November 19, 2024 • 58 mins
Could the way we perceive "up" and "down" be subtly shaping our realities? Join hosts Angelo Cole, Chris Vigil, and Matt Maes as they promise to unravel the profound influence of verticality on our language, culture, and subconscious. From the symbolic heights of the axis mundi to the depths of spiritual narratives, this episode explores how these directional concepts have historically signified clarity, power, and divinity. Discover how ascension and descent are more than mere movements; they are metaphors embedded deep within our cultural psyche.
In a world where space becomes place through orientation, vertical landmarks like lighthouses and church steeples transform mere geography into symbols of spiritual connection. Delve into Jonathan Pageau's insights on biblical symbolism and understand how human instincts, like raising hands or building Gothic windows, reflect our intrinsic orientation toward the vertical. As we reflect on these themes, we examine the complementary dynamics in human relationships, where balance and leadership are intertwined with selflessness and competence.
Moreover, the journey of learning and competence is portrayed through the lens of progression from unconscious incompetence to unconscious competence, urging us to embrace humility and continuous learning. This episode emphasizes the importance of shared knowledge, the balance between technological advancement and wisdom, and the aspiration of humanity towards a higher good. As we ponder these themes, remember the metaphor of a tree's roots in the ground, reaching for the sky—an aspirational yet grounded approach to personal and collective growth. Tune in for a thought-provoking exploration that promises to challenge conventional wisdom and inspire introspection.
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Episode Transcript
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Angelo (00:00):
Hello everyone, welcome to the Telos Initiative podcast.
I'm Angelo Cole.
Chris (00:05):
I'm Chris Vigil and I'm Matt Maes.
Angelo (00:07):
Today we are going to be talking about an abstract topic
called the vertical.
So what we mean by the verticalis this notion of up and down,
higher and lower, of up and downhigher and lower, something to
(00:31):
do with maybe raising up we useit a lot in our language higher
consciousness, or diving deepinto the realm of knowledge, or
something diving deep into atopic.
uh, a lot of times we use itunconsciously, so why, do we do
(00:53):
that, and what is this notion ofof higher and lower, and how
deep does it go into oursubconscious?
Matt (01:03):
I love when you say, like, how we can use it
subconsciously too, because itseems to slip naturally into our
language in so many differentways.
And you know, one thing that Ifound really interesting is, as
I was thinking about this topicand how up shows up and how down
shows up in our language, itseems like like up or higher is
(01:31):
easier to point to, and downseems like very mysterious and
there are a lot of different,different ways that we use down,
that some are connected, a lotare a lot are connected, but
it's very mysterious, you knowdefinitely, there's a notion
called the axis mundi.
Angelo (01:53):
It's this idea of um alignment vertically with
something spiritual, but it goesthrough your very being, even
to the point of being physical.
So I think a lot of new agephilosophy associates it with
the chakras and kundalini, butit might also have some origins
(02:20):
and some other easternphilosophies.
Uh, the axis mundi is thishigher and lower orientation
within the self, from thephysical to the mental, to the
spiritual okay, that's great.
Chris (02:38):
So, right away, I'm really liking the um, the fact
that we use depth as the I guessthe antipode of of the vertical
, or, you know, ascension, um,and matt, you're right, like,
whenever I point at things, I'malways pointing up, I'm never
pointing like down at anything,unless I really need to
emphasize something which Inever do.
But if I think about, like, thedepth of my heart, I'm pointing
(03:00):
inwardly, like towards myself,my solar plexus and I like that.
Angelo (03:07):
Also Notices notion of the mountain.
The mountain is used as asymbol Pretty universally in all
sorts of religions or storiesor myths, even for secular
symbols.
Even for secular symbols, wewould think of the mountain as a
(03:28):
climbing towards something, ajourney.
There's a triangular figurethat you can envision in your
head.
At the very peak is a centralpoint and it splits apart as you
(03:51):
descend.
So maybe that notion of amystery and disintegration and
separation kind of is comingfrom your subconscious notion of
the mountain or associating thecenter and the periphery with,
yeah, up and down yeah,naturally you know archetypally
(04:11):
too.
Matt (04:11):
When we're talking about the mountain, I like to think
about, you know, moses going upto the mountain and getting the,
the tablets.
You know commandments on the onthe tablets and also how
archetypally that can be true aswell, like, how often you know
commandments on the on thetablets and also how
archetypally that can be true aswell.
Like, how often, you know, havewe had this experience where we
(04:31):
, where we're going to thisplace in isolation, we're going
to this, you know, this place ofascension, this place where
we're, you know, where it's justus, and we are trying to get
into consciousness with that,that higher spirit, with that
higher present, and then we takewhat we gain from that and
those insights and we bring thatdown into the world with us,
(04:56):
like we went.
We went up, we had this journey, we had this experience, and
then we then we, you know takewhat we gained from that journey
, from that ascension, back down.
Angelo (05:08):
And definitely notice how you're using metaphorical
language throughout that wholething.
Matt (05:12):
This higher consciousness that we're bringing down how
tightly knit it is in ourlanguage.
Angelo (05:19):
Absolutely.
Even the idea of something likesubconscious or substance is
beneath there's something there.
Chris (05:46):
I want to return to that idea of there's like a pinnacle
at the top of the mountain,right and everything else is you
use the word disintegrating asit removes itself from the
pinnacle.
Now, all three of us were, youknow, either in our mid-30s or
approaching our mid-30s and Ican like, as my body or as
myself disintegrates, I shouldbe spiritually moving towards
(06:12):
the pinnacle of the of the holymount, like the mountain of
holiness.
So as we ascend spiritually upto the pinnacle of the holy
mountain, even as my bodydisintegrates, that spiritual
reality that I am experiencingwill naturally flow out from
that and enter physically intoour reality here.
(06:35):
Right, it's a flow thing.
I'm just putting that out therehere's another notion of out
and in.
Angelo (06:42):
Associated with this up and down.
I was thinking historicallyabout how in ancient cultures,
they used the notion of heightalmost literally, like the fact
that you were taller or higherup than someone gave you more of
(07:04):
a position of importance.
Like the king sits on a throne,yes, and he wears a physical
crown and and the little thecrown is?
Literally little arrowspointing upward if you think
about it.
It's this notion of the Kingsposition is supposed to be
(07:27):
anointed towards somethinghigher, physically, and
spiritually.
Chris (07:34):
Yeah, the king is mentally connected to the
heavens and he brings thatblessing from heaven to his
realm.
Angelo (07:44):
At least the Christian notion of the king.
