September 3, 2020 • 23 mins
What do All in the Family, the Brady Bunch and our all too apparent political divisions have in common? Join us as we cast (real) political commentary aside (we were no good at that anyway) and resurrect the sitcoms and TV dramas of the 70s in a musically fuelled episode for the current political climate. Grab your lifejacket and climb aboard!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Cindy Sealls (00:01):
As a 1970s TV addict, I was trying to figure
out what the two differentconventions would have been.
And to me, the Democraticconvention would be like a
family sitcom, like My ThreeSons or The Brady Bunch.
So you have this nice littlefamily, but then there's some
(00:22):
kind of conflict, you know, acat is up the tree or Bobby's
getting bullied, you know?
And so there's this conflict, Oh, what's going to happen to the
bad guy.
We go tta g et hi m.
And then, you know, dad comes inor mom comes in and they all
solve the problem.
And we live happily ever after.
And then the Republicanconvention was like Kojak o r
(00:44):
Hill Street Blues.
You know, it's like, it's bad.
Bad stuff's going on out there.
We need Ko jak w ith hislollipop to come and save
everybody.
And then everybody's go ing t ob e happy at the end ca use h e
finds the killer or whatever andbrings hi m t o justice.
Kelley Lynch (01:17):
Hey there I'm Cindy, I'm Tanvir, and I'm
Kelly.
Welcome to a new normal apodcast about how we're adapting
to life during the pandemic andwhere we go from here today.
We w anted to just jump on andtalk about the biggest news of
the last couple of weeks, whichwas definitely the conventions.
(01:39):
At least here in America, it wasthe conventions and the
Democrats and the Republicanslaying out their vision for the
future.
So we thought it was definitelyworth talking about, and I know
it's been a week since theyfinished, but we're still
thinking about the differentstories that they tell about
America and what that means forus going forward.
(02:12):
[inaudible] If you were to lookat the conventions in another
way, you could think, okay,here's our country and we're
this family.
You know, we have foundingfathers.
We send our sons to war.
(02:33):
T here a re brothers in arms.
I mean, unfortunately, a lot ofthem are very militaristic in
some way, but we've got thisidea of ourselves as a family.
And i t's k inda like theconventions are asking, well,
what kind of family are we goingto be?
(02:54):
But we're not having a familymeeting to decide that we're
more like a family feud.
Cindy Sealls (03:00):
Except you don't have Richard Dawson kissing all
the women.
Maybe you do.
Wasn't that Joe Biden?
Kelley Lynch (03:10):
Oh my God.
Cindy Sealls (03:14):
In thinking about the parties as a family, then
you wonder, okay, Who is thefather in the family?
What sit-com father fits thedifferent parties.
And definitely first thought outof my head, Trump is Archie
(03:37):
Bunker.
Joe Biden really is Mike Brady.
Because remember Mike Brady waseven divorced and remarried and
(03:59):
they had this.
Kelley Lynch (04:00):
Oh my G od.
So true.
Cindy Sealls (04:03):
Right?
And their wife had died.
You know, they weren't divorced.
Both of their spouses had diedand they, you know, brought this
family together, you know?
And he says, I'm a nice guy whohis wife is like his partner,
(04:24):
you know.
Whereas Archie bunker he's, youknow, we come on w we might
think Trump's wives were doingsomething, but we know who's
running that house.
Right.
I mean, we don't even have tothink about that.
I'm like, come on.
(04:45):
And he sort of, you know, he's,he's the father of the house and
his word is the law and there'sno compromising.
And It's my way or the highway.
You can't even imagine Joe Bidensaying, It's my way or the
highway, you know, becausethat'd be like Mike Brady saying
it.
(05:06):
Mike Brady, he's got Carol rightthere.
Carol, we've got to come andtalk to the kids.
You know, they're solvingproblems together.
Whereas you know, Donald,Trump's not bring in Melania and
saying,"Hey, help me solve thisproblem." He's not even bringing
(05:27):
in his people who are there tocounsel him and saying, help me
solve this problem.
Arrchie is calling people n ameslike dingbat, meat head.
