April 18, 2024 • 58 mins
Embark with us, Brian and Nick, on a journey that satisfies both palate and mind, where the art of creating a high-protein pizza meets the timeless wisdom of stoicism. We're not just tossing dough here; we're tossing ideas around that will nourish your body and enrich your soul. As I divulge the secrets to crafting a guilt-free slice that's big on taste and light on calories, we'll also sip on some Coke Zero musings, reflecting on how something as simple as our beverage choices can teach us about temperance.
Our conversation takes us deeper than the crust of our homemade pizza, into the heart of stoicism and the virtues that can guide a balanced life. Imagine finding tranquility in the midst of a consumer-driven world that's constantly pushing you towards excess. We'll share insights from philosophers like Epictetus and Seneca, and discuss how applying ancient wisdom can help us navigate our modern maze of desires. From the savory layers of self-restraint to the sweet aftertaste of wisdom, we invite you to feast on thoughts that could truly transform your approach to life's indulgences and challenges.
We wrap up with a toast to wisdom, the kind that bubbles up in the face of adversity, as serene as a well-risen loaf. Recalling a cherished member of our Toastmasters club, we ponder how life experiences and reflection shape our understanding and response to the world. And as we close this session, we leave you with a parting thought: managing our expectations, much like kneading dough, can lead to a more palatable daily existence, where surprises are the delightful toppings on the pizza of life. Join us and chew on these delectable morsels of knowledge that could very well be the recipe for a more serene, virtuous existence.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Help Yourself.
Food and Philosophy with Brianand Nick.
I'm Nick.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
And.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
I'm Brian.
Since light travels faster thansound, people may appear bright
until you hear them speakSpeaking of what you eating,
brian.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Appear bright.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Oh, no kidding.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
The minute that this podcast started, people were
like well, brian's not bright,all right Um anyway.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
What's worse is, Nick thinks he's bright, all right.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
So what am I eating?
So I'm going to.
I'm going to um, talk about a.
Uh, a new thing that I tried.
You actually inspired me a loton the.
On the last episode you wereeating Jets pizza.
But I've been trying to finddifferent alternatives for
healthier alternatives forthings like that.
(00:56):
Like pizza, it's like I wouldnormally get Jets we love Jets
pizza, we'll get it but thething is I know that once I eat
it, it's just going to be like,yeah, I'm going to eat too much
and it's a lot.
Be like, yeah, I'm going to eattoo much and it's a lot of
bread and I'm gonna, you know,have too many calories and
everything else.
So we've been trying to.
I've been trying to get moreprotein in my diet as well as um
.
That, as I said, try to findsuitable alternatives.
(01:18):
So they found this recipe for ahigh protein pizza that you can
make yourself and it's basicallypretty simple stuff.
It has um for the dryingredients.
It's just um, some self-risingflour, some coconut flour and
then some nutritional yeast,which I've never heard of before
(01:38):
, but it's like it smells likefish food, quite honestly, I
mean, it's like it's really likehealth smells.
Like you know, when you walkinto the vitamin store, like the
health food store, and it hasthat real vitamin smell, it
smells like that you know what Imean.
So yeah, so it's not like yeah,so not super appetizing, but it
was getting mixed into a biggerthing so I'm like I'm fine with
it.
(02:07):
So those are the dry ingredients.
And then it has a and it's allmeasured in grams so I can't do
like cups, but it has some eggwhites in it as well as some
plain Greek yogurt, and that'sthe thing that gives it a little
bit of the bacteria to rise forthat self-rising flour to rise.
And then I'm trying to thinkwhat else.
There was one other thing inthere.
I think that might be be it andyou just mix it all up and it
becomes like it doesn't quitebecome a dough, but it comes
(02:28):
like almost like a paste and youput it on parchment paper so
that it won't stick to anythingand you just use like the back
of a spoon and you spread it outlike into a circle, um,
hopefully as as evenly as youcan, so it's like a crust yeah
and you bake it in the oven forlike 10 minutes until it's sort
of starting to separate from theparchment paper, and then you
(02:49):
pull it out and you put yourtoppings on it and you only have
to put it back in for anotherlike three or four minutes just
to melt the cheese and stufflike that.
So I had a pizza last night thatwas with that um, you know that
that uh crust, and then it justhad, um, regular tomato sauce,
you know that crust, and then itjust had regular tomato sauce,
some mozzarella.
I had some chicken meatballsthat I cut into like slices, so
(03:13):
I put like little slices ofmeatballs on it and then
pepperoni and the whole pizzalike the whole entire pizza is
like 500 or 600 calories.
So like you can eat the wholeand it's about a 12 inch pizza.
So it's like it's not like.
I was actually stuck Like I atethe whole thing, cause I was
like I'm going to eat the wholething, I'm going to eat and I
(03:33):
ate the whole thing and I waslike, why did I eat the whole
thing?
This is stupid.
Like but um, but it was reallyreally good and it was super
easy to make Um and um.
You know, like I said, it wasknowing that it's a lot lower
calorie than ordering from jetsor whatever.
Um, I'm trying to like not thatI'm never going to order from
jets again, cause who am Ikidding?
(03:54):
Um but um, but so I had that,uh, both my, I.
I made two, two separate crustsmy wife for, so my wife could
make her own pizza and then Icould make my pizza and um, and
it was really really good andapparently actually I think I
have it.
Let's see if I have it on myphone.
Hold on a second, I'll.
(04:14):
I'll pull it up right nowbecause I know how everyone
loves.
Everyone loves it when I talkabout nutritional facts of um.
You know the, the things that Ieat.
So this apparent, according tothis, the whole 12 inch cheese
and this was just a cheese pizza, so mine was probably a little
more than this, because I addedsome other proteins.
It has 66 grams of carbs, 12grams of fat and 52 grams of
(04:39):
protein, and a plain cheesepizza is 580 calories.
So if you just put cheese on ita reasonable amount of cheese,
I mean not like half a pound butfor under 600 calories you're
getting something that's pizza.
Now I will say it's sort oflike a suitable alternative,
(04:59):
meaning I didn't feel like I ateJet's pizza, I didn't feel like
I ate pizza from a pizza place,but I got the flavors of pizza
and it was.
It was good enough and itfilled my belly.
So you know that was good.
So so that's my, that's my foodstory for today Really, really
(05:21):
bad.
I've got some water here thatI'm drinking and then I only
have one thing, and I've doneI've talked about this before,
but I'm actually sort of for along time I was not drinking you
probably know this but like fora long time I wasn't drinking
coffee at all.
And then now I'm back on coffeeagain, like every day I drink
coffee now, and then for a longtime I didn't drink any sodas at
(05:43):
all, like not even diet sodas,just not not because I really
cared that much, but justbecause I got out of the habit.
And when we go to the store wedon't buy them, so we don't have
them in the house and um, youknow so.
But anyway, somebodyreintroduced me to like Coke
zero, and so I've been drinkinglike not a lot of Coke zeros,
but I'll say maybe like one aweek, maybe two, and uh you know
(06:08):
, slippery slope, I guess, butman, they're really good.
They're like they're not die.
I tried a diet Coke recentlyand it was not good at all.
It was I won't say the wordthat I wanted to say, but it was
, it was.
It was not how I rememberedthem tasting when I used to
drink diet Coke.
All the time I drank and I'mlike, why did I, why would I
(06:29):
ever drink this?
This is horrible.
And then you drink Coke zeroand I'm like, oh, this is really
good.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Like this is like it's like drinking a regular
Coke, really, um, and so if you,if you've gone a long time
without drinking Coke and youdrink a Coke zero, you're like,
yeah, this, this is a Coke.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
It really is.
Um and I'm sure it's not goodfor you.
Um, I've never been aartificial sweeteners.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Is it sucralose or?
Speaker 2 (06:54):
is it what it is?
It is aspartame.
Oh yeah, so it's carbonated.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Isn't it the same as NutraSweet right?
I don't know.
It's been so long since I'vereally looked which one is.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Splenda also, I think .
Speaker 1 (07:13):
I just burped into the mic?
Speaker 2 (07:14):
I don't know if I burped into the mic.
I just took a drink, and then Ijust didn't even think about it,
just burp right into the mic.
All right, guys, that that'show this episode starting out is
Brian's protein pizza and burps.
All right, let's go.
Anyway, no, so I feel like Idon't know.
(07:40):
I feel like I give myself.
I've been like saying, hey, youknow what you deserve a Coke
Zero.
You can have a Coke Zero everyonce in a while.
If I was drinking, if I wasbuying a Coke Zero you deserve.
Well, I'll say this I only getit at the places that are not at
my house, like, I don't buythem.
I've not purchased a Coke Zerothis entire time.
(08:02):
It's like when I go to get myhair cut, the person who cuts my
hair has a little mini fridgeand she has like the little four
ounce or whatever six ouncetiny cans of coke zero.
So I drink a coke zero there.
Um, the office, one of theoffices I go to, both of the
offices I go to they just stockthe refrigerator with coke zeros
and so, um, which is part ofthe reason why I also don't
(08:25):
drink one like every day,because I feel like it's taking
advantage of I'm not buying it.
So I feel like I'm like notsupposed to be, like just
drinking them every day orwhatever.
I'm just for the greater good.
It's the greater good, thegreater good.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
I'm showing some temperance.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
I'm showing some temperance and some courage and
some, you know, uh, just justtrying to.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
actually it's justice , it's the, the greater good is
that it's for me to not drinktwo of them a day, you know so
right, but by you not gettingtwo a day, you're exercising
some restraint, right, right,exactly.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Temperance Exactly.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
So that's my uh that's my lame BBC.
Exactly so.
That's my uh, that's my lameBBC, um, but again it's good
(09:22):
it's still good, even thoughit's lame, big bad breakfast yes
, bbb toastmasters club.
Oh, I just realized.
We didn't mention toastmastersat all last episode, did we?
Speaker 2 (09:34):
I don't think we did oh, oh, we were we were
exercising temperance also.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
You know so yeah, we'll, we'll make up for it in
this one.
Uh.
So yeah, I got what's calledthe mother of all biscuits oh,
wow and it's a crispy fried dillchicken breast and cheddar
cheese slice on a buttermilkbiscuit and their biscuits are
crazy yeah, then I got.
(10:01):
I converted it into a dirtybird oh which means it's got a.
Then I converted it into adirty bird.
Oh, which means it's got someJC's hot sauce, bacon and local
honey.
The honey is drizzled on top ofthe whole thing, yeah, yeah.
And it was quite tasty.
(10:21):
It hit the spot, although it'sa pretty messy sandwich.
At that point, right Like you,get a biscuit sandwich and you
just put honey on top.
Yes it uh, yeah it's.
It was put on a small platelike it was on a saucer plate
okay, yeah I really had tocontend with that for a while
(10:44):
before yeah a fellow toastmaster was kind enough.
I didn't think to ask formyself, because I too am a nine,
you know, a peacemaker on theenneagram but another toast
master saw, like could see intothe kitchen and saw this huge
stack of clean plates.
He's like can I have one ofthose plates?
Yeah, and sure enough.
(11:05):
He just this was ed, by the way, you might as well have a
crystal clear picture.
And and then he just took theplate and handed it to me like,
oh, thanks yeah I don't know whyI didn't think I did say
verbally like that problem, likeman this is a messy sandwich
for such a small plate yeah andI did.
I dropped like two or threepieces of bacon onto the table
(11:27):
that I ate anyway, because itwas that good.
Um, no one else at the tableknew that.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
That's an inside secret, that's only for me, only
for the podcast, yeah oh yeah,and the other two people who are
right, but it was.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
It was very tasty and surprisingly filling, which I'm
grateful for, because I thinkit was like 14 bucks for one
biscuit.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
No sides, those biscuits are, gigantic though
they're, and they're like squareon the bottom.
I mean, it's like they justlike you know, and they're flaky
.
