Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
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 take a look at recent reports coming out of Florida on the lengths the governor went through to control the public's perception of COVID links, which included muzzling local health officials and only working with experts who would say what the governor wanted to hear.
And later on we'll discuss what stood out to us and some research we came across on how people are expecting substantially more from their spouses and marriages and what these increased expectations do to the marriages.
Joining me today is a man who will surely deny any knowledge of any fight clubs but still believes that in a long enough time the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
[00:01:01] Speaker B: Tunde.
[00:01:02] Speaker A: Ogunlana Tunde, are you ready to share with us some more battle tested wisdom today?
[00:01:09] Speaker B: Yeah, but you said it all, man.
That was the most profound thing I've heard all day.
[00:01:15] Speaker A: Well, the day is young, man.
[00:01:16] Speaker B: The day is young. Exactly.
[00:01:18] Speaker A: And you haven't gotten fired up yet. So we'll see.
[00:01:21] Speaker B: And we'll see.
[00:01:22] Speaker A: We're recording this on December 7, 2020.
I would like to get right into our first topic. We saw recently reports going into Florida governors Ron DeSantis orders to public health officials that they do not discuss the COVID 19 virus with the public.
Now, presumably this type of deception is aimed at keeping businesses alive. Florida is a state that has a lot of tourism and just a lot of businesses that anywhere around the world that elected officials and the public itself don't want businesses to close and so forth. So, you know, on the surface it looks like this is about doing that, making people feel comfortable to continue to spend money, to continue to patronize businesses. But do you think so in this instance? Do you think that downplaying the COVID virus is just overtly dishonest or like trying to protect the public from itself in the sense that if you tell people how bad it is, then maybe they'll overreact.
[00:02:20] Speaker B: Great question.
Actually, the way you asked the question, I think the answer would be probably different based on how someone perceives this whole thing. I do think, look, withholding information from the public as an elected official and a leader, someone that the public does expect to trust and does expect to share important information that would, I guess, affect the public health somewhat of a fiduciary responsibility, if I can use that term for from a governor to his or her citizens within that state. So I think the direct answer would be I could see someone seeing it as dishonest, the withholding of important information.
But as you pose the question, I can see someone also making the argument that, yes, we don't wanna have too much information that would cause the public too much alarm because that could be detrimental. But. But my personal opinion on this one is I do think it's a bit dishonest. Cause I think because we have a viral pandemic, I just think that withholding information on health stuff during this time, I would say this. I think allowing the public to have full transparency is the most important thing right now. Maybe that's a better way for me to put it.
[00:03:37] Speaker A: I mean, I think it's dishonest. I mean, I would say that, but I think that in. Ultimately, you're talking here, whether the ends justify the means, whether the ends to try to support and prop up businesses with continued business coming in justifies the means of withholding information.
And one of the things about our system, our government, which is supposed to be of the people, by the people and for the people, would be that the government should not withhold information like this from us. But this isn't inherent in governments. Governments don't have some inherent duty to share information, all information, with their public, you know, like with the rest of the public. That's the specific setup of our government, is that we expect that. And so there is a. We feel a certain way when we hear this, like, well, hold on, you're supposed to be sharing this stuff with us. We're supposed to be informed citizenry. You don't get to just decide, make decisions on your own. But, like, this actually goes to a worldview thing as well, though. Like, there is a worldview that exists kind of like an authoritarian mindset where the public, if you give the public too much information, they won't know what to do with it. It's almost like a parent and children just that if you give people too many decisions or too many choices, I should say if you give them too much information, it will paralyze them. And so therefore, you should limit what they know to make decisions easy for them. And that's not inherently, I would say, sinister. And so I think that's what the question really with DeSantis here is, whether he's doing what he's doing is sinister or. Or him trying to do what he think is best for the public in a way that just may be antithetical to our government of the people, by the people, and for the people. And so, and I would say I'm not willing to assume that this is sinister. I think it's bad because again, I think that in a open government like this, their duty, the elected officials duty, is to give us information.
But it does seem like what he's trying to do is keep commerce alive. And so that purpose wouldn't be sinister. But ultimately I don't endorse it. I don't think you can endorse it because our society sets. This isn't China. China doesn't purport to say that. It's an open government. Their government officials don't say to everyone, hey, you guys are a part of this. They're like, yo, this is us, we run this. We'll tell you what to do. That's not what the state of Florida. That's not the message we get. That's not the nature of the government here. And so therefore it's wrong when they act like that.
[00:06:02] Speaker B: Yeah, man, I love Florida, man.
I'm not born here, but I am a full embraced floridian now after 22 years in South Florida.
I'm thinking as you're talking, we're the Sunshine State.
We also have something called the Sunshine Law for state legislature and politicians where there's supposed to be a level of transparency. And the idea of the Sunshine Law is playing on the kind of theme that sunlight is the best disinfectant. Right. That if it's all out in the open, you're not going to have rot and things kind of creeping into the system. So.
But as you're talking, I put a couple things on my notes here. One is the word opinion.
Because what you're talking about is really, it's kind of like the race of opinions and whose opinion is gonna win out. And obviously right now whoever's in charge, obviously their opinion I think tends to win out. But what I mean by that is.
