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So some people put the shopping cart back into it’s return location, and some people leave it wherever they are when they are done with it. What makes these two people different? If we are what we put into us, why are so many of us only putting one side of information into us? How do we use the knowledge of us being what we put into us to our advantage? We also loosely address claiming greatness for things that come naturally, parenting, governmental responsibility, people’s rights, and goldilocks thinking. Join the conversation by leaving a message, emailing us at RecoverySortOf@gmail.com, find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RecoverySortOf or Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/recovery_sort_of/.
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5/17/20 So some people put the shopping cart back into it’s return location, and some people leave it wherever they are when they are done with it. What makes these two people different? If we are what we put into us, why are so many of us only putting one side of information into us? How do we use the knowledge of us being what we put into us to our advantage? We also loosely address claiming greatness for things that come naturally, parenting, governmental responsibility, people’s rights, and goldilocks thinking.
Transcript:
that’s good he says he enjoys he enjoys it I don’t know what the hell are we gonna talk about today I we went to the beach I saw that what was that like all hold on Jim needs our office key all right here yeah hopefully we’ll be meeting back at the office soon that would be nice you still nervous love it I need a ladle uh no it was good I mean there was tons of people down there and not a lot of masks I mean in stores obviously if you go in a store you have to wear a mask but right you know pay for this down there and Joanna beach having a good time so I I gotta say if a month from now we realized that this has spread like crazy in this month that we’ve all like not really taking precautions okay we learned something I get that if it doesn’t spread like crazy I think I’m actually really highly confused how this works I really I don’t understand like how could it not yeah I mean here’s I’d like say here’s been my maybe it’s a justification or I’ll call it understanding but my justification has been I think we were concerned rightfully so that it was gonna be way worse that it was gonna be really catastrophic and I mean it’s it’s not like dead Gemini she doesn’t necessarily agree with me on this either but I don’t think it is to the extent that they thought it was gonna be and we’ve done some social distancing which has helped the hospitals from getting overwhelmed but ultimately I don’t think it’s as deadly as they thought it was gonna be and so at this point you know okay let’s say in the next six months we get another 50,000 deaths I mean that’s still a lot of people we’re still at 150,000 people but you know not to harp on the [ _ ] Republican bandwagon but we’ve had years where the flu kills eighty thousand a hundred thousands of people and no one ever seen you know why don’t we not really even give a [ _ ] about that but this big care about you know feels way more deadly and and all kinds of people were dropping like flies and you know it was had a death rate of even probably five or ten percent I would say oh [ _ ] you know definitely I should be stay at home I shouldn’t be doing any of this stuff but I think what they’re still it maybe one to two percent so if 99 percent of the population is gonna be okay let’s even say ninety seven percent of the population is going to be okay should we really infringe upon the rights of that percentage of the population for three percent that could potentially get sick and die ooh you’ve completely flipped on this one yeah yeah and I guess I’ve thought of it from the like the you know I don’t know what if we can just take these things away from people are they really rights like if we can just all the sudden tell you that you’re not allowed to do this then another thing you’re not even allowed to go to the [ _ ] park and walk in the park we’ve now locked down the [ _ ] state park like what what are you I mean I don’t know it just seems scary about what our rights really are and what we’re really kind of are we really a free society or we just when it’s convenient we’re better than China but when it’s not convenient we’re just like China we [ _ ] lock people down and shut down businesses and do whatever we want take your rights immediately away you know and it’s just like [ _ ] that’s kind of scary well yeah I guess I don’t know I’ve thought a little bit about that I try not to think about it too much because it’s I don’t I don’t find it draconian that I’m stuck on Wi-Fi like I hear that word thrown around a lot this is draconian measures and I’m like bro I’m sitting in my house I got food delivered to my door like this is far from anything that happened in draconian times and it’s like for us like I still I mean it’s not like I’m like hey [ _ ] it we should be you know meeting in big giant groups and like we still did all the social distancing stuff which I did say that yet I’m like I don’t know if this is much more different than normal time at the beach other than all the rides are shutdown and [ _ ] but it’s not like you go set your blanket up a foot away from the people next to you anyway you know what I mean you still go kind of with us with kids we still kind of find a spot away from other people I mean you know name and kids go play in the ocean and I mean our kids were down playing in the water I don’t know yeah I guess what the restaurant we’re all shut down so we didn’t go to any restaurants we got food takeout right I guess I don’t know I’ve seen some people arguing this and the whole you know the the right that the government has to protect first is your right to life like life comes before liberty and happiness and so if there was ever a war against us or an attack on our land the government would surely be there responsibility would be to keep us safe however that is it’s kind of like making you wear a seat belt I mean we could just let people die from not wearing seatbelts but we don’t we made it a rule because they have a right to protect your right to life first yeah I would say the difference with that is driving like a head that people say that argument was driving I don’t think driving in and of itself is a right you know driving is like a privilege you know driving a car is gonna right so things that we do to regulate a right I mean to regulate a privilege is to me seems different um the difference here is if you are really concerned and you decide it’s unsafe for you to go out and do anything you have every right in the world to stay home not go out practice whatever kind of safe practices you want to do whereas now if you’re a person that’s really concerned you’re asking for your safety to infringe upon my rights because I don’t share that concern and I should have the right to go out in public you know I should have the right to go out and be at a [ _ ] park in you know who cares walk or fish you can’t even [ _ ] fish they’re telling people you can’t you can’t go stand out on the beach and fish you know and sit in a chair it’s just weird you know crazy [ _ ] I mean should you be able to tell people they can’t go in public stores without wearing a mask I guess so I mean I don’t think that should be up to the government I think that should be up to the store the store should be able to say look just like you know no shirt no shoes no service well my stores decided if you don’t wear a [ _ ] mask we don’t want to serve you and I don’t have to that’s not infringing upon your rights that’s my right as a business owner to make that decision but the government shouldn’t be able to tell me that I can’t let people come in if they’re not wearing a mask like that’s where it gets weird well and that’s I wasn’t really trying to go for the driving thing it was really more of like we’ve never know I don’t say never but for the most part most of us have never experienced any kind of attack on our land like generally we fight our wars in a far-off distant place so that we can hide them but if anybody ever actually came here the government could very easily put us on lockdown for our own safety yeah that’s been a terrible experience that’s the Japanese and [ _ ] world we’re locking you in camps it’s for our own safety like that shit’s still totally to me as like totally on America like totally [ _ ] insane I saw a post somebody I was just i found it real quick it was talking about I don’t feel like the government is controlling me I feel like I’m being a contributing adult to society and I kind of like that it’s like this is a I don’t feel forced to do these things I feel like the government has made positive choices to try to help people stay alive and yeah I get what you’re saying because I’ve heard that like a lot of people you know I have a vulnerable population in my house so maybe I should not go outside and but if why should that affect somebody well somebody else is spreading it like it’s not it’s still making its rounds more because other people are spreading it whether they are gonna get sick and die from it or not that’s like saying that’s like gun lols I mean we you know we’re worried about the guns killing us that’s why we want to take everybody else’s gun rights away it’s the same thing like yeah if your gun might end up killing me one day I don’t want you to have a gun I don’t really give a [ _ ] if it’s that’s your right or not yeah I don’t know that’s a slope where it’s like okay so now we get to take people’s rights away to protect other people like I don’t necessarily think that’s a good idea I thought that was the whole idea of having these inalienable rights and having freedom and living in a society that wasn’t like the government didn’t have that kind of control over people like you still have the right to wear a mask and do whatever you like being the responsible citizen like you were talking about well my understanding is I have the right to be a [ _ ] irresponsible citizen if I decide to I have the right to not wear a mask and I have the right to go do these things and I should have a right to you know I mean again Hey if someone’s out there [ _ ] spitting in the produce aisle and the [ _ ] grocery store yes that’s a salt you know what I mean like I get that but if I am just going out about my daily life and doing things to try to be like just a normal human being not even overly responsible human being but all right I mean do we hold people accountable for spread and other colds flus viruses would we you know how many people do you think just on average how many people you think maybe have a call for the flu knowingly no they’re sick and have like a flu or something and still go visit their [ _ ] grandma at the nursing home you know it like they don’t I don’t think that hey I’m gonna go in here and take this germ and kill these people it’s pretty [ _ ] irresponsible you know is that a case now oh now all of a sudden well we think they should know better so we should now charge them with some kind of crime because they’re not protecting these other vulnerable people that they should know the risks of what they’re doing without you know even knowing it like without even knowing they might be transmitting this virus you’re still supposed to be accountable as if you have a virus and this is where I think it does get a little interesting and different is if the government the people we chose to elect isn’t putting this in order if they’re if they’re not having stay-at-home orders and quarantines who is now running your life and deciding for you if you’re allowed to stay home or not well the people with money by default they’re the ones that are gonna make the next best decision okay you don’t come to work you’re fired right so now people don’t have the choice to stay home anymore so if the government doesn’t do their job and do what you know protect us nobody is and now it’s the same reason why the flu spreads because if you call out of work for being sick society and big business has made it look like you’re a dick you’re wrong you’re gonna get fired if you call out if you call out of your dentist appointment because you realize over the last eight hours you’ve gotten sick overnight you get charged a fee for that and so we’ve made it this punishment if you don’t show up for these things even when you are sick we’ve made you have to be weak right and so now if the government doesn’t step in and quarantine us people lose their jobs and [ _ ] because they’re trying to do the right thing for society and I don’t think they do have that choice that you’re saying they have well we have some of those issues now with taking place like Amazon who you know if you look at any of the documentaries against Amazon how terrible they are they’ll tell you that they repeatedly make people work in unsafe working conditions and like that shit’s going on in society in different ways already where people are forced to work and unsafe working conditions and if they complain or say anything The Whistleblower thing they lose their job so they go in and tolerate these unsafe working conditions because they have to work to pay their families and what we hope is that as a society we are this gets very idealistic I know but we hope that we are protecting those rights of those people that our society is is functioning in a way that says no we have something called OSHA that’s gonna come in and say these are safety standards that you need to be so that you’re not putting these people’s health and safety and lives at risk and if they are doing these things then you can follow suit you know file lawsuits and things like that you know that’s the protections of the workers like they have you have workers rights and workers protection systems in place now if they suck and they fail that’s different you know that’s a that’s a problem with the society not necessarily well we have to take everyone’s rights to accommodate for a shitty system like I don’t know I think we’ve proven time and time again that big money is what runs our country not people not society I’ll give you my job right now so everyone is allowed to take off without fear of losing their job and still able to get a paycheck out of 30 people I’m gonna say to have decided to stay home all the other 20-some people show up for work every day they don’t none of us are doing that out of fear we’re gonna lose our job or fear that you know so the people that in in our case you know the people that were allowed to stay home stay home but the majority of the people that work there don’t share this fear whether right or not I’m not trying to say it’s right or not I’m just saying I don’t know that society at large is totally scared of going out and going to work at least not the ones that I see anyway
yeah I mean I think what you just described I hope a lot of people have that kind of company to work at I just doubt they do yeah well I was supposed to be the idea of that payroll Protection Act now of course we’ve heard the [ _ ] Fiasco that is but and so that’s why my boss is able to do that because we got you know he applied and got some of that payroll Protection Act money and so now and we’re actually gonna hire a couple people he said you know what now we can hire a couple people and you know we’ll have a couple extra people working because that’s what they want to do with that money they want people working they don’t want people laid off they don’t want people on unemployment so we’re gonna do what we can do to get a couple more people [ _ ] in his version off of unemployment you know are a couple more people bring them in give them jobs they gave me this money to do that so that’s what I’m gonna do with this money you know so if if you know big giant Starbucks wasn’t taking the [ _ ] paper for Texas money you know not them per se but who wasn’t one of them [ _ ] burger joints and you know I don’t know well anyway yeah I can’t really I can’t remember which one of those chain restaurants and you know I don’t know it’s [ _ ] crazy though but yeah I don’t know like say it’s it feels like things are starting to loosen and gosh no matter if you listen if you listen to enough stuff someone will tell you some kind of contradictory information so I’ve heard both things I’ve heard that in the states that have opened up we haven’t seen any increases in anything and then on other cases I’ve heard oh yeah these states that have opened up they’re having all these negative consequences so I’m like I don’t know what the [ _ ] to believe anymore I mean there was only what was it there was only 14 states where the numbers were going down to begin with when we started opening up like there was 27 that weren’t testing enough to know and there was nine where the numbers were going up I don’t even know what the [ _ ] we were basing open it’s hard to tell what numbers they’re actually talking abut seems like they change what numbers are important depending on the Mercy’s numbers are important and those numbers are important that’s another thing I told you I said this is [ _ ] annoying as hell so like they did a UFC of it and I’ve actually done a couple of them over the last couple days because they had all these events that got canceled now they’re trying to catch up and if you go to one of their events the one commentator was saying that they give you two different kind of tests before you’re even allowed to come like a day before the event so you show up there they check your temperature and all that but then they give you the anybody’s test and the [ _ ] test to see if you’re actively sick you know and they can get all those tests done and all the results back for everybody involved in this event in two days and it’s like I can’t even get a [ _ ] test if I want to you know let alone pick here’s a private company that can go out get all these tests done and in a day they get all the results back the next day you know it’s like what the [ _ ] why can’t we feel get a test I guess you gotta have money I’m just I’m gonna be hugely baffled if this disappears from here I really am I’m gonna understand way less about it and really be concerned about what the truth was about it because I don’t know I that just doesn’t I don’t comprehend that like we know we’ve done tests we know very few people have actually had it even though you know there’s the confirmation bias we’re all like sort of thinking oh yeah I had this thing at one point in time and that must have been great we know that that’s not true we know it’s like a tiny fraction of the population that’s had it so if it just disappears I don’t understand like that’s yeah we were never gonna make it disappear so if it does then what the [ _ ] what like well I don’t get that at all and I guess oh you can try to do is look at history and of course we have I mean they say this is unprecedented and I never knew this until the other day I heard did you know in sixty seven or eight whatever year the same year is Woodstock they had the Hong Kong flu that killed a hundred thousand people like that was the thing that went on during the time of Woodstock and nobody gave a [ _ ] like oh well it’s another [ _ ] flu thing going around killing people and they still had Woodstock and did all that stuff and millions of people didn’t die you know so we have had viruses and flus and you know years where lots of people have gotten sick and died of stuff so we’ve had the ways that means to do anything about that before though like this is kind of I think unprecedented might be the fact that we have the ability for quite a few of us to work from home that [ _ ] in 1918 when they had that flew the what the hell they call out them the Spanish flu that’s where all these 10 people and all those fake you know crazy you know shelter in place like that all came from 1918 when they had the Spanish flu that’s what they did they didn’t know what else to do it’s they just [ _ ] told everybody stay at home no I got you but I mean we didn’t have the ability to actually like be productive and work from home and and do things from home at that point I mean why electronically like that you hear like and I still say that’s gonna change a lot I mean I still think a lot of people are gonna change the businesses are gonna change it’s the result of it that should be interesting all kind of [ _ ] should change I mean kids don’t really have to have snow days anymore they can have you know online days when I a cash yeah that’s true crazy keep the school calendar right on [ _ ] track with weird well I won anyway yeah we went down the beach and it was I don’t say a lot of people down there was nice weather and you know a lot of stuff is starting to open up I guess it’s sort of confusing I think to everybody about what the phase one thing means and what places are supposed to open and what things are and what’s fifty percent yeah what’s fifty percent I mean we didn’t run into any restaurants that were actually open are they allowed to open you know think so I don’t know yeah they didn’t there was no restaurant open everything was still carry out or whatever there was a couple places that had some outside eating that it again I don’t know if they were supposed to be outside eating or not and then we saw like on the boardwalk a few of those like souvenir stores and stuff that were opened on Friday that I don’t think we’re really supposed to be open but they were just like [ _ ] it you know what are they gonna do and I guess nobody really cared cuz like 99% of the shops on the boardwalk were closed and every now and again you’d come across one that was full to get open you know and it would be the typical you know selling [ _ ] t-shirts and sand crabs or hermit crabs and and they would just be open like [ _ ] yes they’ll be coronavirus team shirts this year oh there was a bunch down there yeah there was a bunch of that [ _ ] down there I survived corona 2020 and [ _ ] like that oh no I guess only time will tell if everything seems safe in a month two months I’ll come out all that yeah stay at home being safe on do what you need to do I guess I don’t know what else to do it’s like I just can’t I don’t understand how it could just disappear that’s my problem like I don’t get how I could just go away so in your personal thing are you more worried like you’ll get sick and your family will get sick or that you’ll become a transmitter of the virus and spread it to other people or both yes yes it’s I mean you know I’d love to sit here and tell you that my wife’s 93 year old grandmother is my main concern because she’s most at risk and and she I don’t want anybody to pay us right that it doesn’t have to but I think for me definitely having a kid under 1 is scary to me right like I know tiny people aren’t as immune yet or ready for that hearing about some people catching weird side effects at the age of 5 has kind of thrown me out and and affected