They're like those ones thatare like you can peel off a
little tiny layer and eat it,and then you peel off another
layer and eat it, and you peeloff another layer and eat it,
and like that kind of buttermilk.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Is that?
Is that unique to buttermilkbiscuits?
Or?
Speaker 2 (12:14):
well, I think that's.
I think it's the way that theymake up, like when they fold the
dough over, they keep foldingit over and they fold butter
into it.
So like you'll like roll thestuff out and then you literally
like take butter and you put itlike you know pats of butter,
so that it's like, and then youliterally fold it over and
you're not like, you don't likeneed it, like dough, like bread
(12:36):
dough, you roll it so you'll putbutter in the middle and then
roll it.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
I don't need bread dough.
I can do without bread dough.
Everyone needs it anyway.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
So uh, so no, I think that's how they do it, and you
know this is just that's.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
I think that's how they dough it yeah so they
really milk the butter for allit's worth yeah, it was.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Uh, you know it was something that they had to sort
of.
You know, dwell on a little bit, um no, but I love that
restaurant, though that thefirst time I tried that
restaurant was in uh, what'sthat place called?
It was, uh, it was like aportmanteau.
It was, oh, muscle shoalsalabama.
It wasn't a portmanteau, butmuscle shoals alabama.
(13:25):
Well, it was because one of myfriends said that the way you
say it is my shoals, you say myshoals, my shoals oh, it was
like portmanteau, you know umyeah, but they had one down
there in north alabama and wewent there and, uh, I was like
man, this place is great.
In fact, I had the same thingthere the very first time as I
(13:47):
had when we went there the lasttime, even though I wasn't able
to go to the brunch with youguys.
Um, the most recent time is theavocado toast.
Their avocado toast is like sogood.
Especially if you add egg to it, it's like a full breakfast and
it's actually pretty healthy.
So, um, excellent.
But those that I think one ofthe times I might've had
(14:08):
something like that, like thedirty bird or something like
that.
I swear when you said that.
I remember, cause I think wewere in Muscle Shoals for a few
days and I think we went twicewhile we were there, and once I
had a healthy breakfast and theother one I'm like I'm going to
get this, you know, and it's nothealthy or less healthy.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
I should say so.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
you know, I did practice temperance once and not
the other time.
Oh so what are you drinking?
Are you drinking anything?
Speaker 1 (14:40):
other time.
Oh so what are you drinking?
Are you drinking anything?
Uh yes, I have a, a shakenespresso decaf with light ice
from starbucks and it's the thehazelnut it's.
It's called, like the hazelnutoat milk shaken espresso, but I
made mine the hazelnut oat milkshaken espresso, but I made mine
the hazelnut coconut milkshaken espresso decaf with lime
(15:02):
ice Like for like a split second.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
When you said shaken, I thought you were going to be
like a shaken, not stirred,martini, and I thought you were
going down the James Bond paththere for a second.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Anyway, and then I have my water.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
I think this podcast would be a completely different
podcast if we had, if we justhad cocktails while we were
talking about philosophy be likedrunk yeah, we've.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
We have had alcohol a couple, a couple of episodes
yeah, on the record, I thoughtabout it.
I have some beer left over inmy fridge I'm probably not going
to get.
I'm not going to replenish thisanytime soon.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
What Replenish the beer?
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Yeah, the beer.
Because I just noticed, likewhenever I'm drinking beer, I
don't know, I don't get anythingout of it.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Except a bigger belly .
Speaker 2 (15:59):
That's interesting.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
It takes interesting too much to get a buzz, and then
and then, by that point it'stoo late.
Right, like, yes, I had, I washaving a conversation with
friend of the podcast, austin.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Uh, remember, austin was on fit.
You know what is it?
Uh, fitness taco, fitness tacointo your mouth or whatever.
I can't remember what the titleof the episode was um, but I was
talking to him recently and andI was he he was actually saying
that same thing, like when youdecide what you're gonna have to
eat, ask, ask yourself, what?
(16:31):
What does this give me?
What is this, what is this,what do I get from this that I'm
eating?
And if you, like you just said,oh well, I get a little bit of
a buzz, but I also get a belly.
You know, if I drink too muchbeer, then you might say, uh,
maybe I shouldn't drink thisbeer.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
You know what I mean so well I don't always get the
buzz, the beer that's around me.
I don't like the flavors yeahand I only really drink it
because I want to drinksomething other than water,
which there's so many otheroptions between water and beer.
Let's get those other options.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Just have light beer.
It's basically like water, youknow, anyway, no, definitely, I
want you to practice temperanceand that's how we get into our
next our, that's how we segueinto our next topic.
Or next, not next topic, thesame topic we were talking about
(17:25):
, but a different portion ofthat topic.
So last, yeah, last, episode wetalked about, uh, where we
started talking about stoicismand the stoic philosophers, and
uh, I think we did a pretty danggood job at it.
Uh, maybe I don't know it wasacceptable to me I'm gonna take
it, uh, but we we talked aboutit and basically we're
(17:51):
discussing the four virtues ofthe stoic philosophy and we
talked about courage and justicein the last episode.
This episode we have the othertwo, which are temperance and
wisdom, and we'll start with thebasic definition of temperance.
In essence, temperance is justsort of limiting yourself or you
(18:17):
know, um, not, actually it'sthe anti-hedonist.
It's sort of like what we talkedabout a little bit on the last
episode it was like okay,hedonism, well, temperance is
like curbing your hedonistic,your you know your desires or
whatever you know so the funnything is a Kirby.
(18:37):
I just was reading a quote rightnow.
I was about to read a quote.
It says Epictetus said curbyour desire, Don't, don't set
your heart on so many things,and you will get what you need.
And Seneca said you ask what isproper.
Uh, excuse me, what is theproper limit to a person's
wealth?
First, having what is essentialand second, having what is
enough.
(18:58):
So I guess seneca was againstbillionaires, then seems like,
uh, because they have way morethan is essential and they have
way more than is enough, I guess, if you consider what is needed
, um, as you know, so, um thegoldilocks of anything you do
(19:21):
yeah it's like too much of agood thing is still too much
yeah, yeah, it's not goodanymore at some point a good
thing becomes a bad thing, likeyou can.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
You can poison yourself with water if you drink
enough of it.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Your brain will literally become waterlogged.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Right and um, trying to trying to find there was a
second thing that I had here, umit.
I feel like this is one ofthose things that uh and this is
where uh, the, the Aristotlequote came on came in um in one
(20:01):
of the articles talking about weare what we repeatedly do.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
It's my favorite quote to misquote.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Yeah.
Therefore, excellence is not anact but a habit.
But with regard to stoicism, isthey're saying, hey, don't do
anything in excess.
So doing the right thing in theright amount is the right way
or in the right way.
This is the way.
(20:25):
This is the way.
This is definitely what we'resort of talking about, but I
feel like this.
I mean, I said this about theother two things.
You know, the other two we'vealready discussed, but this is
one of those things that I thinkeveryone needs to know about,
(20:45):
no matter what yourphilosophical belief is or
anything else is you know theman this is going to like.
I can't believe I'm likeblanking on this, but it's the,
the hierarchy of needs, likeMaslow's hierarchy of needs.
(21:07):
Is you know that this is whattemperance is?
Is you know?
In essence, you're?
Speaker 1 (21:14):
like OK, I think.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
I think think it somewhat parallels it because
it's like okay, do you need tohave?
Like, what do you need?
What do you actually need?
Okay, you need the base, youknow the base level.
Then the next thing up what doyou?
What's the minimum that youneed to get to that level?
What's the minimum that youneed to get to this level?
So I don't think mass, likethere's nothing in maslow's
hierarchy of needs.
That's like, hey, once you um,you know, once you have a
(21:38):
shelter and security and all thethings that are on like that
base level.
He's not like saying, yeah, butyou know what you should seek
once you get there is get bettershelter and better security and
better you know, like.
It's like no, once you have whatyou need, you move to the next
level.
So you have a 2000 square foothouse.
That's perfectly fine forwhatever you're eating.
You know whatever you're using.
(22:03):
Uh, you know whatever you need,or 1,500, whatever that amount
is that you actually need.
Okay, so that level that you'vechecked the box, you don't need
anything different.
But in what's interesting is inour country at least, um, and
probably a lot of other firstworld countries, I would think,
is that sort of the goal is todo that.
The goal is, yeah, I've gotthis house, but now I want a
bigger house, and now I want abetter car, and now I want to.
It's like, yeah, but you have acar, you have food in the
(22:27):
refrigerator, you have the beerthat you're not going to
replenish, you know you've gotall of the things right and
smaller, yeah, so that's it.
But I think that's like I said,this is something that I don't
think a lot of people in Americapractice, and I'm not pointing
fingers out, I'm saying I'm inthat boat just like everybody
(22:50):
else is.
I'm a consumer.
So it's like, oh, I want that,I want that right now, so I'm
going to get it.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
It's like like do you need that?
No, I don't need it, but I wantit, you know.
So, yeah, I think I think theother aspect of temperance that
the stoics try to embody is, uh,emotion management, or like
anger management, and you knowjust which makes sense if you're
talking about not being rashand impulsive, yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
And what we were talking about before, like last
episode, is the demeanor ofbeing stoic.
Yeah, actually no, I think wewere talking about that before
we recorded is we were talkingabout?
We're talking about somebodywho was talking it was new to
stoicism and they were saying,yeah, but are we supposed to
like not have any fun and it'slike no, they don't mean that
(23:40):
you need to be stoic Like youneed to be like this serious
person all the time.
It's different, you knowdiscipline to me stoicism and
this is discipline, almost likelike to, to be, have like cause.
The whole thing about stoicismis control over your own
circumstances, control over yourown actions.
(24:00):
You know you are the master ofyour domain, kind of thing and
yeah, exactly right, and sothose four, these four things
are just that, it's you know.
They're different in terms ofwhat you know, how they apply,
but they're those are.
These are all ways to basicallyget yourself to that point, so.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
I bet we can make an interesting metaphor from a car
Like one of these.
One of these virtues is is thechassis probably.
What was it?
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Justice.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Yeah, probably justice.
That's the frame, that's thestructure you know.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Justice yeah, probably justice.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
That's the frame, that's the structure you know,
and then, you've got theaccelerator of, I guess, courage
.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
The break of temperance and the steering
wheel of wisdom.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
I mean that's probably good.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Nailed it there we go we just made it up.
We just made that up.
I bet if I do a search rightnow for like automobile stoic
reference or you know something,somebody else has already done
it, or you go to chat gpt andit's like how, how are the four
pillars of stoicism like a, likea car and oh, that would be
awesome it would, it would do ityou make me want to do the
(25:16):
exact same thingokay, well, don't be impulsive
or rash yeah, exactly, um, yeah,so, uh, what was I gonna say?
Oh, um, I can't remember what Iwas going to say.
(25:36):
All right, so I mean, withregard to temperance, I feel
like it sort of plays intocourage a little bit, I think,
just because you almost have totemper, because courage to me,
(25:58):
me, is tempering fear, right?
So you know, oh, I can't hear,I can't hear you for some reason
.
Um, what happened?
I muted, I said yeah, it's likekind of fear.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Not doing something out of fear is the same as
acting on impulse right rightright it's the other side of
that exact same coin.
That's, that's interesting.
I mean, there are a lot ofthese stoicism, you know these
modern stoics who write articlesin these four pillars and
everything, and they often dosay that I mean these four
(26:34):
pillars don't sort of standalone, right, they're also
interconnected and they dodepend on each other.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Yeah, they talk about Aristotle, talking about a
golden mean.
So that too, the sweet spotbetween two vices yes, which is
interesting.
Yeah, it's not falling in theditch of either side of the road
(27:01):
well, and I think, right in themiddle of the road I feel like,
uh, it's interesting that youdescribed it as sweet swap
between two vices.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Actually, I would just what's that?
