949
of my own life. And I think that adds a
638
00:37:46.989 --> 00:37:53.900
certain degree of responsibility that I personally find to be helpful. Okay.
639
00:37:54.099 --> 00:37:55.320
I can see that. Yeah.
640
00:37:56.300 --> 00:38:01.719
And just even looking at what, when home becomes a
641
00:38:01.760 --> 00:38:04.909
place where you're, almost to the point of contentedness to
642
00:38:04.929 --> 00:38:08.510
the point of not actually doing anything about home, it
643
00:38:09.130 --> 00:38:13.469
will slowly become not home because the house will fall
644
00:38:13.510 --> 00:38:16.889
into the disrepair. The kids will be, you know, well,
645
00:38:16.929 --> 00:38:19.369
they'll cry of neglect, you know, or like, you know,
646
00:38:19.389 --> 00:38:21.730
you look at all these different things that build into it,
647
00:38:21.909 --> 00:38:25.989
but even just like relationships were like, and this is
648
00:38:26.030 --> 00:38:28.980
where I really liked that commitment aspect of it, where
649
00:38:29.000 --> 00:38:32.219
it's like, when you commit something and plant those roots,
650
00:38:32.750 --> 00:38:36.699
you have to keep working. It doesn't ever really stop.
651
00:38:37.280 --> 00:38:42.000
And so in a sense, it's like the idea of,
652
00:38:42.000 --> 00:38:45.039
and I think this is where sometimes like the waywardness
653
00:38:45.119 --> 00:38:49.139
can be so strong is that there's this fear to
654
00:38:49.280 --> 00:38:56.300
actually commit to something because without even being, well, the
655
00:38:56.320 --> 00:39:01.440
commitment requires and comes with responsibility, period. And then people
656
00:39:01.460 --> 00:39:03.619
are always afraid of, well, I'm going to commit to
657
00:39:03.659 --> 00:39:07.039
the wrong thing. Just like, you know, what was said already.
658
00:39:07.579 --> 00:39:12.289
And in a sense, like it's to being able to
659
00:39:12.710 --> 00:39:17.010
build the bridge all the way across of finding that belonging,
660
00:39:17.030 --> 00:39:20.909
finding that home is this committing to the responsibility it
661
00:39:20.949 --> 00:39:24.300
takes to continue to work, to build the bridge. And I,
662
00:39:24.489 --> 00:39:26.530
and I do think the work isn't done until we're,
663
00:39:26.650 --> 00:39:29.409
until we're dead and then on to the next thing.
664
00:39:29.909 --> 00:39:32.820
And, so yeah and i think that's one reason why
665
00:39:32.949 --> 00:39:36.019
i'm i'm hesitant to use the language of home being
666
00:39:36.099 --> 00:39:38.320
where you feel like you belong because say say you
667
00:39:38.340 --> 00:39:40.559
do you know commit yourself to a spouse and a
668
00:39:40.579 --> 00:39:43.039
family what if it gets to a day where this
669
00:39:43.059 --> 00:39:45.440
just no longer feels like home that's where i think
670
00:39:45.460 --> 00:39:48.409
you get into a dangerous position And so that's why
671
00:39:48.710 --> 00:39:51.650
I definitely prefer using the language of home is where
672
00:39:51.679 --> 00:39:54.659
it is that you actually belong, which does require some
673
00:39:54.699 --> 00:39:58.099
degree of discovery, obviously, but also places a heavy emphasis
674
00:39:58.320 --> 00:40:03.070
on that ongoing commitment to establish and to maintain the home.
675
00:40:03.469 --> 00:40:06.230
You know, even against your own feelings that this doesn't
676
00:40:06.269 --> 00:40:07.130
seem like home right now.
677
00:40:07.150 --> 00:40:08.289
Hmm.
678
00:40:10.329 --> 00:40:12.039
Hmm. Yeah.
679
00:40:12.139 --> 00:40:15.860
I definitely see the importance of, of that conversation point because,
680
00:40:16.199 --> 00:40:19.139
you know, in many, in many ways that when.
681
00:40:19.019 --> 00:40:21.239
We have a, you know, we have a.
682
00:40:23.360 --> 00:40:26.340
Society that is in a language base and a, in
683
00:40:26.360 --> 00:40:30.110
a being base that is very feelings based, you, we
684
00:40:30.969 --> 00:40:34.010
tie ourselves to the ebbs and flows of everything that's happening.
685
00:40:34.030 --> 00:40:37.710
There is no foundation to build upon. And I, and it,
686
00:40:38.329 --> 00:40:41.860
and it, I guess even coming into this conversation, I'm
687
00:40:41.880 --> 00:40:46.150
just like, what aspect of home are we going to
688
00:40:46.170 --> 00:40:48.210
be talking about? Cause I was having a hard time
689
00:40:48.250 --> 00:40:51.829
just conceptualizing like what that would mean. And, you know,
690
00:40:51.929 --> 00:40:54.230
and trying to be like, well, yeah, I mean, you know,
691
00:40:54.269 --> 00:40:56.809
we talk about, you know, safety, we talk about this, that,
692
00:40:56.829 --> 00:40:58.969
and the other, but in a sense, like it kind
693
00:40:58.989 --> 00:41:01.090
of goes and I, and I, and I wonder how
694
00:41:01.150 --> 00:41:04.260
much just even the identity of this conversation is going
695
00:41:04.280 --> 00:41:07.940
to have a very similar, have a similar point to
696
00:41:08.019 --> 00:41:13.449
it where it's like, you know, when we are unable
697
00:41:13.530 --> 00:41:17.710
to root ourselves in any way, like we don't even
698
00:41:17.750 --> 00:41:20.710
know what we're being responsible for, what we're acting for
699
00:41:20.829 --> 00:41:24.809
and doing. And then we are just, yeah, just wandering
700
00:41:24.849 --> 00:41:30.969
around and having us, and yeah, just without that direction.
701
00:41:30.989 --> 00:41:35.900
And it can be really challenging. And then I think
702
00:41:35.940 --> 00:41:37.519
that's where you can see a lot of like the
703
00:41:37.579 --> 00:41:41.139
depressive anxiety really start to take a foothold I mean,
704
00:41:41.159 --> 00:41:44.880
even looking at, you know, something like borderline personality disorder,
705
00:41:44.900 --> 00:41:48.539
where like you have this issue with attachment, where it's
706
00:41:48.610 --> 00:41:53.030
like you, like people with borderline will go from being
707
00:41:53.710 --> 00:41:59.210
fully immersed into a relationship, then one minute, and then
708
00:41:59.530 --> 00:42:02.789
violently trying to get themselves back out of it.
709
00:42:03.010 --> 00:42:06.389
And that's just this constant push and pull. And it's like,
710
00:42:07.119 --> 00:42:10.030
why did we do that? Things were going so great.
711
00:42:10.050 --> 00:42:13.650
I was like, well, and then, you know, whether it's trauma, whatever,
712
00:42:13.769 --> 00:42:16.369
it's whatever takes hold again. And it's like, they will
713
00:42:16.590 --> 00:42:22.010
literally blow it up. And it's, and it's really interesting
714
00:42:22.070 --> 00:42:26.320
to look at that, how the thing that blows up
715
00:42:26.449 --> 00:42:29.599
is that is, is something that's, that they're trying to
716
00:42:29.619 --> 00:42:32.800
build that's foundational and they get, and they get stuck
717
00:42:32.840 --> 00:42:34.429
in that loop over and over again. Hmm.
718
00:42:37.409 --> 00:42:41.789
I wrote a note to myself here just so that
719
00:42:41.829 --> 00:42:45.650
I wouldn't forget it. And I have not vetted this thought.