You know, he's always rantingabout how things are unfair for
(05:49):
him.
And I'm not saying that Archiebunker was all bad because you
know, of course the show wouldshow some good parts of h im,
but i t, but it does, I mean,Are we sure that Hollywood
didn't make up Donald Trump?
Only because Donald Trump usedto be a Democrat and it used to
(06:13):
be moderate.
He used to be for abortionrights.
Yeah.
I, you know, I don't know howmuch of i t i s schtick.
Oh man.
I just looked up the lyrics tothe theme song of th e s how.
You won't believe it.
I just have to read you thewords, Boy, the way Gl en M
(06:40):
iller played, songs that madethe hit parade, guys like us, we
had it made.
Those were the days.
And you knew where you werethen, girls were girls and men
were men, mister we could use aman like Herbert Hoover again.
(07:00):
Didn't need no welfare state.
Everybody pulled his weight.
Man that old LaSalle ran great.
Those were the days.
Kelley Lynch (07:17):
Holy.
Oh my God.
Oh, Wow.
That makes it pretty clear.
Why it's really hard to cometogether.
(07:38):
And I think that reflects tworeally different world views.
Obaidul Fattah Tanvir (07:42):
But the division that came out in the
two conventions, it's dangerousfor everybody because we live in
a world which is interconnected.
So it's kind of more like we areliving in a global village.
Kelley Lynch (08:07):
I mean, I understand that a lot of people
don't like the, this kind ofglobalist view of things.
And they want to think aboutwhat's going on for me in my
country, in my life.
But actually the pandemic hasreally shown that now more than
(08:29):
ever, we can't get away fromeverybody else.
We can't just isolate ourselves.
It's impossible.
Obaidul Tanvir Fattah (08:40):
Everyone is dependent on the next person
as a, as a nation, as a countrybecause we are all in the same
boat.
Kelley Lynch (08:52):
Oh my God, that reminds me of our new favorite.
Cindy and I were talking with myuncle, Joe, that's not Joe
Biden.
And he told us this awesomeanalogy that he learned in
management training about aboat.
Hold on, let me cue up theaudio.
Uncle Joe (09:21):
What is the stable positions of a boat?
That's a reasonable size.
You know what let's say?
You've got two people in a boatand you're got, got to decide
how to keep it afloat and how tokeep it a staple.
Well, there's one very obviousstable position and that's two
people sitting side by side inthe middle of the boat.
(09:43):
That's a pretty solid stableposition, but there's another
stable position.
There's many other staplepositions.
The extreme staple position isyou have a cord and two people
hanging out the sides on eachside of the boat on each side of
the cord.
It's a precarious stability, butit is a stable position.
(10:03):
And the trouble with it is thatthey are still tied to each
other.
They're still depending on eachother.
One moves further away from themiddle of the boat.
Guess what.
The other one's got to do?
He's got to move further awayfrom the middle.
And you know, you'd hope thatyou would, most boats would like
to be stable with people sittingside by side, but sometimes they
(10:26):
find themselves sitting over thegunnels, fighting each other
with this rope between them.
And I think a lot of times wegot to find ways to get back in
the boat.
And it's a very difficult thing.
And it takes a lot of trust andsometimes a hell of a lot of
compromise.
Cindy Sealls (10:46):
If you're trying to make progress, say you're
trying to move forward.
If you're in a boat and you'retrying to go somewhere at some
point, everybody has to agree,Okay, we gotta, we gotta all
focus here so we can get thisboat moving forward.
You guys can't be rowing thatway and leaning over there
because we're just kinda goingaround in circles right now.
Uncle Joe (11:11):
That's what a leader's job in an organization
is is to find out that we gotpeople outside the boat.
We had too many peoplevulnerable and the
organization's vulnerablebecause everybody's leaning.
Cindy Sealls (11:29):
That's a perfect picture of sort of our country.
Uncle Joe (11:36):
And that's leadership's job to slowly get
people back in the boat from anorganizational standpoint.
Country is way past my paygrade.