Cause you're right, some people see the shutting down of commerce and business as actually a greater risk than anything else. And the reason is from people that might have that view would be that,
[00:07:17] Speaker A: well,
[00:07:20] Speaker B: we would have more of a short term harm with just the virus. Because we understand people get sick and you might have a little bit of stress on the healthcare system and all that, but that at some point will subside. Whether they believe in herd immunity stuff or they think the vaccine will be here in time to stop mass deaths or whatever.
[00:07:40] Speaker A: Well, and also let me just jump in real quick. Some people may. Look, if there is a 1 or 2% chance of, of serious illness from COVID some people may look at that. 1% chance is just not 1 or 2% chance. Is not that not significant enough to change your life?
[00:07:55] Speaker B: You're right. And there's other areas I'm sure that we could point to where people make decisions to do things with a 1% or 2% chance of harm and they do them anyway. So you're right on that. And my point is, so there's that opinion and let me finish that thought off on the economics is because they feel that the stress on the system, if businesses or commerce is halted, would be so long term and damaging, it would outweigh the damage posed by the virus. So what could those examples be like that or those be? For example, we are a state specifically here in Florida, we know that tourism is huge. So if you were to shut down restaurants and hotels, you might give the inclination for those that are thinking about traveling to Florida, especially in winter months where we get most of our tourism at this time of year, they may decide not to come here. Then you're going to have the issue of a higher unemployment rate in Florida, which may cause more stress on the Florida budget through unemployment benefits and all that. And then you also have less tax revenue, which then will put stress on the budget as well. So all those things play into the opinions of those who feel like shutting down business will do greater long term damage than the virus. Then you've got the other side and the opinions of people who say, well, if you have an unhealthy population, if you don't take care of the health needs and all that first, then how do you expect to ever have a healthy economy in the short run? And by short run, I mean probably the next three to five years. I mean, obviously 20, 30 years from now, we can assume all bets are off. This will be through this period. And I think those are the competing opinions.
So that's number one. And not to say obviously people can have their opinions, they have a right to that. But what also this reminded me of was kind of the politics of fear.
[00:09:41] Speaker A: Yeah, I would say just I wanted to comment on a couple of things you just said.
Everyone has opinions and so forth and there's opinions on one side of them, an issue or another. What I see though here, and actually this is the, you know why I will always reject this, is that I think the withholding of information is not about necessarily like that's trying to avoid having to persuade other people to your side to set up or to explain why what you're saying is more controlling or should be more controlling. And it also attempts to remove any accountability if what your opinion is or what you're saying should happen or what the risk is if it doesn't work out like that. If you withhold information, then it's harder to hold you accountable for this decision you made in private. And so if he just got out and owned it and said, look, people, this is what I think. I think that if we are too. If we're too worried about COVID we're going to ruin everything else. The cure will be worse than the disease if he gets out there and just owns that. And that's what everybody understands. That's his guiding principle. And then in a year or two years, we can evaluate whether that worked or not, whether his judgment was sound or not. And we can evaluate him because of that by just withholding the information and making it seem like the course that's going now is the only course based on the available information. You basically are saying, I'm not going to try to persuade anybody. One and two, I don't want people to be able to hold me accountable if this doesn't work out right. And also, in a related way, this leads to unchecked corruption. The reason we. There's a reason we have an open government, why there's sunshine laws, all that stuff. When government officials keep things private, it leads to unchecked corruption. That was gonna be corruption. You know, we know where there's. Where there's three people, two of them are probably gonna be corrupt against the third. So, like, there's gonna be corruption no matter what. And so the question is more. So what tools do we, the public, again, government of the people, by the people, and for the people. What tools do we, the public, have in order to check that corruption? When people are corrupt, to find out and then hold them accountable for it. And so when information is withheld from us based on that goes into the decision making or whatever, then basically we are unable to hold people accountable. And the other thing I wanted to say on this is it's interesting you brought up politics of fear. And this isn't to go into political direction, but just we see politics of fear being used oftentimes.
And so, like, oh, we'll be afraid of, hey, suburban people, urban people are coming for you, or whatever it would be.
And so it's interesting to me to see here such an effort to avoid fear. Like, hey, we gotta not tell people because we don't want them to be afraid. Like, so certain issues or certain points, people will embrace the politics of fear. And Say hey, we wanna make people afraid so that they'll do something we want them to do. But this is kind of like the withholding of that. This is like, oh, okay, well. And then the other side of the issue, so to speak, the side that's saying that we should value life above all, they are embracing the politics of fear in this sense because they're saying, hey, you should be afraid 1 or 2% of something really bad. But hey, there's a 20% chance that you'll be sick. And then, you know, who knows what's going to happen six months from now if this thing will permanently damage you. And all that stuff is legit, you know, but it's how you value it, you know. So you know, I like, from my standpoint, you know, I look at that as all of this plays into human psychology because that's where that's what we are. A society is a collection of people. And so any society, these elements of human psychology are just what are going to dictate what the leadership does and what the leadership doesn't do.