720
00:42:45.750 --> 00:42:51.269
It's just a thought that entered my head. But what
721
00:42:51.489 --> 00:42:59.639
if home, broadly speaking, is something or someone, again, a
722
00:42:59.760 --> 00:43:04.940
place or a relationship or whatever, that offers a clear
723
00:43:05.059 --> 00:43:09.599
target for Or a clear end point. For our energy.
724
00:43:09.800 --> 00:43:10.559
Our efforts.
725
00:43:10.840 --> 00:43:11.780
Our attention.
726
00:43:11.940 --> 00:43:17.559
Our affection. Whatever. Because. Because a lot of like.
727
00:43:18.409 --> 00:43:19.630
I'm single. You guys aren't.
728
00:43:20.030 --> 00:43:20.409
I am.
729
00:43:21.230 --> 00:43:21.449
And.
730
00:43:21.469 --> 00:43:22.050
Or at least.
731
00:43:22.369 --> 00:43:23.250
Tyler you're married right?
732
00:43:23.690 --> 00:43:23.969
Yeah.
733
00:43:24.349 --> 00:43:25.869
You are. And I know Andrew that you are.
734
00:43:26.570 --> 00:43:26.949
I'm not.
735
00:43:27.469 --> 00:43:31.349
Right? And so like. There is a lot of. There
736
00:43:31.409 --> 00:43:37.639
is a lot of. Emotionality. That. I just am not
737
00:43:37.820 --> 00:43:41.159
able to share. I'm not able to act upon. I'm
738
00:43:41.179 --> 00:43:46.420
not able to, uh, to direct towards other people. And
739
00:43:46.460 --> 00:43:51.190
it can be very disorienting. There's, there's nowhere when I,
740
00:43:51.210 --> 00:43:55.409
you know, when I want to take someone out and
741
00:43:55.469 --> 00:43:57.789
just make them smile for a few hours, I can't
742
00:43:57.809 --> 00:44:03.070
do that. And that is, that is a very unrooted feeling.
743
00:44:03.320 --> 00:44:07.469
I've had some very good relationships and those relationships, Everything
744
00:44:07.530 --> 00:44:13.650
has felt stable and comfortable and familiar, right? Doesn't that
745
00:44:13.690 --> 00:44:16.309
sound a bit like home? Stable, comfortable, familiar? I hope
746
00:44:16.349 --> 00:44:20.550
it does. And when you lose that, suddenly you are
747
00:44:20.610 --> 00:44:29.179
constantly trying to cobble something together. You're trying to cobble
748
00:44:29.219 --> 00:44:31.780
something together, whether, again, whether it's a relationship or a
749
00:44:31.800 --> 00:44:34.619
home or whatever. You're trying to put something together with.
750
00:44:36.090 --> 00:44:39.750
Disparate pieces that may or may not actually fit together.
751
00:44:40.349 --> 00:44:44.929
And so what if the idea of home is simply
752
00:44:46.309 --> 00:44:48.769
this is the person or these are the people or
753
00:44:48.829 --> 00:44:52.110
this is the place or this is the career that
754
00:44:53.230 --> 00:44:59.730
I am consciously directing myself towards, right? Because there is
755
00:44:59.849 --> 00:45:05.360
that aspect of commitment. There is that aspect of responsibility.
756
00:45:05.929 --> 00:45:11.780
but there's also a clear destination for it. What do
757
00:45:11.800 --> 00:45:12.559
y'all think of that?
758
00:45:15.679 --> 00:45:17.780
So, you know, I mean, as you, as you were
759
00:45:17.820 --> 00:45:20.429
talking through, I was like, I'm ready for some pushback.
760
00:45:20.469 --> 00:45:22.409
I'm going to push back on some things, but I
761
00:45:22.449 --> 00:45:23.670
think when he, when he brought it back around.
762
00:45:23.710 --> 00:45:25.050
It's like, okay, that's a little less pushback.
763
00:45:25.130 --> 00:45:28.929
Yes. But I think that there's this idea of when we,
764
00:45:29.590 --> 00:45:34.099
when we are, when, we have our circumstances right and
765
00:45:34.179 --> 00:45:36.880
so we have the the place in which we are
766
00:45:37.719 --> 00:45:41.360
and in many ways when we can look out kind
767
00:45:41.380 --> 00:45:44.159
of beyond our circumstances we can dream of circumstances that
768
00:45:44.199 --> 00:45:48.349
we would prefer and and we would prefer a relationship
769
00:45:48.369 --> 00:45:50.550
we would prefer or the relationship to look like this
770
00:45:50.650 --> 00:45:52.989
or we would prefer so on and so on and
771
00:45:53.010 --> 00:45:56.449
so on and and even in that state like we're
772
00:45:56.489 --> 00:46:00.710
we're we're not committing too much. We're not, we're not
773
00:46:00.750 --> 00:46:04.170
taking responsibility for what is where we are at that
774
00:46:04.269 --> 00:46:06.989
point and what the circumstances are given to us. And
775
00:46:07.230 --> 00:46:11.090
I think that you can be lost in searching for
776
00:46:11.239 --> 00:46:15.400
home because you are searching honest. I mean, in my opinion,
777
00:46:15.420 --> 00:46:17.320
you're searching for a place that you're not going to
778
00:46:17.400 --> 00:46:22.119
find on just by, you know, a meteor coming down
779
00:46:22.159 --> 00:46:24.389
and planting it in front of you. Like that's, I mean,
780
00:46:24.929 --> 00:46:27.389
Even then, they may be home for a time, but
781
00:46:27.489 --> 00:46:28.989
give it a couple of days and you'll be like, nope,
782
00:46:29.909 --> 00:46:30.869
I want something different.
783
00:46:33.250 --> 00:46:36.250
And so I think that if.
784
00:46:36.230 --> 00:46:37.889
We are able to look at the circumstance in which
785
00:46:37.949 --> 00:46:40.539
we are, we can always find a home in it
786
00:46:40.579 --> 00:46:42.860
because we could take that commitment, we could take that
787
00:46:42.920 --> 00:46:48.340
responsibility and push it towards something. And I think then
788
00:46:48.420 --> 00:46:52.590
from the biggest, I mean, when I'm working with my clients,
789
00:46:52.630 --> 00:46:56.019
I'm always trying to... narrow things down to something that's
790
00:46:56.320 --> 00:47:00.019
as foundational as it gets within their lives. What's, what's
791
00:47:00.059 --> 00:47:04.460
going to be the thing that grounds them beyond circumstances. And,
792
00:47:05.679 --> 00:47:07.900
and I think in a way, like that's the same
793
00:47:07.920 --> 00:47:10.260
kind of conversation of, of home too, where it's like,
794
00:47:10.280 --> 00:47:13.849
when we find that ground, it's that base down all
795
00:47:13.869 --> 00:47:15.630
the way down to the ground itself, like it can
796
00:47:15.750 --> 00:47:19.869
endure anything. And in itself, like we could see the tree,
797
00:47:20.130 --> 00:47:23.769
you know, bloom and, from that ground, um, over time.