Cindy Sealls (11:55):
If they want the boat to be stable inch by inch,
they got to come back to themiddle of the boat.
But that takes a lot ofcommunication and a lot of
trust.
Kelley Lynch (12:11):
And you have so many things going on at the same
time,
Obaidul Fattah Tanvi (12:17):
especially with this situation where the
whole economy has come to ahalt.
It's like the worst possibletime to be because you need
everyone to row the boatforward.
(12:38):
But if you are spending all yourenergy fighting each other and
just, you know, rocking the ball, you, uh, end of the day, you
are killing yourself.
It's it's suicidal.
Cindy Sealls (12:58):
You know what I thought I said, it's like, if
you're hanging out on thoseedges of a boat and a woodpecker
flies down and it's like peckingin the boat and your say, we
gotta get that bird out of boatand your like, stop that.
And it looks up to you.
(13:18):
I was like, dude, dude, dude,dude, dude, dude, you're like,
okay, you do this, you can dothis.
You know, the pandemic is likethe little woodpecker that flies
down there and it's just likepecking a hole in your boat
while you two are out therearguing.
And you're like, we got to getback into the boat because we've
got to get rid of that bird.
(13:43):
Having watched both conventionsand seeing how diametrically
opposed the viewpoints were foreach of them.
And then thinking about the boatanalogy, how do we find balance
(14:05):
between those two viewpoints sothat we can move forward as a
nation together?
Kelley Lynch (14:15):
Surprisingly, I think All in the Family might
actually offer an answer to thatquestion.
You've got these conservativeparents, you've got these
liberal kids.
(14:37):
They all live under the sameroof.
That's the whole premise of theshow.
And without that tension,there's nothing to propel the
story.
And so you've got these kids andthey want to change the way
things are and do thingsdifferently.
(14:59):
And you've got these parents whoare saying, we like things the
way that they were.
And so they disagree on almosteverything, the environment, gun
control, John Wayne and thespirit of what made America
great.
What's good with America.
What's bad with America, racerelations, the crises in cities
(15:24):
and all of these other issuesthat are so up to the minute.
Cindy Sealls (15:28):
49 years ago.
And it's the exact same thing.
That's kind of sad.
Kelley Lynch (15:36):
Actually.
It is kind of sad.
And in the end, it all boilsdown to this tension of, are we
going to stay in familiarterritory or are we going to
move and try something new?
And for all of us, change isdifficult.
We all have memories of the waythings used to be.
(15:59):
And to many of us, those weresimpler times and there's a real
appeal to that.
Especially right now, life canfeel really uncertain and
frankly kind of scary.
(16:23):
And in a way, I mean, I supposethat has probably been the story
of, that's probably the story ofevery single culture that ever
was.
Cindy Sealls (16:40):
Just thinking again about all in the family.
They have Archie and Mike rightthere, they're extremes.
And then you have Gloria andEdith who kind of are balancing
the two of them so that they canall live there together because
(17:01):
Archie and Mike could not livein that house- just the two of
them.
Obaidul Fattah Tanvir (17:09):
It's like your boat and analogy you know,
like they're the ones on theextreme end with the rope.
And it has people in the middlewho are balancing them.
So that doesn't capsize.
Kelley Lynch (17:24):
So, it's still a really precarious position.
And when you think about it as asitcom, it's no doubt naive to
say, but you felt like thingsmight actually get solved
somehow, maybe not in 30minutes, but they would get
(17:46):
solved.
But in recent years it feelslike we've entered a really
different world.
That's a lot more like realityTV and there's this kind of
manufactured drama competitionwhere you gradually eliminate
(18:09):
the participants.
It's aggressive, it's chaotic.
And it's designed to get peoplesquabbling amongst themselves
and keep it that way.
So what's the point of all ofthis.
And for me, the point is reallythat these national stories that
(18:38):
we tell ourselves they're linkedto our values, but they're
ultimately stories much like asitcom and yet they have
tremendous consequences.
And these stories, more thananything these days, are what
(19:03):
drive our actions.
Facts and figures and numberspale into insignificance when
you consider the importance ofmy tribe.