[00:13:27] Speaker B: Yeah, no, and it's funny say, cause a whole bunch of stuff went through my head as you said that about the fear because a lot of it again rests, you're right, on so psychological, it rests back on our opinions. Right. Because what you're saying kind of speaks to this idea of well, what I think is important or what I think is fearful or like you're saying, if it's coming from leadership, and it's maybe not the most genuine way of messaging is what I think is gonna put you in fear so that you, so you're motivated to vote for or against something that I'm trying to, you know, get done.
And you're right, it's funny because we see that in a lot of other areas in our society. You know, I'll give you a couple of examples, let's say from this last few months in American life and culture. Remember when that kid, the 17 year old kid, went to the protests in Wisconsin and he shot two people and killed them.
And I had mentioned that this kid was seen in some corners of our country as a hero.
But it's interesting, had his last name been Mohammed and he had been from the Middle east, he would have been seen as totally different.
But the act is the same. He went somewhere and killed two people.
[00:14:42] Speaker A: And then who are you susceptible to being afraid of? You know, certain people were just not susceptible to be afraid of a 17 year old white guy going to a protest and you know, killing Some people, you know, like that and then. But if his name was Muhammad, people would be susceptible to being afraid of that, you know.
[00:14:58] Speaker B: Correct. And it speaks that everybody on all sides of every argument usually does look at things like that through their lens of opinion, and they'll weigh whether this means more than that based on all the stuff we're talking about, not just on the act itself. So back to the purpose at hand. One of the things that sticks out to me when we're talking about this kind of stuff is emotion versus reason.
And I don't know what the DeSantis administration, and him personally, what his opinion is in making these decisions, but I think I've shared with you in private conversations that this last decade, again you mentioned, we're in the detail end of the year of 20, the last 10 years or so, maybe it's a function of the time we're in, and maybe it's a function of my own maturity as I age. But I've just recognized and felt things that I guess I never would have thought would come out of my mouth. So I always believed in, and I still do, but believe in democracy and rule of the people and that government should be transparent and all that.
But only in recent years have I at least understood, let me put it that way.
[00:16:12] Speaker A: That's the best way to put it.
[00:16:13] Speaker B: Yeah. Not that I believe in it, but I understand why. Let's say when the Founding Fathers founded our country here, forget about the racial and, you know, the feminism or whatever you want to say, but why only white male landowners were the ones allowed to participate in the political process?
[00:16:30] Speaker A: So what you're saying basically, is that why landowners, we know why white, we know why male. But why did they say landowners as opposed to just white males in general? Go ahead.
[00:16:41] Speaker B: Correct. And so the idea was that at the time, if you were a landowner, you were seen as somewhat sophisticated. And again, that's why it's a very hard conversation, because I believe in equality and that we shouldn't exclude people from processes like this. But the idea was that if someone owns land, they're a little bit more sophisticated than someone that doesn't. And that doesn't mean smarter or anything like that. What it means is you have a certain experience in your life of dealing with multiple things. And so the idea was that land ownership gave a human being, in this case, like you said, males and all that, but just gave somebody a life experience that led them to a more mature look at, I guess, the world and that they could deal with some complex issues. All at once in their head.
[00:17:31] Speaker A: That was the assumption.
[00:17:32] Speaker B: That was the assumption. And that's why I say is not as something that I ascribe to personally, but looking at the last 10 years of our politics, from the lurching of the emotional reaction to Obama's presence, which created the Tea Party and that stuff. And again, not to say they didn't have some valid points, but I think it definitely got taken over by the craziest.
Then that morphs into what we see today with this QAnon stuff and all that and just this inability for Americans to agree on a centralized theme of facts that can get us to continue to move our country forward.
[00:18:11] Speaker A: Maybe not just an inability, but an unwillingness, like a desire to avoid a
[00:18:15] Speaker B: certain strain of our population, which is definitely just trying to be contrarian and just poke it in everyone's eye for whatever reason. So long story short is for the first time in my life again, I find myself, I don't know though that
[00:18:29] Speaker A: you can say long story short, that intro.
[00:18:33] Speaker B: So maybe you're right. Let me pull that one.
[00:18:35] Speaker A: Long story long.
[00:18:37] Speaker B: Go ahead.
But the bottom line is, and that's why it's difficult for me to have this conversation because it goes against the grain of who I am, I believe that everyone should have a right and a seat at the table. And I'm not advocating that they shouldn't. I'm just saying that for the first time ever, I understand why some people, historically, throughout not just our country, but other societies as well, have felt that like you said earlier about being a parent when you have kids, not everybody needs to know everything all the time, at once. And so just like I don't share with my 9 year old son our household budget. Right. Like, you know, I teach him a few things about finances at this point, but he doesn't need to know everything.
And I can see where a government or leaders of a large population could kind of say the same thing. Look, we got this going on over here, but you know what? We don't need everyone to know that. And I could say a good example that we don't see it, but that we hear about in this kind of stuff would be, let's say, intelligence agencies or clandestine operations by militaries around the world.
We don't need to know everything the CIA and NSA are doing. We just need to trust that what they're doing is generally in our interest in keeping us safe.