Okay, right, the the christiannotion of the king okay, right,
because there's other well, Imean, there's other uh leaders
and kings that in other culturesweren't necessarily oriented
towards something higher theycould.
It could be a self-worshippingtyranny sort of thing yeah.
Why.
Chris (08:04):
Those aren't kings, I would say, those are tyrants.
Angelo (08:07):
Well, I mean, they would call themselves kings, you know
.
Chris (08:12):
I mean, I think they're unholy inverses of the true idea
of a king.
Angelo (08:18):
Okay, right, sure.
Matt (08:20):
Like there's the idea or the ideal and then there's the
actual, like we could even say,with nobles or nobility.
A lot of those nobles were.
Many of them, as we know, werevery kind of pompous and stuck
up and not embodying the youknow, the nobility of spirit
that denotes that word.
(08:41):
That denotes that word.
I also think of a lot of thereligious art at the time,
especially in the medievalperiods, where you might see
figures that are floating up offof the ground like they're
elevated above the ground as ifit was kind of a simplistic idea
(09:03):
of down being lower or bad andup always necessarily being good
and holy and right, depicted inthe art.
Angelo (09:16):
Yeah, there's something universal about that in almost
every culture, that it's justbuilt into us to think of higher
as better, and I'm wonderingwhere exactly that comes from,
if it's just archetypally builtinto our brains for some reason,
like maybe this idea that you,if you go higher, you're able to
see more just for the fact thatyou're physically above, it
(09:41):
gives you greater wisdom andinsight.
It could be, and it also makesyou a central point, right, like
so if someone stands up on ahill, they're doing that in
order to get a crowd of people,to look towards them and to
listen to them right and toteach them.
Chris (09:59):
Yeah, can we dive into a little bit of denver history?
Matt (10:04):
sure, hold up, hold up.
Okay, go ahead Before that,real quick.
There's another question On topof that.
I was wondering how much of ourunderstanding of higher and
lower is intrinsic, justnaturally built in and just
naturally you know like we justkind of have this natural
understanding of what higher andlower is and how much has been
(10:28):
influenced over time, like howmuch, how much might we be, you
know, be taught to think whathigher and lower is, and so
often we can discard the loweryou know.
So often we end up likediscarding things as as taboo or
or you know, evil and and darkthat not necessarily are are bad
(10:52):
right, sure, yeah then we don'tintegrate those things and then
we they go into shadow and youknow, what goes in the shadow
ends up coming up unhealthilybecause sure we didn't properly,
you know, bring that into our,into a whole person integration
I think it calls into questionwhat there.
Angelo (11:12):
There are proper things that should be considered lower.
Right, and it depends.
It's an orientation problem,right?
Yeah, so if you put somethinglower when it shouldn't be,
you're humiliating it.
It's funny the word humilitycomes from the same root word as
(11:36):
hummus, which means earth orthe ground.
So to humble yourself is to belower.
Ah, okay humble yourself is tobe lower, and in Christianity
and also in Islam and all sortsof religious practices, you bow
and you prostrate yourself, andthat's a good thing to do in its
(11:59):
proper place.
You would want to do that inthe presence of something that's
meant to be higher thanyourself.
It's a sign of respect anddignity, and even in certain
countries you would bow just toshow respect, when it's a form
of greeting.
You bow in the presence of evenjust a stranger.
Matt (12:27):
I promise I want to get to your point real quick.
But on humility that is.
People so understand this ideaof humility, I think.
But it's just necessarily to.
It's almost tied to just lowself-esteem with a lot of people
.
You know like, oh, how could I,you know, do this and be that
(12:48):
and all all this kind of stuff,right.
But I think in practical terms,it's much more like a proper
consideration of what's aroundyou.
Yes, Giving due regard tothings and and you know, in your
attitude, you're not aboveregard to things.
And and you know, in yourattitude, you're not above doing
certain things.
(13:08):
Right, like, say you know.
Like, say, fitness, for example, I love fitness.
Like, say, you're going to thegym, but then you know you're.
If you have this attitude like,oh, I could, you know, oh, I
could, I could do all this stuffand I don't have to watch my
fitness, I could just eat.
Or I don't have to watch mynutrition, I could just eat.
You know, all these differentthings I want to eat.
(13:29):
Not paying attention, not beinghumble to what's required of
you if you really want to aspireto that higher goal that you
have.
Angelo (13:38):
Yes, right, that's humility.
Matt (13:41):
That's the opposite of arrogance, which is just
ignoring and thinking thatyou're too good to do certain
things too good to listen topeople too good to pay attention
.
Angelo (13:55):
Those who exalt themselves shall be humbled, and
those who humble themselvesshall be exalted shall be
exalted.
Chris (14:09):
So there's a a scene in that disney movie hercules right
where um hades minions.
They're, uh, they're humblingthemselves in front of hades and
they're like, oh, we are worms.
And then they transform intoworms literally.
Um, I don't think that'shumility.
Um, maybe in the right place,right, like I might say
something like that if I'mpraying to jesus and I'm like
compared to you, my lord, I amas nothing right, I am dust, and
(14:33):
unto dust I shall return in itsproper place, right in its
proper place.
uh, there was a time in my lifewhen I had to really meditate,
like what is Like, how do I knowif I have humility?
Is this a real thing?
Because, especially if you growup Christian, like humility is
like the thing that they put onyou because pride was the first
(14:55):
sin, yep.
And so you have to be humble, tonot be like the first, ultimate
evil sinner Um, who is Satan,by the way, in case you didn't
know well it was the firstsinner was adam right well,
pride was the cause of the fallof the fallen angels, and also
(15:16):
humans.
Yes, so I defined humility notas like humbling myself in the
sense of claiming that I was aworm, but rather humility is
simply admitting that which istrue.
Angelo (15:35):
Okay, yeah, maybe there's a difference between
being humble and debasingyourself.
Chris (15:40):
Yes, exactly, most definitely, and I think if you
debase yourself you used a greatword that's a form of arrogance
, like that's taking yourselfout of a place that you don't
belong to and entering intosomething darker or worse you
mean a place you do belong toand going to a place you don't
(16:02):
right in this sense I'm sayingthat I don't know.
Matt (16:10):
Now all that word stuff is getting all jumbled up so I
don't know like when talkingabout oh my god, I'm so glad
we're talking about the pollshere, because this is so
necessary like when you havesomebody who's just been been
put down, you know it feels likelow and then you get into that,
(16:32):
that, that victim state, thenyou live, but you have all this
pent-up angst.