And I think it helps.
(19:24):
I mean, at least for me, ithelps to remember that these are
just stories and we're notpeople in a sitcom.
We are complex three dimensionalhuman beings.
Our political identities arebased on fictional stories.
(19:50):
And so we're going to take ourboat and we got all these people
in the boat.
And yet, because we are going topersist in telling ourselves
some fictional stories, we'regoing to capsize the boat?
(20:15):
I mean, to me, that is the mostridiculous idea.
Cindy Sealls (20:22):
How do we inch our way back to the middle of the
boat?
Kelley Lynch (20:28):
I've got a few ideas.
I think the first thing we cando is tune in tune in inside of
ourselves and ask ourselves whatstory is playing.
Cindy Sealls (20:43):
And once you know your own story and where that
came from, why not talk to otherpeople about their stories?
Kelley Lynch (20:51):
Exactly.
And listen.
I think a lot of us in Americaare really good talkers.
I don't think so many of us aregood listeners,
Cindy Sealls (21:06):
Especially when the story doesn't jive with with
our story, you know.
We shut that off.
We don't even want to hear it.
Kelley Lynch (21:17):
But ultimately, I think, the shortest distance
between two people is a story.
And then I think we could askourselves another question,
which is like, who wrote thisscript and why, and where is
(21:40):
that script leading us?
And is that really the futurethat we want to create?
Because it's up to us.
(22:01):
Thanks for listening.
We hope you enjoyed the showbrief as it may have been.
And we hope you'll subscribe andshare and follow us on Instagram
next week.
There's always the matter ofnext week.
And yet again, I'm going to haveto take the week off.
(22:26):
I'm going to the green zone.
Vermont, and Maine are the COVIDgreen zones.
Cindy Sealls (22:36):
And that's literally true about them.
That is true.
Very green up there in that.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
That's true too.
That's true too, but they havevery few cases.
So they're considered a greenzone.
And uh, so I need to go and takesome stuff up to my daughter
because if she comes down here,which is a red zone, she can't
go back to work for 14 dayswhenever she returns.
(23:03):
And she has to have a COVIDtest.
So they're serious about COVIDin Vermont.
So that means that we won't behere next week, but we'll be
back the following week withanother episode until then.
As a 1970s TV addict, I was trying to figure
out what the two differentconventions would have been.
And to me, the Democraticconvention would be like a
family sitcom, like My ThreeSons or The Brady Bunch.
So you have this nice littlefamily, but then there's some
(00:22):
kind of conflict, you know, acat is up the tree or Bobby's
getting bullied, you know?
And so there's this conflict, Oh, what's going to happen to the
bad guy.
We go tta g et hi m.
And then, you know, dad comes inor mom comes in and they all
solve the problem.
And we live happily ever after.
And then the Republicanconvention was like Kojak o r
(00:44):
Hill Street Blues.
You know, it's like, it's bad.
Bad stuff's going on out there.
We need Ko jak w ith hislollipop to come and save
everybody.
And then everybody's go ing t ob e happy at the end ca use h e
finds the killer or whatever andbrings hi m t o justice.
Kelley Lynch (01:17):
Hey there I'm Cindy, I'm Tanvir, and I'm
Kelly.
Welcome to a new normal apodcast about how we're adapting
to life during the pandemic andwhere we go from here today.
We w anted to just jump on andtalk about the biggest news of
the last couple of weeks, whichwas definitely the conventions.
(01:39):
At least here in America, it wasthe conventions and the
Democrats and the Republicanslaying out their vision for the
future.
So we thought it was definitelyworth talking about, and I know
it's been a week since theyfinished, but we're still
thinking about the differentstories that they tell about
America and what that means forus going forward.
(02:12):
[inaudible] If you were to lookat the conventions in another
way, you could think, okay,here's our country and we're
this family.
You know, we have foundingfathers.
We send our sons to war.
(02:33):
T here a re brothers in arms.
I mean, unfortunately, a lot ofthem are very militaristic in
some way, but we've got thisidea of ourselves as a family.
And i t's k inda like theconventions are asking, well,
what kind of family are we goingto be?