[00:19:44] Speaker A: But also, we need to also trust in our country that the people who do know, the people who do get to See, what they're doing are accountable to us. Correct. So there is that piece. But I wanted to stick on to the paternalism piece because what you explained is like, paternalism defined basically, like, hey, I am better equipped because of my life experience or because I'm a more serious person because I'm a landowner or whatever. I'm more equipped to deal with these issues and come to a decision that is in everyone's best interest. So therefore, I'm not even going to bother you with all this information.
I'm just going to keep the information, I'm going to make a decision and I'm going to act in all of our best interests. The problem that creates though, is that people have blind spots.
So even if you think as a landowner you're going to account for the needs and the desires of non landowners or the masses or whatever, then you're not going to. But I mean, no, I get it, I get the thought process that everyone, if everyone participates, everyone doesn't have the same desire or capability to engage in rational decision making or weighing facts. But I just don't think that that is a compelling interest, honestly. Like, I was aware of that and I understood the thought process behind it, but that's why. But remember, like, if you from a couple months ago when we were talking about the voting stuff, I don't think anybody has all the answers. I think the whole point of voting isn't that one person voting will have great understanding of it all. And so therefore, as long as everybody listens to that one person and votes with them, then we'll be okay. I actually like the idea of a collective decision making where all of us look at something from different angles and coming from different places and then decide what we see. And I think that as a group, then our decision making will have more perspective than any one person's could. And so I think the crazies should be in that pot. I think the rational people should be in that potential because I think that gets to a better decision than even the rational people. Because the rational people will have blind spots too. The emotional people, we see their blind spots more.
Like they stick out more because like you said, they're lurching from issue to issue. Whatever's on their mind. A certain day, we see that. But emotion is part of the human experience. We shouldn't try to remove emotion from our decision making. We just don't want it to be to dominate our decision making. So I think that the voting system, where you include everyone, actually accounts for that in a Good way. And so. And I think you avoid Rob rule. I know, excuse me, mob rule. We had talked about this offline, just in terms of you get. Like mob rule can be dangerous. I think the way we avoid mob rule actually isn't by limiting who votes, but it's through a constitution. So you set up the rules of the game so you don't have tyranny by a majority, because if it's voting, you can't have tyranny by a majority. 51% or 60% can do things to the rest that, you know is not fair by just voting on it. And so I think those things are accounted for separately. But I do think that. And that's just again, goes for my. If I thought that there was a person or a group of people that could demonstrably make better decisions than everyone else, then maybe I wouldn't think like that, but I just don't think that exists.
[00:23:00] Speaker B: Yeah, no, great point. And I think, you know, the word that comes to mind for me and you know, this word well with me is entropy, this idea of order to disorder which then leads to order again over time.
That could be in physical world with just decay of things over time.
And it can also be in social settings of societies and cycles of societies that are orderly, they break down, there's a bit of chaos, and then over time a new order forms as there's new leadership and the population also accepts, you know, maybe a new way of being in a sense. So, and I think we're in part of, you know, and I'm sure over time that type of entropy can be very violent and kind of aggressive, and other times it's a little bit milder. And I think, you know, let's say just in our short history as a country, an aggressive example of that would be, let's say, the Civil War.
And then, you know, maybe less aggressive version of that could be the last 10 years, right. That we have kind of a cultural cold war in our country. But it just you know, thankfully hasn't turned into anything besides a few unfortunate skirmishes here and there and protests hasn't turned anything really huge like a civil war or something really drastic like that.
[00:24:17] Speaker A: So I think it's a really good point you make too, that it's kind of tied to us as human beings. Like, we have to kind of experience just like natural order in terms of entropy. Like you reference entropy as a known natural phenomenon. Well, us as. As organisms that engage in these societies, these collectives. This is just a part of it as well.
[00:24:38] Speaker B: Yeah, if you really extrapolate is because, I mean, we are organisms from the Earth and so we still have the same chaotic imbalances within us. I mean, if you look at all the stuff we've talked about too on some shows, like the microbiome and all that, I mean, within our body is a whole nother universe and a lot of stuff going on that has its own entropy and all that. And I was thinking when I was talking about something as simple as rust, really, when you think about metal rusting and it takes a long time, is really just the iron returning itself back to the earth from the metal. And it just takes a while and it goes from the order of a nice looking sheet of steel and 50 years later, the disorder has happened through rust and it goes back into the earth to form its own order again. So we're in that process now as a society. And I think, and this is where I get when I start thinking about this stuff in these conversations is the reality is then we come back to the opinion part that we discussed earlier, which is you and I, probably why we're doing the show. We get along as friends even, and all that is we're of the opinion of what you just stated so eloquently. You and I are of the opinion that people that disagree with us still should have a seat at the table.
You and I are of the opinion that we're not always right about everything and that other ideas, even those that might clash with how we feel about certain things, may actually make everything better in the long run if they're allowed to be heard. At least, you know, you and I are of the opinion or at least
[00:26:06] Speaker A: that they could be used to challenge our ideas and maybe we can then form a better idea once our ideas are challenged in good faith and then we come back with a counter and then like, that's the. Is a process of becoming better that doesn't involve constant agreement.