798
00:47:23.869 --> 00:47:31.440
So it's, um, you mentioned Tyler a few minutes ago, uh,
799
00:47:31.929 --> 00:47:36.340
in your previous response, you mentioned borderline and you mentioned
800
00:47:36.380 --> 00:47:42.760
attachment and one of the fundamental aspects of working with
801
00:47:42.800 --> 00:47:46.400
attachments in the work that we do is that the
802
00:47:46.440 --> 00:47:51.239
therapist provides, uh, there are a few different terms for this,
803
00:47:51.280 --> 00:47:55.219
but basically a secure base. So you're working with a
804
00:47:55.659 --> 00:47:59.619
client who has attachment issues. Maybe they're preoccupied or fearful
805
00:47:59.659 --> 00:48:02.300
avoided or whatever. I don't want to give people more
806
00:48:02.570 --> 00:48:07.110
psychobabble than they already have. But they've got some sort
807
00:48:07.130 --> 00:48:12.469
of attachment issue in their relationships. The therapist who's working
808
00:48:12.489 --> 00:48:16.269
with them on this provides a secure base. And what
809
00:48:16.309 --> 00:48:22.659
that means is that with me, you can be imperfect
810
00:48:23.340 --> 00:48:27.019
while you are trying to learn these new skills so
811
00:48:27.039 --> 00:48:29.449
that when you go out into the world, you can
812
00:48:29.489 --> 00:48:36.110
apply them with more confidence, right? And again, maybe I've
813
00:48:36.130 --> 00:48:37.949
just been thinking about home way too much and so
814
00:48:37.989 --> 00:48:41.269
I see it everywhere, but I see that as like
815
00:48:41.449 --> 00:48:48.400
a kind of home, right? It's an opportunity to be imperfect, right?
816
00:48:48.800 --> 00:48:56.519
It's an opportunity to stop performing. It's an opportunity to
817
00:48:56.619 --> 00:48:59.699
be a more authentic, oh gosh, I hate using that word,
818
00:49:00.059 --> 00:49:05.210
a more authentic version of yourself because that's where you
819
00:49:05.349 --> 00:49:10.190
are known. That is where you don't have to, I mean,
820
00:49:10.210 --> 00:49:11.929
you do have to live up to a certain standard.
821
00:49:11.969 --> 00:49:13.769
If you're a husband or a father, you can't just
822
00:49:13.809 --> 00:49:15.489
be a deadbeat, right? You got to be a husband
823
00:49:15.530 --> 00:49:18.909
and a father. But within that, you don't have to
824
00:49:20.289 --> 00:49:23.739
always be super dad. You don't always have to be
825
00:49:23.920 --> 00:49:27.820
Andy Griffith or whoever else. I've never actually watched that show.
826
00:49:27.860 --> 00:49:29.000
I don't know if he was a good father. I
827
00:49:29.019 --> 00:49:32.960
assume he was. I hope he was. Otherwise, that example
828
00:49:33.039 --> 00:49:34.059
completely falls flat.
829
00:49:36.860 --> 00:49:37.369
Yeah, no.
830
00:49:37.780 --> 00:49:42.550
Just a rambling thought of mine there. I don't know
831
00:49:42.590 --> 00:49:43.829
if y'all want to pick that up or.
832
00:49:45.550 --> 00:49:48.889
I mean, I think that that obviously makes a clear
833
00:49:48.989 --> 00:49:52.239
degree of sense that home is somewhere where you can
834
00:49:52.260 --> 00:49:56.400
be more comfortable. Although, I mean, as you mentioned, there's
835
00:49:56.420 --> 00:49:58.840
still obviously certain roles you have to perform. You know,
836
00:49:59.760 --> 00:50:05.340
I don't always feel comfortable in safe changing the baby's
837
00:50:05.380 --> 00:50:08.400
diaper at 2 a.m but it's something that i do
838
00:50:08.500 --> 00:50:10.900
because i do still have that role to maintain and
839
00:50:11.389 --> 00:50:13.449
having commitment to that role makes me a better person
840
00:50:13.670 --> 00:50:16.929
right and so uh i i don't know i don't
841
00:50:16.949 --> 00:50:19.650
know exactly how that relates or doesn't relate to what
842
00:50:19.670 --> 00:50:23.809
you're bringing up but um i don't know tyler.
843
00:50:23.570 --> 00:50:27.179
What do you think i you know once again kind
844
00:50:27.199 --> 00:50:28.840
of stuck in this place of like.
845
00:50:31.320 --> 00:50:34.179
Even trying to conceptualize the idea of what we're trying
846
00:50:34.199 --> 00:50:37.610
to discuss, it's multiple things at once. It's like, ah,
847
00:50:37.619 --> 00:50:39.710
which one do I need to grab onto to try and...
848
00:50:40.909 --> 00:50:47.090
But I think what's interesting about the idea of having
849
00:50:47.110 --> 00:50:50.590
that secure base, right, where it's like you're able to be,
850
00:50:52.650 --> 00:50:59.489
is that the people that we have a relationship with
851
00:51:00.170 --> 00:51:03.110
then it can take that and push you that it's
852
00:51:03.170 --> 00:51:07.119
not even in its best moments. It's not comfortable because like,
853
00:51:07.139 --> 00:51:10.239
if you have to, if you have to be a better,
854
00:51:10.420 --> 00:51:12.840
which we all should be striving to be, you know,
855
00:51:13.179 --> 00:51:15.889
like if you're in a relationship, a better, a better partner,
856
00:51:15.909 --> 00:51:17.949
a better spouse, a better, I mean, then at work,
857
00:51:18.010 --> 00:51:21.269
if you're striving to be better all the time, you know, it's,
858
00:51:22.110 --> 00:51:26.250
It's even in the most comfortable zone is that you
859
00:51:26.289 --> 00:51:29.349
have to you're going to be pushed beyond that comfortable
860
00:51:29.409 --> 00:51:32.510
zone because that's what's required of you to be better.
861
00:51:32.530 --> 00:51:36.230
Like if I sit here and say, I think I'm
862
00:51:36.250 --> 00:51:38.130
about as good a dad as I can be. I'm
863
00:51:38.150 --> 00:51:41.760
done getting better at being a dad. Well, you're in
864
00:51:41.780 --> 00:51:44.530
for trouble. I think that's right. And I heard it
865
00:51:44.550 --> 00:51:46.570
said once too, where it's like, even in like in
866
00:51:46.590 --> 00:51:48.570
a relationship, you think, you know, I can't love my
867
00:51:48.610 --> 00:51:50.730
wife more than I loved her when, you know, the
868
00:51:50.750 --> 00:51:53.130
day that we got married, it's like, well, you're, you're
869
00:51:53.150 --> 00:51:56.869
done for that relationship is done because you should be
870
00:51:56.929 --> 00:52:00.780
loving her more each day. Like you were telling yourself
871
00:52:00.840 --> 00:52:02.739
that I don't love my wife enough.
872
00:52:03.059 --> 00:52:06.000
I should, I need to love her more. And what
873
00:52:06.039 --> 00:52:08.420
does that look like? And I think in the sense too,
874
00:52:08.519 --> 00:52:10.860
it's like, we can take that same question too. It's
875
00:52:10.880 --> 00:52:14.380
like in the apply anywhere. And it, it will kind
876
00:52:14.420 --> 00:52:15.340
of force.
877
00:52:16.840 --> 00:52:19.730
Whatever feelings you have to be pushed beyond and to
878
00:52:19.789 --> 00:52:21.269
grow in a sense too.
879
00:52:22.010 --> 00:52:25.010
And so I think that's where a classical understanding of
880
00:52:25.050 --> 00:52:29.050
virtue is very helpful. You know, in, in our setting,
881
00:52:29.090 --> 00:52:32.320
it says it's, it's very common to feel like this
882
00:52:32.340 --> 00:52:33.900
is no longer home. And so then you start to
883
00:52:33.920 --> 00:52:36.570
let go of your commitments instead of committing to it,
884
00:52:36.619 --> 00:52:38.860
thereby making it home. You know, it's like go to
885
00:52:39.119 --> 00:52:44.139
the Aristotle's definition of, or his understanding of education. It's
886
00:52:44.429 --> 00:52:49.639
about conditioning the appetites, right? It's about learning to like
887
00:52:49.679 --> 00:52:53.480
the right things, because what's comfortable isn't always what's actually
888
00:52:53.619 --> 00:52:56.880
good for you. You know, the siren song can be
889
00:52:56.940 --> 00:52:58.860
very comforting, but it's not going to lead you to
890
00:52:58.900 --> 00:53:01.559
your home, right? It's going to lead to disaster. And so,
891
00:53:01.579 --> 00:53:03.659
you know, this is when we need to have the
892
00:53:03.699 --> 00:53:06.309
ideal in front of us and condition our appetites accordingly.
