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WEBVTT
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Let's continue the conversation.
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Yesterday we put a lot of language on the table.
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Let's take a second with it.
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Simp.
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Alpha male, beta male, high value man, high value woman, red pill, body count, 50-50.
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Provider, protector, traditional man, traditional woman.
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And then that question that seems to show up everywhere.
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Now, what do you bring to the table?
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But this morning I don't want to start with the language.
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I want to start somewhere underneath it because I'm wondering, what if some of what we've been calling wisdom is actually woundedness?
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That's a hard question for me because when somebody tells me, don't ever give more than you're getting, that can sound like wisdom.
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Protect yourself.
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That can sound like wisdom.
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Don't trust too quickly.
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That can sound like wisdom.
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Never allow another person to have enough of you to destroy you.
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After you've been hurt badly enough, that can sound like some of the best wisdom you've ever heard, and maybe some of it is.
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But how would we know when wisdom ends and the wound begins?
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Tell me what you think about that.
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Leave me a comment.
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I'm serious.
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I don't just want you listening to this conversation.
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I want you in it.
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Because this morning Charles is trying to understand something too.
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Pastor Howes is still in the bed.
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I want you to imagine a young man sitting at our table.
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He's trying to date.
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Maybe he's online.
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Maybe he's using an app.
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Maybe he's doing everything people told him to do, and he's getting almost nothing back.
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Pew Research found that among recent online daters, 64% of men said they had at least sometimes felt insecure because they weren't receiving enough messages.
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Don't rush past him, let him sit there, because across the table is a woman using some of those same apps.
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And 54% of women said they had felt overwhelmed by the number of messages they were receiving.
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Same environment, different pain.
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He's wondering why nobody sees him.
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She's wondering why everybody seems to want something from her.
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Now put those two people on a first date.
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What does he bring with him?
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What does she bring with her?
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I'm not talking about money.
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I'm not talking about education.
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I'm not talking about whether she can cook or whether he can provide.
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What did they bring emotionally that was already in the room before either one sat down?
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That's what interests me.
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And brothers, there's another chair I want us to look at.
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In 1990, 55% of men reported having at least six close friends.
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By 2021, that number had fallen to 27%.
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And the percentage of men reporting no close friends at all had risen from 3% to 15%.
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Now I'm not giving you that number so we can say, look how terrible things are today.
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I'm asking, where does that man take his pain?
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Where does he take rejection?
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Where does he take embarrassment?
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Where does he take loneliness?
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Where does he take the questions he doesn't want anybody to know he's asking?
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Because pain doesn't disappear because nobody gave it somewhere healthy to go.
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It goes somewhere, and increasingly, somewhere may be online.
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Now we're getting closer to the manosphere, and remember, we're not getting in the gender war, we're standing outside of it trying to understand what we're seeing.
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Recent research commissioned by Ofcom found that the manosphere isn't one single movement.
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It's a collection of different communities, and people can be drawn toward them through things as ordinary as humor, debate, advice, and self-improvement.
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The same research found that socially isolated people may be especially vulnerable to harmful ideas in closed online communities.
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That makes me ask another question.
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What if the young man wasn't looking for hate?
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What if he was looking for help?
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What if he typed?
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How do I become more confident?
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Why can't I get a girlfriend?
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How do I stop being used?
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How do I get over her?
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How do I become successful?
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How do I become a man?
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And
Load full transcript
somebody answered.
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Maybe some of the answer helped him.
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Maybe some of it hurt him.
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Maybe some of it did both.
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I don't know.
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But I'd like to hear from that young man.
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If that's you, talk to me.
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What did you go online looking for?
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And what did you find?
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Now let me move to the other side of the table because that woman has a story too.
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Among women under 50 who had used online dating, Pew found that 56% said someone had sent them sexually explicit material they didn't ask for.
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43% said someone continued contacting them after they said they weren't interested.
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So when that woman comes to the table guarded, maybe there's something behind that too.
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Maybe what he experiences as rejection, she experiences as protection, and maybe what she experiences as emotional distance, he experiences as protection.
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Two people protecting themselves from two different kinds of pain can look like two people who don't care about each other.
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That one bothers me.