You know, if everybody just pats each other on the back all the time, nobody's improving.
[00:26:27] Speaker B: No, but what I'm saying is that, that. But that's who we are. And that's an interesting comment, right? Like, I mean, just what you said too. Like, you and I don't want to be patted on the back and be told we're the greatest. Like, that's just not who we are. Like, you know, we're not narcissistic or arrogant in that way.
We're okay spreading the love and saying, you know, don't just tap my back. Tap these other three Guys that helped me along the way, and they're working hard, too, and this and that. And so, you know, that. That's why, to me, it comes back to what you also alluded to earlier in the conversation here, which was fear.
What that really means is for whatever reason, and because, you know, with my whole armchair quarterback learning of psychology, you know, I'm not formally trained, I don't have a PhD in psychology. But as someone who's just read a lot of books and finds human emotion and irrationality kind of fascinating, I know that a lot of that starts from our childhood and how we were raised and what we were exposed to as children, that we either were taught to fear or that actually something happened in our life that was traumatic for us. And I think for whatever reason, James, you and I, maybe a little bit of nature and nurture, you know, probably our own brain chemistry of how we were born and then our own life experiences have led us to the point where we are not as fearful about things that are foreign to us than some other people in our society are. And that just allows us to feel that, you know, someone with a different idea or whatever isn't just a massive threat that we have to go eliminate.
[00:27:56] Speaker A: You know, that's an interesting point, and I'll say this, and I think I want to. I do want to jump to the last topic, but the thing about that that's very interesting to me, and again, this is kind of my worldview with that, is that, yes, I would agree with you that you and I both aren't really as responsive to fear as a stimuli. But I would say in a group, it's probably good to have some people that are more responsive to fear and some people that are less responsive to fear, because the people that are less responsive to fear may not see a threat until it's too late sometimes. And then the people that are more responsive to fear will see too many threats, and you won't be able to go and you won't be able to accomplish anything because they're just too worried about all of these threats, that many of them aren't. So that's why I always say that there's a balance that we all need to come to together based on what we're focused on. If you're focused on threats all the time, you're really not going to be that helpful as far as moving things forward. But if you're not focused on threats all the time, something can sneak in and you can miss it. And so you kind of need each other to balance out the system, to get a system that works better. And so, yeah, but I think you're right if you're constantly, if you constantly need to be right all the time about everything, if your ideas can never be improved, they can't withstand scrutiny, then that's how you end up in a situation where you're trying to withhold information because you don't want scrutiny. You don't want someone to look at what you're saying and say, does it stand up to reason?
So, you know, from that, I think, you know, we can move, you know, there's no easy transition. But, you know, another topic that kind of, you know, we wanted to have some fun with was looking at. There were, there was. There's been some research into a thought that people nowadays, in modern times particularly, I would imagine this looks at primarily American culture, though, but it could be anywhere. But people are expecting more from their spouses in marriage now, and they want their spouse to be everything. They want their spouse to be the most attractive, the smartest one. Stimulate them intellectually, stimulate them this way. Not just an extra pair of hands or somebody that you think is a good person or anything like that, but they want more. So what do you think of this premise? You know, just that people want more from their spy, their spouse than in the past. And, you know, how big of a deal is it?
[00:30:05] Speaker B: It's huge.
It's funny, and we say this, you
[00:30:09] Speaker A: know, like, Tunde is married. You know, I'm married to different people, obviously. Like, you know, we're both, we both have our wives and, you know, so we. But just from, you know, what you were saying before, we're interested in these psychology things, these psychological things, and just in terms of how we're interacting, like, I'm looking at this article like, huh, do I expect too much from my wife? You know, what's going on with that? So go ahead, Tund.
[00:30:28] Speaker B: Yeah, no, it's funny because I'm laughing because I'm sitting there messing with my wife yesterday, telling her that we'd be doing this topic today. And I'll.
Let me not tell the world all your dirty secrets, woman.
But so, but it was a fascinating article. And you're right. One of the things that it did make me think, you know, let's say this with me falling on an absolute sword and being very humble in front of the world here on this podcast or whoever's going to listen to it, is one of the things, you're right, James. It made me look at my own self, hold up that mirror. And I guess just from kissing our own ass here on this show, I guess the last few minutes, right.
Hopefully everyone listening doesn't think we're so arrogant, but you know, segueing from the last part that we acted like we're so open minded and, you know, we want to hear everyone's thoughts and opinions. You know, I gotta say that when I read some things like this, you know, you start looking and introspecting yourself and saying, how do I come to myself in marriage? And you're right about one thing I noticed. I think we do this not just marriage, but even with our kids and just with other relationships. Right. A lot of things that upset you are probably insecurities you have deep about yourself.
But when you see someone else that you really care about, maybe acting out in certain way, behaving in ways that you feel might lead them down that road of your insecurity that you feel, you kind of bark up or maybe bark at them. And it may seem aggressive, but really deep down inside it says, again, going back to the word we've used several times on the show. And the other topic is fear, right? Your fear that something is gonna go out of whack with that person, your kids or your spouse, and you don't want them to go down that road. Or the fear that this or that negative is gonna happen in the long run.