(02:54):
But we're not having a familymeeting to decide that we're
more like a family feud.
Cindy Sealls (03:00):
Except you don't have Richard Dawson kissing all
the women.
Maybe you do.
Wasn't that Joe Biden?
Kelley Lynch (03:10):
Oh my God.
Cindy Sealls (03:14):
In thinking about the parties as a family, then
you wonder, okay, Who is thefather in the family?
What sit-com father fits thedifferent parties.
And definitely first thought outof my head, Trump is Archie
(03:37):
Bunker.
Joe Biden really is Mike Brady.
Because remember Mike Brady waseven divorced and remarried and
(03:59):
they had this.
Kelley Lynch (04:00):
Oh my G od.
So true.
Cindy Sealls (04:03):
Right?
And their wife had died.
You know, they weren't divorced.
Both of their spouses had diedand they, you know, brought this
family together, you know?
And he says, I'm a nice guy whohis wife is like his partner,
(04:24):
you know.
Whereas Archie bunker he's, youknow, we come on w we might
think Trump's wives were doingsomething, but we know who's
running that house.
Right.
I mean, we don't even have tothink about that.
I'm like, come on.
(04:45):
And he sort of, you know, he's,he's the father of the house and
his word is the law and there'sno compromising.
And It's my way or the highway.
You can't even imagine Joe Bidensaying, It's my way or the
highway, you know, becausethat'd be like Mike Brady saying
it.
(05:06):
Mike Brady, he's got Carol rightthere.
Carol, we've got to come andtalk to the kids.
You know, they're solvingproblems together.
Whereas you know, Donald,Trump's not bring in Melania and
saying,"Hey, help me solve thisproblem." He's not even bringing
(05:27):
in his people who are there tocounsel him and saying, help me
solve this problem.
Arrchie is calling people n ameslike dingbat, meat head.
You know, he's always rantingabout how things are unfair for
(05:49):
him.
And I'm not saying that Archiebunker was all bad because you
know, of course the show wouldshow some good parts of h im,
but i t, but it does, I mean,Are we sure that Hollywood
didn't make up Donald Trump?
Only because Donald Trump usedto be a Democrat and it used to
(06:13):
be moderate.
He used to be for abortionrights.
Yeah.
I, you know, I don't know howmuch of i t i s schtick.
Oh man.
I just looked up the lyrics tothe theme song of th e s how.
You won't believe it.
I just have to read you thewords, Boy, the way Gl en M
(06:40):
iller played, songs that madethe hit parade, guys like us, we
had it made.
Those were the days.
And you knew where you werethen, girls were girls and men
were men, mister we could use aman like Herbert Hoover again.
(07:00):
Didn't need no welfare state.
Everybody pulled his weight.
Man that old LaSalle ran great.
Those were the days.
Kelley Lynch (07:17):
Holy.
Oh my God.
Oh, Wow.
That makes it pretty clear.
Why it's really hard to cometogether.
(07:38):
And I think that reflects tworeally different world views.
Obaidul Fattah Tanvir (07:42):
But the division that came out in the
two conventions, it's dangerousfor everybody because we live in
a world which is interconnected.
So it's kind of more like we areliving in a global village.
Kelley Lynch (08:07):
I mean, I understand that a lot of people
don't like the, this kind ofglobalist view of things.
And they want to think aboutwhat's going on for me in my
country, in my life.
But actually the pandemic hasreally shown that now more than
(08:29):
ever, we can't get away fromeverybody else.
We can't just isolate ourselves.
It's impossible.
Obaidul Tanvir Fattah (08:40):
Everyone is dependent on the next person
as a, as a nation, as a countrybecause we are all in the same
boat.
Kelley Lynch (08:52):
Oh my God, that reminds me of our new favorite.
Cindy and I were talking with myuncle, Joe, that's not Joe
Biden.
And he told us this awesomeanalogy that he learned in
management training about aboat.
Hold on, let me cue up theaudio.
Uncle Joe (09:21):
What is the stable positions of a boat?
That's a reasonable size.