You have all this, all thispent up.
You know, you knowself-loathing that so many other
people like they're doing thesethings and you're just taking
it or whatever, and that's againthat's in shadow, that's going
to come out in a bad way.
(16:53):
That's going to come out in likea really bad way.
Angelo (16:57):
So yeah, even the notion to bury something you're,
you're putting it underground,right, bring your emotions.
How?
Matt (17:04):
many of your emotions, your desires, your true values,
all those things you feel arebeing sacrificed, and you're,
you know, you feel like you'rebeing put under right, and so
then that ends up having to comeout inevitably, you know,
(17:26):
whether it's destructively toother people or destructive
towards yourself too, sometimesboth.
Angelo (17:34):
Yes, so what was this Denver history you were talking
about?
Chris (17:39):
yeah, so please, uh, no, we were just speaking, um, you
know.
So, once upon a time in denver,uh, the ku klux klan was like
just everywhere.
They were really involved withthe city and everything.
They were, right, extremelyopposed to the Catholic Church
(17:59):
here in Denver.
So what did the Catholics do?
They went to the top of a hilland they erected their seminary
right there.
That's why, if you ever go tothe Denver Seminary here, it's a
tower on top of a hill and backwhen it was first built,
everyone in Denver could see ithill, and back when it was first
(18:23):
built, everyone in denver couldsee it like that was our um,
putting ourselves up aboveeveryone else and looking down
on the ku klux klan, whodeserved it.
Angelo (18:28):
Yeah so that calls into notion this, uh, this idea of
the difference between space andplace.
So a space is just is just anarea, but you don't necessarily
know where you are.
You have nothing to orientyourself.
So when you're lost in theforest and you're wandering in,
(18:50):
the forest looks the same andyou don't know if you're going
in circles or going in a certaindirection, you have no
orientation.
But as soon as you havesomething vertical and you can
see it, like, let's say, thenorth star or a steeple of a
church or a pillar, somewhere iserected to give you orientation
(19:11):
that then becomes a place thatyou can.
Therefore you can mark it, youcan understand it and you can
move around or towards or awayfrom something, but you can
orient yourself because of thisvertical.
Chris (19:33):
I love that idea and the first things that are coming to
mind are just videos of peoplewho are out in the ocean, like
maybe they're on a, on a luxurycruise or something, and then
they turn the camera out andit's just pitch black because
it's the middle of the night andyou can't see.
There are no lights out in themiddle of the ocean and yeah, I
do have to credit jonathanpageau for that one.
(19:53):
Oh okay, I wish I could say itwas mine.
I'm a genius.
Angelo (20:04):
Jonathan Pajot was talking about this idea of space
versus place and he talkedabout in the Bible.
There's a lot of symbolsorienting things upward right,
and so the lower you go, thedirtier something is, and so you
get like iron.
And then you get like somethingless than iron, like a shinier
(20:25):
metal or something like that,and the higher you go you get to
something like gold, and goldis like a shining thing which
you associate with like the skyor light or whatever and so when
case of the sea, a lighthouseright.
Right, right, A lighthouse is anorienting thing and it gives A
place that shines light.
Yes, it turns it into a place.
(20:45):
But in the Bible, isaac anointsthis stone with oil, and it's
really weird.
To somebody who doesn't reallyunderstand the symbolism, it's
like why are you pouring oil onthis stone?
But what he's doing is oil is asymbolic substance that makes
things shiny, it makes thingshigher, closer to light, and by
(21:10):
anointing this stone, he'sraising it up and he's marking
this lost desert area as a place, and so that area is now
recognized as significant.
It's the place where his stonewas anointed.
Matt (21:26):
You know what's funny, this thing with hiking trails
too.
Like you'll see people stackingstones called cairns is what
that's called Like where you seepeople balancing rocks,
balancing rocks and likestacking oh yeah, and trails,
there's a name for that.
So it's interesting, like youknow.
(21:48):
Again, the verticality and the,the making it a place you know,
making it significant yes,there's a book called an altar
in the world.
Chris (22:00):
I forgot the author's name, but she travels to hawaii
and she's just kind of exploringthis volcanic area.
There's some water there andshe notices someone had built a
rock kind of thing like that andit looked it resembled a table
or an altar and that was theinspiration for the title of her
book just the idea that someonewas here and they brought
(22:22):
sacredness to where they were.
They didn't need like icons ofchurch not that there's anything
wrong with those things,necessarily but bringing
sacredness to where you are, inspace in place making a place
for it, right, making your own.
Angelo (22:38):
And though the word alter alt is, is um altitude
related to altitude, right, it'sa raising up.
Chris (22:47):
So if you think about, uh , with all these connections,
but I mean, that's what I'msaying.
Is the vertical, is this notion?
It?
Angelo (22:55):
is it's ingrained into us this notion of up and down
and uh the church itself.
You a lot of times in uh townsthe church will be the tallest
building and the steeple of thecross will be the thing.
That's what makes it a place,is a thing to everybody can
(23:17):
orient around, and and everyonein that community is not only
physically oriented by thechurch, but spiritually and
culturally they all are supposedto be oriented towards this
spiritual practice.
And so the church physically is, is representing something to
(23:40):
give you.
It's an analogy for somethingspiritual.
Matt (23:44):
Yeah.
Angelo (23:44):
And the same thing goes for within the church.
There's so many raising upsjust within the structure itself
, the altar.
Also, anybody who practices amore traditional form of
christianity will recognize theraising of the host right um
(24:05):
down to like windows.
If you look at gothic windows,they're all arrows pointing up
so the idea is, the earth isusually represented by a square.
Squares are stable.
Squares have four corners.
That's where you get the fourcorners of the earth notion, and
(24:27):
squares are things you canbuild on top of.
Circles are associated with theheavens, the spheres, so it's a
square that turns into a circle.
And then the christians, orused the trinity, so they threw
a square, circle, triangle, andso your gothic window is a
(24:47):
raising from the earth towardsthe heaven, with the arrow
pointing up yeah orienting youwow I got one more for you too.
Matt (24:57):
Think about why we raise our hands up in the air like
this and wave them like you,just don't care right yeah,
absolutely absolutely.
Angelo (25:11):
there's so many examples that that we just take for and
it's just built into us fromprobably several different
things that we empiricallyobserve.
I mean, for one thing, the sunis in the sky.
Chris (25:27):
Yeah.
Angelo (25:28):
And that's our source of light and heat and warmth, and
we associate it with life.
