Episode Transcript
[00:00:14] Speaker A: Hello, welcome to Call It Like I See it, presented by Disruption. Now, I'm James Keys, and in this episode of Call It Like I See it, we're going to consider whether the COVID 19 pandemic, which has been a major disruption to people's lives and our society at large for almost two full years at this point, is causing a significant level of collective trauma.
And whether this collective trauma is why it seems like people have really been at each other's throats for the past year or few months or so.
And later on, we'll discuss whether money can, in fact buy you happiness if it's used in the right way.
Joining me today is a man who's been smooth since the days of Underoos Tunde. Ogonlana Tunde, are you ready to hypnotize the people today?
[00:01:06] Speaker B: Yep, always ready.
[00:01:08] Speaker A: All right. All right.
Now we're recording this on January 10, 2022.
And we start today with a pretty interesting article from the Washington Post from the other week.
It was written by Marisa Iate, and the article discusses the manner in which the COVID 19 pandemic has caused trauma in our society as a whole. Through the individuals, obviously, but the society viewing the society as a whole and refers to that as collective trauma and takes a look at how people may actually be getting more abusive towards each other because of it. And our interactions, perceived slights, real slights and so forth, and just reactions more extreme.
And so, Tunde, do you buy this idea that the pandemic has caused so much collective trauma, that it is, at least in some significant way, causing people to react more aggressively to slights and perceived slights?
[00:02:09] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:02:10] Speaker A: All right. Well, please explain why.
[00:02:13] Speaker B: What else you want? There's a show.
Yeah. I think it's obvious to all of us that especially if you live in, let's say, a city or busier suburbs of cities, that people are more tense.
We see it. I think the good reporting has been on the FAA as relates to unruly passengers on airline flights.
You know, those are well documented because you can document when someone is kicked off a plane. And I believe that.
[00:02:48] Speaker A: And that that that's been being documented for a long time. Like it's not something else.
[00:02:52] Speaker B: Yeah. That's where I was going is that last year in 2021, there were, you know, slightly over a thousand incidents, I believe individual incidents of unruly passengers that had to be escorted off planes, that kind of thing.
They said that was up fivefold from the year before, and the year before was up as a high Percentage to the trend over recent decades, you got to wonder, okay, so why all of a sudden do people decide they got to prove a point in the middle of a flight when generally most of us have considered being in a plane?
There's certain norms and etiquette that we all adhere to when we fly.
And so I do think that's a small example of a larger reflection back to us, like a mirror pointed at us in our society, that there clearly are a lot of triggers and people are incapable or not everybody, but some of people, a percentage of people, are incapable of managing their response to those triggers. Let's just put it that way.
And we've talked about this in various discussions like this. Even if it is a 1 or 2% of the population that has a tough time controlling their reactions to the triggers, things that trigger them emotionally to react like this, in a country of. Country of 330 million people, 2% is 6.4 million people. So it's just. Or 6.6.
So it's just one of these things that even a small percentage of people can create an environment through this shared stress and trauma that we have that makes a little more difficult for the rest of us. And I'll say this, too.
I think that the disinformation, the fractured communication, we have things that both administrations that Trump and Biden did also contribute to this.
[00:04:45] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I mean, we can get there. Obviously, this wouldn't be a sole factor, but, yeah, I would generally be cautious of something like this. This isn't the type of thing that I would normally buy into, but the case was pretty compelling. The air information that you gave, for example, like the FAA tracking data, is pretty compelling. I mean, that's because you could say, okay, well, yeah, maybe people have been being more jerkish towards each other for the last 10 years, but these are spikes that we're seeing. And that's one illustration.
The article got into how. And to paraphrase, really, but the pandemic has forced us to behave or do certain things, or has at least people have tried to force people to do things, do certain things. And so that's kind of wearing on people. And so, like, I feel like that, but I'm always hesitant to try to apply that across the board. It's just like, oh, yeah, that makes logical sense. But yeah, I mean, I would say that I came in, when I first looked at it, I was very skeptical. But you look at the kind of empirical data, and when the empirical data does match up with kind of what you would kind of Logically, see what happens. You shouldn't resist it just because it fits too neatly into the basket. And like, what. To me, what really stands out about it is that it's still, we're talking about reactions to things that would normally be relatively minor things. It's not life or death. Like, so it's not just an out of sync reaction. But, but it's, it's. When I say slights or perceived slights, it's not like I'm going to steal all your money, you know, or I'm going to kick you out of your house and then therefore you have some kind of crazy reaction. It's like, oh, you know, you told me to put a mask on, or, oh, you told me to do some kind of menial thing that really is, you know, like, it's not the end of the world, you know, it's not something that would otherwise, under normal circumstances, oh, hey, you know, walk into a restaurant, they put on your shoes, you, you know, people wouldn't flip out, you know, about something like that under normal circumstances. And so, you know, it strikes me just as something that's very, very particular to what's going on right now. And I do have the question though of what I would want to know, you know, following this, is whether this is particular to the US like whether it's an expectations based thing. Like people in the US have a certain level of expectation that they should be able to do whatever in the world they want to do. And so therefore the pandemic has caused a higher stress response because it's more restrictive on them or it's restrictive on them and they expect not to be restricted versus other countries. And so that like I would want, I would want to look further into this and kind of see if this affecting us more here in the United States or is this something that by and large is affecting the world in general, people around the world in general?