like while we can say this is like a flu I’ve read [ _ ] that says it’s not like a flu and we really don’t know any long-term consequences of catching it like so we can say oh yeah you get through it and over it but so many people are having different reactions to it like there’s people who have seven it’s for like a month and a half and that’s [ _ ] really weird and there’s no symptoms and another person on the news today they said enough her tattoo so I don’t know that it makes it the norm but they there was another person that called it twice that had it recovered caught it again and died the second time they say goddess earth you know and what is that did they get it a second time did they just never really get over it you know but they had negative they had tested negative they had it tested negative and then ended up two weeks later getting it again and dying or it coming back I don’t like say I don’t know that they even know what you know right it just got scared exactly and so I just for me I’m like you know I’m just gonna wait and see man I I don’t have any understanding of how it could go away and so for me this means we’re opening up because we don’t want to ruin the economy forever and we’re just kind of accepting that people are going to get it and I don’t want to get it oh yeah I guess that’s a different I’ve always just went with the like herd immunity is the only way you’re gonna get through this kind of thing so I haven’t been I guess overly concerned about getting it uh-huh you know like I just think well that’s the only way you get through something like this that’s the way you get through other colds and germs and viruses and you know you got to get a large percentage of people got to get it and recover and hopefully that’ll be what kills so maybe that’s a difference of perspective on I I guess I’m not overly concerned about getting it yeah maybe I should be I heard a story of another guy tell a story the other day about getting like a healthy person who got and he didn’t die but he [ _ ] said he almost did he felt like he was going through you know I see you for like eight days yeah exactly I’ve heard some pretty ugly stories about what it’s like to have it and and just having even if it was like a regular flu which apparently is worst but a regular flu is pretty [ _ ] bad – yeah yeah yeah I wouldn’t get it on purpose that’s for sure exactly and so I I’m looking at that and I’m like okay herd immunity 70% that’s like seven out of ten I can wait that out and be the 3 out of 10 ain’t nothing out there that’s so important I need it yeah right I don’t know I got a feeling I’ll be on the the you know the other the the short side of everybody going back to and I guess it is what it is I don’t know what it is about me that feels like I need to not do that right away but it’ll probably be you know 85% of people will be back doing what they always did and then I’ll still be like well maybe it’s time well unlike most [ _ ] like I’m not correct like I get it you know what I mean if and like my boss Jimmy is the same way he’s like I’m just I’m freaked out of like dude I I can understand I mean sometimes I think I should be more paranoid about it sometimes I think I’m you know like [ _ ] man am I gonna I go if I [ _ ] got this and died like what an ass like I would feel like the biggest ass you know if I got it or if I got it you know and brought it home to one of my [ _ ] kids or J and they got sick and died like you think [ _ ] yeah and and that’s like part of I think what I think about a lot with people I’m like I get it you want to stand up for you know what you believe or your rights or whatever it is but if this ever hit close to home I guess that’s the only way to change your mind about it is if it hits closer to home for you and I don’t want like I don’t want people in your family to [ _ ] die to prove a point to you like that’s terrible yeah and I so that reminded me of a weird way that like let’s take driving for example like so I Drive with the kids and Jen in the car all the time we drive up the Massachusetts make these long trips I would call myself somewhat of an aggressive driver I tend to speed I tend to [ _ ] not deal with traffic very well like I get irritated with traffic and all this stuff and Jen and I’ll go on this debate back and forth about you know she’ll say things like don’t you realize you know you’re putting the kids at risk and you’re putting I’m like if I am doing this to myself I think I probably care about keeping myself alive as much or more as keeping my kids alive so my intention is never to put my kids or her at risk but I guess in a way I’m still doing that you know what I mean like my perspective is like well yeah I wouldn’t put them in any danger that I wouldn’t put myself in so you know I don’t know maybe that’s a irresponsible way to be maybe I should be more considerate of them over myself I guess what they meant yeah I think the thing for me is like if I got in that accident going 85 and switching lanes would I later after they passed think damn I could have done that different and I should have been whereas if I got in the accident at 65 in the right lane or the middle lane like trying to be safe and it just happened anyway what I say well you know it’s all full that they passed but I did I did this the best I could like there’s nothing else I could have done yeah so that’s how I kind of try to weigh it out like did I do the best I could I don’t know yeah what definitely gotten better I mean in talking to her in that way I’ve definitely gotten better like now when they’re in the car I’m in the car with her I for you know for probably the last couple of years at least like I’ll be in the slow lane gone you know not slow but you know definitely not like I used to [ _ ] Drive I used to be very aggressive I’ve gotten way better and I don’t know if maybe part of that’s just because I’ve gotten older but some of that has been from conversations with hurry up like well [ _ ] I’m an idiot and I like to you know I don’t care about the risk to myself but I should care about the risk to my family more you know what I mean like so what I want to risk my life they’re not asking to risk their life to go 80 mile an hour on the [ _ ] highway you know what kind of [ _ ] is that news I remember having my daughter’s and car seats in the back and I’m you know racing around an 18-wheeler cutting him off and hitting my brakes and brake checking them because I he was a dick yeah trying to be like oh that’s so crazy like that’s airboats and you’d still marry us that’s the attic thing like we get older like most kids feel like they’re invincible and then they hit like 19 or 20 whatever and then they’re like hey I’m not invincible anymore and as attics I’m like I’m 45 still like I’m [ _ ] invincible I can still [ _ ] jump off that cliff and [ _ ] ski down this mountain jump that hill crazy that’s a good question what would it take for me to be ready to go back out I really don’t know yeah I would have to say sustained evidence that that things are going away and probably that the experts are all mostly an agreement beside you know look you’re always gonna have your odd ball expert you know the 1 out of 10 dentists that yeah right man you know compute base if [ _ ] you [ _ ] the guy who doesn’t recommend toothpaste he’s an idiot right but you know as long as most people are in agreement that like it’s it’s safe and and the thing to do I think that’s what it would take for me and that’s gonna take you know some time to prove I don’t think numbers are necessarily going down yeah just stop looking at numbers yeah I did actually I catch them occasionally on the news not even on purpose just Jen likes to watch the news in the morning in the news at night and I stopped looking at all the numbers so I stun you know cuz again depending on who you listen to well the numbers are going up because they’re testing more and you know as they test for the percentages are I mean Dennis all the [ _ ] they say and then like say other people say something different so I’m just like I don’t know I think I read somewhere and I can’t remember this was so long ago I can’t remember what the second one was but it said new cases is really a useless number because of those reasons but deaths and there was something else were the only two important ones to look at and I can’t remember what the second one was at all
no idea but it was yeah it was saying that new cases were useless like because depending on how much you’re tested and that really doesn’t mean anything at all yeah and then what percentage of the population need should die before we should be able to do something like this like they were talking about that it’s like that uh this is one of those like unanswerable questions because there’s never gonna be an exactly right number you know to say well if 10% of the population is gonna die because of this then we can enact you know take these people’s rights like what would what percentage of death makes extreme you know I guess you put a value on lives yeah it’s weird when you hate your government you’re telling about you’re talking about your government taking your rights when you trust your government and love other people and aren’t all about yourself I think I think then it’s just being a good member of society and doing your part and that’s where I get lost it’s like I hear all this screaming about taking your rights I’m like can we just do our part like it why does this have to be taking our rights well where it got into taking rights was when they tell you like say to just and I’ll use the fish in one I know there’s a bunch of other like you you can’t go fishing on the beach you’re not allowed it’s our [ _ ] Beach you can’t come on it my dad lives on a boat you know you can’t take your boat and go out onto the [ _ ] waterways just to cruise up and down the [ _ ] waterways on his own boat that he owns with no one else like how in the [ _ ] is that putting anyone at risk whatsoever the [ _ ] you know that but the Department of Natural Resources will tell you can’t be on the [ _ ] water doing any kind of recreational boating not even by yourself there was a guy that was in the marina that he lives in the guy lived in Pennsylvania when all this happened he said [ _ ] it since I’m quarantine I’m just gonna go stay on my boat fix my boat up for the summer whatever they came down kicked him off his boat told him he had to go back to Pennsylvania that he couldn’t be on own boat here in [ _ ] Maryland by itself like those are the cases where they’re taking people’s rights like those are rights that I don’t think are endangering other people or harming anyone else you know it’s not like these are people ask it like hey we’re [ _ ] having our 5,000 people assembly at the [ _ ] high school like no these are people that are trying to just live and survive and deal with this [ _ ] the best they can and you’re telling them like they can’t and then it’s like weird [ _ ] like you can fish but only if it’s for food not for fun and who gets to make that [ _ ] decision it’s just it’s weird it’s very weird yeah don’t I’m selling this picture or not to try to change your mind whatsoever just because I thought it had made some interesting points I just emailed it to you I see that’s funny cuz I and I’ve heard some random things that people have done arrested the father at the basketball court with his son or whatever it was the ball field and like I mean you know this happens normally too if we’re gonna talk about what happens normally about misinterpretation of the law and people getting arrested that didn’t deserve to be arrested like that happens already so I don’t think that was our intent ever to limit things that probably aren’t that dangerous I don’t think that was the intent of the ruling of the law right you know I think sometimes things get misinterpreted I think people get arrested for [ _ ] that’s not really illegal all the time and then immediately released because there’s nothing to charge them with and like I think that happens and those are like the few cases not what’s generally going on right I think what’s generally going on is let’s practice some safety behaviors if not you know gathering in large groups in public not hey no single people can go out on their boats alone like I don’t think that was the intent of any of what we’re doing I don’t think the governor the president was like oh we’re gonna [ _ ] these people and keep him from riding their boats around by themselves like that was never the goal right like that yes some flukes happen in the governance of this but I don’t think that was anybody trying to steal our rights I just think it happened and so yeah but they didn’t try to steal the rights of the japanese-americans in World War two either but they still no they definitely did terrible I mean definitely stole their rights right it’s not very far off from that I mean it’s telling you you have to stay at home in your own house putting you in essence on what what the law actually said was you were in essence supposed to be on house arrest unless it was completely essential now people kinda ignored that and they didn’t overly enforce that but that was the [ _ ] law and anytime they could have instigated you know a more aggressive approach to that and you would have not had the legal right to argue it according to you know this another protected order or whatever they’re calling it and they could have but they didn’t right because they were doing what was helpful not what was being jerks that’s that’s my point they didn’t they didn’t put us in camps and fence around us and guard us with m16s like they said hey please stay home unless you need groceries or to eat or to get out somewhere and exercise that’s what they did and they didn’t really lock people up over it for the most part and it was just like hey dude do the right thing we’re asking you to yeah but that’s like me asking my kid oh no I think they did actually do that by making it a law you actually make it punishable like you’re you’re making it not we’re asking you nicely we’re calling you that’s what you need to do and we’ll decide whether we want to get you in trouble for it or not but you don’t have a choice per se I mean they’re saying you know you can say it played out like it you had a choice but it could easily play out the other way too and for some people it did there were people that got arrested and there were people that got fines or got you know things like that bull should happen and again for the there were people that my brother was telling me this they had it on the news down there people that went to Florida because they owned homes in Florida and when I got to the Florida [ _ ] State Line the police were there and said you can’t come in this state you have to go back to whatever we don’t care that you own property here and pay taxes here and [ _ ] bought a house here you can’t come here like that actually happened it’s like every other country has to deal with when they have their imaginary lines with other countries right but I’m saying that’s these are cases that they were- like I own that property and pay taxes there now I can’t even go on my own property like yeah I don’t know free to remove your rights as a [ _ ] property owning expain [ _ ] citizen I don’t know about any of these one-off anecdotal evidence is I didn’t hear about any of these and and I don’t give a whole lot of credence to hearsay about the story about the one guy Bob that this whatever happened to because that just seems to be always the way that everybody proves their point the one it’s kind of the way I usually argue honestly that you always try to shut me down with is that I have this one instance of this wild thing that happened even though that wasn’t the spirit of what we did so we shouldn’t govern it by the one thing like that’s the that’s the exclusion that we hope doesn’t happen or as few and far between not the regular what’s happening yeah Tuesday night the difference is the authority of the government and the power of the government so let’s say we have a thing in na where we’re trying to have these like the the specialty meetings like even though I think the special remaining should be done a certain way I don’t have the power to like arrest you or give you a fine or throw you in jail if you don’t do it the way that I want you to do it whereas the government does have that power you know I don’t have the power to inflict negative consequences on you as an individual if you don’t do what I want you to do whereas the government does have that power and the whole found you know kind of our country is that hey we should be able to like talk honestly if our governments doing [ _ ] that we don’t like or we think is not kosher or overstepping these certain bounds like when we say you have these you know inalienable rights I mean my understanding of that concept is they aren’t supposed to be infringed upon when it becomes convenient or not convenience maybe not the best word but inalienable is supposed to mean like these are yours god-given granted no matter what you know and bro when we wrote those words we didn’t even count women or black people like do you really think they meant inalienable rights like they didn’t even want all people yeah but to say that our country isn’t founded on those principles I mean the principles are very good that’s what our country should be built on and as we grow and change as people as our understanding changes we should evolve more to change those things so that’s why we have the amendments that include black people and include women because as we go along this path we go we’ll wait a minute we made a serious [ _ ] error here we need to fix this so we fix it and I don’t think at this point we don’t go whoa wait a minute we gave these people all these rights but now to protect other people we need to start taking people’s rights away like that’s where you get into like communism or socialism or some of these other government where you say all right now we have a government that decides for us what’s for the good of everyone else you know that the government now gets all the power to make all the decisions I take it you don’t believe in go and control then uh it depends on what you mean by gun control so should we have laws that say you need to have I think we should have laws that you need to have [ _ ] gun training like that you should have to almost like driving like before you can go get a license to have a gun or own guns that you need to go through a [ _ ] safety and training thing like like say just like driving and that we shouldn’t just dole out guns to any [ _ ] buddy who wants to get guns you know what I don’t what’s that should you be able to get whatever kind of gun you want uh me personally oh yeah [ _ ] yeah I don’t think you should you know who cares I mean I guess there’s some arguments about the it seems like no matter what laws we put in place you know people will work around them but I think the mental health stuff is where the gun laws fall down like I have a brother-in-law who’s definitely had some mental health issues it’s definitely threatened to kill people you know what I mean like he’s definitely him and he can go out and buy a gun tomorrow if he wants cuz he doesn’t have like the criminal record or anything to stop that I think that’s a definite problem you know he’s a person who’s had violent mental health issues in his past whereas me I can’t go out and buy a gun cuz I have felonies I mean maybe I could I don’t know if I still can’t I guess I can’t I never really try but I have felonies on my record so I can’t buy a gun even though it’s 20 years ago so I’m not against gun regulation I just don’t know that the laws that we have now are really helpful or useful but I’m not a dead like I don’t think like the Second Amendment I think the Second Amendment needs to be changed I think that could be altered in some way so we do need to take some people’s rights back in order to protect everyone well it depends on what you think I mean if you think owning a gun is a right I mean I guess it is a it’s considered a right in the Constitution I don’t know that I think that’s a right I mean I don’t know I don’t know if I agree that that’s an inalienable right given by God I don’t know it’s kind of arbitrary I guess I would like that to me seems like hey you can have freedom of speech and freedom of religion and freedom of the press and own some guns like I feel like that would just kind of got thrown in there but it seems to me that’s in a different spirit than the rest of the you know then what we consider our inalienable rights I look I like some of the ideas and ideals that we you know wrote our initial documents about that’s great I think it was a great idea I think we have not followed them from day one and still continue not to so I don’t ever try to evoke like we need to live up to these things this country was founded on because it wasn’t really founded on that yeah we wrote it in a document at the same time we were killing off everybody who lived here we wrote it in a document at the same time we weren’t given black people and women the exact same rights were writing about so really like we were never founded on any of that [ _ ] we were founded on like raping and stealing land from people that’s what we were founded on just like everybody else well is it bad to shoot for ideals like his uh it’s not bad to shoot for them but it’s bad to think that were owed them or that we actually live by them I think we should live more in a sense of where we really are but I think that’s why people don’t trust our government or believe our government is for exactly the hypocrisy that you’re talking about you know what I mean like that’s that’s the reason our country is so against the government and so many people and including me don’t trust the government because you feel like you [ _ ] guys you know you talk out of one side of your mouth and then you do something else off on the other side and so you know now when you start to tell me this stuff about this virus and what I should do and what I shouldn’t do I don’t [ _ ] believe you at all because you tend to have some ulterior motives and some sneaky [ _ ] going on in the background and then you know there’s one set of rules for you but a different set for me and so you know what I mean like I can’t really trust you [ _ ] to make good decisions and so that’s where I think at least for me as a person like that [ _ ] starts to fall apart yeah I think it would be nice if they did follow those ideals I would be much happier with a government that did try to shoot for at least some [ _ ] integrity I think the government which is owned by all the money laughter yeah that’s another big problem I think their job really is like the buffer between you know the extremely rich and and the extremely rich just trampling on us and having us you know through IV give them all everything inside of us basically I think like the extremely rich would probably have us all hooked up as batteries somewhere if there