So this very important thingthat we use to orient ourselves
is up, and also our heads, the,the, the thing that we associate
with intellect and that drivesour body and that we also
(25:52):
associate with the most intimatepart of ourselves.
If you think about it, when youthink about another person, you
think about their head andtheir face.
You don't necessarily thinkabout their whole body first,
you think about their face.
Okay, so the head is on thehighest part of the body.
It's elevated, at least forhumans, that's true.
So it's almost natural thatthere's this, this vertical.
Chris (26:16):
Yeah, um notion, I think from an evolutionary perspective
I mean, we were probably in thebeginning.
So, um, we mentioned earlierthat we don't want to just
discount the earth right justbecause we're talking about the
vertical and altitudes andhigher ups and whatnot.
I think what we probably didright is we probably climbed
(26:37):
some trees, we probably climbedsome mountains and we probably
climbed some mountains and wehad this idea like that took a
little bit of time, that took alittle bit of effort and work,
but now I'm on top and now Ihave supervision over this area
that I have.
It looks beautiful and thatidea of beauty probably played
on our minds a little bit whenwe did that, and so we put a
(26:58):
value on altitude and height.
Yeah, but, without the groundright, without our roots,
without a place to dwell,without shelter, you know we
need to be on the ground too.
We cannot.
Matt (27:09):
We need to have both it's like and there's a balance there
.
It's like a forward orientationthing too, going, you know, now
we're kind of going to the, thehorizontal bits, but not really
, um, in terms of like it's.
It's kind of it's really sexy.
Think about expansion and likebuilding and doing all this,
(27:30):
like no, I want to go forwardand do all these, all these cool
things.
And it takes, it takes effortfor us to.
You know, we have to regardslowing down like think about
why the rudder of a ship is atthe back of the ship, right,
that allows you to coursecorrect, that allows you to.
You know, you can't just be okayall forward, all the time you
(27:54):
have to be able to do themaintenance things you have to
be able to do.
You maintenance things you haveto be able to do.
You know, making toughdecisions away from what you
might like to think is, oh, thiswould be really fun and this
would be really really awesomeand uplifting, but I can't do
that because I have anassessment to do this.
I have to you know I have to, Ihave to to go, I have to go
(28:19):
deep and listen to my instincts.
I have to listen to my you know,uh, my intuition and what, what
my gut is, what my gut istelling me that my emotions
might well really want me to gothis way, but my right, but my
my instant, my intuition istelling me no, that's not a good
idea.
Chris (28:38):
You have to well, you kind of need like a um a system,
right, a virtual system thatsupervises your um, your
behavior to some, to some degree, and even even the word super,
I think, means above exactly,it's latin for above, so I
cannot get that idea of asupervisor out of my head.
(29:01):
And right, for some reason, he'son the lifeguard chair and he's
saying we're headed for a cliffthis way, we need to head this
way.
And he's like a tribal leader,right, so he, he puts in the
work, he gets the ability tosupervise and now he leads
because he has that supervisoryability.
And it's not just true forright, like we just said, um,
(29:25):
it's not just true for ourphysical leaders or wherever
we're going.
We need a virtual system forourselves that points us in the
right direction and helps us togrow up.
Angelo (29:37):
Grow up, grow up, that's another one.
Matt (29:41):
That is, grow up, leveling up.
Chris (29:44):
Live up to your potential .
Angelo (29:47):
Yeah, it also brings me back to the mountain, because
the mountain is not only anupward journey, it's a forward
journey, and when you're lookingdown from above, it's an inward
journey.
Chris (30:04):
So that's why the wow so prevalent.
Was that also jonathan pegeauor no?
That's all that was really good, I love that because you gotta
be you gotta be glad we recordedthat your feet, you can.
Matt (30:14):
you can be looking at yeah , you can be looking at the
mountain, looking at the peak ofthat mountain, but you've got
to keep your feet moving andyour feet are what's closest to
the earth, right?
I'd love to talk about this theconnection between higher and
lower and necessarily feelingstruggle or pain for, let's say,
(30:37):
for a better cause or for for abetter yeah, sacrifice
sacrifice, like even even goback to you know.
Lifting up your arms.
Your shoulders get tired aftera while.
Lifting your arms up for a whileright if you're moving on that
mountain, say you're moving on acouple, a few good miles on
that mountain, you're using yourfeet, your legs can get tired,
(31:00):
you're using.
You know this notion of workyeah, you need to.
Angelo (31:04):
You need to bring order, um in order to get to your goal
, and when you relax, the chaostakes over and you do roads, all
the the structure that youbuilt.
I also want to talk abouthierarchy and authority because
no, I'm just kidding.
(31:26):
Yes, because it's a hard, it'swell, it's often associated with
the pyramid, right, andrecently it's course, associated
with negative things, becausethe idea is that all hierarchies
are indicators of power and thewill to power and can be
(31:49):
tyrannies, right.
So when you hear aboutsomething like a pyramid scheme,
you're like, oh dude, that's ahorrible pyramid scheme because
there's like one guy at the topreaping all the benefits and all
the guys at the bottom aren't.
But I do think there is a sensein which there's a rightful
hierarchy and we've talked aboutthis a little bit, I think, in
(32:10):
uh, when we were talking aboutgood and evil where there
there's a if everything's in itsright place and and this notion
of uh, there there is somesense of a value structure that
you do want to have to orientyourself or else it's all just,
or else there it's just spaceand exactly.
(32:32):
Yeah, you're without a compass,right and so, uh, even the word
authority has the word author init, and an author is a person
writing a story.
They get to decide what thestory means.
They get to decide who is moreimportant and who is less
(32:55):
important.
The author is in charge of thestory.
So, yes, to have authority isto be the person who should be,
uh, the one writing the story,right?
Matt (33:07):
yeah, he's in its rightful place, you know I've got to
give some insight on this, likeas a step-parent, from a
stepfather experience, right.
So my wife, pretty much, youknow, raised our son till he was
you know, it was just themuntil he was like seven years
(33:28):
old, right, and he basicallydoesn't know, you know, no
contact with his dad, all that,all that kind of stuff you know.
And so I've been in his life alittle over a third of his life,
which is crazy to me, right?
So that means that Iconsciously this is the way I
love to think aboutstepfatherdom is I consciously
(33:50):
stepped into that family, Iconsciously chose that family,
right?
So he's used to, he's been likeused to things, you know,
between him and his mom and in alot of different ways, right,
and I come in and I'm likewhat's my role, you know?
I'm like what's, you know whatis?