893
00:53:06.809 --> 00:53:10.090
And sometimes discovering what the ideal is requires a reliance
894
00:53:10.190 --> 00:53:12.809
on the facticity of what happens to be around us.
895
00:53:13.590 --> 00:53:16.050
So it's kind of both give and take. And Kierkegaard
896
00:53:16.070 --> 00:53:17.570
talks a lot about this, and we'll talk about some
897
00:53:17.610 --> 00:53:20.050
of that when we get into that course, but about
898
00:53:20.469 --> 00:53:26.519
how there are several pathways to despair. One of them
899
00:53:26.599 --> 00:53:29.460
is an over-reliance on facticity, where you simply say, this
900
00:53:29.599 --> 00:53:31.460
is the set of conditions around me. It's never going
901
00:53:31.500 --> 00:53:33.880
to change. This is where I'm stuck. That's one form
902
00:53:33.920 --> 00:53:36.539
of despair. It's that despair that things are just never
903
00:53:36.599 --> 00:53:39.440
going to change. But it's also the despair that says,
904
00:53:40.289 --> 00:53:42.110
the facts around me don't matter. I have this idea
905
00:53:42.150 --> 00:53:43.429
of who I want to be and where I want
906
00:53:43.449 --> 00:53:45.829
things to be. And it's going to happen because I'm
907
00:53:45.849 --> 00:53:49.480
dreaming it. That's romantic despair, which is a different kind
908
00:53:49.519 --> 00:53:52.960
of despair, but that a real integrated life is going
909
00:53:53.000 --> 00:53:56.239
to affirm the facts that are around you, but also
910
00:53:56.280 --> 00:53:59.179
recognize that things can change and not just that things
911
00:53:59.199 --> 00:54:01.210
can change, but that you can change things.
912
00:54:05.230 --> 00:54:09.719
As we've been talking about this, Tyler, this is a
913
00:54:09.760 --> 00:54:12.119
thought that was born by something you said a moment ago.
914
00:54:13.659 --> 00:54:17.599
Just wondering about what aspect of home are we going
915
00:54:17.639 --> 00:54:26.300
to lock in on or discuss? I'm realizing that maybe
916
00:54:26.360 --> 00:54:28.889
the reason we're having such a hard time locking this
917
00:54:29.010 --> 00:54:33.829
one down is because home is kind of paradoxical in
918
00:54:33.869 --> 00:54:36.090
its nature. What I mean by that, again, I wrote
919
00:54:36.110 --> 00:54:39.139
some notes, it's A place where you're safe, but it's
920
00:54:39.179 --> 00:54:41.780
also a place where you're challenged. It's a place where
921
00:54:41.800 --> 00:54:43.860
you rest, but it's also a place where you put
922
00:54:43.920 --> 00:54:50.639
in effort. It is, home is so many and, yes and, right?
923
00:54:50.780 --> 00:54:54.519
Home is yes and. It's where you go to love,
924
00:54:54.579 --> 00:54:58.659
but it's also where you go to maybe discipline your children, right?
925
00:54:58.679 --> 00:55:00.380
It's where you go to make them laugh and it's
926
00:55:00.400 --> 00:55:03.019
where you go, unfortunately, sometimes to make them cry. Like
927
00:55:03.059 --> 00:55:10.670
home is, it's this and it's that. And that's kind of, again,
928
00:55:10.750 --> 00:55:14.989
it's kind of, if you're wanting to lock it down
929
00:55:15.030 --> 00:55:21.219
into a single aspect, it's kind of disorienting because, yeah, Frodo, right?
930
00:55:21.619 --> 00:55:25.280
Home was the Shire until it wasn't. His home was
931
00:55:25.340 --> 00:55:27.440
then over the sea. So does that mean his home
932
00:55:27.460 --> 00:55:31.500
was always over the sea? Yeah, kind of, right? Like,
933
00:55:32.260 --> 00:55:37.150
it kind of was because, like, That's the home. That's
934
00:55:37.170 --> 00:55:42.429
where we go. There's an old song. I can't remember
935
00:55:42.489 --> 00:55:49.840
who sings it. But it's a folk standard called Come
936
00:55:49.900 --> 00:55:51.599
Up to the House. Come on up to the house.
937
00:55:52.539 --> 00:55:56.039
And one of the lines in the chorus is, this
938
00:55:56.079 --> 00:56:01.730
world is not my home. I'm just traveling through. And
939
00:56:01.750 --> 00:56:05.260
I think that that's... maybe the right way to think
940
00:56:05.500 --> 00:56:08.360
of home, you know, Andrew, to your point of like,
941
00:56:09.320 --> 00:56:12.039
you know, there's this home, but then there's also the
942
00:56:12.099 --> 00:56:17.539
home beyond, um, going back to Lord of the Rings, uh, Rivendell,
943
00:56:17.699 --> 00:56:21.230
the last homely house, right. That was where they went
944
00:56:21.289 --> 00:56:25.110
and had every homely creature comfort, but it wasn't home
945
00:56:25.269 --> 00:56:28.329
unless you lived there, but they described it as the
946
00:56:28.369 --> 00:56:31.309
last homely house. It was, it was, it was home,
947
00:56:32.289 --> 00:56:33.110
but it wasn't home.
948
00:56:33.969 --> 00:56:35.050
And so.
949
00:56:36.989 --> 00:56:38.960
Maybe this is why I've been thinking about this all summer,
950
00:56:39.079 --> 00:56:46.280
because there's so many different directions to attack this from.
951
00:56:46.400 --> 00:56:50.289
Maybe home is like, what is it?
952
00:56:50.300 --> 00:56:52.900
I don't know.
953
00:56:53.300 --> 00:56:55.440
That might not be an appropriate comparison, so I'll keep
954
00:56:55.480 --> 00:56:59.929
that one to myself. But maybe home is something that
955
00:56:59.989 --> 00:57:03.369
you don't necessarily know until you see it. Maybe that
956
00:57:03.429 --> 00:57:07.599
idea Home is tricky. Home is trickier than I realized.
957
00:57:08.619 --> 00:57:11.739
I think one problem that adds to the complexity is
958
00:57:11.780 --> 00:57:14.380
that when we speak of home, I think we often
959
00:57:14.480 --> 00:57:20.699
first think of a certain state of being, something of
960
00:57:20.940 --> 00:57:23.570
stability is often what we think of as home. But
961
00:57:23.739 --> 00:57:28.349
of course, in this world of temporality, things are temporary.
962
00:57:28.710 --> 00:57:31.610
Things are always changing. Things are always moving. And so
963
00:57:31.650 --> 00:57:34.780
on one hand, we have eternity written on our hearts.