And so I think when reading it, it was fascinating because it talked about. And that's why I talked about a couple different things. This idea of growth, that the kind of what we look for in partners has changed also. And it probably. And it seemed very good because it's true, right? Like think about, let's say, being married. I mean, we talked a little bit about just from a political and kind of democracy angle, I guess, the idea of when the country was founded and the idea of landowners being able to vote. So let's go back to that time period right now, let's say the 1780s.
I mean, forget about all the nuances of America and being alive then, but just say, let's say just having just
[00:33:01] Speaker A: day to day life or something.
[00:33:01] Speaker B: Day to day life and being married, especially, like I'd say you're on a farm and all that. I mean, you probably required a lot different type of relationship between men and women, between parents and kids, you know, all the different dynamics at that time than we have today. Because at that point, I mean. And that's why the book makes a good. Or sorry, the article made a good allusion because I'VE joked with you as well in the past about, you know, of the issues I see with our society today in the United States is because we're at the top of Maslow's hierarchy. And it was funny to see in the article they called it climbing Maslow's mountain. And so the idea that now we're looking at things like personal growth and my emotional state and all these things that, you know, I guess it's a good thing that we have the ability that we're so far removed from fight or flight or just trying to forage for food. Right. Where we can think about things like my feelings, for example.
[00:33:55] Speaker A: First world problems.
[00:33:57] Speaker B: Yeah, first world problems. And you're right. Like that's what I was thinking like, okay, in 1780, I might not have had, you know, not only did we
[00:34:03] Speaker A: not 780 or the year 80 or 1000 BC, not only did we not
[00:34:09] Speaker B: have maybe the MRI imaging and all these things to help us understand what made our brains tick and all that, but the idea is that I didn't have the bandwidth at that point to really worry about the touchy feely stuff. And you know, my wife and I, you know, doing meditations so we can make our minds grow and all that because, man, I gotta get up at 6, you know, a crack of dawn when the rooster is going to feed the cows and then, you know, if
[00:34:30] Speaker A: I don't do all that stuff, we're not eating.
[00:34:32] Speaker B: Yeah, we're not eating, you know. Exactly. And she just had like her eighth kid because, you know, it's back in those days you just had a bunch of kids because unfortunately the mortality rate for, you know, children under 10 was 50%.
[00:34:43] Speaker A: Well also, you needed the hands.
[00:34:45] Speaker B: Yeah, you needed the hands. That's what I mean. So you had to have 10 kids so that five of them survived. That could help you with the farm. So, you know, and that's what I found fascinating. You know, nothing to get too off tangent, but the article kind of alluded to all that, that marriage is something that's not stagnant in itself, that the institution of marriage changes, has, oh, let me put it this way, has changed over the human history.
And it kind of makes sense because we know that let's say if you were in the Ming dynasty in ancient China, I'm sure that marriages were much different than, you know, my father's ancestors in the Yoruba tribe in Nigeria, you know, a thousand years ago.
[00:35:21] Speaker A: Well, much different. But then also there's similarities, you know. Cause that's one of the interesting things about this I thought was not just how they've evolved and how they've been different, but that they've been constant. Not much in terms of human interaction and so forth has been this constant also. But yes, it has evolved. The thing, the killer quote to me, which is along the lines that you were going into, was just that people were seeking self actualization in marriage. Yeah, well, that's like. So it's about making themselves.
[00:35:47] Speaker B: Yeah, well, that's what I look at as kind of our modern.
I mean, modern. I mean, talking about this generation or two, you know, let's say the last 20, 30 years.
[00:35:56] Speaker A: Well, let me say one other thing because I do want to get into also the where this comes from. But I want to say one other thing as far as just what you make of it and how big of a deal. I think it's a big deal as well. The reason is primarily though, because this is just a universal type of thing that as your expectations for something increase, so does your, or your satisfaction, I should say decreases. Generally the higher your expectations in something, the more likely your satisfaction of it is lower. So it actually could make for less satisfying marriages if our expectations keep going up, not due to the actions of any particular person or your spouse or anything like that, but just the higher your expectations are, the more potential for disappointment and the harder it is to be satisfied. So. But go ahead.
[00:36:40] Speaker B: I agree.
[00:36:40] Speaker A: The point I wanted to get to was, you know, so what do you think drives this? You know, what can we do?
[00:36:45] Speaker B: Well, that's what I was going to get at is, I think, like a lot of other things in our society today, let's just say, you know, United States and other kind of first world and modern countries, and I probably shouldn't even limit it to our types of societies because with the Internet there's so much, you know, so many messages are spreading around the world. So what I'm getting at is, you know, we're all bombarded, whether it's TV ads, Internet, social media, with what we're being told should be the perfect way of being. Right? So let's just take our physical state now we're in our 40s, right?
And I'll pick on my family, not yours. So my wife is in her, you know, now in her late 40s, and she has had three children. And she is a human being, right? But in our modern society, you know, I'm on my wife about working out and all that. Like she still has to have a waist that she had when she was 30. 2. You know what I mean?