What is this thing about beinga stepfather specifically, right
(34:14):
?
so I'm like you talk about, likeon the job, training, you know
that is that is something I'mlearning, learning as I go right
, and I definitely fell intothat, where it's like you know,
and this is such a sovereignthing.
Going back to the archetypes,right, I mean, that was a whole,
a whole learning journey for me.
(34:35):
Right is is that mindset of thesovereign is the one who calls
the shots.
That is such, that can be such adeeply ingrained idea, and that
ended up causing struggles too,between us, you know, because
it's not necessarily just thefact of you being the one who
(34:55):
calls the shots that makes you aleader, is the qualities of
being a leader that makes you agood leader, right, yes, so I
had to adopt this new, this newframe.
Right is what is like?
What does that mean?
Like, what does it mean to bethe stepfather?
What does it mean to be aleader?
I'm facilitating the bestinterests of my child.
That, to me, makes it verysimple, right wow so know for.
(35:21):
so, whether it's nutrition,whether it's you know this or
that, and what this extends toalso is I want him also to be
someone who a lot of parentscan't admit this Like.
I want him to actually besomeone who exceeds me as he
gets older too, because that'sevolution exceeds me as he gets
(35:45):
older too, because that'sevolution.
That means that I've done myjob to help him to be the best
version of himself, to be thebest you know, to put him in the
best position for success rightwell, absolutely, and that's
love right sometimes challenge,sometimes challenge too.
Oh, absolutely genuine love is,is willing the best for for
another and your kid.
Angelo (36:02):
You want them to not make the same mistakes you made
absolutely you want to elevatethem to the best possible
position.
That they could be in, even ifit's higher than yourself, and
really you're, you're not gonnabe here forever.
No, what's the point of tryingto hold your position above them
forever?
No you want, you want them togrow and their kids to grow and
(36:25):
for it to keep, yes, going.
Chris (36:27):
Oh, absolutely I think most of most parents.
Now, I'm not a parent, right,you guys are, but I'd like to
believe that most parents wantthat for their kids, to exceed
them, I think the problem is yesthe problem is not every mother
and father has a good qualityof being, of those two things,
(36:50):
and they don't have a goodquality of value like.
They don't know how to like theydon't have the values
themselves, so they don't knowhow to pass those good values on
to their children, right, well,it's tricky, um, parenting is
really hard raising anotherhuman being because you you're
still learning about yourselfoftentimes while you're raising
(37:12):
a whole other person.
Angelo (37:14):
Um, I think, archetypally, the mother and the
father.
There's this idea we kind oftalked about this before too
where the father is oftenassociated with the above um,
which is why I think the itmakes sense for a lot of
abrahamic religions to associategod with a father and we
(37:38):
associate the earth with themother, right.
And so at the bottom, you havethis generative principle.
It's the thing that givespotential and and provides the
soil for everything to grow.
And from the above, you have aconstraining principle.
It's, it's the calling, it'sthe thing that trims down and
limits and gives the orders andsupervises right.
(38:00):
And so the archetypal father isthe one imposing a structure,
imposing order through rules andlimitations, and that's why the
father gives ten commandments,right.
That's why they come as rulesof what not to do.
Thou shalt not, that shall not.
It's a limiting principleversus the mother is this
(38:24):
generative principle, and thosetwo, in their proper place, in
their proper order, will makethe best thing ever, because the
bits that aren't needed aretrimmed off and the bits that
are needed to grow.
Matt (38:37):
Have enough nutrients from you from below and you know a
really beautiful way that thatworks out too.
Say, you have like a man andwoman in relationship, and how
that works is if you have a manwho is responsible and knows how
like it isn't just about theimpulse of taking charge, but
(38:57):
you actually know how to getthings done effectively and she
doesn't have to worry aboutthose things, actually know how
to get things done effectivelyand she doesn't have to worry
about those things.
He's like oh, we had this.
You know, we had this problemwith the with one of our
vehicles recently.
Like somebody did this hit andrun, like the bumper was like
hanging off and this whole, thiswhole thing.
Right, yeah, I know bastards youknow, but it's like the less
(39:19):
that she has to worry about that.
And like we collaborate we, youknow, we, you know, we, like
you know we exchange resourcesand thoughts and all that kind
of stuff.
But basically I'm figuring outwhere you know, where we can get
this fixed, for how much, allthose things, right.
So she doesn't have to have thatweighing on her mind.
(39:40):
Just knows, oh, is going andgetting it done Right, right.
So she can't have to have thatweighing on her mind, just knows
, oh, he's going and getting itdone Right, right.
So she can then relax.
She can then focus hernurturing energy on areas where
she's going to do her best.
You know her best work and bemost you know, taking care of
the home.
(40:01):
She loves bringing flourish andbeauty to the home.
That's one of the most awesomethings about her is that she
loves the beauty of the homespace, so it's like being able
to focus on that and not have toworry about the car frees up a
lot of mental energy?
Chris (40:19):
Absolutely you were taking care of some
practicalities of the situationand she was the family nurturer.
Angelo (40:26):
Yeah, yeah.
So, going back to the questionof authority and what ought to
be at the top, I like the ideaof the meritocracy right the top
and they, if they aregenerously, you know, oriented
(40:48):
towards the, towards a highergood, they will bring everyone
up with them, right?
if you're a person, they are,yes, well, yeah, obviously,
obviously roll those diceobviously the entire thing needs
to be oriented towards, towardsa higher good, or else, if it's
a self-serving person at thetop, it won't work.
But a person who, let's say,it's a company right, a person
(41:10):
who isn't just trying to be theguy who makes the most money and
gets to boss people around, buthe cares about the company
succeeding and making this thinga successful thing for the sake
of making everyone in thecompany flourish and whatever
(41:31):
the company does, let's say it'ssomething that they create, a
product that that serves peoplewell, if his heart is oriented
towards I want to make the bestproduct that I can.
Um, and not I'm just gonna cashout on this company and leave
everybody to fend for themselveswhen I'm finished with it.
Matt (41:52):
Uh, that's the proper orientation is yeah, no,
absolutely yeah, like somethinghigher than himself, right
leadership development, too, andthat's so good.
We're talking about higher andno, absolutely, yeah, something
higher than himself, right?
Leadership development, too,and that's so good.
We're talking about higher andlower too, because if you have
people who are coming up, whoare on your team, but you're
(42:14):
that person who's very, verycompetent, knowledgeable, and
you know how to teach, you knowhow to explain things.
Well too, Right, you know how toteach.
You know how to explain thingswell too right, like there's
this order of things likeunconscious incompetence, like
being so bad at something youdon't even know how stupid you
are at it.