I was quoting an article backhere.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Well, I feel like, not necessarily between two
vices, but a single vice.
There's a certain amount wetalked about in the last episode
you playing video games, right,which is sort of where we got
that.
Uh had that discussion about,um you know, somebody thinking
that you needed to be stoic,like you know that you, you
(27:39):
didn't.
You were not supposed to haveany fun as a stoic, right, um
sure, but there's a sweet spotfor your video gaming, right?
so it's like potentially asingle vice, like you know, uh,
or or at least it goes from ayou know, goes from a virtue to
a vice.
Uh, if you go too far with it,right, if you don't exercise
(28:00):
temperance.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
What's what's the opposite of playing too much?
Speaker 2 (28:05):
not playing enough?
Speaker 1 (28:07):
I don't know working too much oh yeah oh, I see I
thought you meant playing videogames.
Yeah, but just like what's theopposite of Well, just play in
general, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Right.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
You know, or the same you know, the two vices.
You know we talk aboutovereating or eating poorly.
Well then, there's also justnot eating enough.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Yeah, right, and that's another advice of sorts
of um, yeah, yeah, it's well,people starve themselves.
You got to think like, oh, andthat's actually a good point
because, like you know, in termsof just using eating as an
example, is eating not enough.
Not eating enough, or you know,is an eating disorder, and
(28:46):
eating too much is also aneating disorder.
Yeah, so it's's a bullseye.
There's a bullseye, right.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
You can go too far either way.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Right, exactly.
So if you're like, okay, I'mgoing to not eat anything, it's
like, okay, well, yeah, that's aproblem, and to its extreme
causes your death yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
You'll lose too much weight.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Right, but I feel like um, so here's.
Here's one of the quotes.
That is a Marcus Aurelius quotefrom meditations.
It says if you seek tranquility, do less.
Or, more accurately, do what'sessential, what the logos of a
social being requires, and inthe requisite way which brings
(29:28):
the double satisfaction to doless, better.
Because most of what we do andsay is not essential, which, wow
, that's huge.
Most of what we say and do isnot essential, like that's.
That's crazy to me.
That's it.
Go ahead's like go ahead, no,go ahead, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Well what I'm about to say is relevant to us.
Interrupting each other, it'slike it's almost enough to
inspire me to start editing ourpodcast.
Yes, most of what we say is notessential.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
That like that actually hurts a little bit,
like you know.
He's like because most of whatwe say and do is not essential.
It's true.
That's why it hurts, becauseit's so true you're sitting
there, going, you know whatyou're absolutely right like,
and a lot of things that we getstressed about and everything
else it's like not evenessential, like what do you?
(30:25):
Why are you even?
It's like you're doing it andthen you're like stressed about
it.
I mean so, so anyway.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
Well, that that reminds me of a cynical quote of
we suffer.
Man suffers more in imaginationthan he does in reality.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
Yes, oh yeah.
A hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Anticipating all the ways that something could go
wrong, as opposed to justdealing with what actually ends
up happening.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
So this is the last two sentences of this quote is
also awesome.
Uh, that same quote is uh, soit's, you know I'll.
I'll start with the because,because most of what we say and
do is not essential.
If you can eliminate it, you'llhave more time and more
tranquility.
Ask yourself at every moment isthis, this necessary?
I think that's really coolbecause he gave you like
practical advice in the quotewhere he's like okay, anything
(31:18):
you're doing, ask yourself isthis, do I absolutely, is this
necessary?
Do I have to do this?
Is this something?
That is like what happens if Idon't?
And I always go into like thethis is a little bit of uh, hey,
bingo card.
(31:40):
Stephen Covey um, talks about.
Stephen Covey talks about youknow, asking yourself what
happens if I don't do this thing, like in an effort to try to
determine whether you should doit or whether he was using it as
an example of you're choosingbetween two things, and his
example was you're actually notchoosing between those two
things.
You're choosing between theconsequences of not doing one of
those things.
So ask yourself is thisnecessary?
(32:05):
Or the in the alternative, whathappens?
Hey, good, Equal me out for theburp, Perfect.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
I was wondering if you could hear that I didn't
think about it either.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Yeah, so um, maybe we should start drinking.
If we're just going to startlike just anyway, yeah and
giggling.
so, um, so what?
So what I was going to say isso is it necessary?
I feel like the question youask, like what happens if I
don't do this?
(32:36):
Like what is the consequence ofme not doing this thing?
And I feel like that helps youget to is this necessary?
But it also helps you decide,because always, when you're
doing something, you're decidingwhether to do this thing or if,
because if you do that thing,then you're not doing something
else.
So you're deciding whether todo this thing or if, because if
you do that thing, then you'renot doing something else, so
you're deciding.
You're always deciding aboutbetween two things, right?
(32:56):
So, like in your case, should Iplay video games or should I
sleep?
Right?
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Or should I play video games or do my taxes Right
?
Exactly, exactly, exactly sookay If I don't play video games
not exactly exactly, so okay ifI don't play video games, not,
there's not much consequence,right?
Speaker 2 (33:19):
if I don't do my taxes, there's a lot of
consequence.
Or if I don't sleep, there'slots of consequence yes, yeah,
and I think honestly, uh, well,you know, I do believe that if
you can, well, you know, I dobelieve that if you can pair
things down as the, as he'ssaying in this, that quote, you
will find more tranquility, like, and I, because I think a lot
of the stress that we have inmodern day life is self, uh,
(33:46):
brought on by yourself, whateverthat, however, that is
self-inflicted, self-inflicted.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
Thank you, um we well , we suffer more in imagination
than we do in reality.
Yeah, yeah, and we make thosepoor choices of not basing our
decisions on actual consequence,was it?
There's um, now, I can't thinkof who said it.
I remember where I heard it.
(34:34):
But it's like the last 50 or soyears has been marked by a
progressive exchange in people'sminds and decisions of
basically the culture, changingthe decisions of from what works
to what sounds good.
Yes, and, and I think part ofwhy stoicism has some attention
now is people are getting moreand more interested in what
works, you know, like either theeconomy or corporate culture,
or yeah political culture, likeso much of it's just.
It's not working.
It sounds good, but it's notworking for people.
(34:57):
And I think people are gettingmore and more interested in what
.
What will actually work?
Speaker 2 (35:01):
I honestly think that , in terms of like American
politics, and this is I guess Ishould I don't know, I don't,
I'm not going to get superpolitical, but I honestly think
that well, it's just, it's justthe like.
I see things as a pendulum.
I see things in, especially inthe United States.
(35:22):
You know, things swing back andforth and, regardless of how,
if you think it's the worst timein our history or the best time
in our history, either one ofthose, if you think it at some
point it's going to be, you'regoing to think it's the worst
time.
If you think it's the best nowand you're going to think that
it's the best if it's the worst,if you think it's the worst now
.
So you know, um, assuming youcan live long enough, right, I
(35:44):
just assume.
I just I don't assume, but Ifeel like the pendulum always
swings back and so this is goingto go back to one of the other
ones.
But I feel like justice, will isalways served Like it, it
always it's.
It's like it's like selfleveling cement, right, you pour
it down and it you don't haveto do anything to it.
It will eventually level itselfand it will be flat, right, and
(36:08):
I feel like that's sort of thesame thing.
As you know justice, you knowthe right thing for the greater
good.
I think, as we move forward,you know more and more people
will be entering into politicsthat believe that we need to do
things that are for the greatergood, not for the good of a
certain percentage of thepopulation or something like
(36:31):
that, and that will swing backthat direction.
But, um, but anyway, uh, Ididn't mean that as a political
statement.
I was just saying out of interms of like justice being
served and, um, you know thattype of thing.
So, uh, all right.
Getting back to temperance,though, um, maybe I should
(36:53):
temper my comments aboutpolitics on this podcast.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Philosophy.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
Yeah, Um well, I think that's about it for
temperance, unless you haveanything else, I mean we don't
want to go too far with it.
We, we, we don't.
We want to do this temperancein moderation, you know, if we
can't do it justice.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
We don't want to do anything too far.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
We don't want to do anything in excess here uh well,
so then the wise yeah, so thelast, uh, last one, as you just
alluded to, is wisdom and, um,you know, it's in essence, like
it's one of the things thatobviously everything is striving
(37:37):
towards, and I'm trying to findmy definition here.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
This is where the serenity prayer comes to mind,
if anyone in the audience hasthat familiarity right I love
that.
Yeah, they in fact, oh cred,now I'm blanking on it is I was
just going to say yesterday inour toastmasters meeting.
Somebody used it yeah, gosh,I'll look that up too, yeah it's
(38:06):
like, for I know how it ends,but I'll have it.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
So this is the can't do math in my head anymore and I
can't remember anything anymorethanks to technology, so I'll
just say you know, wisdom isbasically the essential, or sort
of the final and essentialvirtue, right, um, knowing and
(38:34):
learning.
Uh, and it's the experience, tolike what this article is
saying.
This is the experience requiredto navigate the world.
So we were talking aboutapplying the other three things,
like where we're struggling andwhich basically means we're not
that wise yet.
But I think that's where wisdomthat's what wisdom is is okay.
(38:55):
Now that you have, now that youknow what justice is and you
know what temperance is and youknow what courage is, how do you
apply that to your everydaylife?
And can you apply it on a dailybasis to things?
Or are you just, or is it just,lip service?
Are you just like, oh yeah, Iknow these things and it's
pretty cool, but you don'tactually apply them?
(39:17):
And I feel like the wisdom isthe OK, I can see how to use
these things.
In essence, I was about to sayto my advantage, but it's not
really to your advantage, but sothat you're a your advantage,
but so that you're a betterperson, so that you have less
stress, so that you have, I mean, we're.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
What we're talking about is um, use all those
things justice, you know, yeah,yeah, the common good too.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
Well, because, yeah, because justice can be for you
as well, and just not just youlike you're part of the common
good, right?
Um?
So, yeah, uh.
So, as you can see, we're notvery wise, um.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
I've got the serenity prayer.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
Oh, yeah, yeah.
So what were you going to sayabout that?
Speaker 1 (40:06):
Just, I was going to quote it first and just say God,
grant me the serenity to acceptthe things I cannot change.
Courage, uh, to change thethings I can.
Wisdom to know the differenceyes there's more to it, but
that's the part that I recall.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
Yeah, that's, yeah, the wisdom of the difference
right, which is, which is sortof what we're just saying is how
do you apply it?
You know is, hey, how do I tellthe difference?
Well, you gotta have the wisdom, but that comes with time.
I haven't.
That's one thing I've you neverthey never talk about in any of
the self-help books or any ofthe philosophies or anything
(40:44):
else is that there's a timing toeverything.
So it's, you know, especiallyin today's society, where you're
like, hey, I just want to dosomething so that I can, like
instantaneously, be better, andit's like, well, you can do that
.
But wisdom doesn't happen thatway.
It's just as you get older, youhave perspective and and you
(41:05):
failed, you know, you havefailed, you know, basically,
many times.
So you are learned, you'velearned from those things, or
you've seen others fail andyou've learned from those, and
that gives you the wisdom, right, it's.
(41:33):
It's interesting to me that, uh, basically, if in many of the
religious figures that we haveare, um, you know that that are
for many of the major religions,they're, they're basically the
ideal, or like, what people sayis like, hey, they've achieved
wisdom, like, you know, they'veachieved what you know, the the
ultimate in wisdom is right, isthat they like, are all knowing
(41:55):
kind of they, you know, are, youknow, the teller of the truth.
You know what I mean If you goto uh like, if you, you know, if
you have any of that like, andthen some of those is like and
that's why they're worshipipped,you know, in some ways is Sure,
They've gotten the wisdom.