was no government in place to kind of be the buffer of like hey yeah we get kickbacks from these extremely rich people but in return we also like keep you all alive and none of those batteries that’s kind of how I look at it I don’t know I don’t hey let’s take sent like an extremely lit rich like either Walmart or Amazon I mean and this I think is where we start to fall down as a people like we expect the government to make sure they’re doing what they should be doing instead of us as citizens going you know what Walmart is [ _ ] up and I’m not gonna shop there because of the [ _ ] that they do in a way that they treat people in a way that they don’t [ _ ] them I’ll go to [ _ ] Acme you know but instead we sort of fall back on this well they’re regulated the government’s taken care of it they’ll make sure their people are getting what they’re supposed to and the workers are safe and all that stuff so I can just ignore all that [ _ ] and continue to shop there and act like I’m guilt-free or whatever but you know all the people that continue to shop at Walmart are the people that don’t trust the government yeah I mean that’s I guess that’s my kind of thing is that the people I think people don’t trust the government because they’ve been afforded the ability to not trust a government right they’ve been set up with such wonderful lives by our country that they have the ability and the time to question the government like it’s it’s that Maslow’s hierarchy of needs all over again like they’ve had so many of their needs met that they can now distrust their government and spout about the Flat Earth and the Illuminati and and coronavirus is really mind control in all this [ _ ] like this is this is the people that don’t trust the government they’ve been so entitled to a great life that they have the ability to do that like okay that’s cool but I don’t know that any of that’s real why I think there’s levels I mean would you consider yourself someone who trusts the government like trust them how like trust them to do what’s great for me personally no absolutely not I trust them to make decisions based on what gets them reelected which is unfortunate great yeah and so I would agree with that like they’re not so the whole idea is that they’re supposed to be representatives of their communities and the people and you know trying to protect and serve you know their constituents and I don’t think they do that very well well we know we’ve outgrown our government and we need to redo the whole thing and nobody’s ready to do that because it’s laid out in the Constitution and we can’t change a [ _ ] thing about that document 300 years later oh and see I intend to look there like I think it should I mean that’s why we have amendments like that’s the whole idea of being able to amend the Constitution is so we can make changes to the [ _ ] things that have changed and don’t work and it definitely is outdated and it’s definitely you know there’s [ _ ] in there that doesn’t address current life stuff you know like it definitely needs to be it’s like lols like they make all these laws and put them on the books and then they never go back and change laws that [ _ ] don’t even matter anymore they just leave them and keep like now we have you know the one they always talk about is like lols about horses being tied up the [ _ ] posts at the local store and like no that [ _ ] it’s not even relevant to what we’re doing nowadays [ _ ] you [ _ ] you about certain stuff and then they don’t exist you know you find out oh there aren’t really any laws about [ _ ] interstate commerce over the internet so you know like we just don’t have lols to protect your rights about that [ _ ] like what that’s not me how do we not work faster I don’t I don’t think we should change the the amendments I think we should rewrite the whole [ _ ] I think it’s it’s busted it’s messed up we live in a world today we could just do government differently and we could take some of the the crap out of it like don’t pay these people money don’t make them so important and influential pay everybody in Congress a teacher salary and don’t them the vote all they draft ideas into vote and then we can have a direct democracy and all vote on it from an app on our phone right oh yeah Senate and house anymore that’s a [ _ ] crock of [ _ ] well not only that but you know like say in the beginning like all these things like taxes and [ _ ] the ability of you know Congress to get these exorbitant paychecks and take all this outside influence money like that shit’s all stuff that they have slowly let seep into the system over time like doing like it’s you know it’s they’ve made changes to that [ _ ] where it suits [ _ ] them but yeah I don’t know I guess in a way we do it to ourselves because we reelect the same people to go back every [ _ ] year well that’s because of the way government set up it doesn’t work for our lifestyle anymore nobody vote on a popularity have I heard that name before oh that’s the name I need to vote for murder court or a party like I have to vote for this party because they like I like three of the things that they do I don’t like the other seven but I like three so I got a vote yeah it’s just none of it makes any sense at this point in time in 2020 but yeah it’s pretty crazy we’d rather shout at each other from across the aisle than you know come up with a whole new system that actually works yeah but that’s back to you know all this like that’s why people were like I don’t know what to believe you know should I believe do I want to believe the [ _ ] governor Hogan or do I want to believe Elon Musk you know [ _ ] who’s a smart rich billionaire you know and I don’t know some people feel what’s there he’s got a bias he wants to open his [ _ ] company up it’s just obvious don’t take his word for it he sells cars I don’t know that he’s closed down he started making ventilators they were closed yeah that was the big controversy was that he opened up against California’s orders that’s why I never trust anybody that’s making money off of something when they went about their platform [ _ ] that they’re obviously lying no I yeah you know I don’t know I look at the president he’s all like you know open back up were great and his own doctor his own specialist is like yeah this is coming back it’s inevitable and I’m like well yeah it’s okay there’s the obvious truth right there your own doctor doesn’t even agree with you well and I don’t know how true it is but there’s a whole bunch of [ __ ] about that guy you know oh yeah what’s that
that night fox news that night that foul she said something contrary to what Trump wanted the world to hear that night Fox News was on there talking about look at this three months ago we got a tape of Falchi giving credit to China I’m like holy [ _ ] are you serious you’re like slandering the guide the night of it when I already figured out like they’re they’re already setting up for to like get the whatever you want to call it the majority Fox people to [ _ ] start hating Falchi like they’ve been setting that up over time with these little bits of information here and there a little bit you know stuff here they’re trying to set people off they get [ _ ] fire Falchi yeah I find it incredible how how half of the news it is it’s like it’s very David Copperfield right it’s it’s like hey yeah we’ve got 87,000 coronavirus deaths but we’ll talk China and economy or something like it’s always look at this [ _ ] that’s going on over here it’s never like look what’s right in front of you also right there’s other okay maybe China did do some [ _ ] up stuff with this I’m not saying they didn’t but let’s not totally focus on that let’s also focus on the fact that Hitler died in and we need to fix it and right like the sleight of hand and so I guess yeah I would consider and this is where I find myself own most of things it’s like I end up in the middle like even with the current of our stuff like I think yes you know we should be wearing masks that’s not a huge deal it’s not overly I mean people act like [ _ ] babies about it over gloves get foamed up like come on [ _ ] really like risk/reward there is you know let’s just wear some mass for a it really isn’t that big a deal it’s a minor inconvenience that you know is it like that’s what I have a hard time arguing like this am really infringe upon my [ _ ] rights that I have to wear a mask no I’ll wear a mask I really don’t have a huge deal it’s inconvenient but whatever um should we be practicing social distancing yeah that’s not a you know again not a huge deal I shouldn’t be having big [ _ ] cookouts at my house it shouldn’t be you know doing certain things it should be trying to really limit my exposure to other people and and being like there are some really safe what I would consider like seems to be pretty logical you know steps we can take to minimize to be safe but to like close down businesses and tell people you got to stay at home and shut down all kinds of stuff like that seems extreme and so I think you know we can find like a middle ground that’s like yeah we need to be really being safe we need to people need to be washing their [ _ ] hands you need to be not spreading germs you need to be conscious about what you’re doing when you’re out in public like I mean all this has definitely made me more aware of that stuff when I’m out in public what am i touched in what am I [ _ ] put my hands on what am i you know and that sounds great like that that’s really healthy and safe and those are actually things we can probably take into the future that will make things better so this this I guess from the social worker standpoint comes back to a lot of vulnerable population stuff what okay I live with some vulnerable populations and I to me that matters and I’m gonna be safe about it right what about the people who live with vulnerable populations that don’t give a [ _ ] what about the guy who works at a nursing home book goes out to restaurants and bars all all week because that’s his lifestyle and he doesn’t give a [ _ ] about protecting the nursing homes you know people and and carries it in there like what about the people who have their aging parents or grandparents at home or the teenagers who go to school and then come home and bring it home and their grant aging grandparents there and they just don’t give a [ _ ] because they’re a teenager and they can’t think that far ahead about that kind of stuff yet like without the government restrictions all these people are out spreading it to people who don’t get the option to choose to be safe like yes we give you the right to go out and go to restaurants and businesses but we’ve now also given these other people the right who aren’t gonna be as careful about it and we’ve taken the right to live away from these vulnerable people that don’t get the options yeah I mean well and again I don’t I guess you have to start figuring out what you’re safe with or what your you know comfort level is I mean I cuz I would kind of go the other way and think well my dad you know in a mine my dad’s 67 years old he’s pissed off that he can’t do any of these things that he wants to do you know what I mean like he’s not he’s not concerned about it he’s and now he’s like well [ _ ] I am I am there I risk what they call high risk and now they’re [ _ ] now I can’t do anything I’m in essence stuck by myself on my boat and I’m not even supposed to go around my family my friends anyone I’m supposed to be around and he lives alone so technically he’s not supposed to be doing anything but [ _ ] sitting at home on his boat by self like and so he is a person who’s the other side of that it’s like yeah I’m high risk but this is [ _ ] and I don’t want to lift this way and I don’t think this is fair to me as a person I don’t think he’s the other side of that though I’m talking about people who don’t have the decision because other people around them are given their right back and so their decision is made for them they’re they’re almost under attack because they don’t have the ability to remove themselves from the place yeah well his rights are taken away as a high risk person like he’s not dying right to protect he’s not giving up a right to life he’s not there’s policy at light which is sitting home for two months instead of being dead forever I don’t consider those equal yeah but no one’s stopping a high-risk person from staying home did you not hear the The Situation’s I was giving you was people in nursing homes who can’t go anywhere else if the people who come in to tend to them or to clean are going out to restaurants and bars all week and then bringing it in there those people in the nursing home can’t get away from that the aging grandparent that lives with a teenager or a middle school kid can’t get away from that they don’t have those options so by opening up everything else for people to have their rights you’re putting these people under the gun where they can’t get away from it they don’t have the option for me as an individual now I am second hand responsible for someone else’s bad decision-making like I am NOT reviewing any of those things yeah like so if because I decide I want to go out and [ _ ] sign up for Little League or let’s say you know let’s say they open Little League next week and I say all right we’re playing Little League because we like to [ _ ] we need sports and my son needs to get out and whatever so I make that decision but then one of the other kids that’s on the team their parent is a [ _ ] nurse or whatever at a senior place and I might possibly infect them who then they are gonna make a bad decision not be careful and go into a senior home and infect senior people like I’m somehow responsible for the airbag like a school if I am a person that is around people that are high risk I should take like some personal responsibility for that decision making if I am a person that is going to be potentially infecting other people then I should be taking the precautions and things that I need to protect those vulnerable people if there’s one thing I trust less than the government its trust in that other people are not going to be self-centered there’s no [ _ ] way people are there everybody’s self-centered they’re gonna go make the decision that’s yeah we’re gonna party at the bar on Friday night [ _ ] them old people that I work with right but again then that means I am supposed to take some sort of responsibility as a whole for those people that’ll make bad decisions I think so I would I would gladly stay home for two months over more people dying for permanence like two three four months is not that big a deal in a portion of my life as opposed to ending it altogether that’s what I guess I’m getting that like if we keep these people and and you’re saying irresponsible people but if they open up all these businesses they also have to open up school because that’s where people’s daycare is mostly and so school is not an irresponsible decision it’s like where you send your kid to be responsible yeah that is one thing I hear that’s one of the worst places for spread and [ _ ] at school like that’s what fflewddur they said that’s how the flu gets around like it does through schools and [ _ ] that was one thing when I heard because they’re first I’m like why they clean schools you know and then I heard them talking about how like that [ _ ] kid and it made sense when I heard it’s like kids are totally not safe you know they don’t they don’t wash their hands and they don’t like and they’ll pick their nose and [ _ ] rub the desk just don’t even and you can’t expect you know what’s a seven or eight year old like they got no [ _ ] concept of germs or viruses or any of that [ _ ] like they don’t know yeah and and that’s definitely school is breeding grounds for every sickness and so if schools aren’t open businesses can’t be open because people depend on schools to watch their kids form during the day and if you do open schools now you’re talking about having people the grandparents that are forced to be at home getting you know dying because their kids went to school there their grandkids went to school or whatever and it’s like I don’t know I just I don’t feel bad for somebody who you know can’t do everything they want for a couple of months versus keeping some people alive I just don’t feel bad about it I don’t I’m not like gonna sit here and act like I do if sorry I don’t like [ _ ] it yeah you can’t eat at a restaurant right now so sorry like darn it’s not that big a deal I don’t think yeah and I don’t know that I would like if this stays or goes like me personally I don’t think I would care like I would keep doing whatever they tell me to do cuz I’m not overly sweating it I just think it’s a little bit like now at this point to me it feels like we’re going extreme it feels like it’s a little overkill I’m wondering what that is I’m wondering did we talk about that last week about people not wanting to sit still with themselves is that like a thing or did we bring it up last week Oh even being here I don’t sit still like I just I think we’ve talked about that no I don’t think we talked about it last week but I’m develo I don’t sit around which is another whole thing like that’s that was something I thought about talking about although it’s gonna probably make me feel bad or look bad as you know how like this whole not having school and not having that stuff for the kids like I really need to in ways get really more engaged with the kids you know like it’s easy they will do for themselves like they’re sort of independent at their ages but now I’m like well yeah but they’re making terrible [ _ ] decisions for themselves and because it’s easy or convenient or I’m just either out of touch or lazy I just let them you know like Billy [ _ ] plays video games 12 hours a day and was staying up half the night not sleeping right sleeping half the day and eating [ _ ] junk food cuz he’s not up on wheat meals and just that’s just like by this will go away this will go away now it’s like [ _ ] like say it’s too loud but like we were at the beach and he’s [ _ ] put on a bunch of weight like cuz he’s not being active and he’s not really doing much and I’m not dragging him out there you know forcing him to do stuff and it was like [ _ ] just made me feel really like damn I’m really falling down on this like I need to get with him and get engaged with him to do more and and then trying to navigate that in a way that’s not like I also don’t want to like start insulting him and saying oh you’re [ _ ] fat and you’re gaining all this weight you know like I don’t wanna do that I don’t wanna like hurt him or hurt his feelings or and not feeling so what’s that like as a self-esteem like I don’t wanna start like oh you got a [ _ ] B on a you know and all that weird [ _ ] you gotta be on a diet you got to do this in that it’s like nope so now like today Jen and I were talking like alright we’re gonna really make an effort to just engage him and more physical activity like really making an effort to like re what kind of food do we have here in the house like we really gotta make a better efforts to not have him [ _ ] cookies and snacks and junk food because now that he’s self regulating at 11 years old he’s doing a terrible job and so if he’s gonna make some of these self I mean cuz the truth is he will stay up later than me and I can try to yell at him to go to bed at 11 o’clock but I can’t stay up past 11 o’clock like I’m going to [ _ ] bed I’m passing out going to sleep and I can go up and ask him he’ll say okay so we did do some things we started limiting the internet like I went in and figured out how to set like limits on the internet and do some stuff like that but I say [ _ ] it’s hard to try that you know cuz I’m still working full-time you know I’m still getting up in the morning and got my full-time job and still gotta figure that [ _ ] out I want a gents on here so I could say this I want to get mad at her and be like well you’re the [ _ ] one that’s here with him all day why are you just letting him sit in his room all day and play video games look what the [ _ ] but then the flip side of that is when I come home from work I don’t want to deal with it either you know what I mean I want to come home and be like I [ _ ] worked all day and I just want to chill out and get some dinner and I’m trying to finish this bathroom so I want to work on that and the kids will be fine you know so that’s been a really humbling i opening thing of like without school or without that other regulatory thing in my kid’s life like [ _ ] i’m really slight and you see these people doing great and love and school and all that [ _ ] like it’s so I don’t I don’t know I try to come up with theories all the time for everything I’m uh I guess that’s what I do I try to understand behavior I try to understand people and what they’re thinking and what’s going on and so people didn’t protest the first three four weeks of this like nobody gave a [ _ ] nobody was raising a big stink about it some very few people you know very few people talk about it but it wasn’t like it is it wasn’t a big deal and so my theory is that generally we stay busy enough in our life that we don’t ever have to actually look at ourselves like we’re rushing from one thing to the next it’s just simple to stay busy and and in our unconscious life and kind of one of the principles of therapy is and meditation you slow down you start to become conscious of these things that are in your unconscious and and you start to notice what’s going on and then you got to deal with it and so after this three or four weeks of sitting still at home in quarantine that started to come up for people and so somewhere in weeks like five through eight that came up for a whole lot of people and now like half of our society is ready to pick it and protest and [ _ ] the rules I don’t care I’m gonna do what I want because that’s better than having to deal with whatever was starting to come up and and the only reason like I kind of got keyed into this was because all of a sudden I wanted to smoke a black and milds really really bad like really bad and I was like what the [ _ ] why do I and like I almost bought one and I was gonna do it and then I didn’t and then I got angry about it and I had this angry period for like a week and it was hard to deal with and it hurt and I ended up sitting with it and kind of got this to the bottom of some of it but it kind of made me realize that maybe this is what’s happening for everybody and just a large portion of our population no longer wants to address themselves and so now they’re gonna force governments to open back up or or protest or do whatever it takes because they got to get back to avoiding themselves and I don’t know if that’s a real thing is completely just made-up theory on my end but it sounded like it could be something I don’t know I was curious oh why heard two different I heard a different take on the same subject maybe they didn’t really get into the motivations why but they described it as that moral dilemma that you get in I’m sure you’ve probably