964
00:57:35.260 --> 00:57:39.159
We long for that true and eternal home that humans
965
00:57:39.300 --> 00:57:42.139
are made to inhabit. But at the same time, we
966
00:57:42.360 --> 00:57:45.789
live in this world of fleeting goods, which makes it
967
00:57:45.869 --> 00:57:49.929
a complex phenomenon that any home that we experience or
968
00:57:49.969 --> 00:57:52.090
that we establish or that we discover or we build
969
00:57:52.110 --> 00:57:54.869
or whatever, however we frame that, any home that we
970
00:57:54.969 --> 00:57:58.380
have it in this life is going to be kind
971
00:57:58.420 --> 00:58:00.500
of paradoxical, or maybe it's going to be a moving
972
00:58:00.619 --> 00:58:03.920
approximation of that which we fundamentally desire in a more
973
00:58:03.960 --> 00:58:07.760
real sense. There's this quote from C.S. Lewis' The Problem
974
00:58:07.780 --> 00:58:10.579
of Pain, in which he says, Our father refreshes us
975
00:58:10.619 --> 00:58:12.940
on the journey with some pleasant ends, but will not
976
00:58:13.000 --> 00:58:17.360
encourage us to mistake them for home. That even the
977
00:58:17.420 --> 00:58:20.300
best home we could have in this world is temporary.
978
00:58:21.019 --> 00:58:23.199
People are going to die. Things are going to fall apart.
979
00:58:23.559 --> 00:58:26.650
Hearts are going to break. there is sorrow attached to
980
00:58:26.710 --> 00:58:31.849
every earthly love, even as earthly love rightly framed is
981
00:58:31.889 --> 00:58:33.869
going to incorporate sorrow and bring it into an even
982
00:58:33.909 --> 00:58:39.590
higher plane. And so I think that a lot of
983
00:58:39.610 --> 00:58:42.559
this frustration comes down to longing for something that we
984
00:58:42.579 --> 00:58:45.440
can never fully experience in this world, but it doesn't
985
00:58:45.460 --> 00:58:47.199
mean we ought not to approximate it to the best
986
00:58:47.219 --> 00:58:47.739
of our ability.
987
00:58:49.659 --> 00:58:54.989
Maybe home is that, that, glimpse of final victory in
988
00:58:55.010 --> 00:59:00.340
the otherwise long defeat. Maybe that's what this is, is
989
00:59:00.460 --> 00:59:07.449
it's a foretaste of something better. Whether that's a foretaste
990
00:59:07.769 --> 00:59:12.539
of service through work, or being with the people that
991
00:59:12.579 --> 00:59:17.880
we love or just being able to rest. You know,
992
00:59:17.900 --> 00:59:19.900
what do we say when people die? They've gone to
993
00:59:19.940 --> 00:59:26.320
their rest, right? May they rest in peace. So maybe
994
00:59:26.380 --> 00:59:34.860
home is that it's an imperfect, reflection of that final
995
00:59:35.699 --> 00:59:38.260
piece that we're all hoping to find.
996
00:59:38.280 --> 00:59:40.739
Yeah.
997
00:59:40.840 --> 00:59:44.699
And I think that keeping in mind the fact that
998
00:59:45.449 --> 00:59:49.210
home is an echo, it's a moving target that is going,
999
00:59:49.750 --> 00:59:52.349
we're always on the frontier, like no matter how safe
1000
00:59:52.789 --> 00:59:56.269
and secure we feel, our home is always built on
1001
00:59:56.289 --> 01:00:00.360
a dangerous frontier and, But we have an obligation to
1002
01:00:00.420 --> 01:00:03.219
do what we can to make it as, well, homely
1003
01:00:03.699 --> 01:00:07.380
as possible. But I think this is where we could
1004
01:00:07.400 --> 01:00:10.719
talk about the beneficial role of anxiety in recognizing that
1005
01:00:10.820 --> 01:00:12.969
things can fall apart if we don't do our job.
1006
01:00:14.530 --> 01:00:16.809
And if things have already fallen apart, well, now we
1007
01:00:16.829 --> 01:00:18.769
have an obligation to start putting them back together.
1008
01:00:18.789 --> 01:00:23.610
I have nothing to add to that.
1009
01:00:23.690 --> 01:00:24.329
That's a good thought.
1010
01:00:24.349 --> 01:00:26.090
Yeah. I don't really have anywhere else to go unless
1011
01:00:26.110 --> 01:00:27.280
either of you have something to say.
1012
01:00:31.679 --> 01:00:34.050
I guess I'll give some closing statements since I kind
1013
01:00:35.320 --> 01:00:41.170
of led us to this point. I think that a
1014
01:00:41.230 --> 01:00:45.849
lot of what causes a person's, and this is not
1015
01:00:45.869 --> 01:00:48.269
a clinical statement, this is my own personal opinion, but
1016
01:00:48.309 --> 01:00:56.949
I think a lot of what causes people's anxiety, depression, whatever, is, again,
1017
01:00:56.969 --> 01:01:04.130
this feeling of Wanting to be rooted in recognizing that
1018
01:01:04.170 --> 01:01:09.730
they're not. Wanting to have clarity for their future and
1019
01:01:10.389 --> 01:01:17.469
only seeing fog that they're walking into. Wishing that they
1020
01:01:17.510 --> 01:01:22.360
came from more stable families or more stable, I don't know,
1021
01:01:23.519 --> 01:01:26.960
home countries if they're living through a war or whatever.
1022
01:01:27.420 --> 01:01:31.119
Wanting there to be somewhere that they can say, this
1023
01:01:31.159 --> 01:01:35.110
is where I came from and this is where I'm headed. Yeah,
1024
01:01:38.750 --> 01:01:42.550
I think that a lot of people, whether you want
1025
01:01:42.590 --> 01:01:47.139
to call it home or rootedness or homelessness or unrootedness
1026
01:01:47.179 --> 01:01:48.920
or whatever you want to call it, I think a
1027
01:01:48.960 --> 01:01:51.719
lot of people have a sense of just kind of
1028
01:01:54.460 --> 01:01:58.090
moving through life. And that's what we're supposed to do.
1029
01:01:58.110 --> 01:02:03.320
But we need a place to rest as well. We
1030
01:02:03.360 --> 01:02:07.610
need a place that we can stop, not forever, but
1031
01:02:07.630 --> 01:02:10.230
a place that we can say, okay, that's enough for today.
1032
01:02:10.869 --> 01:02:13.489
I'll do it again tomorrow, but right now I need
1033
01:02:13.510 --> 01:02:15.769
to stop. And I think that a lot of people
1034
01:02:15.809 --> 01:02:21.500
don't have that. And again, physical, emotional, spiritual, however you
1035
01:02:21.519 --> 01:02:22.559
want to, however you want.
1036
01:02:22.460 --> 01:02:22.960
To parse it.
1037
01:02:23.460 --> 01:02:25.239
I think a lot of people feel like they don't
1038
01:02:25.280 --> 01:02:26.840
have a place where they can.
1039
01:02:28.639 --> 01:02:28.889
Stop.
1040
01:02:29.599 --> 01:02:32.530
And and tyler to your to your imagery put their
1041
01:02:32.550 --> 01:02:39.130
back down um and i think that that's i think
1042
01:02:39.150 --> 01:02:40.730
that that's where i'm gonna stop for.
1043
01:02:40.610 --> 01:02:44.219
Today yeah and i guess i'll just you know add
1044
01:02:45.400 --> 01:02:48.400
or even maybe take it a step well a little
1045
01:02:48.440 --> 01:02:51.570
different direction i don't know we'll see but the idea
1046
01:02:51.590 --> 01:02:55.590
of like I think a lot of the clinical side
1047
01:02:55.610 --> 01:02:58.449
of things, I think there's a fear of the responsibility
1048
01:02:58.550 --> 01:03:00.170
that it takes to be rooted.
1049
01:03:00.349 --> 01:03:02.590
Like, I think that they.