(42:15):
And so you're like, okay, well,maybe if I read about this
person and study this person mywhole life, then I'll get some
of that wisdom too.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
So I don't know who he's quoting.
I tried to find the quote, butoriginal but John C Maxwell.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
It's said that a wise person learns from his mistakes
.
A wiser one learns from others'mistakes.
Yeah the wisest person of alllearns from other successes, but
I disagree because of thesurvivorship bias, and you and
the audience are encouraged tolook it up.
(42:56):
Otherwise it's a tangent.
It's just the short of it is.
Is you don't?
You don't really know whatmakes someone successful until
you rule out who that's failedhas also tried those same
tactics and just still didn'twin yes, yeah if all you do is
study success, you won'tactually know what contributes
(43:18):
to success unless you also studyfailure um, yeah, you look at
it
Speaker 2 (43:24):
anyway, but a wiser person learns from other
people's mistakes yeah, well,and I I found the quote that I
was looking for, that um sort oftakes it takes us a little bit
for.
So this is um under the wisdomsection in one of these articles
, and it's a quote fromepictetus says the chief task in
life is simply this to identifyand separate matters so that I
(43:47):
can clearly to myself which orso I can, so I can can clearly
to myself which are.
So I can, so I can say clearlyto myself which are externals,
not under my control, and whichhave to do with the choices I
actually control.
Where then do I look for goodand evil?
Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself, to the
choices that are my own.
So you wisdom, like you said,sort of wisdom to be able to
(44:12):
tell the difference between thetwo um but also I like that it's
.
This is sort of sums up all ofstoicism, because it is stoicism
is a you know, a philosophythat is really, as I said at the
very beginning of the lastepisode, is you're in control,
like you're the one that issitting here going, okay, how do
(44:34):
I like?
Basically, what do I have thatI have control over?
And this is saying that exactthing is hey, in essence, don't
worry about things you don'thave control over, because you
don't have control over them.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
Yeah, I don't know like I get.
I get the concept and I use thesame terminology you know on
any given day, um, but I alsodon't like the word control.
To some extent I think I preferinfluence.
Okay, uh, partly because one II tend to see things in a
(45:10):
spectrum and not black and white.
Binary control, or can'tcontrol on or off.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
And you know like, yes, pragmatically, we can
control our arms and our hands.
You know, we can articulate ourbody.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
Right.
Speaker 1 (45:26):
At the same time, there's things that we do that
we don't understand, or there'speople who lose control of their
body.
We don't exactly tell eachmuscle consciously to move in
which way.
It just sort of does what wewant, and we're not even sure
how that works.
We don't have full control ofour body, but we influence what
(45:49):
it does.
And similarly, even if we have,like I, I'm at a position where
I have direct reports, but Idon't control them right um, I
influence them hopefully througha combination of, you know,
authenticity and authority.
Um, and I think I guess one ofmy big eureka moments and all of
(46:11):
that is like, yeah, I can'tmake anybody do anything right,
but I can make it easy.
You know, like knowing that inthe article that I have here,
before they even get to the fourpillars, they have this little
blurb that talks about a coupleof principles.
I'm not sure if it's historic,necessarily, because it's part
(46:32):
it's outside of the four pillars, like it might just be this
author's opinion, but, um, hereshe says you know, first we
behave to advance.
These are, what is it?
It's just that the Stoicsbelieve that humans are social
animals, are able to use reasonto solve problems, and that this
instinct naturally developedthroughout the life, throughout
(46:52):
life beginning in childhood, andis the basis for ethics and so
it can be in three parts.
The first is we have to webehave to advance our self
interest.
Second, we recognize that otherpeople also have interests yeah
and third is we work out how tosolve problems in life that
(47:13):
arise from the friction fromthose first two principles.
Right, it's like you.
You and I are stuck together inthe same boat.
I want to go north and you wantto go south.
We're both trying to get toland.
How do we reconcile that?
Right, we, we both have, wehappen to have the same goal,
but we have a different approachof how to get there.
Yeah, and if, like, I couldmake it easy for you, I could
(47:37):
say you know what?
I will row twice as much as youif you go north with me.
Right, yeah, like, so there's,I'm not controlling you.
You still have a choice.
You're like?
No, I believe so much that it'ssouth, and at that point, based
on your conviction, maybe youconvince me.
But, yeah, um, ultimately, in asurvival situation, though,
(47:58):
it's better to just make adecision and pick a direction.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
Yeah, I was gonna say like, but the the control and
not control.
There is okay, you know, do Ihave control over whether I live
or die?
It's like, yeah, I do, and youknow, whether I live or die is
like making it back to land is abig, you know, a big factor in
whether I live or die, right, so, but I mean, but I get your
(48:22):
point, though, I get the pointof you know, you're right, you
can't control.
But I get your point though.
I get the point of you knowyou're right, you can't control.
But I feel like I always likethe way that Wayne Dyer talked
about and he may have beenquoting someone else, but I
think he actually was.
I think he was quoting like anIndian philosopher or
spiritualist or something likethat, and he said yeah.
(48:45):
He always said hey.
You know why do people worry?
Because if there's only twothings that you can worry about,
one is things you have controlover and one is things you don't
have control over.
So if you have control over it,why are you going to worry
about it?
Cause you can do somethingabout it.
If you don't have any controlover it, then why are you going
(49:06):
to worry about it?
Because you don't have anycontrol over it.
So now you've just eliminatedall things to worry about, right
?
And so I feel like part of thiswisdom is going back to you
know, going back to courage alittle bit, and maybe even
temperance a little bit.
Is that you're, you know thatthere, and I guess sort of the
(49:28):
name of stoic you know?
Basically, hey, um, you knowcause the ultimate goal of this
is to be metered, is to be, um,you know, to be able to live
life in a very fluid way, ifthat makes sense.
That is not.
You don't feel like you'realong for a ride, you're able to
make decisions about it.
But also I really believe thatat the base level of most
(49:52):
philosophy, self-help andeverything else, even religions,
is stress relief is notworrying about certain things,
not worrying about your death,not worrying about what's going
to happen if this happens.
And again it goes back to yourquote that you said it's like
what was the quote?
Say it again it was the you'remore.
(50:12):
It's something in your mindLike you're more.
Speaker 1 (50:16):
We suffer more in our imagination than we do in
reality.
So, I think a lot of thesethings, like I said, including
religions and everything else isa way to find peace, is a way
to find some kind of, you know,inner peace, I mean, and
(50:36):
obviously a lot of religions usethat, so to quiet the
existential anxiety.
Speaker 2 (50:38):
Yes, yes, and I think we've talked about that before
in one of our podcasts, episodesat least um existential.
Speaker 1 (50:46):
I think it was when we were talking.
Speaker 2 (50:47):
I think we were talking about like solipsism or
something you know, like youknow basically, like something
like that, like exist.
It's like existential crisiskind of stuff um no but I think
that I think that's sort of theyou know to, not not to put like
a total cap on it, but like,like you know, I feel like or
bust a cap on it exactly.
(51:09):
Um, you know, having that, youknow, having the wisdom, is in
some ways like, think about thisand you can do this out there.
Don't close your eyes if you'redriving, but think about this.
If you think of someone who youthink is wise like, just think
of that person and picture theirdemeanor.
(51:29):
Do they seem like they'restressed out?
I have a hard time believingthat if you look at somebody or
you think like I think that'sone of the wisest people, I know
part of the reason why youthink it's they're the wisest
person is because they're socalm, they're metered, they just
don't get.
They don't get rattled by a lotof things they just sort of.
(51:50):
You know one of the people.
I'll use his name too because,um, he was a member of our uh I
don't know if I should use hislike first and last name, but um
, but he was a member of our our, uh toastmasters club.
Unfortunately, he passed away,uh, but he and you probably know
who I'm talking about.
Um and he never.
I never felt like he wasrattled by anything.
(52:13):
I felt like he was just goingthrough life and just sort of
like.
Even when he spoke in front ofan audience, he spoke the same
as when he was having aconversation with you and just a
nice slow, yeah, just very,very did not seem nervous at all
.
Did not seem, did not use a lotof ahs and ums and all these
other things Like it seemed likehe.
(52:34):
I mean literally none, prettymuch.
A friend to all.
Speaker 1 (52:38):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (52:39):
And and the thing is, you know, uh, I feel like he
had a certain amount of wisdombecause of that.
And you know, he's a prettyhighly educated guy but grew up
in very, very how do I say itLike very.
You know, he grew up in a ruralarea and was, you know, I don't
think there was a lot of money,like I don't think his family
(53:01):
is very wealthy or anything likethat, but they again, it
doesn't.
You don't need a lot of moneyto be wise, right?
Speaker 1 (53:10):
um, and so anyway, it's just interesting to me that
that that sort of goes together, you know yeah, for me, when
you were talking about asking meto picture someone who's wise
like, I also got the same kindof calm, cool and collected vibe
, maybe a couple of crow's feet,you know but, also the the fast
(53:33):
.
The story that just popped inmy head is that he or she's seen
almost all of it already, or?
seen it all before right, likemaybe it's.
They could still be young andwise, but it's like they've
lived the life right.
They've traveled the world orthey recognize the pattern
faster than other people have umbut they, they, just, they've
seen it all before theyrecognize it yeah so it's not a
(53:55):
surprise, it's not scary, umyeah well, that's probably
because they've done somethinking about it, right, they
yeah yeah, I think I thinkyou're right.
Speaker 2 (54:07):
I think, um, I mean, I think definitely, the more
time you have to reflect onthings, the you know, the more
time you have the ability togain wisdom.
And I think, again, going backto religion, you know the reason
why prayer or meditation ispart of almost all the religions
.
I would think that's on somelevel, I think pretty much all I
(54:29):
don't know all the religions,backwards and forwards, but all
of them have some kind of prayeror some kind of meditation that
are built into.
That.
That is either required or youknow, hey, you need to do this.
You sort of have, you know,heavily encouraged, right, and I
think part of that is that isthat reflection process of you
know, being able to sort of calmthe mind and you know, um,
(54:53):
things like that.
So I think, yeah.
So, unless you have anythingelse, I'll read this quote that
I um, that I found that I feellike sums up all, all, the all
of the four virtues of stoicism.
And it was, uh, marcus Aurelius.
It's from the meditations.
Yeah, help yourself.
So it says, uh, this is MarcusAurelius from meditation.
(55:16):
Says, when you wake up in themorning, tell yourself, the
people I deal with today will bemeddling, ungrateful, arrogant,
dishonest, jealous, and surlythey are like this because they
can't tell good from evil.
But I have seen the beauty ofgood and the ugliness of evil
(55:36):
and have recognized that thewrongdoer has the nature related
to my own, not of the sameblood and birth, but of the same
mind and possessing a share ofthe divine.
And so none of them can hurt me, no one can implicate me in
ugliness, nor can I feel angryat my relative or hate him.
We were born to work together,like feet, hands and eyes, like
(55:57):
the two rows of teeth, upper andlower.
To obstruct each other isunnatural.
To feel anger at someone, toturn your back on him, these are
unnatural.
So, anyway, all of that thatgoes into the courage and that
goes into, um, you know, justice, temperance, wisdom, all of
(56:20):
those things, and uh, I thoughtI mean, honestly, if you read
that every morning, you mightactually be better off.
You've just read that like you,sort of like you, the, the
prayer of assisi, uh, saint, orsaint assisi.
Speaker 1 (56:30):
Um, you know I know it seems rather bleak at first
and then it just does some lipservice to uh like I also have
that same nature.
Speaker 2 (56:41):
But well, yeah, and I think that's, I think that's, I
think it's badly yeah I like ittoo, I think it's bad.
Yeah, I like it too, but Ithink it's bad.
You have to say like yeah,everyone's going to be horrible.
Everyone I meet today is goingto be horrible.
They're going to be arrogantand they're going to be meddling
and dishonest and jealous.