You know what let's say?
You've got two people in a boatand you're got, got to decide
how to keep it afloat and how tokeep it a staple.
Well, there's one very obviousstable position and that's two
people sitting side by side inthe middle of the boat.
(09:43):
That's a pretty solid stableposition, but there's another
stable position.
There's many other staplepositions.
The extreme staple position isyou have a cord and two people
hanging out the sides on eachside of the boat on each side of
the cord.
It's a precarious stability, butit is a stable position.
(10:03):
And the trouble with it is thatthey are still tied to each
other.
They're still depending on eachother.
One moves further away from themiddle of the boat.
Guess what.
The other one's got to do?
He's got to move further awayfrom the middle.
And you know, you'd hope thatyou would, most boats would like
to be stable with people sittingside by side, but sometimes they
(10:26):
find themselves sitting over thegunnels, fighting each other
with this rope between them.
And I think a lot of times wegot to find ways to get back in
the boat.
And it's a very difficult thing.
And it takes a lot of trust andsometimes a hell of a lot of
compromise.
Cindy Sealls (10:46):
If you're trying to make progress, say you're
trying to move forward.
If you're in a boat and you'retrying to go somewhere at some
point, everybody has to agree,Okay, we gotta, we gotta all
focus here so we can get thisboat moving forward.
You guys can't be rowing thatway and leaning over there
because we're just kinda goingaround in circles right now.
Uncle Joe (11:11):
That's what a leader's job in an organization
is is to find out that we gotpeople outside the boat.
We had too many peoplevulnerable and the
organization's vulnerablebecause everybody's leaning.
Cindy Sealls (11:29):
That's a perfect picture of sort of our country.
Uncle Joe (11:36):
And that's leadership's job to slowly get
people back in the boat from anorganizational standpoint.
Country is way past my paygrade.
Cindy Sealls (11:55):
If they want the boat to be stable inch by inch,
they got to come back to themiddle of the boat.
But that takes a lot ofcommunication and a lot of
trust.
Kelley Lynch (12:11):
And you have so many things going on at the same
time,
Obaidul Fattah Tanvi (12:17):
especially with this situation where the
whole economy has come to ahalt.
It's like the worst possibletime to be because you need
everyone to row the boatforward.
(12:38):
But if you are spending all yourenergy fighting each other and
just, you know, rocking the ball, you, uh, end of the day, you
are killing yourself.
It's it's suicidal.
Cindy Sealls (12:58):
You know what I thought I said, it's like, if
you're hanging out on thoseedges of a boat and a woodpecker
flies down and it's like peckingin the boat and your say, we
gotta get that bird out of boatand your like, stop that.
And it looks up to you.
(13:18):
I was like, dude, dude, dude,dude, dude, dude, you're like,
okay, you do this, you can dothis.
You know, the pandemic is likethe little woodpecker that flies
down there and it's just likepecking a hole in your boat
while you two are out therearguing.
And you're like, we got to getback into the boat because we've
got to get rid of that bird.
(13:43):
Having watched both conventionsand seeing how diametrically
opposed the viewpoints were foreach of them.
And then thinking about the boatanalogy, how do we find balance
(14:05):
between those two viewpoints sothat we can move forward as a
nation together?
Kelley Lynch (14:15):
Surprisingly, I think All in the Family might
actually offer an answer to thatquestion.
You've got these conservativeparents, you've got these
liberal kids.
(14:37):
They all live under the sameroof.
That's the whole premise of theshow.
And without that tension,there's nothing to propel the
story.
And so you've got these kids andthey want to change the way
things are and do thingsdifferently.
(14:59):
And you've got these parents whoare saying, we like things the
way that they were.
And so they disagree on almosteverything, the environment, gun
control, John Wayne and thespirit of what made America
great.
What's good with America.
What's bad with America, racerelations, the crises in cities
(15:24):
and all of these other issuesthat are so up to the minute.
Cindy Sealls (15:28):
49 years ago.
And it's the exact same thing.
That's kind of sad.
Kelley Lynch (15:36):
Actually.
It is kind of sad.