Right, a level up from that isconscious incompetence.
(42:37):
That's where you're aware ofyour deficiencies, aware of your
weaknesses right, then you canactually look at them, something
about them.
Then there's consciouscompetence.
That's where you know thatyou're good at whatever areas
you're good at.
Right, you're good at it.
You know you're good at it.
You know how to well, hopefully, how to explain it to.
And then there's unconsciousincompetence, where you're so
(42:59):
good at something you struggleto explain how you do it.
It's so automatic for you,right.
And this is where a lot, of, alot of teachers get stuck, a lot
of leaders get stuck is becausethey're just so in their zone
that it's hard for them to step.
You know, not dumb it down, butbut explain things in simple
(43:24):
terms to people to understand.
And you have to have the willfor people to actually
understand.
That's the mark of a greatteacher.
Right, there is when you canexplain it simply and you
actually want people to learnand what that does.
Information sharing is one ofthe most powerful forms of
leadership.
Seriously, absolutely.
(43:45):
Because, then you're levelingpeople up, you're sharing
information, you're compoundingthe competence of all the people
around you.
They can take that knowledge,hopefully even apply it.
Then you've got to hold them to, you know.
Chris (44:02):
I think that that's exactly raises people up.
Another thing that brought ustogether is exactly that thing
Our ability to communicate ourexperiences in a way that we
want to share what we've learnedwith others and draw them in to
our ideas of higher principlesand inner depths.
Angelo (44:24):
There's something to this notion at the top level,
the unconscious, competent,where they're not just aware of
what they're good at in theknown but they're able to adapt
to the unknown right, and we allvalue that as virtuous unknown
(44:46):
right and we, we've all valuethat as a as virtuous.
Yeah, because if you have ascientist and they're on the
cusp of the unknown and they'rediscovering something, you want
someone who knows how todiscover, someone who's able to
say, no, I don't know everything, but I'm good at finding it,
I'm good finding the answer andthat's humility again, right
there.
Chris (45:04):
I don't know everything, but let me try to figure this
out.
Help me, let's figure this outtogether.
Maybe we both don't knoweverything in the world.
Angelo (45:12):
You're humbling yourself in the face of a higher truth.
A good teacher knows that theydon't know everything about the
subject, but they know how tolearn.
They know and that's reallywhat a teacher ought to be
teaching their students is howto learn, not just yes.
Here, stuff all the knowledgethat I have into your brain and
(45:34):
regurgitate it onto this paper.
It's no, and if you don't knowwhere the answer comes from, how
?
Chris (45:40):
do you find it?
Do you know who famously said Iknow that I know nothing.
Socrates, oh yeah.
Angelo (45:48):
That's right.
Chris (45:49):
That's right, he's the original.
Like oh yeah, I'm super humble,I don't know anything, and now
let me slap your intellectaround a little bit.
Angelo (45:57):
Let me show you how much you don't know yeah.
Chris (46:05):
And now that I know that I know nothing, I want to go
back to a specific sentence.
You had said before, um, whenyou were talking about the
metaphor of like, the, thebusiness, the right, the
authority corporation yeahcorporation.
You said the whole thing needsto be oriented towards a higher
good and and that works for thecorporation metaphor, but I
think more broadly that appliesto humanity, all of us.
(46:29):
We need to be oriented towardsa higher good, something higher.
Something greater than yourself,and it starts with being humble
and saying you know what?
I don't know anything.
I don't know everything thathappened on the planet Earth
yesterday.
I don't know what will happen.
Let me orient myself to thehigher good, the higher truth
(46:50):
the higher beauty.
Matt (46:51):
You know that's looking at things in depth too.
I think there's a stillnessthere.
And, going back to the thing ofyou know you can't always just
be forward oriented and movingforward, but like when you're
still, like think about howwater in a lake necessarily is
(47:12):
just still and water just goesto the lowest point, right, and
it's in that stillness, right.
So when you can look at thingsat depth, when you can look,
when you can be still, when yourmind can be still and you can
look at things like why areskyscrapers all pointed upwards?
You know, like they're all.
(47:34):
They're all.
It's, all it's about.
It should be about ascendingtowards something or or pointing
towards something.
You start to make theseconnections.
You know, when you don't haveall the clutter and the noise
shaking your mind, you know andyou can observe things and you
can be curious and you can have,you know, think about the up.
(47:57):
I think that also is like asense of awe too.
Yes, you know, when you have an, an awe experience and you can
experience things at depth andinsights come to you and and
you're, you know your mind, it'slike you're, you're well, I
like to say you're it's likeyour being is dilated yes, and
(48:18):
you know what I don't?
Chris (48:19):
I don't think humanity has had enough of that.
I don't think it's enough forour culture, our societies, our
technology to just progress.
We have to ascend versusnuclear energy our technology
(48:48):
has far surpassed our wisdomability to use it correctly.
Um.
So, again, it's just not enoughto progress our technology and
and our societies or whatever.
We have to ascend towards ahigher point but remain grounded
right, like you can't have thetop of the tree without having
the roots in the ground.
Angelo (49:05):
So, again, there's a balance there we're not just and
it's funny even that metaphorthat from young, the tree with
with its roots reaching down andthe leaves reaching up, yes, is
another height metaphor yeah,dante's inferno was a whole
vertical ascension hell yeah, ohyeah and then purgatory right.
Chris (49:28):
Purgatory is a mountain that you have to ascend and at
the top is eden, like theoriginal eden, um, like a
spiritual eden.
That's just perfect.
It's not heaven, but it's aperfect dwelling place before
you get to heaven and theheavens are spheres that that go
inward yes, yes, they're,they're well.
Originally they're the planetsright you ascend through the
(49:52):
heavens right and then, when hereaches god, god is like this
encased.
How is it?
Oh, it's like a perfect sphereof angels and he's right at the
center, like a rose.
It's.
Matt (50:08):
It's really cool, wow wow, that's if you look at some of
um.
Was it albrecht durer?
You ever seen it?
He was a german artist.
He did a lot of theseengravings, but like hyper
detailed engravings I think thatsounds.
Did a lot of these engravings,but like hyper-detailed
engravings.
I think that sounds like a lotof one that he would do.
(50:29):
He did a lot that were veryreligious and very, very
spiritual.
It's honestly mind-blowing,mind-blowing detail.
Fantastic artist yeah.
Chris (50:41):
Let's Google it.
Matt (50:50):
Go Google Albrecht Durer.