[00:07:39] Speaker B: Yeah, I think from what I've seen, the United States does have a higher rate of this type of aggressive behavior post pandemic than the rest of the world generally. Doesn't mean that the rest of the world has also not seen an increase in these instances.
I think it has to do with our culture of individual rights.
I think that because of things that you and I have documented well over various discussions on the show, our ecosystem here in this country, let's say by early 2020, was already primed at the pump in a sense for a match to be lit, which was the pandemic and caused an explosion of More stress and chaos.
I'm going to quote one of the mental health experts in the article that we're citing for this discussion.
[00:08:34] Speaker A: The links will be in the show notes for that.
[00:08:37] Speaker B: She says it's likely that the worldwide state of perpetual crisis has truly spurred more frequent instances of inappropriate and abusive behavior. And that kind of that stuck out to me. That's why I wanted to quote it.
This worldwide state of perpetual crisis. And that's what you and I talk about, like the outrage factories, the outrage machine, and our media ecosystems, the social media and all that. And so many people are immersed in them. That's why I hate to keep talking about them. But people spend hours of their day on these things. And what's happened is the term perpetual crisis stuck out to me because it's like, there's always a crisis. Everyone's on edge constantly.
Like, if it was immigration, if it was the next congressional election, if it was whatever, the heroes and villains that are presented to our population through the media, where there's racial issues, the police stuff, all that stuff's been simmering in this country for the last 15 years, much more so than it was maybe for the 15, 20 year period prior to that. So when you then have this powder keg and you have the matches, a global pandemic, which.
[00:09:49] Speaker A: Is disruptive. I mean, it's disruptive.
[00:09:51] Speaker B: Not only that, and then you already had an environment that I guess was open to conspiracy, innuendo, and kind of the whispers. And we hear this, we hear that from birtherism all on up to the pandemic and the Wuhan flu, everybody is willing to get information, not fact check it and assume it's accurate based on the source that told it to them versus if it actually is correct. My point is that you had this pandemic come in at a time of high distrust already.
I definitely want to stay off politics, but I can't ignore that when this pandemic came, we had leadership in our country that tried to first kind of wish it away. Right. Remember that early in February into March, it was a Democrat hoax. Only 15 people had it. It was gonna go away. It was gonna go away. When summer came, when the sun came out, it was gonna go away. So what I'm saying is in the first few months, where you could have had a real message from the top saying, hey, this is serious, we're gonna have to shut down. It's gonna hurt the economy a bit, but it's serious. It'll take a couple years to figure this out. You know, if you'd have had a message like that from the start, maybe people would have been able to accept some of these changes in the narrative.
[00:11:09] Speaker A: I think you're right on that. Over time, I think you're right on that. Because there's an expectation like, I think that that's, remember so much of our reaction and our perception of life is based on what we expect, our expectations. You know, if you expect to get nothing and you get five, you're, you're on cloud nine. If you expect to get 10 and you get five, you're like, what in the world? You got the same thing, you know, but it's just what you expected. And so when there wasn't kind of a sobering talk initially from leadership and from, from, you know, the media, I want to get back to the media thing. I think you, I actually took the media thing a different direction. But you know, then, then that will definitely. It sets people's expectations in a way. And that's what I was saying before. Like, I don't know if Americans expectations already from a default standpoint are just different in terms of the level of freedom, the level of restriction that society is able or willing should be able to place on them in any type of way. Because that's what like one of the things that stood out to me in the piece was talking about how somebody talked about this is a free country. When they're on an airplane, it's like, that's one of the least free places in the world. Sitting on an airplane. You're not free to do whatever you want in an airplane. So to even say something like that is just like, yeah, that's not what free country means. But media thing. I think that where I took that and this is where we talked about the tactics of the media versus taking out honesty, dishonesty, all that, but just how the media being a business is in the attention business. And so they need attention to make a profit. And so I think our media, the way our Media is particularly 24 hour news channels, all of them, because they need attention to survive and to thrive.
I think they're set up in a way to sensationalize everything.