heard it through the different psychology stuff or whatever that you’ve done it’s like the guy there’s a guy there’s a train coming down the track and if you the train keeps going it’s gonna kill five people but if you pull the lever it’s gonna kill one person and if you’re the person there what’s the right decision that kind of thing that’s philosophy so that this is this is a similar case to that like I don’t see it and again for me making these limits which is why so I’ve avoided making the argument that these business owners are losing their business and losing their lives and I don’t make that argument because it’s not [ _ ] me like that’s not my argument to make but now I’m gonna go there for a minute and say let’s take someone like we have a little local [ _ ] lady that runs our the pet grooming place that we take our dogs like she has a little business there and Elkton real nice lady you know it’s been in business I think three or four years now and that’s where we were taking the dogs well now all of a sudden out of nowhere she was forced to shut her business down and can’t make any money and so that definitely has a different negative impact on her life than let’s say mine or yours you know so again and I don’t necessarily understand what she’s going through but she has been negatively impacted by this in a very real way you know what I mean now all the sudden you know she’s got choices to make on like how is she gonna pay her bills how is she gonna pay her family she had some employees how is she paying her employees you know those people that she had working for her um obviously it’s it inconvenience for me cuz I got to drag the dog out in the yard and [ _ ] wash the dog but like those that lady probably has a much different argument for opening up then somebody like me would have or you know in essence somebody like you because the impacts on her different and so it becomes that moral choice of like do I pull the lever and kill one person or do i do nothing put my hands up and say hey you know whatever happens is gonna happen and kill five people yeah and it’s a it is an interesting argument right because in one case you’re killing less people by far but on the other side of that you are choosing to kill that person like you are at responsible for their death whereas before you had no responsibility for it right so it’s really interesting and I don’t know I you’re right that is a view I don’t have right I’m not a small business owner I don’t have that particular ability to say how that affects people in that arena but I do find it interesting that we instantly say it impacts them negatively like especially from a belief system such as mine which is more of the yin and the yang where it’s there is no negative or positive it all is just things right like we take out of it what we want like maybe this lady is as happy as I am to get out of the rat race and the busyness for you know a couple of months maybe it’s a nice relaxing time for her to reevaluate her life and explore what she really wants to do with it like who the [ _ ] knows we we instantly say everything’s negative but what if everything does happen for a reason then maybe you were just supposed to have things happen for reasons look it doesn’t have to be negative or positive and and that could go either way if we did nothing about any of this coronavirus I guess that happened for a reason but we did so I guess that happened for a reason my god I’m not here to say what’s negative or positive about it yeah and I guess that’s a way I tend to look at this too it’s like I don’t think anyone at look at at this point whatever decisions and shutting down and like I don’t think any of it’s like oh this was wrong or any of that like no we did this and that was probably the best decision to make at the time and you know we really were like I would say better safe than sorry you know what I mean like better better err on the side of like [ _ ] we don’t know what this is and we don’t want hundreds of thousands of people dying and we don’t want you know millions of people getting sick like we really need to do something about it so I don’t necessarily think that it was wrong shutting down I just don’t know like say where do you draw that line of like how many lives are worth normalcy I guess you would say versus not you know and for some people that number is ten lives or one life you know what I mean like if we can prevent one life then we should be safe and other people that numbers higher you know other people that might be a percentage and I don’t know that there’s a there’s a right number I guess that depends on your own morality or your own sense of responsibility you know yeah it’s interesting I read a similar thing to that thought experiment the other day actually on Twitter and it was it was kind of hilarious it was about you know the pull in the lever but instead of the five people and the one people getting killed by the Train it was if you pull the lever you’ve returned the shopping cart to its little tent area in the parking lot and if you don’t pull the lever you don’t return it you just let it you know in the parking lot in the wild and it seemed like such an obvious decision to me well you pulled the [ _ ] lever and you’ve returned the shopping cart right like that’s what you do but the whole point they were making about it was that that’s the two different kinds of people that really exists a lot of times and that’s the decision like if you don’t return the shopping cart nobody’s gonna lock you up right nobody’s gonna kill you there’s no harm that’s gonna come to you if you don’t return it and yet if you do return it you’re helping out and it’s useful for the people who you know collect them it’s useful for not being in the way of other people who come after you who need to park in the parking spots and so there’s no definitive punishment for not doing it and so they said that the shopping cart return is like the ultimate guide to people who are willing to do anything for other people when nobody’s looking Oh something about that yeah I remember reading something about that I just thought that was interesting and I’m like it’s kind of got a point there’s no there’s no real downside to you if you don’t choose to return it right it’s really all about doing it because it’s the right thing for the next guy so what I find fascinating about that cuz I’m just gonna equate it back to myself is that I would say probably nine times out of ten I return the shopping cart but sometimes I do really you know it pens on that yeah almost every time I take it back but not always and I wish I could say that it was always the same reason not I’ll give you what makes me feel better about myself and tell you like if it’s pouring down rain I’ll [ _ ] leave the shop I never leave it just blank in the middle of the park well that’s not true I probably have what I would usually like push it up over the curb or whatever but there have been times where but most of the time I do most of the time I take it back I don’t think I have ever not returned it I just assumed it was the right thing to do and you do it I don’t know yeah I can I mean like say nine times out of ten I’m gonna take it back but occasionally they’ll be that one time where it’s like and I would have to I never thought that much about it other than when I read that thing the other day I thought I might take the shopping cart person back but not always there definitely because and the reason is when I don’t take it back there is a guilt thing that comes in there’s a sense of irresponsibility or guilt that comes with you know hmm but it hasn’t stopped me from not doing it I mean right again I’d like to say when it’s pouring down rain or when something Crazy’s happening or you know but I don’t know if that’s true or not that just makes me feel good about myself so I’m curious are we prop man are we even gonna start the podcast today or we can I take a pee now I gotta peel this up – yeah sure
there we go set all my headphones uh I don’t know that shopping car thing could be formed a thought like huh that’s interesting I thought about so like I started wearing a mask before they made it the law that you had to do it you know like we Sophie started making mass and we started wearing her when we were out but now I’m like hi if they made it if they stop making it mandatory would I still wear one now and my inclination is to say no which is interesting because I think huh well how [ _ ] lazy is that you know so it falls into the shopping cart thing like is that a shopping cart thing where like look it’s a [ _ ] minor inconvenience to wear a mask but yet as soon as I feel not illegal hablar legal but you know assuming it’s as soon as the government tells me it’s morally okay not to I’ll stop like I need them to decide my moral value that’s interesting especially after the entire like hour we’ve spent talking about how we shouldn’t be our moral decision maker okay so let’s let’s start we got a couple of comments about last week’s stuff and then we’ll kind of delve into the shopping cart which was taking me to another question that I’ll put on to you while we’re talking about that okay can we record again have we needed to do that they’re recording with wow we didn’t do it last week I’m probably never gonna do anything with it’s a [ __ ] it seems to be working pretty well I think
oh [ _ ] I don’t have a long statement what can I say today oh there we go perfect hey welcome back to recovery sort of I’m Jason I’m a guy who’s long-winded I’m Billy I’m a person in long-term recovery there’s probably nothing more accurate than me being long-winded for sure now honestly I still I’m still feeling the repercussions I had a met a new person recently and they they text me a couple times and I texted him back and then they text me and they asked me for any suggestions yesterday and I I responded with like six [ _ ] hung ass book text and they never replied and my feelings are hurt and I’m like oh my god I scared them off and I’m trying to be okay with this is just who I am but I’m it still sucks so we and it’s funny I’ve had it’s recently in my life I’ve realized like I [ __ ] talk a lot and if I don’t watch myself I will ramble on and think that I’m the most interesting person I wonder I wasn’t so bad Texas person be like I’m so sorry I didn’t mean to scare you but I’m like you know
so last week we talked about you know the idea of what’s our responsibility with opening homegroups back up and you know I’ve really thought with with with Maryland opening back up there would be a little more rush to do this but it seems like all the people who were already ready to meet in person or kind of already doing that and have been all along in somewhat small sensible ways usually right even even when I say my home group that is meeting at the park is probably not ten or less people I don’t think they’re down there like making out having an orgy right I do think it’s like still a pretty limited number of people and they’re spread out pretty well I’m guessing they’re wearing masks I don’t know but I don’t think it’s completely irresponsible is what I’m getting so I think people who are meeting in person have been for quite some time and they’re doing it mostly cautiously I guess just a question for you real quick and you may know the dynamic of your home group a little better I know it’s you know people from a recovery house does it seem like a lot of the members of that home group are all in the same house like you have like six or seven guys in the same house that are in that home it’s three different houses basically and so I think one has like five people the other one has like six and the other one has like four or something like that so now basically instead of being separate in their houses they’re all coming together and being separate at the park together well I wonder I just I was curious how much you know like if I live in a house with five other guys and I’m seeing them all the time obviously you know my social distancing with them is gonna be more like a family versus social distancing from outside of family so yeah dynamic would be probably different than mine who were definitely people that are in all different households that’s right so this is like three different households but I do think the interesting aspect would be that like almost everybody in these houses is still going to work and so now you’ve taken like the five people who are going to work at this house who are all exposed to different people and then now you’re putting them around the four people who are all going to work in that house and that I mean that’s kind of what they wanted to avoid with yeah spreading this thing that’s like a lot of different contact but yes I don’t think people ran out to open up meetings right this second I did attend our areas area service which happened to be this past Thursday and they had a slight conversation about it it wasn’t very thorough I don’t think and I don’t think everybody was happy about how quickly it went but it uh you know it kind of addressed some stances of area which gets into some other questions I might actually ask you at some point too because I’m curious I think I know but I want to know better but anyway so we did that podcast and talked about the face to face and basically I as a question of two people on social media would you switch home groups if your home group did something different than you were ready for whether that’s if you’re ready to go back out would you find a home group that’s meeting in person and if you’re not ready to go back out would you switch and so just some different responses Brittany said that she already has a second home group that she’s picked up which is a home group that never ever met face to face and completely just came about because of this virtual thing she feels like she’s not ready and so even if her you know her regular home group that she used to attend in person did go back to in person she’s kind of got a backup already and that’s I think that’s a sentiment that’s kind of echoed throughout this is that people say you know if you’re not ready why do you need to switch home groups why not just find another meeting for the moment yeah I thought about that too I thought what do you really need to switch I mean obviously we hope this is I don’t know hope some people feel like this is gonna be temporary so you know yeah it’s it’s interesting I mean I do think it’s temporary but you know I mean what is it what Mazar June July August September I got four months till I tell my anniversary like I do want to celebrate somewhere so I don’t know if I’m I don’t know what state will be in by then I guess that’s playing it by ear yeah and I actually thought about that because this year is my 20 year anniversary like that’s a big deal I gotta say I was pretty if there’s gonna be virtual I don’t know that I even would have celebrated I would have probably not Wow yeah I would do it virtually I think it’s cool people get to the ten that don’t normally get to attend but yeah I get it I sure I shared a meeting Saturday morning yesterday morning at 10 a.m. and it was nice I still it’s hard to share virtually with no feedback from your audience whatsoever but it was a good meeting like I got a lot of feedback after my share from people sharing back and it was it was really good information and I was like enjoying it I will say I still always believe anybody that it’s up on like Saturday mornings for a 10:00 a.m. meeting is generally serious about their recovery I like that but the guy who asked me to do the meeting messaged me afterwards and thanked me and that was the first time I think that I have really felt sad that I couldn’t be around somebody and wished I coulda and I was like damn I really would have liked to been in his presence and giving him a hug today and so I thought that was kind of an interesting I haven’t felt that up until then people and I’ve wanted to hug like that’s weird I did accidentally I shook a guy’s hand just the other day like it was through a work thing and someone introduced me said hey Billy this is so-and-so and I just said oh hey nice to meet you and I reached out and he shook my hand too and then he goes you know we’re not supposed to do that like had I thought about it for a minute I would not have done it and then I felt bad not even as much for myself but for him like how weird of a situation that I just put him in you know and it was just weird but it was just so instinctual you know so yeah react now I’ve done that twice since this whole thing started once with a neighbor and I felt the same way afterwards I was like that I just [ __ ] do that mr. t bear says his home group never closed down six meetings a day 365 days a year the leader enforced social distancing and they stayed open because the liquor store two doors down was deemed essential and so their group conscience said they needed to be open to Wow yeah I thought that was pretty cool and I I talked to him a little bit I said a lot of churches were closed and he was saying that they pay for to run a space in like a strip mall and so they just stayed open and I guess nobody’s ever told him they couldn’t yeah that’s pretty cool Anna said that she did she does whatever it takes to protect her parents and other high-risk loved ones she feels like she was like super irresponsible during her using time and put them at risk whether that was you know at a higher risk of actual physical damage or just the fact that the emotional risks and you know the way she caused their health damage at that point that she will do everything possible to make sure that doesn’t happen today
I couldn’t completely understand what Ramsay was telling me he said well if it’s a tradition or step based group tradition one is worth a look then step for because it’s impossible to properly do a step eight amends if you’re too dead to do it or the person you’ve harmed is dead I guess I’ve assumed he was getting at the fact that we couldn’t we shouldn’t be meeting yet
and look here’s the worst part like I’ve done work on all these steps traditions and all this but when somebody is like oh and one’s worth a look I’m like [ __ ] what’s tradition one again I’ve heard him read a thousand plus times in my life and I still have to go back seven let me think I got to start running through the order right yeah so I guess he would say we weren’t ready to do that
John said his home group said they sent a text message that they were meeting in the parking lot masks and social distancing but he took a pass and he needs to practice it all his affairs if the professionals say it’s not safe then it’s not safe and so that was what we got on Twitter over on Facebook we had Caroline said she definitely would not change her home group in either scenario she would just do what was comfortable until things synched up again you know so if her home group opened and she was not ready she would just not go until she was ready to go and if they chose not to open and she was ready she would attend other meetings and then you know when her home group open back up she’d be there and so that was interesting so I kind of you know I asked her I’m like what would you hit another meeting regularly or and she said not particularly like it would probably happen by accident just because she hits pretty much some of the same meetings but she wouldn’t really go out of her way to make another group her home group now Robin said the same thing she would not change homegroups but if restaurants open she’s not going there or the movies or her home group social distancing and masks help but the only sure way to stay safe is quarantine II and then she said some about have it when there’s a vaccine she’ll be there I’m not uh see that’s a weird thing to like I’m not I guess you know we had a long conversation before we actually started recording the podcast portion of this and I don’t know what the solution is for me because I don’t want a vaccine for this either like not for me I don’t know if everybody else wants that that’s fine whatever but I don’t want to take a vaccine for this and I also don’t want her timidity so I don’t know what the [ _ ] I think the angel stay home forever I didn’t think much about this when we were talking about it earlier but it’s different you know even like with my wife and I like she has a different take on most of this in me and she said similar to Caroline like we I shared earlier with Jason we went down to the beach this weekend and you know we thought well some restaurants might start opening up and I was like yeah we should go to a restaurant you know they’re gonna be doing the social distancing and keeping tables separated and she said oh I’m not going to a restaurant I’m not you know she was totally not comfortable with doing that so you know I don’t know I guess there’s so many different versions of what what is safe and what people are comfortable with but I’ve always been a risk taker in my life anyway you know like that it’s my mentality and most things we went down to my mother’s last week and my interpretation of that was hey we’re gonna go down here it’s a beautiful day outside we’re gonna cook out we’re all just gonna stay outside and hang out and and you know I get it you’re still close outside but I do think it’s a little different you don’t have the stagnant air or the stagnant stuff you’re breathing out sitting in the same room like I thought it was a little safer and of course I should know better but within 45 minutes of being there my wife and the baby have disappeared inside and then three kids disappeared inside it’s like all decided I’m the only one outside playing I’m like well alright I guess we’re not following the [ _ ] rules we’re gonna sit inside like yeah so yeah my idea is different of what I think is okay too I just at times lose influence over being able to yeah luckily I’ll say like I I will I am not so married to my ideas that I’ll fight with my wife about it like it I just said oh okay then we won’t do a restaurant will just get carryout you know it like because I don’t I don’t know it’s it’s all so weird and there’s so many variables and it’s so it is scary to think like I’ve heard all the horror stories the other way of healthy people getting sick and all that where it’s like it doesn’t hurt to be a little bit mindful and a little bit careful and you know there’s no real downside to being cautious well like we were we were driving yesterday and we were trying to figure out where we wanted to eat and it’s it’s tough of my family the kids always have a you know a place they want to go but between my wife and I we don’t really like neither was give a [ _ ] usually it’s like I don’t know what the [ _ ] I got a taste for I have no idea too many options and so we were trying to pick and we ended up picking based on what would be best to eat in the car because obviously we’re not going in like I don’t like eating a lot of food in the car like we talked about Waffle House I loved Waffle House but I don’t want to eat that [ _ ] in the car we ended at a