And in the end, it all boilsdown to this tension of, are we
going to stay in familiarterritory or are we going to
move and try something new?
And for all of us, change isdifficult.
We all have memories of the waythings used to be.
(15:59):
And to many of us, those weresimpler times and there's a real
appeal to that.
Especially right now, life canfeel really uncertain and
frankly kind of scary.
(16:23):
And in a way, I mean, I supposethat has probably been the story
of, that's probably the story ofevery single culture that ever
was.
Cindy Sealls (16:40):
Just thinking again about all in the family.
They have Archie and Mike rightthere, they're extremes.
And then you have Gloria andEdith who kind of are balancing
the two of them so that they canall live there together because
(17:01):
Archie and Mike could not livein that house- just the two of
them.
Obaidul Fattah Tanvir (17:09):
It's like your boat and analogy you know,
like they're the ones on theextreme end with the rope.
And it has people in the middlewho are balancing them.
So that doesn't capsize.
Kelley Lynch (17:24):
So, it's still a really precarious position.
And when you think about it as asitcom, it's no doubt naive to
say, but you felt like thingsmight actually get solved
somehow, maybe not in 30minutes, but they would get
(17:46):
solved.
But in recent years it feelslike we've entered a really
different world.
That's a lot more like realityTV and there's this kind of
manufactured drama competitionwhere you gradually eliminate
(18:09):
the participants.
It's aggressive, it's chaotic.
And it's designed to get peoplesquabbling amongst themselves
and keep it that way.
So what's the point of all ofthis.
And for me, the point is reallythat these national stories that
(18:38):
we tell ourselves they're linkedto our values, but they're
ultimately stories much like asitcom and yet they have
tremendous consequences.
And these stories, more thananything these days, are what
(19:03):
drive our actions.
Facts and figures and numberspale into insignificance when
you consider the importance ofmy tribe.
And I think it helps.
(19:24):
I mean, at least for me, ithelps to remember that these are
just stories and we're notpeople in a sitcom.
We are complex three dimensionalhuman beings.
Our political identities arebased on fictional stories.
(19:50):
And so we're going to take ourboat and we got all these people
in the boat.
And yet, because we are going topersist in telling ourselves
some fictional stories, we'regoing to capsize the boat?
(20:15):
I mean, to me, that is the mostridiculous idea.
Cindy Sealls (20:22):
How do we inch our way back to the middle of the
boat?
Kelley Lynch (20:28):
I've got a few ideas.
I think the first thing we cando is tune in tune in inside of
ourselves and ask ourselves whatstory is playing.
Cindy Sealls (20:43):
And once you know your own story and where that
came from, why not talk to otherpeople about their stories?
Kelley Lynch (20:51):
Exactly.
And listen.
I think a lot of us in Americaare really good talkers.
I don't think so many of us aregood listeners,
Cindy Sealls (21:06):
Especially when the story doesn't jive with with
our story, you know.
We shut that off.
We don't even want to hear it.
Kelley Lynch (21:17):
But ultimately, I think, the shortest distance
between two people is a story.
And then I think we could askourselves another question,
which is like, who wrote thisscript and why, and where is
(21:40):
that script leading us?
And is that really the futurethat we want to create?
Because it's up to us.
(22:01):
Thanks for listening.
We hope you enjoyed the showbrief as it may have been.
And we hope you'll subscribe andshare and follow us on Instagram
next week.
There's always the matter ofnext week.
And yet again, I'm going to haveto take the week off.
(22:26):
I'm going to the green zone.
Vermont, and Maine are the COVIDgreen zones.
Cindy Sealls (22:36):
And that's literally true about them.
That is true.
Very green up there in that.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
That's true too.
That's true too, but they havevery few cases.
So they're considered a greenzone.
And uh, so I need to go and takesome stuff up to my daughter
because if she comes down here,which is a red zone, she can't
go back to work for 14 dayswhenever she returns.
(23:03):
And she has to have a COVIDtest.
So they're serious about COVIDin Vermont.
So that means that we won't behere next week, but we'll be
back the following week withanother episode until then.
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