And so one thing that we've seen with the pandemic is that it's difficult to. Media is not out there providing perspective to people and trying to help them understand, okay, here's the big picture, here's what you need to know. Here's the important stuff. Here's the stuff that is kind of, you know, it's not that important here's where you need to be worried. Here's where you don't need to be worried. The media doesn't. It isn't really set up to provide that for us, to give us context and perspective. Because if it's. If they tell at any point, they say anything, but this is the biggest thing in the biggest deal in the world. This is all you need to be watching. You might turn the channel and do some. Something fun, do something entertaining. And so I thought that one of the things, the way we've set up our media as just a straight cash grab, or, you know, indirectly, cash grab directly, an attention grab. We need to keep your attention all the time. It's. You've talked about this to me, like, yeah, every time I turn on the news, it's like they're just hitting me over the head with this all the time. Like, it's like, well, you know, like, give. How about some context, how about some perspective and not just, oh, everybody's going to die, you know, and stuff like that. So I think that that plays a role in this as well, is just that our media is not equipped to give us thoughtful and contextualized information.
[00:13:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, the problem is it's actually a feedback loop and a symbiotic thing where the media dumbs us down and we act dumber as a society. I mean, it's sad, but it's true because you're right. I mean, the media is over there competing with each other, really, for eyeballs and ratings.
[00:14:14] Speaker A: But they're also competing with football and they're competing with, like, they're competing with American Idol.
[00:14:20] Speaker B: No, that's what I mean.
Everything has to be sensational.
So that's where I think that you're right. The media has kind of put gasoline on the flame as well. But as you're talking, I'm thinking about, like, they're dumbing us down. You know, I started thinking about, well, how come I haven't freaked out over this pandemic? And part of it is, you know, not to say I'm the greatest or anything, but it's more like, well, I'm educated about history. I like to read. I'm a critical thinker. So as this started out, I was reading about the Spanish flu of 1918-1920, 21.
Let me get my centuries right. I was reading about the Black Plague in Europe and in the Middle Ages. And what I learned reading this stuff is that this stuff doesn't go away quickly. I mean, like I said, the Spanish flu was 1918. To 1921. That's three years of people's lives. That's a long time. Like we talked about in other discussions.
[00:15:16] Speaker A: Yeah. Reading it, it doesn't look long through the dash, but living through three years.
[00:15:20] Speaker B: 36 months is a long time. We haven't even lived through 24 months of this. So that's what I said about the news is making us dumber too, because you're right, there could be a different universe where the United States media is actually all of it, trying to do the right thing and educating Americans to understand things like this, to keep those kind of emotions tempered.
But when it's stoking flames, then this is the result is people are going to act out this way more in society.
And I'll just finish with this.
In the article, what stood out to me, they noted that the pandemic is unique because there's no clear endpoint. I thought that was a valid way because human beings don't work well without a kind of timeline or some sort.
[00:16:02] Speaker A: Of managed expectation, especially for something that's unpleasant, you know, and so like, you're dealing with something unpleasant and it's indefinite. And they also talked about the roller coaster aspect of it, where you feel like it's, you know, earlier this summer, in 20 or last summer, in 20, 21 or towards the summer, it's like, okay, yeah, the vaccines are coming and, you know, people are. Things are getting better. And then Delta hits and then you go down and then, you know, same thing like with the, with Omicron and you know, like you're getting towards Thanksgiving, the holidays, and it's like, okay, yeah, Delta slowing down and then boom. And so that unpredictability and, you know, like how it, it keeps, okay, we're almost there. And then it yanks you back in. Is it's difficult on the psyche, like.
[00:16:42] Speaker B: No, I agree that that comes to the no clear endpoint. And then just where I'll finish and I'll hand that to you, is there, there's. It really wears on our coping abilities to the point where we aren't able to regulate our emotions as well as we could before. That's what I wanted to really get out is that's a quote from the article, because it's true. With all these things hitting us at once as, like humans in a society, our ability to cope with this stress is just. I think it also gets worn away. And as it says, we're not able to regulate our emotions as well as we could before. And I think that's what we're seeing people that otherwise wouldn't have smacked someone in the face on an airplane or spit in someone's face at a restaurant for telling them to wear a mask.
[00:17:22] Speaker A: They, you know, at least for that trigger. Like that. Yeah, like that's a little bit of a trigger. Like maybe they would have done it if you would have stepped on their foot, but not for just saying something to them. And I saw just along those exact same lines, like they're interviewing somebody in the article and the person's talking about, I'm so on edge, I can't watch suspenseful shows anymore on television. And that's like, that's. That's what you're talking about There is how it can actually that dealing with that level of stress persistently.
Almost like it's like chronic stress from a real thing, though it's not like it's imaginary. But chronic stress from a real thing, it changes who you are, you know, your body, it changes your body. It changes your ability to deal with things that you otherwise are able to deal with. Or like, I'm sure this person used to be able to watch suspenseful television shows, and now they can't because of the messages they're getting and then just the reality of it, you know, like, oh, every time you go outside, you know, it's not just you're worried about yourself. You might be worried about, you know, your family getting people, getting other people sick and so forth. And so it's a lot to deal with. So along those lines, you know, the.
There are a lot of different psychological factors were mentioned in this. In terms of the way people, how people react to these things or perceive these things and how that can affect their psyche. Were there any that stood out beyond what you've already mentioned?