table right and where else somewhere else we were like yeah that sounds great but I don’t want to eat it in the car like it’s just not car food and so we ended up going to chick-fil-a because it was good car food and I’m the same with the only french fries in the car like i only french fries if we sit in the restaurant cuz i feel like in the car they always get cold and i like ketchup and then when we were at the beach we had the same issue with breakfast like i love to go to the beach you go to one of them breakfast places you get you know big breakfast of eggs and bacon and sausage and all that stuff and Jen’s like I don’t want to get carry out breakfast you know by the time you get it and bring it back the eggs are cold and shit’s soggy and the toast is like I was like yeah I guess that’s true so we had to skip you know having a good breakfast yeah we did we did Cracker Barrel one night like probably three weeks ago or something and it yeah it was kind of like some people don’t mind reheating their [ _ ] I’m not for the reheating a matter eater either hook that back to the the Facebook Barry said oh he quoted Cat Stevens and talked about not time to make a change and stuff which was pretty interesting I was trying to keep up with the lyrics he was pretty good with it Brian said why would anybody not be ready everybody values the importance of live face-to-face meetings I was like oh [ _ ] here we go we’re gonna have an argument not being an argument I just said I’m personally not ready to go back I said I don’t know of a truly safe way to do them and I live with a vulnerable population and he said well when you’re ready we’ll be here we love and need you House ago that was that worked out nice yeah I just saw it going a different way Elizabeth Elizabeth was much in line with you know same thing just she’s going to other countries she’s digging the online thing she’s not ready for her face to face either but yeah I don’t it didn’t seem like anybody else was really keen to change their home group so again Caroline talked about you know interested to see what would go on at the area which we were both at and then Don commented but I don’t think she was talking about it’s up to the individual group conscience –is about what to do for the meetings and I think maybe she read into the comment about area as being an area was gonna come up with the solution for everybody and I I just clarified I was like this was just an a place to gather ideas like if people had good ideas about how to do this safely let’s like put them out there so other groups can hear them too right like I don’t know how to do this right yeah and that’s you know my home group is the same we’ve been talking actually this week about that you know we pretty much I think the group conscience is we’re gonna take the meeting off the zoom list we’re not going to do the zoom meeting we’re gonna start meeting up again in person and how do we do that in a responsible way you know or we’re gonna wipe down the facility when we leave you know look at somebody’s bringing Clorox wipes so we can wipe everything down you know do we make coffee you know all those things and let’s say you just try to hopefully make a responsible decision and you know in our case it’s like if you make coffee if someone’s not comfortable drinking it they don’t have to so it’s our own homegroups coffee but I guess you could still spread it to other people through coffee making maybe I don’t yeah I was kind of confused about the coffee thing too so our place is open to do that like from what I understood of the way it read it specifically says that religious institutions can open for religious services like it specifically has that language in there to not include other purposes I guess you could get into the discussion on what is open so the facility that we meet at like we have a key to it and it’s would only be open during the time of our meeting which again I’ve heard it again and I don’t know if this is true cuz I personally haven’t researched it but I’ve heard it again said and this was in Maryland it recovery meetings are an essential service and we technically could have been meeting all along and again I don’t know where that comes from or who makes that decision but I just someone else said it again on Facebook so I don’t know if it’s true but someone said that recovery meetings are considered an essential service the facilities themselves I mean I guess is it like is it Church which is it is open to the public the same thing as being open for a meeting I guess I don’t know so I is there an addiction the information I have and I haven’t researched as either so this is not coming from my mouth or research this is coming from Caroline who said you know that she did a lot of research in this area to find out if we were essential in Maryland and from what she understands we are not currently that’s why the petition was out there to try to make us like other states who have that in place but from you from what I read of the governor’s newest you know phase one reopening plan or whatever that’s out there it specifically states that churches can open up for religious services at 50% capacity which would mean they can’t open up beyond that like they were kind of forced into closing too and I’ve also read that a lot of these churches even with the new recommendations aren’t opening up yet like they’re not regardless of the fact that they can but I would just say that to me the way I read it read as if they were not allowed to hold other things or be open for other things I don’t know then I wonder well I guess that wouldn’t matter too much but we had talked about reaching out to the church and making sure they would be okay with us meeting there or just meeting outside you know just meeting out in the parking lot right you know just as that’s what the address is on the meeting schedule so that’s where people are going to go so we just meet which we’ve had our meetings outside before anyway it would be anything right yeah so and that was part of what got talked about it area was Caroline brought up like she’s been in touch with Harford County Parks and Recreation trying to see the feasibility of like having their pavilions and so trying to have a meeting that meets regularly once or twice a week at their pavilions at the park right so we’re outdoors we’re gonna social distance and then we’re gonna further that hopefully by having the ability to if it’s more than 10 people take the excess number and go off to another pavilion and still have you know we’re not turning people away and so I found that to be a pretty interesting concept but area seem to be against the idea of allowing a new meeting to start to do that I don’t know if area itself the the chairperson was pretty against it he was rather biased I think I don’t they don’t have a right to tell anybody who can do anything I mean I remember start a meeting whenever they want Billy I said people don’t need areas [ _ ] blessing to go start a NA meeting that’s not how this works like obviously if you start a meeting you can’t put it on the areas website maybe but you’re still a [ _ ] meeting if you’re a meeting you’re meeting when you say you write and so that he was trying to say something about whether you could use any readings or I highly disagreed and I wanted to ask you about that that was kind of one of the things I’m like without even having to be a part of any area you don’t you know where I can start a group here in Cecil County and ask to be part of the Baltimore area if I want you’re like there’s no governance of the area over Greece but anyway yeah no I was yeah I know I didn’t like any of it I was like damn it I need more people in this place to tell me I’m right ask them I can just do whatever I want tomorrow and Lars and Greg point I made show up and say hey I’m meeting here anybody wants to meet here meet here we’re having it in a meeting and that’s all I need bro I told them about my home group I’m like look my home group is currently meeting like that and and they took themselves off the schedule because they’re not gonna guarantee that they’re there in the rain but that’s a [ _ ] meeting like you can’t tell them they’re not there’s no such thing as a sanctioned and a meeting like that doesn’t exist when groups can decide where they want to meet I mean you can do that two ways one you can start a new group and say we’re a new group or meeting on this day or another home group can say we’re also meeting on this day now we meet our regular day Thursday and we’re meeting Sunday at the [ _ ] park right you don’t yeah that’s well and I think I think the the argument or the vote they were pushing for the individual wanted the ability to put that meeting on the area’s schedule and that’s what area was or the individual area was bucking against was every time we allow meetings to start without bla bla bla bla bla they end up close quick and then we got to take him off the schedule I know it’s so hard to delete him off the online okay right right if that and so it was just it was really interesting to see that but yeah so I just thought the idea of the park was a pretty good idea I didn’t actually I’ve been to another fellowship where they do I don’t know if they do it at every meeting but the meeting I went to that’s what they did they would meet up and if they had a like a group conscience rule if there was more than 16 people you counted off by twos and went to two different rooms and it wasn’t for this it was just because that’s how they worked and they wanted everybody to had time to share and they even had it like if they I think they had at one point more than 24 and you went to three different rooms and it was like that was just how they operated and so it’s not unheard of like we we can do things like that yeah absolutely the only thing we got on Instagram about it was the person that said that they weren’t there yet either to be ready to go back out and be patient and kind to others in herself and do what feels right for you and I you know pretty open and accepting way of life I like that we did also get a message on Instagram from Stephanie who talked about she would like to hear podcast about each principle and how to incorporate it into daily life and you know also a podcast about the traditions because she doesn’t know as much about them and so I know I thought a little bit about that I think I sent you a text earlier this week to just kind of yeah I liked the idea I think we’ve had the idea of like cliches a podcast I’m wanting to do that for a while and I don’t know if we could fit every cliche into one podcast or if it would have to be like a two or three parter so a lot of cliches yeah but I would like to dissect them and talk about whether they’re actually useful or [ _ ] stupid because some of them are definitely stupid so maybe we will get around to the the principal and the cliches stuff I guess at some point we’ll run out of other [ _ ] to talk about or something the traditions I was thinking we probably end up doing that next year like a tradition a month like we do this step a month this year yeah that would be fun the traditions are interesting will we be around that long uh-uh yeah that’s an I’m out-of-pocket $0 at this point so I can keep going in effin definitely yeah yeah I do what I do want us to have a little studio at some point I think I feel I mean I’m still in we cancelled our not cancelled but we came back or on our from our beach trip yesterday just to be here to do this today so really yeah we were doing a remotely because this took your computer yeah we could I mean we could and that wasn’t the only reason obviously we had some other reasons too but that was into the decision making was like it’s always like my home group now if this is what I do on Sunday mornings and now Jim’s kind of seen that this is a commitment that’s pretty regular that I’m pretty I don’t to say rigid but I’m pretty committed to and it’s it weighs heavily in my decisions on what I’m doing with my weekend that’s funny I was thinking the other day that if we ever had to like miss one or one of us had to miss one we could either and we did before we recorded on another night but I was like we can always have like a guest co-host too that would be kind of interesting like Billy did one with somebody else one week and then if he had to vacation I did one with somebody else that’d be cool I guess yeah and the truth is now we kind of know how easy this is to do remotely if it had to happen I mean I’m still pushing I’m ready to meet Mac a person obviously but you know it’s it’s really not a major hurdle to do this remotely so it’s not right now but this right now is Google meat is offering the free recording which has come out pretty well sound wise so when they stop offering that because of the pandemic it will become difficult again because then we need some other way to record this and that might be trickier this is pretty simple I love it yeah I’m jealous I can’t have this forever I need to I’m gonna actually pick my my future job based on if they have Google meat recording access well I mean obviously I would think it’s a service you can pay for do you know roughly what they charge so here’s the difficulty in that from what I understand they have different tiers of their business level and the recording thing is an ad and so you have to pay for it so but first you would have to pay to get the service of Google meat per employee for your business and then you would have to pay for the add-on of recording and I don’t know if you can do that on a one-person basis yeah I have access to Google meat through a non-profit which is cool but I don’t think the nonprofit has the ability to have the add-on which is it’s so [ _ ] convoluted yeah yeah make it simple maybe they will after this because they’ve kind of opened up Google meat to the average user now so maybe after this it will become a paid ad on I paid $5.00 a month if we were using it yeah for sure so yeah that was pretty much all the the recap of people from from last week I love the ideas thank you for anybody who sends in ideas about topics and and those types of things that’s great I think that does fit in and maybe that’s something we’ll hop around to addressing soon like I said I don’t know we didn’t really have a topic this week till we showed up today so yeah I’m still not sure it’s a topic but yeah maybe we’ll hit those principles and cliches and upcoming episodes that could be fun I know next week we got Jenny we’re gonna do that did I tell you that did I not tell you I think yes so next week we’re going to talk about the recovery Dharma program yes on before the pandemic really hit she was like one of that that first or second week we were winning to actual stay at home order she was supposed to come in wasn’t it or was it right before that anyway was right around the time all this started yeah yeah it was right then and then she was like I might be safe for not two and then so we we talked to her and they actually started meeting back up last week in person and I think they’re outside yep yeah outside and she said there was only like four or five people that were probably coming anyway so they should be able to social distance pretty well and follow guidelines but Wolfe I mean hey will you know be able to talk to her about that too and get that experience and so it’s recovery Dharma right that’s the name of the program yes that is the name of the program the other one that was before that um it used to be called Buddhism recovery and wasn’t it called that but I can’t I think it was something with a B maybe not yeah I can’t right I gotta look it up well it was called something else and then somebody slept with some people and that’s recovery Dharma yeah because that’s how that thing works so I don’t know do you want to take the quick break now and then come back and talk about our our shopping cart experiment or yeah that sounds good yeah perfect we’ll pause now for our break you’ll hear the voices and then we’ll be right back and we’ll get to today’s topic maybe because it’s almost forever to get to [ __ ] what is it huge recovery it was called recovery that is not a B and sounds nothing like Buddhist recovery so it is a Buddhist path to recovery so but that’s what it was called I was way off all right let’s hit our break and we’ll be right back
we’re gonna having a weird thing with my ears being real dry I don’t know if that’s an old man thing cuz I do have hair growing in my ears dry as in they feel dry or just itchy itchy yeah I guess if you have it in like flaky mine are itchy and flaky too that’s so weird I wonder and I’ve had some other weird itchy stuff and I’m like like oh my neck and I’m like is this like part of being inside I’m not inside that much weird
too much headphones that’s what is this rubber were putting around her [ _ ] orifices it was not in the least shocked me that it would be some ironic situation where like we tried to protect ourselves from Diane from coronavirus but died from rubber in the ear or something like it’s some some plastic poisoning that seeps through your ear membrane right sitting sitting home from coronavirus we’d all die from Wi-Fi exposure or some [ _ ] like it would that’s the irony of my life for sure yeah yeah all right I’ll bring it back up and then I’ll let you uh you seem to be have some thoughts about it so I’ll just let you take your brief dry it describes a thing all right so we are gonna get to the shopping cart I call it the shopping cart thing is what I wrote on my [ __ ] notes that’s great I saw this thing the other day that’s Oh an old philosophical concept is the idea that you’re looking at a train trains going down the tracks if you do nothing five people are on the tracks and they’re all gonna die and yet there’s a switch a lever right in front of you you’re at the train station you’re too far away to flag the people there’s not enough time but you’re there’s a switch in front of you and you see you can pull the switch and the train will not hit these five people and kill them unfortunately there’s one person on that track and so you are going to kill the one person if you pull the lever but you save the five and so it’s the philosophical thought experiment of you know by doing nothing five people died and you can do something and you know one person dies and that seems like the greater good to save the the five and you know lose the one that seems like generally what people in society would go for and yet it’s not quite that simple right we like to think that more saving more people is better but at the same time by you pulling that lever you are actively killing someone you are making a decision to kill a person whereas the other side of that is yes those five people are gonna die but there’s nothing you could do about that right and so and then I guess it gets into the trickiness of like who we value more you know I’m sure if people would say if the one person was the President or somebody important that doctor who you know could possibly cure cancer they would obviously want to save him over the five and all kinds of stuff so anyway based on this old philosophical you know thought process I recently we came across the the shopping cart version right and it was described as you can do nothing and your shopping cart sits in the parking lot after you’re done shopping and loading your car or you can pull the lever and you take your shopping cart over to the you know the little cart kiosk or whatever you’d like to call it the little tenant place or sometimes it’s not tented but where the carts go the cart Corral we’ll call it and so basically what they were explaining is there’s no consequence or punishment for just leaving the cart where it is right like you don’t get arrested there’s no fine nobody’s gonna give you a ticket nobody is you know you’re not gonna get struck by lightning by leaving the cart they’re like there’s no real penalty to doing that the only difference is you know taking it to the cart Corral is basically beneficial for everybody else in the world and so judging by that they were saying that’s kind of the ultimate defining quality of whether you were altruistic or not whether you care about other people even if it doesn’t really benefit you because there’s no real benefit to taking the cart to the cart Corral except it helps others it’s good it’s out of people’s way it helps the workers that are all gathered up nicely for them to take him up like and this was the the process of it and so we kind of talked about this a little bit already before we started recording and we thought it was a kind of interesting topic to talk about like what is right in that situation and I’ll let Billy take it away he had some good ideas going on yeah so one of the reasons I thought this was kind of relevant to our current situation is because of the situation with wearing face coverings or masks or whatever when we’re out in public obviously there is some what I would call minor maybe some people think it’s a major inconvenience to wearing masks when you’re out in public but there is a sort of idea of like a greater good like you’re you’re potentially helping so many people that you don’t know or don’t see or don’t necessarily interact with