Speaker 1 (56:57):
And you know it comes down to lowering your
expectations.
So much that there's no roomfor disappointment and
frustration and there's onlyroom for being pleasantly
surprised right, right, oh heyonly two people cut me off today
.
That's amazing.
People are always soself-centered.
Speaker 2 (57:13):
I'm surprised it didn't happen more often so if
you've gotten nothing else fromthese two episodes, it's just
lower your expectations, okayraise your expectations of
yourself, lower expectations ofeverybody else All right.
Well, I think we covered thatpretty well.
At least we got through thefour topics.
(57:35):
I'm sure that we probably justscratched the surface, but hey,
that's what this podcast isabout scratching the surface.
So all right, bye.
Speaker 1 (57:45):
Take it to scabs.
Welcome to Help Yourself.
Food and Philosophy with Brianand Nick.
I'm Nick.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
And.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
I'm Brian.
Since light travels faster thansound, people may appear bright
until you hear them speakSpeaking of what you eating,
brian.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Appear bright.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Oh, no kidding.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
The minute that this podcast started, people were
like well, brian's not bright,all right Um anyway.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
What's worse is, Nick thinks he's bright, all right.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
So what am I eating?
So I'm going to.
I'm going to um, talk about a.
Uh, a new thing that I tried.
You actually inspired me a loton the.
On the last episode you wereeating Jets pizza.
But I've been trying to finddifferent alternatives for
healthier alternatives forthings like that.
(00:56):
Like pizza, it's like I wouldnormally get Jets we love Jets
pizza, we'll get it but thething is I know that once I eat
it, it's just going to be like,yeah, I'm going to eat too much
and it's a lot.
Be like, yeah, I'm going to eattoo much and it's a lot of
bread and I'm gonna, you know,have too many calories and
everything else.
So we've been trying to.
I've been trying to get moreprotein in my diet as well as um
.
That, as I said, try to findsuitable alternatives.
(01:18):
So they found this recipe for ahigh protein pizza that you can
make yourself and it's basicallypretty simple stuff.
It has um for the dryingredients.
It's just um, some self-risingflour, some coconut flour and
then some nutritional yeast,which I've never heard of before
(01:38):
, but it's like it smells likefish food, quite honestly, I
mean, it's like it's really likehealth smells.
Like you know, when you walkinto the vitamin store, like the
health food store, and it hasthat real vitamin smell, it
smells like that you know what Imean.
So yeah, so it's not like yeah,so not super appetizing, but it
was getting mixed into a biggerthing so I'm like I'm fine with
it.
(02:07):
So those are the dry ingredients.
And then it has a and it's allmeasured in grams so I can't do
like cups, but it has some eggwhites in it as well as some
plain Greek yogurt, and that'sthe thing that gives it a little
bit of the bacteria to rise forthat self-rising flour to rise.
And then I'm trying to thinkwhat else.
There was one other thing inthere.
I think that might be be it andyou just mix it all up and it
becomes like it doesn't quitebecome a dough, but it comes
(02:28):
like almost like a paste and youput it on parchment paper so
that it won't stick to anythingand you just use like the back
of a spoon and you spread it outlike into a circle, um,
hopefully as as evenly as youcan, so it's like a crust yeah
and you bake it in the oven forlike 10 minutes until it's sort
of starting to separate from theparchment paper, and then you
(02:49):
pull it out and you put yourtoppings on it and you only have
to put it back in for anotherlike three or four minutes just
to melt the cheese and stufflike that.
So I had a pizza last night thatwas with that um, you know that
that uh crust, and then it justhad, um, regular tomato sauce,
you know that crust, and then itjust had regular tomato sauce,
some mozzarella.
I had some chicken meatballsthat I cut into like slices, so
(03:13):
I put like little slices ofmeatballs on it and then
pepperoni and the whole pizzalike the whole entire pizza is
like 500 or 600 calories.
So like you can eat the wholeand it's about a 12 inch pizza.
So it's like it's not like.
I was actually stuck Like I atethe whole thing, cause I was
like I'm going to eat the wholething, I'm going to eat and I
(03:33):
ate the whole thing and I waslike, why did I eat the whole
thing?
This is stupid.
Like but um, but it was reallyreally good and it was super
easy to make Um and um.
You know, like I said, it wasknowing that it's a lot lower
calorie than ordering from jetsor whatever.
Um, I'm trying to like not thatI'm never going to order from
jets again, cause who am Ikidding?
(03:54):
Um but um, but so I had that,uh, both my, I.
I made two, two separate crustsmy wife for, so my wife could
make her own pizza and then Icould make my pizza and um, and
it was really really good andapparently actually I think I
have it.
Let's see if I have it on myphone.
Hold on a second, I'll.
(04:14):
I'll pull it up right nowbecause I know how everyone
loves.
Everyone loves it when I talkabout nutritional facts of um.
You know the, the things that Ieat.
So this apparent, according tothis, the whole 12 inch cheese
and this was just a cheese pizza, so mine was probably a little
more than this, because I addedsome other proteins.
It has 66 grams of carbs, 12grams of fat and 52 grams of
(04:39):
protein, and a plain cheesepizza is 580 calories.
So if you just put cheese on ita reasonable amount of cheese,
I mean not like half a pound butfor under 600 calories you're
getting something that's pizza.
Now I will say it's sort oflike a suitable alternative,
(04:59):
meaning I didn't feel like I ateJet's pizza, I didn't feel like
I ate pizza from a pizza place,but I got the flavors of pizza
and it was.
It was good enough and itfilled my belly.
So you know that was good.
So so that's my, that's my foodstory for today Really, really
(05:21):
bad.
I've got some water here thatI'm drinking and then I only
have one thing, and I've doneI've talked about this before,
but I'm actually sort of for along time I was not drinking you
probably know this but like fora long time I wasn't drinking
coffee at all.
And then now I'm back on coffeeagain, like every day I drink
coffee now, and then for a longtime I didn't drink any sodas at
(05:43):
all, like not even diet sodas,just not not because I really
cared that much, but justbecause I got out of the habit.
And when we go to the store wedon't buy them, so we don't have
them in the house and um, youknow so.
But anyway, somebodyreintroduced me to like Coke
zero, and so I've been drinkinglike not a lot of Coke zeros,
but I'll say maybe like one aweek, maybe two, and uh you know
(06:08):
, slippery slope, I guess, butman, they're really good.
They're like they're not die.
I tried a diet Coke recentlyand it was not good at all.
It was I won't say the wordthat I wanted to say, but it was
, it was.
It was not how I rememberedthem tasting when I used to
drink diet Coke.
All the time I drank and I'mlike, why did I, why would I
(06:29):
ever drink this?
This is horrible.
And then you drink Coke zeroand I'm like, oh, this is really
good.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Like this is like it's like drinking a regular
Coke, really, um, and so if you,if you've gone a long time
without drinking Coke and youdrink a Coke zero, you're like,
yeah, this, this is a Coke.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
It really is.
Um and I'm sure it's not goodfor you.
Um, I've never been aartificial sweeteners.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Is it sucralose or?
Speaker 2 (06:54):
is it what it is?
It is aspartame.
Oh yeah, so it's carbonated.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Isn't it the same as NutraSweet right?
I don't know.
It's been so long since I'vereally looked which one is.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Splenda also, I think .
Speaker 1 (07:13):
I just burped into the mic?
Speaker 2 (07:14):
I don't know if I burped into the mic.
I just took a drink, and then Ijust didn't even think about it,
just burp right into the mic.
All right, guys, that that'show this episode starting out is
Brian's protein pizza and burps.
All right, let's go.
Anyway, no, so I feel like Idon't know.
(07:40):
I feel like I give myself.
I've been like saying, hey, youknow what you deserve a Coke
Zero.
You can have a Coke Zero everyonce in a while.
If I was drinking, if I wasbuying a Coke Zero you deserve.
Well, I'll say this I only getit at the places that are not at
my house, like, I don't buythem.
I've not purchased a Coke Zerothis entire time.
(08:02):
It's like when I go to get myhair cut, the person who cuts my
hair has a little mini fridgeand she has like the little four
ounce or whatever six ouncetiny cans of coke zero.
So I drink a coke zero there.
Um, the office, one of theoffices I go to, both of the
offices I go to they just stockthe refrigerator with coke zeros
and so, um, which is part ofthe reason why I also don't
(08:25):
drink one like every day,because I feel like it's taking
advantage of I'm not buying it.
So I feel like I'm like notsupposed to be, like just
drinking them every day orwhatever.
I'm just for the greater good.
It's the greater good, thegreater good.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
I'm showing some temperance.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
I'm showing some temperance and some courage and
some, you know, uh, just justtrying to.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
actually it's justice , it's the, the greater good is
that it's for me to not drinktwo of them a day, you know so
right, but by you not gettingtwo a day, you're exercising
some restraint, right, right,exactly.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Temperance Exactly.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
So that's my uh that's my lame BBC.
Exactly so.
That's my uh, that's my lameBBC, um, but again it's good
(09:22):
it's still good, even thoughit's lame, big bad breakfast yes
, bbb toastmasters club.
Oh, I just realized.
We didn't mention toastmastersat all last episode, did we?
Speaker 2 (09:34):
I don't think we did oh, oh, we were we were
exercising temperance also.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
You know so yeah, we'll, we'll make up for it in
this one.
Uh.
So yeah, I got what's calledthe mother of all biscuits oh,
wow and it's a crispy fried dillchicken breast and cheddar
cheese slice on a buttermilkbiscuit and their biscuits are
crazy yeah, then I got.
(10:01):
I converted it into a dirtybird oh which means it's got a.
Then I converted it into adirty bird.
Oh, which means it's got someJC's hot sauce, bacon and local
honey.
The honey is drizzled on top ofthe whole thing, yeah, yeah.
And it was quite tasty.
(10:21):
It hit the spot, although it'sa pretty messy sandwich.
At that point, right Like you,get a biscuit sandwich and you
just put honey on top.
Yes it uh, yeah it's.
It was put on a small platelike it was on a saucer plate
okay, yeah I really had tocontend with that for a while
(10:44):
before yeah a fellow toastmaster was kind enough.
I didn't think to ask formyself, because I too am a nine,
you know, a peacemaker on theenneagram but another toast
master saw, like could see intothe kitchen and saw this huge
stack of clean plates.
He's like can I have one ofthose plates?
Yeah, and sure enough.
(11:05):
He just this was ed, by the way, you might as well have a
crystal clear picture.
And and then he just took theplate and handed it to me like,
oh, thanks yeah I don't know whyI didn't think I did say
verbally like that problem, likeman this is a messy sandwich
for such a small plate yeah andI did.
I dropped like two or threepieces of bacon onto the table
(11:27):
that I ate anyway, because itwas that good.
Um, no one else at the tableknew that.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
That's an inside secret, that's only for me, only
for the podcast, yeah oh yeah,and the other two people who are
right, but it was.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
It was very tasty and surprisingly filling, which I'm
grateful for, because I thinkit was like 14 bucks for one
biscuit.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
No sides, those biscuits are, gigantic though
they're, and they're like squareon the bottom.
I mean, it's like they justlike you know, and they're flaky
.
They're like those ones thatare like you can peel off a
little tiny layer and eat it,and then you peel off another
layer and eat it, and you peeloff another layer and eat it,
and like that kind of buttermilk.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Is that?
Is that unique to buttermilkbiscuits?
Or?
Speaker 2 (12:14):
well, I think that's.
I think it's the way that theymake up, like when they fold the
dough over, they keep foldingit over and they fold butter
into it.
So like you'll like roll thestuff out and then you literally
like take butter and you put itlike you know pats of butter,
so that it's like, and then youliterally fold it over and
you're not like, you don't likeneed it, like dough, like bread
(12:36):
dough, you roll it so you'll putbutter in the middle and then
roll it.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
I don't need bread dough.