Yeah, yeah, artist, yeah, let'sgoogle it yeah, yeah that guy
was insane in the best way Iwanted to talk briefly to, about
going in depth in in your beingtoo yes we're say, you know,
when we're ascending towardssomething, we're it's, it's a
higher point, what we have, allof this depth within ourselves,
(51:12):
we have all of this.
That is that's inside ofourselves and we say we're doing
, we're doing shadow work, we'redoing, you know, meditation and
we're looking, we're lookinginward.
It's like there's an inward anda downness.
I think that's that's connectedlooking at yourself in depth
and getting to know yourselfdeeply right, getting to know
(51:34):
your.
You know, getting to know likeI'm not just going to move
forward in the mundanity of myday and move forward in my life
in this automatic way, like, letme look.
They look deeply inwardly andbecome, embrace it, like talking
about the roots, like embracingthe depth rather than it being
this struggle or this begrudgingthing.
(51:57):
You know this thing that you'relooking forward to going deeply
inward and getting to knowyourself and being intimate with
the being that is you.
Chris (52:07):
That shadow work that you do with yourself, that is work
and that can get really dark.
But I think there's this ideathat the ascension right, the
spiritual ascension and thepinnacle god, I guess right, the
pinnacle also involves thedeepest depths of our personal
(52:28):
being.
You can't have one without theother.
You got to have both it'sinteresting.
Matt (52:37):
I was, I've been doing a lot of meditating on gratitude
recently, and not just, you know.
We think of gratitude, as youknow, appreciating the things
around us, appreciating ourfriends, appreciating our family
and our blessings and all thosethings.
But I think it's an awarenesstoo, or it's an aspect of
(53:00):
awareness.
Awareness, too, or it's anaspect of awareness you can
appreciate.
You can be grateful for thechallenges that you're going
through, for what they're goingto bring out of you.
You can be grateful for thingsthat may not even seem like
blessings, things that are inyour route.
You can be grateful for, youknow, again, going at depth, um,
(53:20):
the things, the things that wetake for granted, like not just
automatically going through ourlives, but perceiving it deeply,
perceiving these things deeply,being aware of them and having
a felt presence, experience ofshining a light on them.
(53:42):
And it's so funny when you say,like talking about, talking
about the higher and you know,and being inward, and it's like
that's actually one thing.
I thought about it, about thegratitude in that way, and the
awareness is like it's the lightthat that shines through,
matter, the light that shines,the light that shines through
matter it's the light thatshines to those deep places.
(54:05):
You can look in those deepplaces and be grateful and have
that depth of awareness andgratitude.
Chris (54:10):
A great Spanish saint, st Ignatius of Loyola, who founded
the Jesuits, which is thelargest priesthood around the
world.
He developed the spiritualexercises, and one of the first
ones you have to do is you haveto dwell on the sins which
you've committed throughout theday so that you can ask
(54:33):
forgiveness from.
But before you do that, thinkabout all the good things that
happened today and thank God forthose good things.
That's beautiful, becausewithout the gratitude you're
right you don't have the lightto bring into your life.
And another exercise that I'veheard of I don't think it's St
Ignatius, but if you woke uptomorrow without the things that
(54:59):
you thanked God for the nightbefore, what would you have?
I mean, did you thank God thatyou have a functioning vehicle,
have a loving wife and childrenshelter?
Angelo (55:11):
I know I often think about how I'm not sick Like you
ever been sick and your nose isstuffed and you're like it sucks
, man oh dude, I used to lovewhen I could just breathe
through my face and then sobreathing I don't know I had
(55:31):
like a really stuffy nose nottoo long ago and it sucked and
you're talking about.
Matt (55:37):
It's the worst, yeah, and, and so now that I can like, now
that I can breathe, through mynose.
It's like I can like now that Ican breathe through my nose
it's like oh, my God.
Angelo (55:45):
I love that I can breathe through my nose.
Oh my God, it's so amazing.
I wonder if, uh, when you'reyoung, you you just take for
granted your body and you, youjust don't have any like aches
and pains or anything, and youfeel like the world's at your
disposal.
And as you get older, maybelike every day, there's just
(56:06):
another problem.
You're like ah, my teeth feel,weird, my back?
Chris (56:13):
hurts.
Oh yeah, weird.
Yeah, I'm walking weird likeevery day wrong.
Angelo (56:18):
Oh yeah, like maybe every day there's just a problem
and you're like, oh man, can'tthere just be a day where I just
have this body like everything?
Matt (56:29):
works.
Young people just looking like.
What the hell's wrong with you?
Angelo (56:32):
yeah, they don't get it, you'll learn you'll learn young
blood you know, the first time,right now, everything's.
That's great.
Chris (56:42):
The first time that that happened to me, I think I was 30
years old, I'm 33, about to be34.
And you know, when I was a kid,I wanted to be a Power Ranger,
right.
So I'd like jump from all thesestones to stone to stone.
So I tried to do that againwhen I was 30.
And I was like, oh, I can't dothis as fast or as long distance
.
I can't do this as fast or aslong distance.
(57:02):
I can't really do this at all.
Actually, it's kind of like I'mreally tight and I can't jump
to that stone over there.
Oh no, I'm getting old.
Oh man, this is bad.
Matt (57:13):
I had a bucket list thing of being on American Ninja
Warrior at one point.
Chris (57:18):
And then I went to.
Matt (57:19):
I went to what was it?
Urban air, one of those with,uh, my son and it's all
trampolines, yeah, and they'vegot the, they get the course in
the middle and I'm like I am toodamn heavy for no, that's for
really limber skinny people.
Yeah, that's that man that'sokay, I'll trade big problems
(57:46):
for hey again as we disintegrate.
Chris (57:50):
Maybe our minds and our souls can make that ascension
right, even if our bodies can'tyeah, my soul is doing backflips
that's right honestly, I thinkthat's a good place to wrap this
up.
Angelo (58:08):
All right, cool, all right, I think uh this is fun.
Chris (58:11):
Yeah, this was actually really great topic oddly enough,
because what do you?
Angelo (58:16):
you wouldn't think of what to say about the vertical,
but here we are.
So, um, thank you all forbearing with us and uh, so now
let's talk about this uniqueconcept of the vertical and
height and altitude, and up anddown.
Uh, if you've stuck around thislong, uh, thanks for being here
(58:39):
.
Um, please like and share andsubscribe and do what you can to
support the podcast and we hopeto see you next time that's
right, all right thank you verymuch it's been fun.
Hello everyone, welcome to the Telos Initiative podcast.
I'm Angelo Cole.