that you know it’s it’s just a if nothing else it’s just a kind gesture that you can do that takes a minimal amount of effort but you see that there are a lot of people that are very seem to be harshly against it and feel like it is just this major injustice and so when you describe that cart dilemma I thought of that as like a kind of similar thing for me I like to say that I’m a person that takes the cart back almost all the time there’s very few times where I will not take it back which is a whole another conversation or what are the times that I feel justified and not taking it back and how come most of the time I will do it I feel like it’s such a minimal amount of effort sometimes it’s just looking how close is the closest cart returned you know it’s it is it 30 feet is it 80 feet is the one over or I’m gonna take the cart overly full and I can’t fit another card in it I’m gonna have to push it over there and try to get it out of the way anyway you know all those sort of decisions that come in to what feels like such a minor thing but yeah so this cart dilemma for me brought up the really the thinking of how I don’t know that I am ever 100% in on either you know I don’t know that as many times as I like to say yeah the right thing is to take the cart back there are going to be times they’re going to be occasions are going to be instances where my self-centeredness wins out where whether it’s self-centeredness alcohol self-centeredness could be laziness could be inconvenience whatever they’re all versions of self-centeredness but even though nine times out of 10 I’ll do the right thing there’s always that one out of 10 where I am NOT taking that [ _ ] cart back and justify and rationalize it getting in my car and driving away and then what I’ve noticed is I usually remember those times because there is a sense of guilt or a sense of irresponsibility that comes along with that but even you know as recently as the last probably month there have been times where I’ve not taken the cart back and so what does that what does that mean exactly is that I mean do we think this is a good experiment to tell something about people like is this relevant I think it’s important to understand that not everyone is can be based on one decision that they make you know what I mean like we are in our lives we are a combination of the whole of our decisions you know it’s it’s holding people so we see this a lot on politics right now and it’s kind of disgusting it’s like oh you made one bad decision back in 1987 about this one bad thing so that encompasses the whole character of who you are now 30 years later and I don’t know that that’s fair to people you know it’s not fair to me if you were to hold me to the standard of somebody’s trying to have me join a meeting I don’t know that uh if if you held me to whatever the worst decision that I made in the last 30 days if that’s a fair assessment of my character as a whole I think that as people we are sort of complex in that what we hope is that we can overcome some of our bad tendencies that we can learn to become better people but I don’t think it’s a total you know what do they call that like a net sum thing where it’s like you’re all this or all that like no most of the time I’m a good person but I’m still occasionally a shitty person and I got a kind of be okay with that yeah no I think I think that’s interesting and so I was kind of sitting here thinking about this for me like I pretty sure I I do take the cart back period like I think that’s just what I do but why right is it is it the guilt feeling I’ll have if I don’t I’m sure that’s part of it I was curious if I did the right thing there because I am capable of it and so if I don’t try to do all the right capable things I can do to make up for the times when I’m a shitty person and I’m not capable of being different right the times when like I’m overly angry with my kids that I don’t want to be and for whatever reason I don’t have control of that and so maybe in life I try to do all these other right things perfectly to make up for those times I know I don’t have any ability for whatever reason yet to be better and so I don’t know and that’s that kind of led me when you were talking about not judging people by their worst moment I was like whoa does this mean we’re all actually even like is every person in the world truly even in their ability of right and wrong and it’s just in different areas and so we tend to look at some areas more important than others but the fact is honestly we’re all doing some level of right and some level of wrong yeah I mean I guess I think there is definitely people that have tendencies towards being more self-centered and more evil if you want to use the word II I mean obviously we know there’s extremes of personalities and there are evil people in the world the sort of serial killer mass murder you know I guess serial killers maybe are different than mass murderers that’s a whole other conversation but you know in general I think there are evil people that do more harm than good I think for me as a person in recovery there was a large part of my life where I was a person that probably did more harm than good and now I’m trying to reverse that through this process of recovery through learning how to live spiritually that’s sort of one of those ways I’ve tried to explain recovery to earth people normal people whatever is to be like when I was a person that used a lot I tended to be really sort of self-centered self-serving and knowing that it was wrong didn’t give me the tools to live any differently you know I still lived self-centered self-serving because that’s all that I knew and when I found a 12-step recovery and found you know a a process of sorta what I’ll call fixing my bad thinking through work in these steps it made a lot more sense than someone just saying like don’t you just have this conscious that tells you that what you’re doing is wrong and it’s like kind of but I’ve learned to like ignore that son of a [ _ ] you know very inconvenient and you know but this process of steps has given me you know step work has given me like these incremental changes that I can make that lead to a greater change but you know that underlying what I’ll call that underlying addiction and that underlying self-centeredness is still there sometimes you know it still creeps up on days that I’m not at my best or I’m not fully fully awake in I think it’s nice to be able to give other people that leeway to to they to not hold people to whatever you know for example you know you see the guy like I know I do if I saw a guy you know drive down the road and not use a turn signal it’s easy to be like what a responsible [ _ ] doesn’t he know he can kill somebody by not just using a turn signal it takes a minimal amount of effort to use a turn signal and yet I know that in my life I have changed lanes without using a turn signal I know that it’s happened and I’ve done the same thing and when I’m doing those things I’m not like going yeah [ _ ] other people and I don’t care if I kill someone and who knows you know it’s usually like I got something in one hand and my hands over here but I really need to change lanes and I’m like [ _ ] I got to do this but I know it’s not right but I do it anyway you know like looking at things from that perspective helps me to be a little more understanding of other people and a little more compassionate towards other people live in their life you know and the times that I don’t return the shopping cart are not times where I’m going yeah some [ _ ] that we’re at Walmart he can come get this cart you know it’s his goddamn job anyway like that’s not usually my thinking behind that but if I see someone not return the cart that’s what I think they’re thinking is you know what I mean like it’s weird how I’ll fall into that pattern ya know I I’m with you I do the same thing I’m guilty of judging people for things that I have done for sure I don’t think that I’m thinking that they’re running around being malicious in the sense of ‘yeah [ _ ] the guy at walmart he’s got to get the card i think they’re being self-centered cuz that’s where I’m at when I am doing those things I’m like yeah what I gotta do is more important than other people like that’s just the way it is right now it’s not important enough for me to go out of my way for anybody else I’m you know totally consumed by what I’m doing not always there’s times when I’m just unconsciously self-centered and not realizing it but there’s also times when I’m actively making that choice to make someone else’s life harder because it makes mine easier like it is what it is well and are there times where that’s true you know what I mean like are there times where what’s going on in my life is definitely more important like you know it’s always the this sort of scenario that people play out at least for me that I should say it this way I try to play out a scenario in my head that makes me less judgmental of bad drivers for example people that cut me off and it’s the thing of like oh maybe that guy’s wife or family members in the hospital in some emergency and he’s just trying to get there as quick as possible you know that’s why he’s driving like an idiot and cutting people off maybe it’s not that he’s just some irresponsible crazy person but maybe there is a reason why he needs to be driving that way and if his family member was in the hospital on their deathbed or his wife was at you know in labor maybe it is okay that he cut me off maybe it’s really not that big a deal and I don’t need to stay on my self-righteous high horse like maybe in that case his needs are greater than mine in that moment and this is why I turn the cart every goddamn time because I can’t help myself righteousness great that’s where I don’t look so happy and positive all the time because my self righteousness does shine through because I look the behavior is not my problem right the guy who cuts me off maybe he was in an urgent ride to see his wife one last time in the emergency room and I don’t have a problem with that my problem is that as a society I feel like people are [ _ ] entitled and I’m just over it I’m over their entitlement like I hate I hate me when I’m acting entitled I hated all my entitled behaviors throughout my active addiction and now seeing that mirror reflected to me of most of society acting like entitled little [ _ ] drives me crazy I hate it and so look this whole conversation people for you all don’t know Billy and I had like a good hour plus of like debating what’s going on a little bit before this happened and Billy is one of if not the only person one of less than five people that I could have had that conversation with and not [ _ ] hated them afterwards obviously thank you and so that shit’s going on YouTube for sure but I don’t want to get back down to that discussion for the podcast whatsoever I try to keep our podcasts away from the politics to the best of our ability but that’s kind of where this stemmed from was we were debating you know whether we should still be quarantined whether the government should have the quarantine ability to do that whether they’re actually stealing rights whether people are just entitled you know we have different sides of that and so we were discussing a lot of those ideas and that’s kind of what led us to the shopping cart thing talking about the masks and what’s a right so people who don’t return shopping carts is that what is that against it to the detriment of others I feel like it’s a little different because obviously if you leave your shopping cart out you’re probably not gonna you know catch a virus that kills somebody that you pass it to like that’s a little different in that sense with the mask equation I just I don’t know nothing the government has done yet has made me feel like my rights were trampled on or taken from me I feel like everything I’m doing in line with the government guidelines I guess has been it to help people I just feel like I’m doing a good thing I don’t feel like anything’s been robbed of me I feel like I’m sacrificing because hopefully it helps that’s how I’ve looked at it and so I’m trying to put that into the shopping cart thing somehow like I think that’s the same way I look at it I do it because I think it helps not because it does anything for me I don’t I don’t know and what does that mean for people who never return the shopping cart yeah and I think for me that that you know like say the shopping cart dilemma thing um one of the I tend to be a person who’s really critical of other people I’m critical of myself so I’m really critical of other people and my what I’ll call my nature is to think the worst of people you know to always think that their intentions are selfish and self-serving and that’s whether it’s true or not isn’t as important understanding that thinking that way makes me I’m gonna say makes me a worse person and I’ll kind of go the other way with that so giving people the benefit of the doubt assuming that there is an emergency there’s some crisis there’s some reason that’s greater than me that they need to do this selfish act gives me a place to be a better person you know if I’m always looking at it that people are selfish and self-serving and you know [ _ ] which again probably true if but if I always look at it with those glasses then I sort of throw the innocent people who aren’t living that way into that boat versus throw in the shitty self-centered people into the good boat and I as a person react better in my life on a daily basis even when I throw the shitty people into good you know what I mean like I still then I can react in a way that’s like hey I don’t need to get all angry I don’t need to maybe [ _ ] run my mouth or make my snarky comments at them or you know shoot some sarcasm there way like I can just assume that oh they must have needed that but and trust me I’m definitely not perfect at that I still have my days where I make my comments and say my stuff and flick people all for cut me off on the highway but those are the things that then I feel shitty about myself and I feel like now I’m a you know I don’t that’s not the person I want to be the person I want to be is like a compassionate understanding and kind human being I think for me where the where this came in with the masks and again I was talking about some of this before this kind of led me to this understanding is early on in the pandemic you know me and my family were people that started sort of wearing masks or started down that path before they even you know made it the law we said hey you know we’re wearing these masks to help protect other people it’s not necessarily to protect us and it’s really a minor inconvenience to wear a mask to go out into the store and whatever so let’s just do it you know because it’s helpful and it sets a message it sets a tone to everyone else like yes we care about other people and now that it’s been that way for a couple weeks now it’s been a law what I started realizing was if they reverse the law or reversed it where I didn’t have to wear a mask in public my immediate reaction is to be like yeah [ _ ] that mask I’m not wearing it anymore in public and I don’t think that’s the person that I want to be like I think I still want to be a person that cares enough I don’t want to let that self-centeredness creep in you know what I mean like I don’t want to let that for me no I’m not saying if if you’re a guy that’s out in a store not wearing a mask as [ _ ] that and you want your rights and all that stuff like I get it and that should be your right whether it’s to wear a mask I wish people would be more considered you know I wish people would would sort of take this seriously but I can see how easy it is to creep into that self-centered place like it happens with me you you know I do it myself if I’m not being really [ _ ] self aware that’s interesting I you know I remember going to the stores right before the mass thing started and I I looked at my wife and I and I was like I I think we gotta wear masks and she was like completely against it and I’m not trying to I’m not trying to like I don’t think she realized the seriousness I just think she didn’t really want to wear a mask because it’s awkward and she didn’t want to be noticeable to people like oh my God look at that weirdo with the mask on right I think that was her deal but I just could not picture myself going to the store without it whether even if it really doesn’t help me it feels like it does like it feels like it’s safer to wear that [ _ ] it feels without it yeah that’s where I was at I’m like you know what I’m not taking any chances I’m wearing this [ _ ] like I don’t give a [ _ ] and so that’s kind of where I’m at today honestly when people say we don’t have to wear them anymore I’m like I don’t know about that I might never stop wearing this [ _ ] yeah well and that was one of the you know to play the devil’s advocate about the mask now you’re starting to see all these like the negative effects of wearing a mask and your [ _ ] re inhaling your own co2 or some [ _ ] it’s like just weird stuff that people say like and and I want to sort of shake my hand go really is that is that really a concern like but you know there is a level of inconvenience to it there is a level of you know I’ve had one time where like I walk we live a like a block and a half from the hardware store and there was a time I walked down to the hardware store and got to the door went [ _ ] I forgot my mask and I had to turn around a wall comb and then turn around and walk back and it was like if it wasn’t a law what I’ve just went in the store anyway and did my shopping without going back and getting a man you know what where is my where does my responsibility level sort of top out you know it’s interesting I you know I almost feel like it’s like and I guess maybe because I have two teenagers and I see this a lot it just feels like our population is very like I don’t even know if a lot of people believe in not wearing masks it’s just almost like you told me to so I’m not gonna it’s very very much seems like yeah I don’t want to be told what to do and it’s I don’t know I just find that so weird I look at my daughters who do the same exact thing it’s like you tell them to eat it with a fork in their right hand and they eat with a fork in their left hand or something or a spoon or it’s like what the [ _ ] like just being contrary just to be contrary and I would have to go back and get the exact you know setup for it but there was a thing on I think it was 2020 doctor foul she was on 20/20 telling people that masks weren’t [ _ ] useful I’m like wait a minute you guys were just telling you know first you said we shouldn’t wear masks then you say we should and now you’re saying it’s not helpful it’s like what the [ _ ] you caught it even with that stuff you get so many mixed messages you know and again for me I try not to moralize my decisions on to other people because they probably don’t have the information I believe that’s what I like to think I like to think they just don’t have the information too many good decisions you know and that if we could do a better job at educating and setting an example and it’s sort of like you know even with wearing a mask like I’m all for it I think people should do it I think it’s great but I don’t think if I go out and try to shame people into it and guilt them into it and tell them how [ _ ] irresponsible they are and what a selfish jerk they’re being like I don’t think that’s gonna encourage them to be responsible stewards in their community I think there’s a way of going about that yeah I’m not sure what the right way for sure and it’s so hard to like navigate this conversation and not bring back up much of what we talked about I’m like trying my damndest to avoid a lot of those areas so one thing I will ask and and this kind of came up it’s sort of relevant to the shopping cart thing maybe now I’m definitely relevant to that an entire hour of conversation we had where you know it seems like over a couple month period you have changed your mind about some of these things that we were doing and and you know I asked about you know numbers and stuff that you were paying close attention to early on and you said you weren’t really looking at a whole lot of that now and so it came up to me and this is something that was proposed to me a long time ago are we what we put in us like are we a product of what we put into us whether that’s information music art people’s opinions like are we a product of whatever it is we’re surrounding ourselves with you know the I mean there’s the idea you are the average of your closest four friends and you know all those kind of things but I just I ask this because it seemed that before you were very in line with reading numbers and reading information from experts and maybe other countries and you know what seemed to be trust of all information you know obviously I don’t think any of us trust our media or government all that much on either side so I don’t think we read too much about what comes out of you know the us information wise but it seemed like you were putting this other outside information that seemed relevant into you and you had one opinion and I was just curious if you felt like stopping that information had given you a different opinion because now what you’re putting into you is your day to day behavior and interactions right like oh I go to the work and nothing bad happens I talked to people at work and nothing bad happened to them so that’s what I’ll go with is my immediate experience instead of more info well now they say it’s almost on top of that I have listened to a couple of different podcasts with people that are scientific people sort of the other way like I’ve looked for some of that information like okay well who’s out here saying you know it’s okay to open up and who’s out here saying that this stuff isn’t as bad as they say it is and what’s their point of view and and where are they coming from with some of this and so the answer to your first question is 100% yes I think we are definitely a product of what information we put into us I mean that’s why motivational speaking works that’s why having a trainer at the gym works you know what I mean like we need that outside influence to be like hey this is the right thing to be doing this is what you you know that helps us overcome our own barriers hang-ups like for me personally that’s the point of going to meetings and sponsorship it’s like I need that outside influence that outside point of view that direction from some people that I think have an intelligent perspective because again left of my own devices I tend to you know believe my own hype so I need influences of people outside of myself I think for me personally where I’ve gotten sort of lost in some of this the numbers coming out of like what I’ll call like the government or the media side of things are hearing of what I would call typical corruption of the system which has been things like so hospitals right now are suffering some of them because one they haven’t seen this huge intake of patients that they thought was going to happen at least not in most Hospital some have some hospitals have been overwhelmed there definitely some hospitals in New York that have been hit very hard that have really you know people have had to go out but a lot hospitals haven’t they’ve cut out all these elective surgeries they have this drastic decrease in patients so now you know if they can get more federal money of these Cova dollars that are out there that’s how they’re helping to sort of recoup some of this financial impact that this has had on them so they are now financially incentivized to I’m not I’m gonna say lie I don’t think it’s some grand conspiracy that they’re just making [ _ ] up there’s some of that out there but you know that they have now a financial invested interest to sort of make this seem worse than it is there’s one or two speculative pieces on dr. Falchi why he would have reasons to be to take a specific political point of view about why this is so bad and stuff like that so there are those points of view out there I don’t totally succumb to the like this is all conspiracy and like no I personally feel like this was something we didn’t know about this virus is sickness came out of sort of nowhere all the sudden it started infecting a bunch of people people were dying I mean it was very serious and so we took it really serious now it feels like oK we’ve kind of got a handle on it we’ve kind of got a grasp on what’s going on and so we can take some personal responsibility to live in a way that’s gonna help minimize or reduce risks without without having such a dramatic or and even sometimes negative impact on the quality of lives of hundreds of millions of people so I just think I think what we did up to this point totally justified I’m not saying we