I can do without bread dough.
Everyone needs it anyway.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
So uh, so no, I think that's how they do it, and you
know this is just that's.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
I think that's how they dough it yeah so they
really milk the butter for allit's worth yeah, it was.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Uh, you know it was something that they had to sort
of.
You know, dwell on a little bit, um no, but I love that
restaurant, though that thefirst time I tried that
restaurant was in uh, what'sthat place called?
It was, uh, it was like aportmanteau.
It was, oh, muscle shoalsalabama.
It wasn't a portmanteau, butmuscle shoals alabama.
(13:25):
Well, it was because one of myfriends said that the way you
say it is my shoals, you say myshoals, my shoals oh, it was
like portmanteau, you know umyeah, but they had one down
there in north alabama and wewent there and, uh, I was like
man, this place is great.
In fact, I had the same thingthere the very first time as I
(13:47):
had when we went there the lasttime, even though I wasn't able
to go to the brunch with youguys.
Um, the most recent time is theavocado toast.
Their avocado toast is like sogood.
Especially if you add egg to it, it's like a full breakfast and
it's actually pretty healthy.
So, um, excellent.
But those that I think one ofthe times I might've had
(14:08):
something like that, like thedirty bird or something like
that.
I swear when you said that.
I remember, cause I think wewere in Muscle Shoals for a few
days and I think we went twicewhile we were there, and once I
had a healthy breakfast and theother one I'm like I'm going to
get this, you know, and it's nothealthy or less healthy.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
I should say so.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
you know, I did practice temperance once and not
the other time.
Oh so what are you drinking?
Are you drinking anything?
Speaker 1 (14:40):
other time.
Oh so what are you drinking?
Are you drinking anything?
Uh yes, I have a, a shakenespresso decaf with light ice
from starbucks and it's the thehazelnut it's.
It's called, like the hazelnutoat milk shaken espresso, but I
made mine the hazelnut oat milkshaken espresso, but I made mine
the hazelnut coconut milkshaken espresso decaf with lime
(15:02):
ice Like for like a split second.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
When you said shaken, I thought you were going to be
like a shaken, not stirred,martini, and I thought you were
going down the James Bond paththere for a second.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Anyway, and then I have my water.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
I think this podcast would be a completely different
podcast if we had, if we justhad cocktails while we were
talking about philosophy be likedrunk yeah, we've.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
We have had alcohol a couple, a couple of episodes
yeah, on the record, I thoughtabout it.
I have some beer left over inmy fridge I'm probably not going
to get.
I'm not going to replenish thisanytime soon.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
What Replenish the beer?
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Yeah, the beer.
Because I just noticed, likewhenever I'm drinking beer, I
don't know, I don't get anythingout of it.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Except a bigger belly .
Speaker 2 (15:59):
That's interesting.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
It takes interesting too much to get a buzz, and then
and then, by that point it'stoo late.
Right, like, yes, I had, I washaving a conversation with
friend of the podcast, austin.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Uh, remember, austin was on fit.
You know what is it?
Uh, fitness taco, fitness tacointo your mouth or whatever.
I can't remember what the titleof the episode was um, but I was
talking to him recently and andI was he he was actually saying
that same thing, like when youdecide what you're gonna have to
eat, ask, ask yourself, what?
(16:31):
What does this give me?
What is this, what is this,what do I get from this that I'm
eating?
And if you, like you just said,oh well, I get a little bit of
a buzz, but I also get a belly.
You know, if I drink too muchbeer, then you might say, uh,
maybe I shouldn't drink thisbeer.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
You know what I mean so well I don't always get the
buzz, the beer that's around me.
I don't like the flavors yeahand I only really drink it
because I want to drinksomething other than water,
which there's so many otheroptions between water and beer.
Let's get those other options.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Just have light beer.
It's basically like water, youknow, anyway, no, definitely, I
want you to practice temperanceand that's how we get into our
next our, that's how we segueinto our next topic.
Or next, not next topic, thesame topic we were talking about
(17:25):
, but a different portion ofthat topic.
So last, yeah, last, episode wetalked about, uh, where we
started talking about stoicismand the stoic philosophers, and
uh, I think we did a pretty danggood job at it.
Uh, maybe I don't know it wasacceptable to me I'm gonna take
it, uh, but we we talked aboutit and basically we're
(17:51):
discussing the four virtues ofthe stoic philosophy and we
talked about courage and justicein the last episode.
This episode we have the othertwo, which are temperance and
wisdom, and we'll start with thebasic definition of temperance.
In essence, temperance is justsort of limiting yourself or you
(18:17):
know, um, not, actually it'sthe anti-hedonist.
It's sort of like what we talkedabout a little bit on the last
episode it was like okay,hedonism, well, temperance is
like curbing your hedonistic,your you know your desires or
whatever you know so the funnything is a Kirby.
(18:37):
I just was reading a quote rightnow.
I was about to read a quote.
It says Epictetus said curbyour desire, Don't, don't set
your heart on so many things,and you will get what you need.
And Seneca said you ask what isproper.
Uh, excuse me, what is theproper limit to a person's
wealth?
First, having what is essentialand second, having what is
enough.
(18:58):
So I guess seneca was againstbillionaires, then seems like,
uh, because they have way morethan is essential and they have
way more than is enough, I guess, if you consider what is needed
, um, as you know, so, um thegoldilocks of anything you do
(19:21):
yeah it's like too much of agood thing is still too much
yeah, yeah, it's not goodanymore at some point a good
thing becomes a bad thing, likeyou can.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
You can poison yourself with water if you drink
enough of it.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Your brain will literally become waterlogged.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Right and um, trying to trying to find there was a
second thing that I had here, umit.
I feel like this is one ofthose things that uh and this is
where uh, the, the Aristotlequote came on came in um in one
(20:01):
of the articles talking about weare what we repeatedly do.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
It's my favorite quote to misquote.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Yeah.
Therefore, excellence is not anact but a habit.
But with regard to stoicism, isthey're saying, hey, don't do
anything in excess.
So doing the right thing in theright amount is the right way
or in the right way.
This is the way.
(20:25):
This is the way.
This is definitely what we'resort of talking about, but I
feel like this.
I mean, I said this about theother two things.
You know, the other two we'vealready discussed, but this is
one of those things that I thinkeveryone needs to know about,
(20:45):
no matter what yourphilosophical belief is or
anything else is you know theman this is going to like.
I can't believe I'm likeblanking on this, but it's the,
the hierarchy of needs, likeMaslow's hierarchy of needs.
(21:07):
Is you know that this is whattemperance is?
Is you know?
In essence, you're?
Speaker 1 (21:14):
like OK, I think.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
I think think it somewhat parallels it because
it's like okay, do you need tohave?
Like, what do you need?
What do you actually need?
Okay, you need the base, youknow the base level.
Then the next thing up what doyou?
What's the minimum that youneed to get to that level?
What's the minimum that youneed to get to this level?
So I don't think mass, likethere's nothing in maslow's
hierarchy of needs.
That's like, hey, once you um,you know, once you have a
(21:38):
shelter and security and all thethings that are on like that
base level.
He's not like saying, yeah, butyou know what you should seek
once you get there is get bettershelter and better security and
better you know, like.
It's like no, once you have whatyou need, you move to the next
level.
So you have a 2000 square foothouse.
That's perfectly fine forwhatever you're eating.
You know whatever you're using.
(22:03):
Uh, you know whatever you need,or 1,500, whatever that amount
is that you actually need.
Okay, so that level that you'vechecked the box, you don't need
anything different.
But in what's interesting is inour country at least, um, and
probably a lot of other firstworld countries, I would think,
is that sort of the goal is todo that.
The goal is, yeah, I've gotthis house, but now I want a
bigger house, and now I want abetter car, and now I want to.
It's like, yeah, but you have acar, you have food in the
(22:27):
refrigerator, you have the beerthat you're not going to
replenish, you know you've gotall of the things right and
smaller, yeah, so that's it.
But I think that's like I said,this is something that I don't
think a lot of people in Americapractice, and I'm not pointing
fingers out, I'm saying I'm inthat boat just like everybody
(22:50):
else is.
I'm a consumer.
So it's like, oh, I want that,I want that right now, so I'm
going to get it.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
It's like like do you need that?
No, I don't need it, but I wantit, you know.
So, yeah, I think I think theother aspect of temperance that
the stoics try to embody is, uh,emotion management, or like
anger management, and you knowjust which makes sense if you're
talking about not being rashand impulsive, yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
And what we were talking about before, like last
episode, is the demeanor ofbeing stoic.
Yeah, actually no, I think wewere talking about that before
we recorded is we were talkingabout?
We're talking about somebodywho was talking it was new to
stoicism and they were saying,yeah, but are we supposed to
like not have any fun and it'slike no, they don't mean that
(23:40):
you need to be stoic Like youneed to be like this serious
person all the time.
It's different, you knowdiscipline to me stoicism and
this is discipline, almost likelike to, to be, have like cause.
The whole thing about stoicismis control over your own
circumstances, control over yourown actions.
(24:00):
You know you are the master ofyour domain, kind of thing and
yeah, exactly right, and sothose four, these four things
are just that, it's you know.
They're different in terms ofwhat you know, how they apply,
but they're those are.
These are all ways to basicallyget yourself to that point, so.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
I bet we can make an interesting metaphor from a car
Like one of these.
One of these virtues is is thechassis probably.
What was it?
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Justice.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Yeah, probably justice.
That's the frame, that's thestructure you know.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Justice yeah, probably justice.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
That's the frame, that's the structure you know,
and then, you've got theaccelerator of, I guess, courage
.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
The break of temperance and the steering
wheel of wisdom.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
I mean that's probably good.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Nailed it there we go we just made it up.
We just made that up.
I bet if I do a search rightnow for like automobile stoic
reference or you know something,somebody else has already done
it, or you go to chat gpt andit's like how, how are the four
pillars of stoicism like a, likea car and oh, that would be
awesome it would, it would do ityou make me want to do the
(25:16):
exact same thingokay, well, don't be impulsive
or rash yeah, exactly, um, yeah,so, uh, what was I gonna say?
Oh, um, I can't remember what Iwas going to say.
(25:36):
All right, so I mean, withregard to temperance, I feel
like it sort of plays intocourage a little bit, I think,
just because you almost have totemper, because courage to me,
(25:58):
me, is tempering fear, right?
So you know, oh, I can't hear,I can't hear you for some reason
.
Um, what happened?
I muted, I said yeah, it's likekind of fear.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Not doing something out of fear is the same as
acting on impulse right rightright it's the other side of
that exact same coin.
That's, that's interesting.
I mean, there are a lot ofthese stoicism, you know these
modern stoics who write articlesin these four pillars and
everything, and they often dosay that I mean these four
(26:34):
pillars don't sort of standalone, right, they're also
interconnected and they dodepend on each other.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Yeah, they talk about Aristotle, talking about a
golden mean.
So that too, the sweet spotbetween two vices yes, which is
interesting.
Yeah, it's not falling in theditch of either side of the road
(27:01):
well, and I think, right in themiddle of the road I feel like,
uh, it's interesting that youdescribed it as sweet swap
between two vices.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Actually, I would just what's that?
I was quoting an article backhere.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Well, I feel like, not necessarily between two
vices, but a single vice.
There's a certain amount wetalked about in the last episode
you playing video games, right,which is sort of where we got
that.
Uh had that discussion about,um you know, somebody thinking
that you needed to be stoic,like you know that you, you
(27:39):
didn't.
You were not supposed to haveany fun as a stoic, right, um
sure, but there's a sweet spotfor your video gaming, right?
so it's like potentially asingle vice, like you know, uh,
or or at least it goes from ayou know, goes from a virtue to
a vice.
Uh, if you go too far with it,right, if you don't exercise
(28:00):
temperance.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
What's what's the opposite of playing too much?