[00:18:43] Speaker B: No, I think just the. I mean, I wouldn't say beyond, but just to me, it's all kind of swimming in the same. In the same pool, in a sense. Meaning stress, tension, all these things that cause us to be triggered more like we just read this. Coping, the ability to cope with all this stuff.
Our force fields as individuals, I guess, are really been worn thin.
One of the things, though, that's also happened is there's been well documented examples of.
Since the pandemic started, there's been an increase in alcohol consumption amongst Americans on a regular basis.
So I think. And if you look at things like the antidepressants, if you look at psychologists, therapists, psychiatrists are on overdrive right now. They can't even keep their doors closed.
[00:19:38] Speaker A: You're Combining two things, that's self medicating and then also seeking medical attention.
[00:19:43] Speaker B: So that's what I mean is that in the last two years we have an increase in putting things in our bodies that can alter our emotional and mental state.
Then we have, like we said, let's say that's part of the fire and then the gasoline on it is everything we had just discussed is my point, like not to repeat it, but just to say, you know, the media, the politics, all that. So if that was. That's why I said we came into this pandemic pretty much ready to have this kind of explosion, like negative explosion. Right. Of emotion and stress, because we already had all these ecosystems ready to go. You know, we had already a pharmaceutical industry that was very healthy at selling us pills to cure everything from depression to anxiety to everything else. We already had a robust sin thing with gambling, alcohol, all that kind of stuff. And we already had a robust media ecosystem, social media ecosystem that all have disinformation, misinformation, and pit people against each other. So when you put all that. And then again, like the article said, this pandemic has no end date. So it just creates this constant like over your head and over your shoulder that's constantly chasing you.
[00:20:58] Speaker A: Yeah. You don't know when you even reached, you know, you can get over the hump, you know. And so like to me, one thing.
[00:21:04] Speaker B: Just to finish that off to my joke of misery loving company, I think a lot of people then commiserate with each other through these periods of time. And that perpetuates it too.
[00:21:14] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, but one of the things that I saw that was mentioned specifically was that they're talking about people being diagnosed with post Traumatic stress syndrome, dealing with like a percentage of people, a real percentage of people that are actually being diagnosed. And this is in five countries in the United States being included. And so it really like to me, if that's happening, I think they may be being underestimated how much this is affecting people. And what the concern in that scenario would be to me is if during the difficult time we're going through it and we're having these, we're experiencing the trauma, but for a lot of us, we're probably actually still burying it because we're still going through it, they're still going through the process, and then it'll be once you get to some end point, that it may manifest itself in other ways.
And so that to me, that's people being diagnosed.
The number was 13%, by the way. So it's not a huge number, but it's not an insignificant number either from just living life. It's not like 13% of the people that went to war came back with PTSD. It's like 13% of people just walking around the street.
And so that's the type of thing that it's like, okay, well, hold on.
If people are. That's being observed, then. Because there's many people, like I said, that won't even necessarily show that until after it's over. And then it'll be. So it'll be a second wave and so forth. And that's. Actually, I wanted to ask you about that because when we're dealing with something like this, we're talking, like, we're talking trauma, we're talking stress and so forth. It's not always the initial or the immediate reaction that is the one to watch out for. So when you see stuff like this, when what are you. Do you see anything on the horizon that we really need to be watching out for? Or that is like, okay, yo, you know, this is this now and then. But once we get through it, this could set us up for something even worse. Or, you know, maybe it conceivably it could make it better. You know, people may appreciate things more, but, you know, like, that's. Just throw it out as a possibility. But, I mean, what do you see as far as the unseen so far, how this could affect us with your wealth of reading and history knowledge.
[00:23:30] Speaker B: Shoot, you want a bad podcast?
You keep talking about the wealth of knowledge I have.
No one's hired me ever to be a teacher. So let's just tell the audience that.
No, I think it's a good point or a good question I should ask or I should say, and I would say that I think it could break either direction. I'm going to be a little more negative, which shouldn't surprise you, and I'll explain why.
But before I go there, I'll say these type of moments could break either way, right?
You can either get some sort of shared collective kind of galvanizing of a population. Let's say World War II did that for the United States. In a certain way, there's this shared experience.
[00:24:14] Speaker A: Let me give you a different example. Because World War II still, but like London, for example, where they get bombed and bombed and bombed, thinking of the Germans, it would break them, but it actually made them stronger.
So it's not a given that going through a collective trauma as a society will, on net, on balance, take you down a negative road. But I agree with you. It's a possibility it could go either way.
[00:24:37] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:24:38] Speaker A: A lot of those things depend on leadership. Depends on kind of the structures that are in place at the given time.
[00:24:43] Speaker B: Yeah, no, that's where I was going with it.
No, because you took it out of my mouth, which is things like leadership. I mean, imagine if Winston Churchill during the London blitz and the bombings with the V2 rockets and all that was up there questioning, well, is it really the Nazis doing this? Is it, do you think it's Hitler, 400 pound guy in his basement sending these missiles to us? You know, like meaning. And I know I'm saying that as a joke, but what I mean is when you have a fracturing of the message from the top, it does allow for people to be confused. Yeah. And you know, but no, both examples we gave, right. Whether it's the London specific or America just during the war period and then post World War II, the message which.