shouldn’t have done it I don’t think it was wrong but I think we can roll back some of that still encourage some really personal you know hey social distancing probably a really good idea right now don’t have 30 people at your house and a [ _ ] cookout you know it’s probably not a great idea wearing masks pretty minimal impact pretty simple thing that most people can do I think it’s a really responsible thing to do that’s great should I not be able to get a haircut or take my dog to the dog groomers yeah that seems a little excessive I mean I’m not gonna lie now I’m not gonna [ _ ] lose any sleep if they don’t do that tomorrow and I’m not protesting the government that they should open it up so that my dog can get a [ _ ] haircut I don’t care that much but I think that that impacts those people in a way that I don’t necessarily see or understand you know that under that affects people that barbers and barbershops and that affects dog groomers and those businesses and that affects some of these other people in a really negative way you know that I think is a little extreme Damon you took us right into the heart of the material didn’t try to minimize out of that by saying I think we can we can whether it’s the government or whether it’s me or whether it’s you or whether it’s anybody else trying to force good decision-making and morality on other people just never really seems to work like we just we really need to do it I think we’ll have better results from a place of love and compassion and understanding and encouraging people and maybe that’s a very optimistic way and looking at society as a whole but again I always try to for myself personally try to go back to the optimism side of things because it makes me it allows me to live as a better person you know it allows me to be a better human being what I’m coming at people from an optimistic point of view and when I say look if I just try to encourage people or educate people and at work there’s little five-second conversations you know what I mean a guy at work says well I’m [ _ ] math don’t help me anyway I can take that couple of minutes ago hey you know what yeah I’ve been told you’re not really wearing the mask for you you’re wearing that mask for other people so that when you’re out in the store if while you’re out working all day if you come across that virus you’re not spreading it to other people if you got it you got it and you know that’s really a shame but you can help spread in that by wearing a mass when you go into the grocery store like I think that’s a better approach than saying you have to wear a [ _ ] mask when you go into the grocery store don’t ask any questions you just do it because we [ _ ] told you to I will clarify that we are not doctors or disease experts or biologists or any [ _ ] thing else so you know our views are definitely our own and don’t represent what you anyone should be doing in their life right now or what is fair and operative procedure for this you know we we have opinions and thoughts and theories but they don’t exactly qualify as expert stuff that anyone should follow and I don’t know if we could get sued for that or just that I want to qualify that we have our own opinions yeah I’m definitely not an expert and I don’t know what you should be doing don’t listen to me you know I think I guess some of us too I haven’t heard any super strong arguments yet that convinced me otherwise basically is where I’m at with it I I’d love to believe that we can help people be better by taking those minutes to explain things and and trying to be compassionate with them but I don’t believe as a whole that people are so wonderful already that they will take into consideration other people’s lives without somebody telling them to I just don’t I think we have those rules we talked about I mentioned seatbelts and stuff like that we got to protect people from themselves we got to tell people you have to wear a seatbelt to save yourself right and you say that comes with a privilege I don’t think it’s really any different I think we got to tell people how to [ _ ] live and if we don’t they’d run around shooting people like the Old West and doing what they felt like doing and so I I don’t I don’t see where this would ever happen without some kind of regulation in place the hospital thing doesn’t completely make sense to me like do I believe that hospitals would take advantage of this situation to get more money [ _ ] right they would who wouldn’t right like this is every this is what we all do oh my god I could get an extra $5 on my taxes back if I marked and I bought you know a Snickers bar at Royal Farms last year [ _ ] yeah I bought a Snickers bar at Royal Farms so yeah of course there’s gonna be situations where hospitals mark some deaths as associated with this that might not have been completely associated with this but if the intent was to make up for all the elective procedures they’re not doing that’s ass backwards because hospitals would want to lower the numbers to get back to the elective procedures and all the money they can make from it so that doesn’t make any sense to me whatsoever they would want this [ _ ] to be over to open back up yeah but they’re forced to follow the national guidelines and national health guidelines they can’t just go guys we’re doing what we want well to some extent they can Marilyn just open up elective procedures like a week or two ago like it’s not federal that’s a state thing and if they had lowered the numbers sooner like if they were misreporting and they could have reported normal numbers sooner and opened up sooner they would have like they’d only gotten back to the money as soon as they could have so that that sold on that that seems like some tinfoil theory to me I don’t I don’t buy that it doesn’t make any sense I’m all about common sense and to meet common sense in this world is people make decisions based on the most money they could get the highest profit and benefit for them right people put money at the top of their list of things that are important and things will make sense if you look to where is the most money being made and so that theory and that standpoint doesn’t make sense to me I think they would have made the choice to get back to the big money that they could have made as opposed to getting a couple extra dollars per death I don’t think they were concerned about getting overwhelmed by people with coronavirus in the beginning no they were but as soon as they realized that wasn’t a thing they don’t wanted to go back to normal to make their money it’s kind of like Disneyworld Disneyworld would be open right now if it wasn’t a safety issue like if there’s money I can make let’s get back to it and that’s why they’re opening up elective procedures because they’re like yeah [ _ ] yeah we can get back to this the state said it’s okay so we’re doing it you’re not seeing any hospitals that are going you know what no we’re not doing elective procedures because we still don’t think it’s safe like they’re all now that they can they’re gonna do it yeah I don’t have any hospitals say oh we can but we’re not because we think that that’s irresponsible yeah I get that I just don’t think they would have like mass over reported numbers because that would have kept them shut down from elective procedures longer yeah and in the beginning I think of what we all had a right to be fearful I mean obviously the worst thing for the hospitals would have been to be overwhelmed with sick people that they couldn’t take care of that would be catastrophic I mean not just for their financial but for our society I mean gosh I would hope that they’re making decisions for our health at least a little bit yeah I don’t miss out of caution but yeah I don’t know though so I guess back to trying to get away from this more how do but how do we if we know that what we put into us is what we are right and that that means that we could on any given day be the guy who returns the shopping cart or who doesn’t the guy who gleefully wears a mask thinking that he’s doing the right thing for people or the guy who watches a different news channel and thinks somebody’s robbing him of his rights like how can we use that information to our benefit if we know that’s what people are so there was a time when you know journalists and news stations felt an obligation to report both sides of every story right hey this is what one side kind of believes about it and this is what the other side kind of believes about it and here’s that information you put that all into you and come up with what makes sense for you and we don’t have that today we have very one-sided stories being told all over the place depending on which side you want to hear or what side you associate with right and so we have made it possible to completely surround yourself with only people who agree with one side whether that’s a news channel you watch whether the Facebook groups you’re a part of whether that’s the Facebook friends you have and haven’t deleted yet because they talk some other side to you so if we know we are what we put into us and we have because of our freedom are allowed to choose to only hear half the story at any given point in time how do we ever affect our population to want to be the people who put the shopping carts back or the people who want to be the people who want to wear masks to help others like I don’t feel like we can ever reach those people because everything they put into them is the opposite it’s all some other thing and I’m not I don’t want to just say this in one direction of you know how to convince them how to wear masks maybe it’s to convince them not to wear masks right and how do we do that to like because people who don’t watch that channel are gonna think that masks are important yeah so and I’ll try to get you know tie this in with recovery because that’s been my most of my adult life experience it’s like that’s one of the for me been a great benefit of being a person involved in a 12-step recovery program it’s like those traditions and the things that we do in the program you know I can go there in our particular fellowship like it’s a spiritual based program so I’m going there to learn about spiritual principles hopefully in a way that’s not political that’s not one-sided that’s not coming from a single perspective and we have these traditions that help to keep some of that out of like a fellowship like ours so that you know because guess what I’ll just not the out my political stance the ocean I don’t like Trump I am NOT a trump supporter I hate Trump but I know that I go to a homegroup that there’s a couple guys in there that [ _ ] love that guy and I think that he’s great you know and will occasionally banter back and forth and joke about it outside of the meeting or before the meeting but when we get into that program when we get into that you know the actual living of the program you know we realized that we are each individuals on a similar path through recovery we’re just other addicts trying to get a day clean and that you know gives me a broader perspective on the world and a broader perspective on life I don’t and again this goes to something we talked about a couple weeks ago I don’t know where normal people get that influence I don’t know where earth people maybe that’s the problem maybe they don’t get that influence and so their religion is Fox News you know their spiritual teachings do come from this one-sided or you know CNN whichever one I just I know for me luckily you know I’m a person that gets to learn about spiritual principles learn about compassion and understanding and open-mindedness so that when I do talk to the people I work with some people that are also you know right-wing Trump loving you know [ __ ] make America great again people and I have really tried to practice talking to them about because we’ll talk about that stuff but I try to do it from a place of understanding yeah I can see where you’re coming from but have you thought about it this way have you looked at it this way have you and I can only hope to influence the limited amount of people that are in my sphere through you know my
hopefully compassionate understanding open-minded way of talking about things and create like a ripple effect you know what I mean like hopefully I can ripple out to those people who just maybe will stop hating on the other side so much and just maybe be able to look at even if they don’t agree with me they can at least say I’m not some self-righteous [ _ ] [ _ ] that they can just dismiss and throw in the trash you know see I I don’t know I I like to think that our program offers a place where it’s not politicized and maybe it’s not political but I find that I see the same problem and it’s so uh there are some people who are very political from program on facebook and and you know tend to constantly post hateful things about one side or the other or things of that nature are very much for little people who have different beliefs and that’s not [ _ ] spiritual to me and I’m always questioning like what kind of program are you [ _ ] working if that’s you know your basis of how you live you’re not carrying these principles into all your affairs what’s so [ _ ] ever I don’t care how stupid you think someone is that’s not spiritual but the the other aspect is I see it come up in its I don’t know if it’s politicized I feel like this pandemic has been politicized so it’s hard to take the politics out of it but I feel like decisions made in our fellowship or our program that are splitting people into one of two factions at all times right it seems like everybody just decides that there’s gonna be two factions for every [ _ ] problem now and that’s how we’re gonna handle it so I don’t want to call it politicized but it very much feels like it ties into politics and like the people who say well we’re a program about saving lives we need to stay home and do virtual meetings we have the ability to let’s save lives and the other faction that says no you’re [ _ ] wrong people are odeon because we don’t have in-person meetings and so we’re not saving lives we’re hurting people and which one’s gonna save more lives the people who are meeting in person to stop the ODS which is no guarantee you’re gonna stop the Odie’s or the people who are you know meeting online to not spread the virus and it’s like it’s begin becomes I’m right you’re wrong and that’s where everybody’s at and it’s this what I’m reading about all this black and white thinking right all this there’s one right way to handle this and how we need to look for that Goldilocks thinking in the middle right this this isn’t too hot or too cold it’s it’s just right and I don’t know what that is but I just feel like when we surround ourselves with one input or whatever input that we surround ourselves with I don’t know how to use that to our advantage to help people be more well-rounded right how do we get more well-rounded information to find that Goldilocks spot because we don’t we were just getting the hot information or the information we’re not getting that that just right bed to lay down in and take a nap and so I guess for me it’s it’s disheartening that it’s always like oh my god if you don’t take these safety measures you’re you’re a [ _ ] ridiculously self-centered jerk and you know if not let’s all get our ar-15s and storm the Capitol like it’s there wasn’t the [ _ ] is the in-between like where is the let’s come to some common decency things to do for everybody and then do the best we can with it and so tying back to where we started with this like I think that’s why it’s important for people to think a little bit about stuff like the trolley dilemma you know what I mean it’s important to think that hey you know I have an opinion here I have what I think is gonna be best for our society but that doesn’t necessarily mean that I need to be right that doesn’t mean that you know I there is even a right I mean again in the trolley dilemma is there a right in that dilemma you know I don’t know and fact I’m not even sure what I should do but we are at a point where people feel like they need to be forced into a corner and I guess what I try to do is not let them force me into that corner you know like say we you and I can have a conversation where we disagree but I don’t by any means like get angry at you or think that you’re wrong or think that your point of view is stupid like I’m able to sort of sit back and go yeah I can I can understand that I can empathize with that I might not necessarily agree with it but it doesn’t mean you don’t have a valid concern that your things that you’re bringing up are in ways true I mean yes there are some risks there are some things that you know as a human being I should be willing to acknowledge that you have some rightness in that whole trying to figure out what we’re supposed to do moving forward and those are the ways I think that we help to find that Goldilocks place you know it’s like if you just start yelling at me then I’m gonna get like my defensive walls are gonna come up and then I’m gonna hold stronger to my points of view and then you know I’m gonna start yelling back and then your walls are coming in we’re in the [ _ ] you know you’re stupid you don’t know what you’re talking about yeah right we are in a very weird you know we’re in a point in society where all this like social media and the separate like media being so biased and all that I mean I think this is fairly new for our society in the last 20 years I’d say yes and hopefully I mean I could just cross my fingers and pray that this is a growing pain and that things are gonna gonna get different me because so now I’m gonna go off on a little bit of a side thing but almost like you talked about what what’s happening like social media and stuff is they figured out like oh we can get you to engage and in fact we can get you to engage more by picking a side and making you argumentative like if we can get you to be argumentative and get your anger up and your walls to come up you’re way more likely to engage with people online than if you’re like in the middle and not really sure and like me I read a lot more stuff but I don’t engage and like like and dislike and share and you know all that [ _ ] like I don’t do that so in essence you know social media isn’t targeting me because they don’t care about me I’m not engaging with their platform enough you know they care about the people or what feeds them is the people that engage and post the negativity and get angry so I actually listened to a podcast about this a while back about when the the time when they used to do a little bit of both sides of the information when every newscast or on every channel and give topics equal time and that happened when it was governmental II regulated and then when the regulation stuff this is what you get people doing what they want to do and so this is I think that’s a little jab in there to throw in that I I don’t think people I get how you operate from a place of people are genuinely trying to do well I think that’s a beautiful place and I do think that helps you to be a better person and I can understand how that helps me to be a better person operating from that place but to literally run the world as if people are better I think is irresponsible because I don’t think they are I think they will without regulation and being told what to do well they’re ugly nature will come out personally I don’t think they actually will do better it’s nice for me to believe they will in order for me to act better but I don’t really think they will yeah you and I can have this conversation you know we had earlier and disagree and I’m not gonna hate you or think you’re stupid right but truthfully Who I am that’s not happening with most people I talk to like I really do get self-righteous with a lot of people I would have this conversation with and I would judge the [ _ ] out of them and and be like what is wrong with them [ _ ] idiots right and that’s that’s a struggle of mine that I work on in in in my life and I know it’s not right but what I guess what I’m getting at with that is I think this conversation with two people who respect each other is few and far between and I don’t think 95% of our population is getting that I don’t think most of us are getting a place where we can actively discuss alternative ideas and and truly listen to them right like I’ll actually listen to what you have to say anybody else tells me that [ _ ] I’m like you’re a [ _ ] [ _ ] I’m not listen and so it’s I don’t think most people are getting that they’ve found a way to delete those people off their Facebook right they unfollowed them and unfriended them and and none of that gets presented on MSNBC or Fox News what’s that echo chambers they call that yeah and and so if that’s all we’re putting in to us man I agree it says over the last 20-some years I think the regulation on equal time ended in like 1987 they said or something like that and so this is recent where we’ve evolved into just shouting from opposite sides of the country and I think it’s dangerous and I don’t know how to fix it I don’t know how to get us back to we are what we put into us so how do we get back to putting better stuff into us you know I heard a podcast about you know when partisan politics really took a sorta what I’ll call a major step backwards which is where they really started to like divided and they talked about it being c-span when c-span came online and they started showing you know like these congressional hearings and these meetings and all that stuff like what what the audience responded to was politicians that were you know charismatic and making these big bold statements about the other side and how they were destroying you know Americans and you know then it became like a like a a show almost because that was their platform to rally an audience was through this television media you know that was new and that that that began it and I’m sure now like with modern social media is just compounding the same problem so oh my god dude it’s so [ _ ] ridiculous I will walk by the tv downstairs sometimes and hear some [ _ ] like this governor literally hates his [ _ ] people and wants them to die and I’m like are you serious you really believe that junk should come on and see I’m lucky enough to have people in my life that balance me you know like like Jan Ferguson my wife for example she is you know she’s into advocacy she fights against injustice –is that she sees in the world and she doesn’t tend to look at most people overly optimistic aliy like I do and she doesn’t think that most people have the best interests of people you know like she’s a she’s a very different perspective than me and I am grateful that I can listen to her be cuz it does help sort of whatever you want to call it like real me back a little bit from the ledge because again left of my own I’d probably keep going in one direction thinking that I’m right and eventually get for that self-righteous place but you know I have people of my life that I love and then I care about that I’m willing to sort of conversate