1050
01:03:02.530 --> 01:03:06.860
Will long for the idea of home, but they're afraid
1051
01:03:06.960 --> 01:03:11.099
of what it takes to actually do that. And I
1052
01:03:11.139 --> 01:03:14.460
think sometimes in the clinical work, it's helping people realize that, like,
1053
01:03:15.409 --> 01:03:18.769
you have to take that final step of accepting the
1054
01:03:18.809 --> 01:03:20.889
responsibility it takes to be.
1055
01:03:22.110 --> 01:03:27.329
Someone. And I mean, it is a scary thing.
1056
01:03:27.349 --> 01:03:29.349
I mean, because think of all the mistakes you can
1057
01:03:29.389 --> 01:03:33.130
make along the way. But in the end, like you
1058
01:03:33.170 --> 01:03:36.840
can sit there and you learn and to learn to
1059
01:03:36.940 --> 01:03:39.820
regret every decision you can ever make. And you can
1060
01:03:39.860 --> 01:03:42.139
always find enough reasons not to. But at the end,
1061
01:03:42.159 --> 01:03:43.920
like you're going to have to take some type of leap.
1062
01:03:44.099 --> 01:03:44.699
So that's.
1063
01:03:46.340 --> 01:03:49.510
Yeah, I think it's a good response to the question
1064
01:03:49.530 --> 01:03:52.929
that I was about to ask of what do you
1065
01:03:53.510 --> 01:03:55.449
tell somebody who doesn't have that place to put their
1066
01:03:55.469 --> 01:03:59.329
bag down? And I think that is largely it. Build
1067
01:03:59.369 --> 01:04:03.889
a place to put your bag down. So before we go, actually,
1068
01:04:03.969 --> 01:04:07.449
I did have some people send in a few questions
1069
01:04:07.489 --> 01:04:09.469
that probably won't take long, but I think it'd be
1070
01:04:09.849 --> 01:04:12.909
good to do that. And so these aren't necessarily related
1071
01:04:12.929 --> 01:04:15.539
to home. I kind of framed this as talking to
1072
01:04:15.559 --> 01:04:20.119
a couple therapists. What questions do you have? So one
1073
01:04:20.139 --> 01:04:24.429
person said, When somebody says, this is just my cross
1074
01:04:24.469 --> 01:04:26.969
to bear, how do you discern whether this is faithful
1075
01:04:27.030 --> 01:04:30.730
endurance or a way of avoiding dealing with your problems?
1076
01:04:30.750 --> 01:04:32.469
I thought that was a good question.
1077
01:04:32.489 --> 01:04:37.150
I ask more questions.
1078
01:04:39.010 --> 01:04:42.389
Because it's more of getting to the root of what
1079
01:04:42.409 --> 01:04:45.789
they're actually coming from. And so like, You know, when
1080
01:04:45.809 --> 01:04:49.250
they're saying it's their cross to bear, it's like, okay. So,
1081
01:04:49.429 --> 01:04:51.769
I mean, even asking them a question of like, okay,
1082
01:04:51.789 --> 01:04:55.070
so what does that say about you in this instance, right? And,
1083
01:04:55.389 --> 01:04:57.840
you know, they can say, well, I mean, it says that,
1084
01:04:57.880 --> 01:04:59.800
you know, I've been given a, you know, a tough,
1085
01:05:00.039 --> 01:05:03.519
I've just been given all these, I'm like the unluckiest.
1086
01:05:03.139 --> 01:05:05.059
Person in the world. It's like, oh, okay. All right.
1087
01:05:05.119 --> 01:05:07.059
That's interesting. So what makes you feel like you're the
1088
01:05:07.239 --> 01:05:08.239
unluckiest person in the world?
1089
01:05:08.550 --> 01:05:10.090
And you can kind of work your way down to
1090
01:05:10.130 --> 01:05:12.550
getting to, it was at the root of it where like,
1091
01:05:12.590 --> 01:05:15.210
they're like, you know, I don't know.
1092
01:05:15.650 --> 01:05:16.969
It could be a lot of different things.
1093
01:05:17.050 --> 01:05:19.010
And so that's usually the way that I kind of
1094
01:05:19.070 --> 01:05:21.750
will start to frame it for them and trying to
1095
01:05:21.969 --> 01:05:24.590
help build this idea of like, okay, so you have
1096
01:05:24.650 --> 01:05:27.610
this statement here, but there's a lot.
1097
01:05:27.449 --> 01:05:28.289
Feeding into it.
1098
01:05:28.409 --> 01:05:32.719
So in getting to the core of it requires asking
1099
01:05:32.760 --> 01:05:35.579
those questions of like, you know, if you were to
1100
01:05:35.639 --> 01:05:37.900
look at this from a different perspective or if you
1101
01:05:37.940 --> 01:05:39.679
saw someone else going through this, what would you think
1102
01:05:39.739 --> 01:05:43.969
about that? And it's always interesting to see that, Um,
1103
01:05:44.630 --> 01:05:46.309
and this is kind of like a typical, like hard
1104
01:05:46.349 --> 01:05:48.590
behavioral therapy technique, the thought ladder where it's like, you
1105
01:05:48.610 --> 01:05:50.690
can come from all these different angles and eventually you'll
1106
01:05:50.710 --> 01:05:53.329
kind of get down to a thing that they will,
1107
01:05:53.809 --> 01:05:55.170
a lens in which they see the.
1108
01:05:55.130 --> 01:05:57.889
World that it's like, you know, I'm, I'm a failure
1109
01:05:58.130 --> 01:05:58.869
or like whatever.
1110
01:05:59.050 --> 01:06:01.630
And it's like, ah, see, so if you work it backwards,
1111
01:06:01.670 --> 01:06:04.050
like you're seeing it through the lens of you're a failure,
1112
01:06:04.090 --> 01:06:07.440
which then will lead you to act in a certain way. Um,
1113
01:06:07.940 --> 01:06:10.739
and so that's kind of where I will play around
1114
01:06:10.760 --> 01:06:11.059
with it.
1115
01:06:12.380 --> 01:06:17.739
I would, uh, I would ask this person is the
1116
01:06:17.780 --> 01:06:19.880
cross that it's just my cross to bear.
1117
01:06:19.980 --> 01:06:20.260
Okay.
1118
01:06:21.340 --> 01:06:24.219
Did it, did you choose it or was it imposed
1119
01:06:24.280 --> 01:06:30.960
upon you? Because a lot of people make some choices.
1120
01:06:31.360 --> 01:06:32.969
I won't say that they're bad. I'll just say a
1121
01:06:33.010 --> 01:06:37.369
lot of people make choices and it imposes a weight
1122
01:06:37.510 --> 01:06:41.090
upon them that maybe they had, they, thought about it
1123
01:06:41.130 --> 01:06:43.570
a little bit longer, they may not have made that choice.
1124
01:06:43.630 --> 01:06:45.289
And then they say, well, this is just my cross
1125
01:06:45.309 --> 01:06:48.010
to bear. Yes, but it's also a natural consequence of
1126
01:06:48.030 --> 01:06:56.000
your actions versus are you taking care of a sick parent?
1127
01:06:56.079 --> 01:06:58.920
Maybe you're the only child and there's no one else
1128
01:06:58.940 --> 01:07:01.099
to care for them. And so you're going about the
1129
01:07:01.139 --> 01:07:04.579
rhythms of your life. And then after all that's done,
1130
01:07:04.719 --> 01:07:07.760
you're going and you're taking care of your sick parents. Okay, yeah,
1131
01:07:07.780 --> 01:07:10.719
that's a cross to bear. That's not something that you chose.