[00:37:44] Speaker A: Yeah. Because you're bombarded with images.
[00:37:46] Speaker B: I'm bombarded with images of what I think should be an appealing sexy look and all that stuff.
And in reality, one of the things in reading this is like in reality, is that right? Probably not.
Is it right to try and ask someone who's physical state is changing because of their age that they should still look like someone who's. Who's of an age, you know, 20 years earlier or whatever. And the point is, is that not to pick on, you know, my wife or anything like that. My point is, is that it's.
It's also doesn't help that there are abilities for people to do that. Right.
So now you're also watching like one of the shows she watches is like the, you know, these Housewives of Orange County. She does that just to let her brain vegetate and all that.
And it's funny because when I watch those shows, I look at those women and they disgust me in a sense. And I hate using that word, but I think it's gross, all the plastic surgery and all this because, you know, looking at women in their late 50s and then it looks like damn.
[00:38:44] Speaker A: Well, you're talking about from an appealing standpoint.
[00:38:46] Speaker B: That's what I mean.
[00:38:47] Speaker A: You're not talking about their soul, like.
[00:38:50] Speaker B: But I'm just saying, like, yeah, like how come you can't just age gracefully and you're still trying to look like you're 30, but then it looks bad and then I'm here killing myself. Well, shit. And I'm the same asshole as telling my wife to go work out just so she can get a flat stomach, you know, like, funny how it permeates us, but yet when I see it on tv, it's like, eh, that doesn't look natural. That's not that attractive. So it's funny. That's what I meant by reading the article. I even kind of just thinking in my own head and I'm wondering, I'm sure there's ways if I bought her on this microphone right now that she might do the same thing to me back, but she probably doesn't. I'm just saying that to give some false equivalency here.
[00:39:26] Speaker A: There you go. But I would say this. I think you're right about. It's what we're exposed to that I think drives this more than anything. And that's not to say it's sinister now. There is some sinister aspects to it. People trying to sell us things or whatever. Trying to sell. Trying to keep our attention. But you know, what we see with media and stuff like that, I think is it. But in the old days, usually say whatever that would be 1,100, however many years ago, you were limited to your options, were limited it in terms of what you saw, what you got in like you saw or your street or whatever, and that's it.
And so. But also one of the bastardizations of that is people don't necessarily have many more options realistically, but they have more perceived options. Is what I've seen as far as referenced in media and social media and so forth, is that you see all of these pictures and you see all of this stuff out there and you feel like that's an option for you, but it's not realistically an option for most people. So because of those perceptions, it drives us to want more from our partner. And it's not bad necessarily inherently to want more, to try to do better, to try to improve yourself or to try to be a support amongst your spouse to help her improve her. In my case, to help her improve herself. But you definitely, I think, how do you address this? You got to be more aware, I think is the only real thing you have to be aware of the pressures that we maybe putting on our partners that may be detrimental.
Being a coach that drives a team very hard, so to speak. One, the coach is in a role that he's supposed to do that. But two, he still has to be careful as far as how he does. He needs to know his team and know what buttons to push or how hard to push him and so forth. And so with our spouses, I think the way we have to address that, one, we have to want to address it. And then two, we have to realize a lot of times we had to learn to take it easy with some things and not be, you know, your job as a husband, you know, in this, in my case, is not to be a slave driver, you know, not to be like, oh, we got to do more, we got to do this. We got to, like, you have to be able to cool out. And so, you know, I'm glad I read it because, you know, this. This could help me. I want to try to adopt this, you know, my life and try to, you know, try to do more as far as. Or try to do less, I guess, as far as my mindset.
[00:41:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:41:30] Speaker A: Any final thoughts before we.
[00:41:31] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. It's an interesting analogy to coaching because I played NCAA basketball. So, you know, and that's what I always said Phil Jackson was Such a special character because he was able to play that role. Well, when you looking at the people that were looking to him for leadership, the team made up of, think about a personality like Michael Jordan and Dennis Rodman coexisting in the same locker room. And so you're right.
It's the ability of a leader to navigate the minefield of emotions and egos and all that. And you're right. Within a marriage, it's the same thing. And I think the reason I use those words is because I look at myself as a leader in my home.
So whether I'm coaching a team or I'm leading at home or I'm leading in my business, it's the ability to navigate. And that gets back to everything we've talked about, right? My opinions, my fears, my this, my that. And so it's just fascinating.
[00:42:26] Speaker A: And then one other piece to add to that, by the way, is that. And that only works as long as you and your wife are aligned as far as the roles that you guys look at each other in. You know, like, if you think you're a leader and she's like, like, no, no, no, I'm running this show, then you guys have a misalignment there. Like, that's where I pointed out, like, with the coaching, the one thing about the coach, the coach is in that role, and everybody acknowledges they're in that role. So you have to not only be able to be in agreement as far as the role for partners, have to be in agreement as far as the role that they should be playing in each other's lives, or should you be more of a support, or should you be more of a person to try to push buttons and things like that or both.