with and I like to say that’s because I can converse in a way that’s not threatening or insulting to people because obviously I know that there are people that have started down the road of those conversations with and very quickly within two or three sentences I’m like oh I can tell this isn’t a conversation I want to have and I withdraw and I’m done yeah I you know and I can let it go and like walk away with being like that’s not a person that’s worth engaging with in this way you know and I have to do that for my own benefit because I know what’s gonna happen what’s gonna happen is I’m gonna start you know they’re gonna get their voice up and I’m gonna get my voice up and then we’re gonna be arguing because I don’t agree with and then I’m eventually gonna call them stupid because that’s where it goes it’s like you’re just stupid and I I don’t like to go there you know I don’t worry yeah I think I think and I love that you have Jen in your life that’s that’s awesome I do I you know I’m gonna be a social worker and not too long from now and that’s what I’ve been trained to do and learning about standing up for vulnerable populations that don’t have a say and I think that’s where a lot of my like pushback comes when people say people are stomping on our rights and I’m like there’s so many vulnerable populations that if we didn’t do it this way would have their rights trampled on right like like vulnerable populations already have their rights trampled on anyway daily but you know so now it happens to the rest of society and now we care but we still want to trample on the vulnerable people again like it’s don’t infringe on mine like [ _ ] them people who don’t matter they’re a smaller portion than us and it’s I think a lot of my outlook comes from looking at things like that as opposed to just how is this affecting me and maybe that’s part of the schooling I went through to look more at how this affects others or maybe again this is something I bring up regularly I think as humans we take credit for things that come naturally to us right here’s a great example are we way too long out of who gives a [ _ ] anyway so I got a watch for my birthday and and I walk and I it registers like automatically if I’m walking or if I’m riding a bike or whatever and I’m like that’s cool it figures it out it automatically tracks what I’m doing right and so a lot of days I’ll be walking and uh it’ll track me is riding a bike and so for a week and a half I’m walking around I’m telling my wife how smoothly I walk I’m like bro I walk and it doesn’t even register that I’m going up and down it thinks I’m riding a bike because I walked so perfectly right so come to find out it registers I’m riding a bike on the days I’m pushing my baby in a stroller because my hands look like they’re holding the handlebars it has nothing to do with how great I walk right but I’m instantly ready to take credit for something and make myself out to be good and so a lot of this quarantine has to do with that for me I think it’s come naturally for me it’s been easy to sit at home and not [ _ ] see people or talk to people I’m like loving it I’m like I don’t want to go back and so because it’s so easy for me I’m like what the [ _ ] wrong with everybody else that they can’t care about people well it’s not that I care about people it’s that it’s easy for me right and so I think a lot of our [ _ ] comes into we do what comes naturally to us and then we want to take credit for how great we are and judge others for how terrible they are when it might be more difficult for them to do whatever it is we’re trying to do and we take a break real quick yeah I gotta pee again I’ve been drinking a ton of water because we were out in the Sun the last couple days I mean to drink it all this water not gonna pee all the time me too I’m with
okay where we’re taking credit for tonight taking credit for things that are easy for you yeah and that’s I mean I guess for me it seems almost the opposite like this is difficult for me to be kinda what I would call like stuck at home you know kind of what feels like doing nothing because I am a person that likes to stay busy all the time doing things and I’m social and I like to be out and going and doing stuff enough I’ve heard some people say that that’s unhealthy similar to what you were talking about earlier that that’s a way of avoidance or whatever um I’ve thought about that and sort of for myself dismissed it been like no I still you know like I still engage in recovery I still try to look at myself I don’t try to like ignore all my flaws and just keep busy all the time you know but I like to stay busy and do it stuff all the time you know it’s just I’m not a big sit around at home all day I mean so much of the time you know even on vacation I’m like we’re there that place and we’re kind of sitting there we’re just at home watching a movie doing like a family movie night I’m like yeah you know I’m trying to just be there and be present be there and be present like it’s it’s hard for me to do that you know just to sit and be present with the kids what feels like in my head like this a waste of [ _ ] time and watching something stupid Disney movie that I really don’t care about and in that case I’ll do it because like hey it’s my kids and they had expressed interest in doing that and so it’s bonding time with them like I can I can justify it a little bit more in those cases than like a day like today where the kids are kind of doing their own thing I’ll do the podcast and then the rest of the day it’s like I’ll just kind of be here when I feel like there’s better things that could be doing what would you be doing today what would you want to do today if you could it’s hard to say so normally what I would say is there would be something probably going on there would be someone’s birthday party a family event a recovery event that I might be at usually between those things and then what things I need to get done around my house as far as things like cutting the grass or fixing a thing here and there like my time stays pretty filled up mmm oh but I like I personally like doing social things you know what I mean I like going to birthday parties and events and cookouts and coveri events and hanging out with people like I did I just I enjoy that kind of stuff I was just picturing when you were talking about things to do today because it is a beautiful-looking day outside where we’re at I don’t really have any grand plans for the rest of my day except to just chill out and [ _ ] relax I had a nice fire last night like my kids camped out in the tent a few nights this week like we’ve you know had some interesting things but I was thinking when you talked about what to do today I was like man I miss that we did an a softball last year like that was a lot of fun and I’m if we don’t do that this year which it look I don’t know I don’t know how you know but I will miss that that was fun yeah and so yeah I think it is definitely some things for some people were a little harder the other thing and and we won’t get too far into this I guess because then we’d be another probably hour but and I briefly mentioned it to you earlier is there are some things that have become aware to me of like how I don’t say uninvolved I am with my kids but normally in their day to day lives the way things work is they go off they go to school for their eight hours and then I get that few hours of interaction with them sort of when I get home from work and they get home from school and that time has usually been filled with organized things that they’re involved with whether it’s horseback riding or sports or you know whatever things at their school that are going on and they’re usually sort of organized and scheduled and someone else takes care of the agenda if you will and then it’s just my time is just being there with them being present you know supporting them what I would call supporting them now all of a sudden none of that’s there and so my interactions with my kids have been enough superficial is the right word but it feels much less they do their thing I do my thing I come home from work I’m tired you know I make dinner and then I go work on whatever I have to work one around here and it’s like without those things being scheduled and forced they’re non-existent and that’s pretty sad for me to see sort of my son has been sort of went down this road of playing video games and not really being very active and so he’s put on a little weight and he’s not eating well and you know I see those things and my discipline to pin it to being able to fix that has been absent and it’s it’s quite disturbing actually it’s like I feel like I’m such a good parent and I do so well in all these areas and it’s like well what I do good at you know what it feels like is I do good as a chauffeur to get them where they need to be and then as a cheerleader to cheer them on for whatever they’re doing and not that those things are bad but it just highlights areas where I’m lacking you know this particular sort of stay at home and I don’t know that I’ve recognized that in the beginning I’m recognizing it more now that we’re into it you know it’s like huh these are some areas where I feel like I’m really falling down that’s interesting we don’t get a whole lot of outside input as to what parenting looks like from actual outside individuals right like we get societies take that we come across somewhere along the line of what we’re supposed to be doing as parents but I found it interesting even expressing like at times to my wife about what I feel like I’m failing at in parenting and she’ll say well when I was growing up that’s not what my parents did like I’ll say something along the lines of I feel like I’m supposed to spend more time with my kids somehow like interact with them play a game with them catch something right and she’ll say generally growing up not that I didn’t play catch with my dad once in a while but the majority of the time my parents did not hang out with me right like it’s go out and do your own [ _ ] thing as a kid and then we feed you and [ _ ] and you go on vacations with us and it was like even that was a revelation to me like am I not supposed to hang out with my kids all the time like I kind of thought I was supposed to and so I don’t think we often get that from other people like that’s just from my wife and then you know talking to you I’m gonna get something different and talking to people like what do you do with your kids like I don’t spend all day with my kids whatsoever and I’m home I’m not working right now so I’m here with them all day I don’t spend all day with them like a lot of time they are on their own unsupervised kind of do what you want time we do have some hours in the morning where we do homework all in the same room in the afternoon we generally go out for an hour you know to make sure they get outside for something at night we’ve been alternating free nights and watching a movie together or something like that but I don’t know the [ _ ] rules or what proportion of my time it’s supposed to be with them or what’s healthy I got no [ _ ] clue I don’t and so I think not to say that what you’re doing is right or wrong it was just the evaluation of we don’t ever get outside input into that like I think maybe we would probably be really surprised if we talked openly about parenting more often with more people I think we’d be surprised at a things we’re not doing that other parents do and B things were doing way better than we think we’re doing yeah and so it’s interesting I don’t know what your responsibility is honestly I have no idea yeah and it’s it’s definitely tough because you don’t know and I don’t even think there is a right or wrong I think each kid is different and what their you know needs are is gonna be different and I and this is where for me it I guess the awareness comes from so my older two girls seem to be way better maybe it’s just age you know I could be just forgetting when they were can but because my son is 10 or 11 I’m sorry he’s 11 he’ll be 12 this year they seem way better at their self-management skills like my son if I go up at you know 2:00 in the morning if I’m not up there shutting the Xbox off he’s up playing video games you know he said 2:00 in the morning and then he’s coming down and eaten like snacks and [ _ ] all night you know he won’t come down for dinner or he’ll come down for dinner and be like oh I don’t like this I don’t want to eat and you know leave half his plate and then he’ll be down here at 2:30 in the morning eating half a box of cereal and you know it’s like those kind of things that I didn’t I didn’t have those experiences with my daughter’s so I don’t know that it’s anything almost like you said taking credit for something that I don’t even get to take credit for like I didn’t I don’t feel like I did anything that made them that way they just seemed to be better at it didn’t he and he seems to be you know a terrible self regulator at anything you know taking baths you know putting on clean clothes you know he’s dated the kid like say if I don’t check his outfit before we go out the door [ _ ] pants with holes in it t-shirts with stains all over it and he doesn’t care you know he hair won’t even be brushed you know he’s constantly got the door with sandals on in the winter you know like [ _ ] like that that’s interesting so I mean there’s definitely something to girls mature and faster than boys and and as much as we do a lot of societal you know raising people to be women and men the truth is there are some differences that we start with automatically – they’re just not as drastic as we make them out to be I don’t believe but yeah I raising twins I had twin daughters first and so that has been an experience of me learning that I can give them pretty much the same thing and get two different outcomes and so it really has much less to do with what I think I’m doing then it then I thought it did I thought it was like I’m gonna raise these perfect kids and it’ll be great and like it’s just not how it works and so I my kid issue rate this moment well they did the main one there’s a lot of them but the main one one of my twin daughters who’s 14 shall be you know going into high school next year and she has a lot of the attitude and personality I had at that age and honestly if if we weren’t stuck at home 24 hours a day seven days a week I would probably swear she was getting high right now just because of the way she’s actin but I know she’s not because she’s not leaving house right so I know it’s not that yet but there’s just a disregard of consequences I’ll deal with that when it comes I don’t really care most of us are revolving around schoolwork and such and it’s it’s [ _ ] terrifying right it’s terrifying to think man she could be on that road and you know and just looking at the odds of well I have five kids like it odds are at least one of them’s gonna end up down that road and having to think of what it’ll be like to go through that and if I ever lose one and it’s just what the [ _ ] man like that’s [ _ ] that’s heavy to sit with and to know that really there’s nothing I can do about it right this second and most of my parenting damage is done like I haven’t done it perfectly I’m trying to get better still always but there’s damage that’s been done and I can’t really undo it and it’s it’s gonna be for her to figure out a lot of that moving forward and how does the best support her and not make it worse and not living anxiety and fear of it all the time like that’s been a real test of what’s going on in my life for the last week and a half it’s just I don’t know what the [ _ ] to do a lot of times with that yeah and it’s it’s always hard to tell which is just part of normal growing up because of course we have similar things with my son but again it’s easy to go well he’s 11 I can explain a few things I’ll try to put some hints in his brain and hope that he gets older and they start to sink in when he gets to be 1415 I keep my fingers crossed some of that’s gonna change but then my daughter’s I mean like my my 14 year old or fifteen year old now my 15 year old is more probably more responsible than my 18 year old you know it’s just and not that my 18 year olds not a good kid she’s a great kid but the 14 year old is probably more responsible as far as I can count on her to do things that she says she’s gonna do to be where she says she’s gonna be to follow through and stuff she makes promises of you know she just she’s better at that stuff you know and even though she’s younger and then like say with my son you know a lot of it’s easy to say well he’s 11 my expectations are ridiculous I got to do a better job at setting boundaries and setting these things but you know and then just pray that it goes good you know you just said something that’s interesting to me I’ve always looked at the like you talked about your 14 year old or 15 so and her behaviors are more responsible than another person’s or something and I have my whole life have spent looking at that view as well and I constantly I hate to say that I constantly do this but I do this pretty regularly and this is shitty so here we go confession time I I point out that my wife acts very similar in a lot of ways to my children right like not picking up after herself not putting her trash in the trash leaving it wherever she was sitting not putting her food dishes in the sink just like there’s ways that she does things misplace his keys and I’m like that’s not responsible or considerate of you right come to find out she’s been diagnosed with ADHD inattentive is it not responsible over does she have the same problem I have but mine’s depression at times right where I’m incapable of doing things it’s not that I wasn’t responsible I just couldn’t [ _ ] do it and so I look at that not and when I heard you say it it really stuck out to me I’m like damn I’ve been judging all these people by their supposed level of responsibility maybe this is like a mental health issue well and it’s I mean it’s funny that you bring that up because Jen and I were just recently having a conversation about that with my older daughter and we’ve seen some like whatever you call want to call it like warning signs that her anxiety is really high we’ve seen her getting like overly emotional on things that shouldn’t be that emotional you know what I mean like just minor criticisms of things she’d like totally breaks down and like loses her [ _ ] and so we actually talked about recently like hey when as this stuff starts to open back up we really need to get a counselor you know get her into some kind of therapy or counseling she was seeing a counselor before she was not interested in going back to her so you know gonna embark on finding a new one finding someone else so that was just a conversation we had last week like say maybe it is a just some mental health thing we need to make sure that her mental health is you know because she’s had some anxiety issues she suffered some abuse you know so she’s been to counseling before and it’s always been a thing where we kind of let her go as long as she kind of wants or wants to do it and then she’ll kind of say I’m good for now and then you know she’ll decide you know we’ll we’ll bring it up usually hey you think you want to go back to counseling or do you think you need to talk to somebody she’ll let us know you know so yeah could be that well and there you go so my 14 year old was just gotten around to stating that she wanted to be back into some counseling she had someone she was like nine maybe and then it wasn’t doing a whole lot so we stopped and then she wanted to get back into it we had just started that she had been seeing a lady for like a month and then this pandemic hit and I’m like I talked to the lady and I’m like telling my daughter look you can do teletherapy you know it’s the same thing I’m doing with people like it’s really not that bad as it sounds you talk to people in video calls all day anyway like trying to sell her and she just had no interest in the teletherapy and I’m like I don’t know that’s that’s the one crappy part of this pandemic like my daughter hasn’t gotten to a resource that was available to her before yeah me I’m like hey hopefully we’re winding down might be maybe maybe this predictions of the heat killing it off quicker and you know the measures we’ve taken already maybe we’ll be fine all summer maybe we’ll have a wide open summer yeah hey nurse one step at a time I’ll take the baby steps you know I’m good with that baby steps yeah I got I guess I got to establish like guidelines for what is it gonna take for me to be ready to come out because if not I’ll just never come out yeah I need to establish like some some regulations for myself my boss did the same thing you talking to him you know and like say he’s a completely he’s not a hysterical irrational person he’s completely rational you know very intelligent person and he’s saying he says I don’t know it’s I just don’t feel safe I don’t feel comfortable going out you know I’m not ready I’ll tell you what I look and I you know all I can do as you say yeah I respect that you know that where I’m at but I get it I’ll tell you what I am ready for I’m ready to go [ _ ] golfing I don’t know about anybody else but I am ready to go golfing and I’ve been trying to talk my wife into it for like a week and a half now I’m like just go I know you don’t really like golf but just go just keep me company let’s do it and I’ll go with you I’m not very good oh I suck Bob’s anymore I have to go get golf clubs I got rid of mom dude I don’t even think I’ve played in like two years because I never [ _ ] get there but I’m ready I’m ready to go yeah I’m on a plane too so all right we’ll have to figure that out I gotta get you off during the week and I don’t want to play it’s all crowded on the weekend yeah well right now I can start taking off there in a week so if you could take you could just take like a half a day and we could go or something I think they’re making people drive their own golf carts yeah you weren’t allowed to have golf carts really oh yeah I might not want to play then that’s a little road all right Oh what the hell did we talk about today shopping carts that’s what we’re gonna call us up with shopping carts I don’t know what the I don’t know but I this has got to be like three hours long or some crazy [ _ ] two and a half yeah well we talked so long in the beginning so that’s okay the computers gone I was gonna have to cut it off at some point because the computers down to like 16 percent I didn’t grab the cord I just brought it in at her school well that the thing I sent you that was brutally sober that was Joe he gave us a shout-out but he also made fun of our Baltimore accents which I thought was hysterical so yeah that was pretty funny and I don’t know maybe people listen to this [ __ ] maybe they don’t but I enjoy it have fun talk to you so I guess we’ll uh we’ll say goodbye to everybody and everybody stays safe and whatever capacity that means to you and we’ll see you next week I guess