Speaker 2 (28:05):
not playing enough?
Speaker 1 (28:07):
I don't know working too much oh yeah oh, I see I
thought you meant playing videogames.
Yeah, but just like what's theopposite of Well, just play in
general, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Right.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
You know, or the same you know, the two vices.
You know we talk aboutovereating or eating poorly.
Well then, there's also justnot eating enough.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Yeah, right, and that's another advice of sorts
of um, yeah, yeah, it's well,people starve themselves.
You got to think like, oh, andthat's actually a good point
because, like you know, in termsof just using eating as an
example, is eating not enough.
Not eating enough, or you know,is an eating disorder, and
(28:46):
eating too much is also aneating disorder.
Yeah, so it's's a bullseye.
There's a bullseye, right.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
You can go too far either way.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Right, exactly.
So if you're like, okay, I'mgoing to not eat anything, it's
like, okay, well, yeah, that's aproblem, and to its extreme
causes your death yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
You'll lose too much weight.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Right, but I feel like um, so here's.
Here's one of the quotes.
That is a Marcus Aurelius quotefrom meditations.
It says if you seek tranquility, do less.
Or, more accurately, do what'sessential, what the logos of a
social being requires, and inthe requisite way which brings
(29:28):
the double satisfaction to doless, better.
Because most of what we do andsay is not essential, which, wow
, that's huge.
Most of what we say and do isnot essential, like that's.
That's crazy to me.
That's it.
Go ahead's like go ahead, no,go ahead, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Well what I'm about to say is relevant to us.
Interrupting each other, it'slike it's almost enough to
inspire me to start editing ourpodcast.
Yes, most of what we say is notessential.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
That like that actually hurts a little bit,
like you know.
He's like because most of whatwe say and do is not essential.
It's true.
That's why it hurts, becauseit's so true you're sitting
there, going, you know whatyou're absolutely right like,
and a lot of things that we getstressed about and everything
else it's like not evenessential, like what do you?
(30:25):
Why are you even?
It's like you're doing it andthen you're like stressed about
it.
I mean so, so anyway.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
Well, that that reminds me of a cynical quote of
we suffer.
Man suffers more in imaginationthan he does in reality.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
Yes, oh yeah.
A hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Anticipating all the ways that something could go
wrong, as opposed to justdealing with what actually ends
up happening.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
So this is the last two sentences of this quote is
also awesome.
Uh, that same quote is uh, soit's, you know I'll.
I'll start with the because,because most of what we say and
do is not essential.
If you can eliminate it, you'llhave more time and more
tranquility.
Ask yourself at every moment isthis, this necessary?
I think that's really coolbecause he gave you like
practical advice in the quotewhere he's like okay, anything
(31:18):
you're doing, ask yourself isthis, do I absolutely, is this
necessary?
Do I have to do this?
Is this something?
That is like what happens if Idon't?
And I always go into like thethis is a little bit of uh, hey,
bingo card.
(31:40):
Stephen Covey um, talks about.
Stephen Covey talks about youknow, asking yourself what
happens if I don't do this thing, like in an effort to try to
determine whether you should doit or whether he was using it as
an example of you're choosingbetween two things, and his
example was you're actually notchoosing between those two
things.
You're choosing between theconsequences of not doing one of
those things.
So ask yourself is thisnecessary?
(32:05):
Or the in the alternative, whathappens?
Hey, good, Equal me out for theburp, Perfect.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
I was wondering if you could hear that I didn't
think about it either.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Yeah, so um, maybe we should start drinking.
If we're just going to startlike just anyway, yeah and
giggling.
so, um, so what?
So what I was going to say isso is it necessary?
I feel like the question youask, like what happens if I
don't do this?
(32:36):
Like what is the consequence ofme not doing this thing?
And I feel like that helps youget to is this necessary?
But it also helps you decide,because always, when you're
doing something, you're decidingwhether to do this thing or if,
because if you do that thing,then you're not doing something
else.
So you're deciding whether todo this thing or if, because if
you do that thing, then you'renot doing something else, so
you're deciding.
You're always deciding aboutbetween two things, right?
(32:56):
So, like in your case, should Iplay video games or should I
sleep?
Right?
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Or should I play video games or do my taxes Right
?
Exactly, exactly, exactly sookay If I don't play video games
not exactly exactly, so okay ifI don't play video games, not,
there's not much consequence,right?
Speaker 2 (33:19):
if I don't do my taxes, there's a lot of
consequence.
Or if I don't sleep, there'slots of consequence yes, yeah,
and I think honestly, uh, well,you know, I do believe that if
you can, well, you know, I dobelieve that if you can pair
things down as the, as he'ssaying in this, that quote, you
will find more tranquility, like, and I, because I think a lot
of the stress that we have inmodern day life is self, uh,
(33:46):
brought on by yourself, whateverthat, however, that is
self-inflicted, self-inflicted.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
Thank you, um we well , we suffer more in imagination
than we do in reality.
Yeah, yeah, and we make thosepoor choices of not basing our
decisions on actual consequence,was it?
There's um, now, I can't thinkof who said it.
I remember where I heard it.
(34:34):
But it's like the last 50 or soyears has been marked by a
progressive exchange in people'sminds and decisions of
basically the culture, changingthe decisions of from what works
to what sounds good.
Yes, and, and I think part ofwhy stoicism has some attention
now is people are getting moreand more interested in what
works, you know, like either theeconomy or corporate culture,
or yeah political culture, likeso much of it's just.
It's not working.
It sounds good, but it's notworking for people.
(34:57):
And I think people are gettingmore and more interested in what
.
What will actually work?
Speaker 2 (35:01):
I honestly think that , in terms of like American
politics, and this is I guess Ishould I don't know, I don't,
I'm not going to get superpolitical, but I honestly think
that well, it's just, it's justthe like.
I see things as a pendulum.
I see things in, especially inthe United States.
(35:22):
You know, things swing back andforth and, regardless of how,
if you think it's the worst timein our history or the best time
in our history, either one ofthose, if you think it at some
point it's going to be, you'regoing to think it's the worst
time.
If you think it's the best nowand you're going to think that
it's the best if it's the worst,if you think it's the worst now
.
So you know, um, assuming youcan live long enough, right, I
(35:44):
just assume.
I just I don't assume, but Ifeel like the pendulum always
swings back and so this is goingto go back to one of the other
ones.
But I feel like justice, will isalways served Like it, it
always it's.
It's like it's like selfleveling cement, right, you pour
it down and it you don't haveto do anything to it.
It will eventually level itselfand it will be flat, right, and
(36:08):
I feel like that's sort of thesame thing.
As you know justice, you knowthe right thing for the greater
good.
I think, as we move forward,you know more and more people
will be entering into politicsthat believe that we need to do
things that are for the greatergood, not for the good of a
certain percentage of thepopulation or something like
(36:31):
that, and that will swing backthat direction.
But, um, but anyway, uh, Ididn't mean that as a political
statement.
I was just saying out of interms of like justice being
served and, um, you know thattype of thing.
So, uh, all right.
Getting back to temperance,though, um, maybe I should
(36:53):
temper my comments aboutpolitics on this podcast.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Philosophy.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
Yeah, Um well, I think that's about it for
temperance, unless you haveanything else, I mean we don't
want to go too far with it.
We, we, we don't.
We want to do this temperancein moderation, you know, if we
can't do it justice.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
We don't want to do anything too far.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
We don't want to do anything in excess here uh well,
so then the wise yeah, so thelast, uh, last one, as you just
alluded to, is wisdom and, um,you know, it's in essence, like
it's one of the things thatobviously everything is striving
(37:37):
towards, and I'm trying to findmy definition here.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
This is where the serenity prayer comes to mind,
if anyone in the audience hasthat familiarity right I love
that.
Yeah, they in fact, oh cred,now I'm blanking on it is I was
just going to say yesterday inour toastmasters meeting.
Somebody used it yeah, gosh,I'll look that up too, yeah it's
(38:06):
like, for I know how it ends,but I'll have it.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
So this is the can't do math in my head anymore and I
can't remember anything anymorethanks to technology, so I'll
just say you know, wisdom isbasically the essential, or sort
of the final and essentialvirtue, right, um, knowing and
(38:34):
learning.
Uh, and it's the experience, tolike what this article is
saying.
This is the experience requiredto navigate the world.
So we were talking aboutapplying the other three things,
like where we're struggling andwhich basically means we're not
that wise yet.
But I think that's where wisdomthat's what wisdom is is okay.
(38:55):
Now that you have, now that youknow what justice is and you
know what temperance is and youknow what courage is, how do you
apply that to your everydaylife?
And can you apply it on a dailybasis to things?
Or are you just, or is it just,lip service?
Are you just like, oh yeah, Iknow these things and it's
pretty cool, but you don'tactually apply them?
(39:17):
And I feel like the wisdom isthe OK, I can see how to use
these things.
In essence, I was about to sayto my advantage, but it's not
really to your advantage, but sothat you're a your advantage,
but so that you're a betterperson, so that you have less
stress, so that you have, I mean, we're.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
What we're talking about is um, use all those
things justice, you know, yeah,yeah, the common good too.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
Well, because, yeah, because justice can be for you
as well, and just not just youlike you're part of the common
good, right?
Um?
So, yeah, uh.
So, as you can see, we're notvery wise, um.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
I've got the serenity prayer.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
Oh, yeah, yeah.
So what were you going to sayabout that?
Speaker 1 (40:06):
Just, I was going to quote it first and just say God,
grant me the serenity to acceptthe things I cannot change.
Courage, uh, to change thethings I can.
Wisdom to know the differenceyes there's more to it, but
that's the part that I recall.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
Yeah, that's, yeah, the wisdom of the difference
right, which is, which is sortof what we're just saying is how
do you apply it?
You know is, hey, how do I tellthe difference?
Well, you gotta have the wisdom, but that comes with time.
I haven't.
That's one thing I've you neverthey never talk about in any of
the self-help books or any ofthe philosophies or anything
(40:44):
else is that there's a timing toeverything.
So it's, you know, especiallyin today's society, where you're
like, hey, I just want to dosomething so that I can, like
instantaneously, be better, andit's like, well, you can do that
.
But wisdom doesn't happen thatway.
It's just as you get older, youhave perspective and and you
(41:05):
failed, you know, you havefailed, you know, basically,
many times.
So you are learned, you'velearned from those things, or
you've seen others fail andyou've learned from those, and
that gives you the wisdom, right, it's.
(41:33):
It's interesting to me that, uh, basically, if in many of the
religious figures that we haveare, um, you know that that are
for many of the major religions,they're, they're basically the
ideal, or like, what people sayis like, hey, they've achieved
wisdom, like, you know, they'veachieved what you know, the the
ultimate in wisdom is right, isthat they like, are all knowing
(41:55):
kind of they, you know, are, youknow, the teller of the truth.
You know what I mean If you goto uh like, if you, you know, if
you have any of that like, andthen some of those is like and
that's why they're worshipipped,you know, in some ways is Sure,
They've gotten the wisdom.
(42:15):
And so you're like, okay, well,maybe if I read about this
person and study this person mywhole life, then I'll get some
of that wisdom too.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
So I don't know who he's quoting.
I tried to find the quote, butoriginal but John C Maxwell.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
It's said that a wise person learns from his mistakes
.
A wiser one learns from others'mistakes.
Yeah the wisest person of alllearns from other successes, but
I disagree because of thesurvivorship bias, and you and
the audience are encouraged tolook it up.
(42:56):
Otherwise it's a tangent.
It's just the short of it is.
Is you don't?
You don't really know whatmakes someone successful until
you rule out who that's failedhas also tried those same
tactics and just still didn'twin yes, yeah if all you do is
study success, you won'tactually know what contributes
(43:18):
to success unless you also studyfailure um, yeah, you look at
it
Speaker 2 (43:24):
anyway, but a wiser person learns from other
people's mistakes yeah, well,and I I found the quote that I
was looking for, that um sort oftakes it takes us a little bit
for.