[00:43:00] Speaker B: But also, remember, that comes down to trust. A very interesting point you made because, like, if someone has.
And I'll give you an example, and obviously this friend remains nameless, but I have a friend of mine who I'm kind of, you know, helping him as a friend just do conversations and all that with. He's having some issues at home, and it looks like they're going, him and his wife, going the direction of a divorce.
And one of the issues is finances.
And.
But he shared with me some stuff about her past, that her father was an alcoholic and a gambler, and he gambled away her college savings while she was in high school. And she had to really struggle and work her way through college.
And when he was sharing with me all that, it kind of made me realize that because of the trauma she experienced as relates to that subject. That he is fighting a battle that he can't win on his own.
[00:43:54] Speaker A: Correct.
[00:43:55] Speaker B: That if she doesn't address that, that their issues around finances are gonna cause them to fracture.
[00:44:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:44:01] Speaker B: And it's not. And I don't blame her for that.
[00:44:03] Speaker A: No, no. It's a legitimate thing.
[00:44:05] Speaker B: It's her father's fault. Yeah. It's just like if someone was molested as a kid and had issues with sexual or intimate relations, right now, it's not their fault. But you need to understand that background if you're gonna deal with them. And as. And if they are trying to be, or at least learn how to be in a more open and loving relationship and supportive, they also have to wanna deal with those insecurities and face them. And it takes, you know, and that takes a lot of maturity and all that kind of stuff now just to finish up. Cause I know we gotta run. I was just gonna say I think this problem gets worse, not better in the short run. And with our technology. There's a great film that I got, I found Very good for this reason called her H E R with Joaquin Phoenix. It was out a few years ago and I think it's on Amazon or wherever, you know, anyone can watch movies. But the Eye is the first time I saw a movie like this, and it was well done. Where the movie is set, they don't give the year, but it looks like it's the near future. Maybe it's 20, 30 years from now. And it's at the point where artificial intelligence is really good enough to kind of Alexa on steroids. Right. You go in, you talk to her, hey, honey, how you doing? And she becomes like the guy's companion and what he ends up doing is kind of shutting out the rest of the world and almost just like falling in love with this AI.
[00:45:22] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:45:22] Speaker B: And I thought, you know, I could see now when I saw that, I thought it was fascinating because I could see as we're. Remember, we have all these different now stats over the last 10, 15 years of. Since social media and all that's come about. And it's interesting that people are more lonely today than ever before. People are more depressed than ever before. And I could see, remember, dealing. Marriage isn't easy. Dealing with someone else who's a totally different human being and who has their own desires and wants to be heard is not easy. And so the idea is that people will default to the straight line. You know, the shortest distance between two things is a straight line.
That if it's if you make it easier for me to feel pleasure in an intimate relationship. And I don't mean physical, I just mean emotional, to be able to talk to somebody, to be able to have my thoughts heard, to have my grievances heard, all that. And it's a software that can kind of push and pull on me the right way immediately. And I don't have to go through 10 years of being married to figure out how to be stable with my wife, that I could see more people just defaulting to that as an easier route. And we've had a little bit of a view of that in Japan.
Remember the last few years they've been having issues like low birth rates and all that because guys were like falling in love with emojis and characters in the software. Oh, wow. And weren't even dating anymore.
[00:46:44] Speaker A: Well, you know what's interesting about that? And we can close it up here. But I do want to just, just to note on that, the interesting thing about that actually is that the AI example or the example you gave, the example from the movie or what you just said about Japan, that's a one way street. Like you're not responsible if you're falling in love with the AI. If you're falling in love with this emoji, you're not responsible for supporting that.
It's just the AI supporting you. So it's actually a very, I mean, I don't say this to demean, but it's a very selfish way to go. Because part of a relationship, part of a marriage is it's a two. It's supposed to be a two way street. Like you're supposed to give as well. Not for the purposes of, you know, not just because, but you're supposed to try to build the other person as well. And so, but if it's AI, if it's emoji, you don't have that responsibility. So you call. It's easier, as you noted. But I think that's the key thing that makes it easier is that it's not a two way street. So I think, I mean, in that we could go on there like you opened that door, we could go forever. So we should close it up.
[00:47:42] Speaker B: But you know, I'll be divorced if we go forever, so definitely close it up. Yeah, real quick. I just want to. When you said December 7th, it made me realize just totally different. Just to honor and respect, you know, our nation's history and all that is, you know, this is the 49th anniversary today of Pearl Harbor.
[00:47:57] Speaker A: Sorry.
[00:47:58] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, 79th. I want to say 49th. Yeah, it was, it was the next year will be the 80th anniversary. So it's just interesting. When you said it, I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:48:08] Speaker A: A day that we're living infamy.
[00:48:09] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
[00:48:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:48:10] Speaker B: Yeah. So.
[00:48:11] Speaker A: Well, we appreciate everybody for joining us as we, we meander through these topics, as we always do. Definitely subscribe to the podcast or follow it, you know, whatever podcast service you use, tell us what you think. If they have that, review it, rate us. And until next time, I'm James Keys, and we'll talk to you next time.
[00:48:36] Speaker B: I.