[00:25:23] Speaker A: Was more Americans being asked to sacrifice, Americans being asked to do things that they may not.
[00:25:28] Speaker B: And those kind of periods I think are when a collective pain can result in a long term benefit for a society. Because what's happening is the society collectively is coming together to solve that pain.
So people have a stake in it altogether. I think the other examples so far, Covid being one of them, is where the population fractures. And I don't think that ends well when we see those examples historically.
Because what happens is it provides the ability, when the information is fractured and there's a lot of misinformation and there's basically propaganda, then you start looking like Eastern Europe and you allow environment for a lot of these kind of bad actors and people that don't have the whole society and their goodwill in their heart and all that, to use this way, this style of communication to pit people against each other. So let's just say 1930s Germany and the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party was a good example of where it went wrong.
The Post World War I, the post World war collective trauma and the Great Depression globally. So you can have them because that was an example where a strong man came in and channeled the negative energy that the population had into pitting the population against itself. And the famous example being against Jews, but Gypsies, Catholics, political dissenters against the Nazi Party, they all ended up in concentration camps too. So it wasn't just one group, it was let's pit people against each other. And I think that's my concern because I'll read a quick quote of where the Psychology is in these moments, quote, the researchers found that anticipating a negative pandemic related events was more emotionally painful than experiencing one.
[00:27:19] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:27:19] Speaker B: So what's happening is. And I think that that's where the media does such a disservice to our society. And again, anyone listening? I'm saying all media, I'm going from Fox all the way through cnn, MSNBC and all this stuff online. So it's not conservative or liberal, whatever people perceive.
[00:27:35] Speaker A: No, it's. That's what I'm talking about. It's the media requiring to keep your attention.
Its priorities are not to give you context and perspective. Its priorities are to sensationalize and make you think that what they have to say is the most important thing in the world. And the way you do that oftentimes is the type of messaging you're talking about.
[00:27:54] Speaker B: Correct. And that's what I'm saying is that because it has to be negative in order for us to keep our eyeballs on.
[00:27:59] Speaker A: Right? Yeah.
[00:28:00] Speaker B: Because that's how we're wired as human beings, then people are constantly anticipating negative things that are going to happen, which is stronger than actually when the events happen. So that's where I think we're going to be in a worse shape.
Because we've already seen in our country, we're pitting Americans across each other. And we were doing that pre pandemic, the left coast versus the inner country and all this kind of stuff. So Americans were already primed at the pump to be pitted against each other. We had a pandemic and then we've had both political and media leaders doing the job to keep us divided. So I'll hand it back.
[00:28:37] Speaker A: I think that that's possible, of course, like, like we said.
But what I was going to think.
Well, I'll say this. I actually think it's not glass half full, Orgas have empty. It's, you know, it's actually just. I think it's going to be a generational divide. I think that older generations are kind of, kind of baked into this fight that they're in now. Like, they're just kind of set in. They're just. This is the, these are the battle lines. Part of the problem we have is that the older generations are not letting go of anything. You know, like they're, they're holding on to everything. But I think they're going to have, they're gonna be pushed more in a negative direction.
But I think the younger generations potentially could be moved in a more positive generation because of stuff like this and be able to once control is able to be wrestled away from the people that are still fighting the same fights from the 80s and the 90s and so forth, that to push society in a better way if we can get there, if we can get there before something really bad happens while the current generations that are in power are still there.
But I think this will, I think the Great recession from early 2000s, 2008, 2009, I think all of those things have been and will be formative for the people 40 and younger, so to speak, or around that age and younger, and will create different adults, so to speak, that once they get into their 50s and their 60s and so forth, that I think will be less selfish, frankly, in terms of how they view society and that they view society, whether they won't view society as just their own personal plaything that they can just do whatever they want with, because the crises that they've endured, I think, have caused them to have to see the interrelatedness in all these things where whereas, you know, things were good, you know, you're like 40 years or so relatively, you know, like it. You could kind of think the world, everything within the world was just for your taking, you know, of a certain age or if you lived in a certain time. So I think it's going to be a generational divide, though, that. That's really where my takeaway from that in that you're going to see different outcomes. And again, it's nothing's 100%, but you're going to see different kind of. It's going to push people in different ways depending on the generation and what their generation goes through and so forth.
[00:30:54] Speaker B: Yeah, I agree.
[00:30:55] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, I mean, I guess that's. That, that's cause for a little bit of hope, you know, but a little.
[00:31:03] Speaker B: I'm still. I've still got an empty glass over here, but go ahead.
[00:31:06] Speaker A: Well, no, and I guess I still, with the caveat of things could get worse before they get better, you know, and if, if they're able to keep things kind of in place until they get better would be the scenario I'm talking about. But the other thing we wanted to speak about today was very, very interesting.