1132
01:07:10.760 --> 01:07:14.440
That's something that you took on because there was a
1133
01:07:14.480 --> 01:07:17.380
sense of duty or obligation or there was a greater
1134
01:07:17.500 --> 01:07:19.340
good that you discerned.
1135
01:07:19.869 --> 01:07:20.150
But I.
1136
01:07:22.110 --> 01:07:23.849
Won't make any examples, but I'll just say if you
1137
01:07:23.869 --> 01:07:25.949
make a choice and it has a consequence that you
1138
01:07:25.989 --> 01:07:30.489
maybe don't like and the choice itself wasn't absolutely necessary
1139
01:07:30.550 --> 01:07:33.389
or honor bound, maybe that's not your cross to bear.
1140
01:07:33.429 --> 01:07:38.090
Maybe that's just a consequence of a bad choice. That's
1141
01:07:38.139 --> 01:07:42.860
how I would begin to approach that sort of situation?
1142
01:07:42.880 --> 01:07:44.840
Yeah, I think it's a good question, but I think
1143
01:07:44.860 --> 01:07:47.050
there's a good responses to, I mean, you have to
1144
01:07:47.090 --> 01:07:50.710
deal with whatever the particular situation is, particular person, you know, whatever,
1145
01:07:50.829 --> 01:07:51.409
bringing this up.
1146
01:07:51.590 --> 01:07:52.090
So that's good.
1147
01:07:52.989 --> 01:07:53.269
One more.
1148
01:07:54.690 --> 01:07:55.869
How can I add something?
1149
01:07:55.889 --> 01:07:56.429
Go ahead, please.
1150
01:07:58.269 --> 01:07:59.050
No, it's gone.
1151
01:07:59.150 --> 01:07:59.289
No.
1152
01:07:59.349 --> 01:07:59.590
Okay.
1153
01:07:59.610 --> 01:08:04.340
Hold on. So, but the, I, it's always interesting to,
1154
01:08:05.000 --> 01:08:09.019
to see how, you know, what someone's like outlook on
1155
01:08:09.059 --> 01:08:14.159
their situation is. that when they view, because I don't
1156
01:08:14.179 --> 01:08:16.000
know why, I've just been dealt with a lot of
1157
01:08:16.840 --> 01:08:21.579
older adults caring for elderly parents.
1158
01:08:22.020 --> 01:08:25.850
And it is a really interesting thing to see when
1159
01:08:25.859 --> 01:08:30.489
they look things through the lens of like, why are
1160
01:08:30.529 --> 01:08:31.649
they doing this to me?
1161
01:08:35.369 --> 01:08:37.829
Even just the act of taking care of their parents
1162
01:08:37.989 --> 01:08:40.619
as a burden. Or even like a parent to your kids,
1163
01:08:40.640 --> 01:08:43.600
like you can even see like when a kid is
1164
01:08:43.659 --> 01:08:48.520
just not behaving and they're not following instruction and they're
1165
01:08:49.020 --> 01:08:51.350
just blowing a lid.
1166
01:08:52.189 --> 01:08:54.890
And it's like, why are you doing this to me?
1167
01:08:54.909 --> 01:08:57.130
It's like, why are you doing this to me? But
1168
01:08:57.630 --> 01:08:58.880
it's like, oh hold on.
1169
01:09:00.520 --> 01:09:02.640
Are they are they doing it to you are you
1170
01:09:02.680 --> 01:09:05.310
doing it to you right now and what can happen
1171
01:09:05.369 --> 01:09:09.050
when you shift the perspective of this is an opportunity
1172
01:09:09.149 --> 01:09:12.239
for me to take care of you know someone or two,
1173
01:09:12.279 --> 01:09:13.819
this is my way of serving them.
1174
01:09:13.859 --> 01:09:15.609
This is my way of loving them. This is my,
1175
01:09:15.909 --> 01:09:16.670
but then when the.
1176
01:09:16.649 --> 01:09:22.270
Perspective goes from me, me, mine to like, this is.
1177
01:09:23.850 --> 01:09:24.770
Something beyond that.
1178
01:09:24.890 --> 01:09:26.750
It's amazing kind of just how that shift can make
1179
01:09:26.770 --> 01:09:27.890
a difference in people's lives.
1180
01:09:30.100 --> 01:09:30.720
Yeah, that's good.
1181
01:09:31.699 --> 01:09:33.979
And that kind of leads into the second question I
1182
01:09:34.020 --> 01:09:37.819
have here. How can you tell the difference between healthy
1183
01:09:38.060 --> 01:09:40.279
self-examination and self-absorption?
1184
01:09:50.369 --> 01:10:00.439
I would say healthy self-examination has two parts. You have
1185
01:10:00.449 --> 01:10:05.420
the cognitive aspect. You're thinking about yourself and what you
1186
01:10:05.460 --> 01:10:07.439
need to do better and mistakes that you have made.
1187
01:10:07.899 --> 01:10:10.579
And then you have the practical aspect. What am I
1188
01:10:10.619 --> 01:10:18.189
going to do about this? Self-absorption. is, this is what
1189
01:10:18.210 --> 01:10:19.810
I do well, this is what I do poorly, and
1190
01:10:19.850 --> 01:10:21.189
this is what I do well, and this is what
1191
01:10:21.229 --> 01:10:27.560
I do poorly. There's a technique that fighter pilots use.
1192
01:10:27.600 --> 01:10:29.819
It was developed in the Vietnam War. It's called the
1193
01:10:29.939 --> 01:10:35.140
OODA loop, O-O-D-A, and that stands for Observe, Orient, Decide, Act.
1194
01:10:36.010 --> 01:10:39.850
So observe, what are the facts? Orient, how do I
1195
01:10:39.949 --> 01:10:44.470
fit into the facts? Decide, what is the desired outcome?
1196
01:10:45.090 --> 01:10:48.329
for this particular situation and act, what do I need
1197
01:10:48.350 --> 01:10:51.229
to do to get closer to that outcome? And so
1198
01:10:51.289 --> 01:10:54.430
you go through that cycle and then you act and
1199
01:10:54.449 --> 01:10:57.130
that creates a new set of facts. And so you
1200
01:10:57.149 --> 01:10:59.289
do that. And if you do it correctly enough times,
1201
01:10:59.310 --> 01:11:03.189
you get home safely. A lot of people in their
1202
01:11:03.229 --> 01:11:06.930
own lives, they just go back and forth between observe
1203
01:11:06.949 --> 01:11:09.970
and orient. And I think that that's where the self-absorption
1204
01:11:10.050 --> 01:11:13.180
comes in. Is this happened to me and this is,
1205
01:11:13.529 --> 01:11:15.520
this happened and this is how I'm affected by it.
1206
01:11:16.029 --> 01:11:17.850
And so this is what happened and this is how,
1207
01:11:17.890 --> 01:11:21.449
and they just, they do that back and forth. If
1208
01:11:21.789 --> 01:11:23.329
that's all you do, you're going to think a lot
1209
01:11:23.350 --> 01:11:26.359
about yourself, but if you eventually decide and take action,
1210
01:11:26.380 --> 01:11:30.140
now you're expanding what you're thinking about. You're not just
1211
01:11:30.159 --> 01:11:33.579
thinking about yourself. You're thinking about the consequences and you're
1212
01:11:33.600 --> 01:11:36.539
thinking how this may affect other people and all these
1213
01:11:36.600 --> 01:11:42.090
sorts of things. So that would be my, distinction between
1214
01:11:42.130 --> 01:11:42.770
those two.