So this is um under the wisdomsection in one of these articles
, and it's a quote fromepictetus says the chief task in
life is simply this to identifyand separate matters so that I
(43:47):
can clearly to myself which orso I can, so I can can clearly
to myself which are.
So I can, so I can say clearlyto myself which are externals,
not under my control, and whichhave to do with the choices I
actually control.
Where then do I look for goodand evil?
Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself, to the
choices that are my own.
So you wisdom, like you said,sort of wisdom to be able to
(44:12):
tell the difference between thetwo um but also I like that it's
.
This is sort of sums up all ofstoicism, because it is stoicism
is a you know, a philosophythat is really, as I said at the
very beginning of the lastepisode, is you're in control,
like you're the one that issitting here going, okay, how do
(44:34):
I like?
Basically, what do I have thatI have control over?
And this is saying that exactthing is hey, in essence, don't
worry about things you don'thave control over, because you
don't have control over them.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
Yeah, I don't know like I get.
I get the concept and I use thesame terminology you know on
any given day, um, but I alsodon't like the word control.
To some extent I think I preferinfluence.
Okay, uh, partly because one II tend to see things in a
(45:10):
spectrum and not black and white.
Binary control, or can'tcontrol on or off.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
And you know like, yes, pragmatically, we can
control our arms and our hands.
You know, we can articulate ourbody.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
Right.
Speaker 1 (45:26):
At the same time, there's things that we do that
we don't understand, or there'speople who lose control of their
body.
We don't exactly tell eachmuscle consciously to move in
which way.
It just sort of does what wewant, and we're not even sure
how that works.
We don't have full control ofour body, but we influence what
(45:49):
it does.
And similarly, even if we have,like I, I'm at a position where
I have direct reports, but Idon't control them right um, I
influence them hopefully througha combination of, you know,
authenticity and authority.
Um, and I think I guess one ofmy big eureka moments and all of
(46:11):
that is like, yeah, I can'tmake anybody do anything right,
but I can make it easy.
You know, like knowing that inthe article that I have here,
before they even get to the fourpillars, they have this little
blurb that talks about a coupleof principles.
I'm not sure if it's historic,necessarily, because it's part
(46:32):
it's outside of the four pillars, like it might just be this
author's opinion, but, um, hereshe says you know, first we
behave to advance.
These are, what is it?
It's just that the Stoicsbelieve that humans are social
animals, are able to use reasonto solve problems, and that this
instinct naturally developedthroughout the life, throughout
(46:52):
life beginning in childhood, andis the basis for ethics and so
it can be in three parts.
The first is we have to webehave to advance our self
interest.
Second, we recognize that otherpeople also have interests yeah
and third is we work out how tosolve problems in life that
(47:13):
arise from the friction fromthose first two principles.
Right, it's like you.
You and I are stuck together inthe same boat.
I want to go north and you wantto go south.
We're both trying to get toland.
How do we reconcile that?
Right, we, we both have, wehappen to have the same goal,
but we have a different approachof how to get there.
Yeah, and if, like, I couldmake it easy for you, I could
(47:37):
say you know what?
I will row twice as much as youif you go north with me.
Right, yeah, like, so there's,I'm not controlling you.
You still have a choice.
You're like?
No, I believe so much that it'ssouth, and at that point, based
on your conviction, maybe youconvince me.
But, yeah, um, ultimately, in asurvival situation, though,
(47:58):
it's better to just make adecision and pick a direction.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
Yeah, I was gonna say like, but the the control and
not control.
There is okay, you know, do Ihave control over whether I live
or die?
It's like, yeah, I do, and youknow, whether I live or die is
like making it back to land is abig, you know, a big factor in
whether I live or die, right, so, but I mean, but I get your
(48:22):
point, though, I get the pointof you know, you're right, you
can't control.
But I get your point though.
I get the point of you knowyou're right, you can't control.
But I feel like I always likethe way that Wayne Dyer talked
about and he may have beenquoting someone else, but I
think he actually was.
I think he was quoting like anIndian philosopher or
spiritualist or something likethat, and he said yeah.
(48:45):
He always said hey.
You know why do people worry?
Because if there's only twothings that you can worry about,
one is things you have controlover and one is things you don't
have control over.
So if you have control over it,why are you going to worry
about it?
Cause you can do somethingabout it.
If you don't have any controlover it, then why are you going
(49:06):
to worry about it?
Because you don't have anycontrol over it.
So now you've just eliminatedall things to worry about, right
?
And so I feel like part of thiswisdom is going back to you
know, going back to courage alittle bit, and maybe even
temperance a little bit.
Is that you're, you know thatthere, and I guess sort of the
(49:28):
name of stoic you know?
Basically, hey, um, you knowcause the ultimate goal of this
is to be metered, is to be, um,you know, to be able to live
life in a very fluid way, ifthat makes sense.
That is not.
You don't feel like you'realong for a ride, you're able to
make decisions about it.
But also I really believe thatat the base level of most
(49:52):
philosophy, self-help andeverything else, even religions,
is stress relief is notworrying about certain things,
not worrying about your death,not worrying about what's going
to happen if this happens.
And again it goes back to yourquote that you said it's like
what was the quote?
Say it again it was the you'remore.
(50:12):
It's something in your mindLike you're more.
Speaker 1 (50:16):
We suffer more in our imagination than we do in
reality.
So, I think a lot of thesethings, like I said, including
religions and everything else isa way to find peace, is a way
to find some kind of, you know,inner peace, I mean, and
(50:36):
obviously a lot of religions usethat, so to quiet the
existential anxiety.
Speaker 2 (50:38):
Yes, yes, and I think we've talked about that before
in one of our podcasts, episodesat least um existential.
Speaker 1 (50:46):
I think it was when we were talking.
Speaker 2 (50:47):
I think we were talking about like solipsism or
something you know, like youknow basically, like something
like that, like exist.
It's like existential crisiskind of stuff um no but I think
that I think that's sort of theyou know to, not not to put like
a total cap on it, but like,like you know, I feel like or
bust a cap on it exactly.
(51:09):
Um, you know, having that, youknow, having the wisdom, is in
some ways like, think about thisand you can do this out there.
Don't close your eyes if you'redriving, but think about this.
If you think of someone who youthink is wise like, just think
of that person and picture theirdemeanor.
(51:29):
Do they seem like they'restressed out?
I have a hard time believingthat if you look at somebody or
you think like I think that'sone of the wisest people, I know
part of the reason why youthink it's they're the wisest
person is because they're socalm, they're metered, they just
don't get.
They don't get rattled by a lotof things they just sort of.
(51:50):
You know one of the people.
I'll use his name too because,um, he was a member of our uh I
don't know if I should use hislike first and last name, but um
, but he was a member of our our, uh toastmasters club.
Unfortunately, he passed away,uh, but he and you probably know
who I'm talking about.
Um and he never.
I never felt like he wasrattled by anything.
(52:13):
I felt like he was just goingthrough life and just sort of
like.
Even when he spoke in front ofan audience, he spoke the same
as when he was having aconversation with you and just a
nice slow, yeah, just very,very did not seem nervous at all
.
Did not seem, did not use a lotof ahs and ums and all these
other things Like it seemed likehe.
(52:34):
I mean literally none, prettymuch.
A friend to all.
Speaker 1 (52:38):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (52:39):
And and the thing is, you know, uh, I feel like he
had a certain amount of wisdombecause of that.
And you know, he's a prettyhighly educated guy but grew up
in very, very how do I say itLike very.
You know, he grew up in a ruralarea and was, you know, I don't
think there was a lot of money,like I don't think his family
(53:01):
is very wealthy or anything likethat, but they again, it
doesn't.
You don't need a lot of moneyto be wise, right?
Speaker 1 (53:10):
um, and so anyway, it's just interesting to me that
that that sort of goes together, you know yeah, for me, when
you were talking about asking meto picture someone who's wise
like, I also got the same kindof calm, cool and collected vibe
, maybe a couple of crow's feet,you know but, also the the fast
(53:33):
.
The story that just popped inmy head is that he or she's seen
almost all of it already, or?
seen it all before right, likemaybe it's.
They could still be young andwise, but it's like they've
lived the life right.
They've traveled the world orthey recognize the pattern
faster than other people have umbut they, they, just, they've
seen it all before theyrecognize it yeah so it's not a
(53:55):
surprise, it's not scary, umyeah well, that's probably
because they've done somethinking about it, right, they
yeah yeah, I think I thinkyou're right.
Speaker 2 (54:07):
I think, um, I mean, I think definitely, the more
time you have to reflect onthings, the you know, the more
time you have the ability togain wisdom.
And I think, again, going backto religion, you know the reason
why prayer or meditation ispart of almost all the religions
.
I would think that's on somelevel, I think pretty much all I
(54:29):
don't know all the religions,backwards and forwards, but all
of them have some kind of prayeror some kind of meditation that
are built into.
That.
That is either required or youknow, hey, you need to do this.
You sort of have, you know,heavily encouraged, right, and I
think part of that is that isthat reflection process of you
know, being able to sort of calmthe mind and you know, um,
(54:53):
things like that.
So I think, yeah.
So, unless you have anythingelse, I'll read this quote that
I um, that I found that I feellike sums up all, all, the all
of the four virtues of stoicism.
And it was, uh, marcus Aurelius.
It's from the meditations.
Yeah, help yourself.
So it says, uh, this is MarcusAurelius from meditation.
(55:16):
Says, when you wake up in themorning, tell yourself, the
people I deal with today will bemeddling, ungrateful, arrogant,
dishonest, jealous, and surlythey are like this because they
can't tell good from evil.
But I have seen the beauty ofgood and the ugliness of evil
(55:36):
and have recognized that thewrongdoer has the nature related
to my own, not of the sameblood and birth, but of the same
mind and possessing a share ofthe divine.
And so none of them can hurt me, no one can implicate me in
ugliness, nor can I feel angryat my relative or hate him.
We were born to work together,like feet, hands and eyes, like
(55:57):
the two rows of teeth, upper andlower.
To obstruct each other isunnatural.
To feel anger at someone, toturn your back on him, these are
unnatural.
So, anyway, all of that thatgoes into the courage and that
goes into, um, you know, justice, temperance, wisdom, all of
(56:20):
those things, and uh, I thoughtI mean, honestly, if you read
that every morning, you mightactually be better off.
You've just read that like you,sort of like you, the, the
prayer of assisi, uh, saint, orsaint assisi.
Speaker 1 (56:30):
Um, you know I know it seems rather bleak at first
and then it just does some lipservice to uh like I also have
that same nature.
Speaker 2 (56:41):
But well, yeah, and I think that's, I think that's, I
think it's badly yeah I like ittoo, I think it's bad.
Yeah, I like it too, but Ithink it's bad.
You have to say like yeah,everyone's going to be horrible.
Everyone I meet today is goingto be horrible.
They're going to be arrogantand they're going to be meddling
and dishonest and jealous.
Speaker 1 (56:57):
And you know it comes down to lowering your
expectations.
So much that there's no roomfor disappointment and
frustration and there's onlyroom for being pleasantly
surprised right, right, oh heyonly two people cut me off today
.
That's amazing.
People are always soself-centered.
Speaker 2 (57:13):
I'm surprised it didn't happen more often so if
you've gotten nothing else fromthese two episodes, it's just
lower your expectations, okayraise your expectations of
yourself, lower expectations ofeverybody else All right.
Well, I think we covered thatpretty well.
At least we got through thefour topics.
(57:35):
I'm sure that we probably justscratched the surface, but hey,
that's what this podcast isabout scratching the surface.
So all right, bye.
Speaker 1 (57:45):
Take it to scabs.
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