The premise basically is that money actually may be able to buy happiness, because that's always the thing that people talk, oh, money can't buy you happiness.
More money, more problems. There's a whole bunch of things.
But it was very interesting in the way that it spoke about how money can buy you happiness. Because what it is basically is using money to Buy time. And this doesn't mean that you have to be rich. This is just if you have something that you need to do that, you know, in order to keep your house moving along or whatever it would be.
And you pay to have that done.
And then you use that. Here's the key piece. You use the time that you saved with the money to have whatever that you needed to do, get done, done. And you do something that you enjoy or that you value. So you, you, you. Instead of, you know, whatever it would be, instead of mowing the lawn, which you normally do, you pay to have the lawn mowed. And then instead of just taking that time to sit on the couch and chill, you spend that time with your kids, you know, and so if you're. It has to be that kind of trade off, though, which was very interesting. If you just have somebody mow your lawn every week, then it doesn't do any. It won't do anything psychologically for you. So what was your reaction to this, Tunde? I mean, this is something that you can. You can, like, appreciate. Or do you think this is kind of splitting. Splitting hairs to kind of shock value for a headline? And it's like, you know, I don't know. And you deal with money all the time.
[00:32:42] Speaker B: Yeah, man. No, I can appreciate it. I think there is some. Not some. I think there is a lot of truth to that.
And the article is very interesting because it also talked about how, like you said, money doesn't make one happy. So this isn't saying that, oh, everybody with wealth is just happy because they can afford to buy someone else to do stuff they don't want to do.
There's also, it seemed like there's an equilibrium, so to speak, within that world because it said that, you know, wealthy people that pay for too much help actually end up on the same end as the people who don't do it at all. Meaning they're still stressed out and depressed.
Because when you pay, when you overdo it, then you actually don't have really a purpose in your own existence.
So it's finding those things that, like you said, that you don't necessarily want to do. I'd say for me, the good examples are mowing the lawn, doing a full house clean, right?
But because we have housekeepers that come to the house, you know, every other week, that type of thing. I got a landscaping guy comes in. But, you know, it's funny. You and I talk about this kind of as good old men with families at work.
One thing that's still Mine every night is I clean the kitchen counter and I do the dishes and all that because that's my little ritual to end the day.
So it's interesting reading this article because I thought about it like, okay, I do appreciate paying the cleaning ladies to come and clean the whole house because that does free up time that I. Otherwise, I wouldn't want to use my time three hours a day on a weekend to do that because I'd rather do something else with my weekend when I'm busy all week.
But I do enjoy the kind of, what do you call it, like, active meditation, if I can say that, that I stole off a friend. I didn't invent that.
That comes along when I'm doing certain tasks. And for me, cleaning up the kitchen at night and making sure the counter spotless and dishes are done are part of that ritual.
So it's kind of learning to understand yourself in a sense.
But it's very interesting. Yeah, I would say this.
[00:34:44] Speaker A: It's actually, it sounds easy when you first read the article, but it's not.
It's actually pretty complex in the sense that. And this is what, to your point where being wealthy, you have no more access to this than someone who is not wealthy, you know, someone who just, you know, just working, you know, working class. And the reason being is that it's not just to get the happiness here. It's not just, you have money, you have to have something that you have to do, and then you have to have something that you would rather be doing that actually is fulfilling for you. And so if you don't have something that if you're just rich and don't have anything that you have to do, you can pay anybody to do anything. And, you know, then paying somebody to do something isn't going to do anything for you. And then if you don't have things that you would rather be doing that are going to bring fulfillment to you, this also isn't available to you. So if you don't have family or things that, like I said, or maybe it's just playing a video game, I don't know, but things that will make you happy, if you don't have those also, then this won't be available to you. So you have to have something that you're supposed to do that you need to do something that you would rather do that's going to make you happy. And then you got to have the money to pay somebody to do that. And so if you could put all those together, then apparently there's a kind of a psychic benefit that does it for you, that brings happiness. And I. Actually, for me, I had a specific example of this when I started working for myself.
Before that, I cut my own grass.
And now my house is smaller then, so, I mean, it's not apples to apples. But before then, I cut my own grass, and before I had kids, I cut my own grass. This all coincided around the same time. But once I had my first child, my daughter, then also I started working for myself. So I was more cognizant of my time, my billable hours here, billable hours there. I made a hard break and stopped cutting my own grass. Because I was. And I said it at the time, I'd rather spend that time with my daughter than be out there two hours in the lawn cutting the grass, edging everything, blowing everything, all that. And so. And that's what I did. And, like, I didn't just pay somebody to do the grass and then just, you know, keep working, you know, But I did it specifically, and I used that time to spend with my daughter. And so I. And it did. It worked. I mean, it was like, you know, that I'd see them out there cutting the grass and, you know, I'd be, you know, spending the time it made. It felt good. You know, it felt good for that to happen. And so I definitely. I definitely see the merit in this. But again, it's not easy to do that because I don't get that benefit anymore. Like, now I just have my grass cut every week. And I don't. It's not tied to me doing something else that is fulfilling for me. It's just. Yeah, that's just what happens. Like, somebody comes across the grass, and I don't even think twice about it. So I don't have anything that I am specifically replacing it with that is bringing fulfillment. Then it doesn't work anymore, you know, So I gotta find something else.