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Because now I'm wondering whether some of this war between men and women isn't always hatred.
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Maybe some of it is fear wearing armor.
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And that brings me back to what do you bring to the table?
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That's a fascinating question.
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Because sometimes we mean what do you earn?
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What do you own?
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What can you provide?
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How attractive are you?
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How old are you?
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How many children do you have?
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Can you cook?
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What's your education?
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What's your status?
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And I'm not saying those things never matter.
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Adults should bring responsibility into adult relationships.
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But I wonder when the table became an appraisal table.
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Because before I ask what you bring, shouldn't I ask who you are?
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And maybe an even harder question, what happened to you before you got here?
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Maybe you brought six figures to the table.
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But you also brought abandonment.
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Maybe you brought beauty to the table, but you also brought distrust.
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Maybe you brought a house, a career, a degree, a retirement account, but you also brought a wound nobody can see.
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And maybe that wound has been making decisions for you for 20 years.
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Now I'm thinking differently about the question.
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Maybe the most important thing somebody brings to the table isn't what they own.
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Maybe it's what they've healed from or what they're willing to heal from.
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I don't know.
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What do you think?
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Put that in the comments.
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When somebody asks, what do you bring to the table?
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What's your answer?
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And there's something else I'm wrestling with.
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None of these human behaviors are new.
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People had sex before dating apps.
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People cheated before Facebook.
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People used each other before TikTok.
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Men hurt women.
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Women hurt men.
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Prostitution is ancient.
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Adultery is ancient.
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Lust is ancient.
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Loneliness is ancient.
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So I'm not interested in pretending there was some perfect generation when everybody behaved themselves and relationships were wonderful.
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There wasn't.
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But something has changed.
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Maybe not the human heart.
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Maybe the machinery around the human heart.
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There was a time when meeting somebody required more human interaction.
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You had to talk, you had to approach somebody, you had to risk rejection face to face.
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You might have had to call somebody's house.
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You had to make plans.
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You went somewhere, you sat across from somebody, you talked.
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Maybe you opened the door, maybe you paid for dinner.
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Maybe you didn't.
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Everybody didn't follow the rules then either.
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But there was friction between desire and gratification.
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Today I can look at a photograph, swipe left, swipe right, yes, no, attractive, not attractive, and make a judgment about another human being before I've ever heard their voice.
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Technology didn't invent rejection.
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But it changed the speed of rejection.
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Technology didn't invent comparison, but it changed the size of the comparison pool.
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Technology didn't invent lust, but it changed access.
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Technology didn't invent loneliness.
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And here's the tension I'm sitting with.
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How can we have more access to one another than any generation before us?
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And still feel so disconnected from one another.
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We can know where somebody went on vacation, what they ate last night, what they're wearing, who they're dating, what they think, what they bought, and still not know them.
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We can have physical intimacy without emotional intimacy, digital connection without human connection, access, without attachment.
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And maybe that's part of how we got here.
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Maybe it isn't.
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That's why we're talking.
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And now I want to put two people back at our table.
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That young man is still sitting over there.
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That young woman is still sitting across from him.
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He's afraid of being used.
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She's afraid of being hurt.
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He's been taught not to overinvest.
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She's been taught not to depend on anybody.
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He's protecting himself.
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She's protecting herself.
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And somehow, two people who may both want love can meet each other already prepared for war.
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I don't know how much of that describes you.
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Maybe none of it, maybe all of it.
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But if you heard yourself anywhere in this conversation, I want to hear from you.
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Leave a comment.
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Ask the question you think nobody is asking.
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Tell me where I'm wrong.
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Tell me what I'm missing.
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Tell me what your chair at this table looks like.
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Because we're bringing those voices with us as this conversation continues towards September 1st.
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And I don't want to arrive there having already finished the conversation for you.
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I want us to arrive there with something on the table worth talking about.
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So for today, I'm not trying to answer how we fix it.
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I'm still trying to understand how we got here.
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And I'm still sitting with the question that started this conversation how much of what we've been calling wisdom is actually woundedness?
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If you found this conversation meaningful, like subscribe, follow, leave a comment, or send us a message.
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We don't just want you to listen to the conversation.
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You have a seat at this table.