1215
01:11:46.609 --> 01:11:48.939
The two the two things are pretty similar as far
1216
01:11:49.000 --> 01:11:51.279
as like oh i saw the first question the second
1217
01:11:51.319 --> 01:11:54.539
question themselves feel pretty similar and i guess even how
1218
01:11:54.600 --> 01:11:59.850
i'd approach i'd ask more questions but but it's once
1219
01:11:59.899 --> 01:12:04.590
again interesting like with self self-examination or like self-reflection self-reflection
1220
01:12:04.630 --> 01:12:07.270
is a word that i love i i love helping
1221
01:12:07.310 --> 01:12:11.590
people like learn to self-reflect in a positive way Where it's, okay,
1222
01:12:11.630 --> 01:12:16.149
so you're essentially being able to look at a situation
1223
01:12:16.689 --> 01:12:20.439
and say, okay, you know, you can ask yourself these
1224
01:12:20.520 --> 01:12:21.800
questions of like, you.
1225
01:12:21.739 --> 01:12:25.119
Know, what was I feeling or thinking? You know, what
1226
01:12:25.140 --> 01:12:28.340
was kind of the core of this problem? You know,
1227
01:12:28.680 --> 01:12:29.859
what choices could I have made?
1228
01:12:30.090 --> 01:12:32.189
So I'm just breaking down these situations to help them
1229
01:12:32.229 --> 01:12:35.229
understand like what led into, you know, an action.
1230
01:12:35.729 --> 01:12:37.630
Or if they could sit there and say, well, I
1231
01:12:37.649 --> 01:12:38.710
could have made this choice and.
1232
01:12:38.710 --> 01:12:41.029
That could have been more aligned with how I, you know,
1233
01:12:41.310 --> 01:12:44.369
believe where my values are. And I didn't act in
1234
01:12:44.390 --> 01:12:45.220
accordance with my values.
1235
01:12:45.260 --> 01:12:46.640
So then there was a sense of guilt.
1236
01:12:47.199 --> 01:12:51.779
I mean, self-absorption, I mean, it's, it doesn't take much
1237
01:12:51.899 --> 01:12:55.520
digging to reveal it when it's like the idea of
1238
01:12:55.560 --> 01:12:57.279
that selfishness.
1239
01:12:56.659 --> 01:13:00.159
Or that, you know, there's a sense of pride or
1240
01:13:00.199 --> 01:13:01.020
there's a sense of whatever.
1241
01:13:01.520 --> 01:13:04.899
Anytime you push back someone who's stuck in a self-absorption loop,
1242
01:13:05.310 --> 01:13:08.449
they will get, they will, they will push back and they,
1243
01:13:08.590 --> 01:13:11.170
you know, they will feel threatened or they will feel
1244
01:13:11.289 --> 01:13:14.109
like they're, you're saying you're doing something, they're doing something wrong.
1245
01:13:14.130 --> 01:13:17.909
And it's not that it's it, or it's not, it
1246
01:13:17.949 --> 01:13:21.329
shouldn't be perceived that way. Um, and so, and, and
1247
01:13:21.390 --> 01:13:26.800
it comes back to like where, where, where it's coming from, um,
1248
01:13:26.840 --> 01:13:29.180
what lens are seeing it through, you know, what filters
1249
01:13:29.260 --> 01:13:30.079
are throwing it through.
1250
01:13:30.140 --> 01:13:31.680
It's, it's a lot of similar things.
1251
01:13:31.760 --> 01:13:36.060
And so, um, But anytime, if these people are asking
1252
01:13:36.119 --> 01:13:38.199
questions in an aspect of like, I have these people
1253
01:13:38.220 --> 01:13:40.159
in my lives that say these things, what do I say?
1254
01:13:40.180 --> 01:13:42.539
And honestly, like when it comes down to it, a
1255
01:13:44.260 --> 01:13:47.470
little bit of, you know, reflecting content, a little bit
1256
01:13:47.550 --> 01:13:53.350
of asking open questions, a little bit of that, rather
1257
01:13:53.390 --> 01:13:56.529
than trying to imprint your advice onto them and trying
1258
01:13:56.609 --> 01:13:59.380
to decipher things. you have to take a little bit
1259
01:13:59.420 --> 01:14:02.699
more of an active approach on the listening side to
1260
01:14:02.739 --> 01:14:05.560
really understand what's going on to truly kind of try
1261
01:14:05.579 --> 01:14:08.189
to bridge the empathetic gap a little bit. And that's
1262
01:14:08.239 --> 01:14:11.850
always sometimes something that's really challenging because as people, we
1263
01:14:12.130 --> 01:14:14.289
try to, you know, we want to respond to help
1264
01:14:14.529 --> 01:14:16.810
people fix things. And it's like, well, your way of
1265
01:14:16.890 --> 01:14:18.090
fixing things isn't going to.
1266
01:14:18.010 --> 01:14:20.729
Always fix the way that people are doing it.
1267
01:14:20.850 --> 01:14:23.630
So, so I guess, you know, being able to kind
1268
01:14:23.670 --> 01:14:25.329
of try to enter the world a little bit better
1269
01:14:25.409 --> 01:14:28.970
can help reveal even just their own motivations and such.
1270
01:14:29.029 --> 01:14:32.189
And then you can just kind of sprinkle in a
1271
01:14:32.229 --> 01:14:34.770
little bit of love and wisdom at that point.
1272
01:14:36.630 --> 01:14:39.729
And I would think that at least generally speaking, somebody
1273
01:14:39.760 --> 01:14:43.340
who's asking the question is headed in the right direction
1274
01:14:43.579 --> 01:14:46.060
because I would think that people who are stuck in
1275
01:14:46.100 --> 01:14:51.560
self-absorption generally aren't very concerned about being self-absorbed, right? Generally speaking.
1276
01:14:52.520 --> 01:14:56.310
And so I think that having that desire to do
1277
01:14:56.829 --> 01:15:00.250
the good, do the right thing, is itself an indicator
1278
01:15:00.329 --> 01:15:03.720
that you want to do the right thing. So I
1279
01:15:03.859 --> 01:15:06.659
don't know. But I think that that response that you gave, Tyler,
1280
01:15:06.720 --> 01:15:09.579
is good. I mean, it's not very Frasier Crane call-in advice,
1281
01:15:09.680 --> 01:15:13.159
but I'll take it. All right, cool.
1282
01:15:13.800 --> 01:15:15.500
I do like these questions, though. We can get more
1283
01:15:15.520 --> 01:15:15.840
of those.
1284
01:15:16.119 --> 01:15:17.350
Yeah, I'm going to try to round some up for
1285
01:15:17.359 --> 01:15:20.430
next time. Hopefully I can get some recordings to throw
1286
01:15:20.750 --> 01:15:22.489
in there and really make an engagement.
1287
01:15:22.510 --> 01:15:22.750
That's right.
1288
01:15:24.760 --> 01:15:27.500
But cool and so I feel like this is a
1289
01:15:27.920 --> 01:15:30.720
good discussion I don't really know what we settled but
1290
01:15:30.760 --> 01:15:32.340
maybe that's the nature of home on this side of
1291
01:15:32.380 --> 01:15:35.619
things is continually being settled and so I think the
1292
01:15:35.739 --> 01:15:41.649
conversation fit what we were trying to accomplish so see
1293
01:15:41.890 --> 01:15:44.789
next time I think we're talking about identity or I
1294
01:15:45.510 --> 01:15:47.850
think that's right which is not entirely separate from what
1295
01:15:47.890 --> 01:15:50.210
we've discussed so far but obviously there's some other directions
1296
01:15:50.250 --> 01:15:52.810
we can go with that so yeah all right same
1297
01:15:52.829 --> 01:15:53.529
time same place.
1298
01:15:54.420 --> 01:15:54.680
See you then.
1299
01:15:54.699 --> 01:15:55.729
See you next time.