[00:37:37] Speaker B: Well, you know what you should do on a serious note?
You should paint yourself and cut your lawn, like, once a year.
[00:37:44] Speaker A: Seriously.
[00:37:44] Speaker B: Cause then you probably would remind you that it does make you happy that.
[00:37:47] Speaker A: You don't do this. And you're gonna keep.
[00:37:49] Speaker B: This is a reminder for yourself.
[00:37:50] Speaker A: Well, but I have. But it's not just that. It's that I also have to make sure that I do something with that time. That's what it is. Like now I don't. I no longer budget for that time. It's not found time anymore. It's like that.
[00:38:01] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, you filled it.
[00:38:03] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:38:03] Speaker B: You had a second kid. So now you got more stuff to do, so you filled it with other stuff. But, you know, it's also. That alludes to something different, which I didn't plan on, you know, having this discussion. But it's an interesting point because it makes me think of my weekend I just had.
You know, I was all ready, I had my stuff, my little agenda on Saturday. I was gonna work and do all this stuff and catch up. And for some reason my emotional state was just like, dude, you gotta chill.
And it's funny. As I'm getting older, I'm much better at listening to myself without feeling guilty. And like, oh, I need to be working. Cause that's where I would get my emotions all tangled, right. My body's telling me it's gotta chill. And then I force myself to still go into my office and work.
And so what I did was I just listened to myself and I was like, all right.
And I played some PlayStation.
I read a little bit of a book, I hung out with my kid. You know, I kind of did nothing. Right. And the funny reason why I say I played PlayStation, I don't play PlayStation a lot. And I played PlayStation like two in the afternoon with the sun out.
And you know, the guy in his mid-40s is like, okay, am I being lazy? Am I wasting time and all that? But I felt good allowing myself just to chill out, you know what I mean? And I think going back even to the first topic we talked about, I don't think in our society in America today, we give ourselves as individuals the chance to just be and relax. Like, we're always on and we're conditioned. Especially those of us that kind of started in corporate America.
We were conditioned that if you're not constantly busy, there's something wrong with you.
[00:39:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:39:36] Speaker B: And you know, it's like, I love looking at my pets, you know, my dogs and my cats as an example, because they're on a very short period of time, you know, like they're hustling. Either the cat's hunting a mouse or the dog's out there chasing the ball. And then most of the day they're sleeping.
[00:39:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:39:53] Speaker B: And they're just kind of lounging around. And I'm like, man, it's like, this is what nature is like. Like it's not always on constantly. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I think that goes back to.
[00:40:02] Speaker A: If you go back to like agrarian societies, like, there's a lot of downtime, you know, in terms of the day to day life. It's not in that it's not 40 hours a week or 50 hours a week or whatever. As far as that goes, there'll be a busy time and then a lot of chilling.
[00:40:16] Speaker B: Yeah. And so. And that's why one of the quotes that stuck out to me about the research, because, remember, this was a study done. So this is actually kind of like you're saying about empirically done.
And so I'll quote here, when the participant bought time instead of things, they felt happier, less stressed and more satisfied.
That stood out, too. And it goes back to that idea of money can't make you happy. Well, really, because we think of it materially. So many people think of money as. And I used to do this too.
[00:40:44] Speaker A: I used to think buying a thing. Yeah, buying a thing.
[00:40:45] Speaker B: Yeah. Like when I was in college, me and my friend used to talk, man, if we can make 100 grand, by the time we're 30, you know, I'll have a BMW. I have no problems in life. I remember I said that shit to my friends. 2021.
I think I made my first hundred when I was like 26 or 27. I guess what, I still have problems after that. I still got problems today.
[00:41:06] Speaker A: But that's the point, though, because money itself isn't what.
[00:41:10] Speaker B: That's what I mean. As. As a kid, I was conditioned to think that money was going to. All right, our society conditions you to believe that. So even me, I believe that naively, like, oh, if I just make this much money, it'll solve whatever I thought needed solving.
And, you know, hold on, let's, let's.
[00:41:26] Speaker A: We got a wrap here. So I want you to get to the point you wanted to make about John Maynard Keynes, who is quoted or discussed at the very beginning of this article. And it'll give you perspective on what you're saying as far as how we're conditioned, because this is someone from the same country as from the United States, an economist just 80 years ago, talking about how he foresaw, based on what was happening in his time, and this is, like I said, a giant amongst economists.
What he saw in his time, how he foresaw the need for work was going to be in the future.
[00:42:02] Speaker B: And he might be British, but just in case.
He's a Western guy.
[00:42:07] Speaker A: Yeah, Western.
[00:42:08] Speaker B: And yeah, no, he was in.
John Maynard Keynes, for the audience, is actually the father of our kind of modern economic systems. So it's a very good person to kind of quote here who understood, like, we're saying a lot of our economic stuff. So in 1930, he assessed how technological and economic advances had reduced the number of hours the average person worked.
He predicted that within two generations, most people would work only three hours a day.
[00:42:39] Speaker A: Yeah, but that's based on productivity. And so in order to continue the level of productivity that we need, productivity being increasing, productivity has continued to increase. Yeah, it's just that we haven't worked less. We've just continued to be more productive and produce more profits that are shared unfairly. But you know, that's.
[00:42:58] Speaker B: Well, and here's the thing is that working hard wouldn't be a problem.
Filling all that free time would for most people be the problem. And so that's what he identified back then as well. Hey, if people are only going to be working three hours a day, what are they going to do with all this other time?
And my first minute I read that, the first thing I thought of was when I stormed the capital last year.
Well, that's what happens when you got too much time on your hand. You start by believe in BS and you get wound up like a doll. But anyway, that's a whole different conversation.
[00:43:27] Speaker A: Well, no, but it's interesting though to see, like you said, where the West, a Western view, it's not, you know, and he was British, but it's a Western view of, you know, of, of capitalism the way that we do it. And then seeing how in his lifetime, from the 1800s to the early 19, late 1800s to early 1900s, how productivity amongst workers had increased so much, and then he projected as the continued increases, that in order to keep growing, we won't need to work that much. And so it lets you see though, that, you know, whether it be capitalists, whether it be whatever, that the conditioning amongst people was that didn't take hold. It was, no, just keep working, keep being more productive and, you know, we'll find something to do with all the money that we make, basically.
[00:44:09] Speaker B: Well, and it's a good lesson too, because think about where he was in 1930 compared to where we are today. I mean, take it like, let's say someone's 60 years old in the year 1930, because I don't know how old he was, but let's just say your average kind of older person at that time, they would have been born in the year 1870.
I mean, think about it. They were born at a time and grew up like they'll have a memory of no electricity, no plumbing, no airplanes, no telephone, no radio. By 1930, all five of those things existed and were robust. I mean, you know, you had planes going intercontinental, you had, you know, electric grids in every major city in the world. You had indoor plumbing in every major city, all that kind of stuff. Radio, tv, film.
So he was living at a time of immense change and he probably thought naively like we do today. That's why I'm making a comparison because we have the Internet now, people are going to space for commercial flights just to check it out. And we tend to think, oh well, what are we going to do in the next generation or two when there's going to be no need to work, computers are going to do everything.
I just think that his quote is actually a good lesson for us to be humble in the face of new technologies and to just appreciate that human beings need to do things and need to do something. So if we're going to be faced with the same question of continue to increase productivity, let's also maybe start focusing on what are humans going to do and try and make sure it's productive and that we don't devolve into this chaos where with our free time all we're doing is fighting each other. Well, that seems to be what we're doing.
[00:45:45] Speaker A: Yeah. What it is, what he, I think that this isn't as off base as it seems as far as his quote, because we've already seen, like this is automation basically, you know, like this is automation is that, you know, for the same amount of time that it took somebody eight hours to do in 1930, it could take 100 people to eight hours to do. It could take two people four hours to do now. And so that is happening. And your point is well taken that there needs to be things to do other than just sit around. We can't just lay a bunch of people off that used to work at a factory and say, all right, go learn computers or something like that. We need to have purpose as a society, on a society wide level, we need to be able to provide purpose. Whether that be what you actually do to earn a living or just something you do to contribute to society. That's a, you know, whether it's, you know, we've talked about compulsory service before that people that they can be a part of, you know, what you do as, as, as being a citizen. And you know, like, yeah, those questions need to be asked because productivity is still increasing and really computers and with the Internet, it's gone up even at a sharper incline. So yeah, what to do with all the time and it's not the answer shouldn't be just hold people's wages down so that even though they're more productive. They just won't know it anyway. But you know, like that comes up from time to time anyway. But I think we a few are.
[00:47:10] Speaker B: At the top, you know.
[00:47:11] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, I think we can, we can wrap it up from there. I didn't think we would end up in this, in this place, but that.
[00:47:19] Speaker B: Was podcast but it wasn't a throwaway.
[00:47:22] Speaker A: But no, the cane's thing wasn't a throwaway because it's still stood out to me too, you know, like oh that that's a interesting way to start this article here. But you know, so it was, it was worth speaking about it anyway so. But yeah, we appreciate everybody for joining us on this episode of Call It Like I See It. You can get us wherever you get your podcast and you know, subscribe to the podcast, rate it review, tell us what you think and until next time, I'm James Keys.
[00:47:45] Speaker B: I'm tuned egg on lineup.
[00:47:47] Speaker A: All right. And we'll talk to you.