Chris (00:05):
I'm Chris Vigil and I'm Matt Maes.
Angelo (00:07):
Today we are going to be talking about an abstract topic
called the vertical.
So what we mean by the verticalis this notion of up and down,
higher and lower, of up and downhigher and lower, something to
(00:31):
do with maybe raising up we useit a lot in our language higher
consciousness, or diving deepinto the realm of knowledge, or
something diving deep into atopic.
uh, a lot of times we use itunconsciously, so why, do we do
(00:53):
that, and what is this notion ofof higher and lower, and how
deep does it go into oursubconscious?
Matt (01:03):
I love when you say, like, how we can use it
subconsciously too, because itseems to slip naturally into our
language in so many differentways.
And you know, one thing that Ifound really interesting is, as
I was thinking about this topicand how up shows up and how down
shows up in our language, itseems like like up or higher is
(01:31):
easier to point to, and downseems like very mysterious and
there are a lot of different,different ways that we use down,
that some are connected, a lotare a lot are connected, but
it's very mysterious, you knowdefinitely, there's a notion
called the axis mundi.
Angelo (01:53):
It's this idea of um alignment vertically with
something spiritual, but it goesthrough your very being, even
to the point of being physical.
So I think a lot of new agephilosophy associates it with
the chakras and kundalini, butit might also have some origins
(02:20):
and some other easternphilosophies.
Uh, the axis mundi is thishigher and lower orientation
within the self, from thephysical to the mental, to the
spiritual okay, that's great.
Chris (02:38):
So, right away, I'm really liking the um, the fact
that we use depth as the I guessthe antipode of of the vertical
, or, you know, ascension, um,and matt, you're right, like,
whenever I point at things, I'malways pointing up, I'm never
pointing like down at anything,unless I really need to
emphasize something which Inever do.
But if I think about, like, thedepth of my heart, I'm pointing
(03:00):
inwardly, like towards myself,my solar plexus and I like that.
Angelo (03:07):
Also Notices notion of the mountain.
The mountain is used as asymbol Pretty universally in all
sorts of religions or storiesor myths, even for secular
symbols.
Even for secular symbols, wewould think of the mountain as a
(03:28):
climbing towards something, ajourney.
There's a triangular figurethat you can envision in your
head.
At the very peak is a centralpoint and it splits apart as you
(03:51):
descend.
So maybe that notion of amystery and disintegration and
separation kind of is comingfrom your subconscious notion of
the mountain or associating thecenter and the periphery with,
yeah, up and down yeah,naturally you know archetypally
(04:11):
too.
Matt (04:11):
When we're talking about the mountain, I like to think
about, you know, moses going upto the mountain and getting the,
the tablets.
You know commandments on the onthe tablets and also how
archetypally that can be true aswell, like, how often you know
commandments on the on thetablets and also how
archetypally that can be true aswell.
Like, how often, you know, havewe had this experience where we
(04:31):
, where we're going to thisplace in isolation, we're going
to this, you know, this place ofascension, this place where
we're, you know, where it's justus, and we are trying to get
into consciousness with that,that higher spirit, with that
higher present, and then we takewhat we gain from that and
those insights and we bring thatdown into the world with us,
(04:56):
like we went.
We went up, we had this journey, we had this experience, and
then we then we, you know takewhat we gained from that journey
, from that ascension, back down.
Angelo (05:08):
And definitely notice how you're using metaphorical
language throughout that wholething.
Matt (05:12):
This higher consciousness that we're bringing down how
tightly knit it is in ourlanguage.
Angelo (05:19):
Absolutely.
Even the idea of something likesubconscious or substance is
beneath there's something there.
Chris (05:46):
I want to return to that idea of there's like a pinnacle
at the top of the mountain,right and everything else is you
use the word disintegrating asit removes itself from the
pinnacle.
Now, all three of us were, youknow, either in our mid-30s or
approaching our mid-30s and Ican like, as my body or as
myself disintegrates, I shouldbe spiritually moving towards
(06:12):
the pinnacle of the of the holymount, like the mountain of
holiness.
So as we ascend spiritually upto the pinnacle of the holy
mountain, even as my bodydisintegrates, that spiritual
reality that I am experiencingwill naturally flow out from
that and enter physically intoour reality here.
(06:35):
Right, it's a flow thing.
I'm just putting that out therehere's another notion of out
and in.
Angelo (06:42):
Associated with this up and down.
I was thinking historicallyabout how in ancient cultures,
they used the notion of heightalmost literally, like the fact
that you were taller or higherup than someone gave you more of
(07:04):
a position of importance.
Like the king sits on a throne,yes, and he wears a physical
crown and and the little thecrown is?
Literally little arrowspointing upward if you think
about it.
It's this notion of the Kingsposition is supposed to be
(07:27):
anointed towards somethinghigher, physically, and
spiritually.
Chris (07:34):
Yeah, the king is mentally connected to the
heavens and he brings thatblessing from heaven to his
realm.
Angelo (07:44):
At least the Christian notion of the king.
Okay, right, the the christiannotion of the king okay, right,
because there's other well, Imean, there's other uh leaders
and kings that in other culturesweren't necessarily oriented
towards something higher theycould.
It could be a self-worshippingtyranny sort of thing yeah.
Why.
Chris (08:04):
Those aren't kings, I would say, those are tyrants.
Angelo (08:07):
Well, I mean, they would call themselves kings, you know
.
Chris (08:12):
I mean, I think they're unholy inverses of the true idea
of a king.
Angelo (08:18):
Okay, right, sure.
Matt (08:20):
Like there's the idea or the ideal and then there's the
actual, like we could even say,with nobles or nobility.
A lot of those nobles were.
Many of them, as we know, werevery kind of pompous and stuck
up and not embodying the youknow, the nobility of spirit
that denotes that word.
(08:41):
That denotes that word.
I also think of a lot of thereligious art at the time,
especially in the medievalperiods, where you might see
figures that are floating up offof the ground like they're
elevated above the ground as ifit was kind of a simplistic idea
(09:03):
of down being lower or bad andup always necessarily being good
and holy and right, depicted inthe art.
Angelo (09:16):
Yeah, there's something universal about that in almost
every culture, that it's justbuilt into us to think of higher
as better, and I'm wonderingwhere exactly that comes from,
if it's just archetypally builtinto our brains for some reason,
like maybe this idea that you,if you go higher, you're able to
see more just for the fact thatyou're physically above, it
(09:41):
gives you greater wisdom andinsight.
It could be, and it also makesyou a central point, right, like
so if someone stands up on ahill, they're doing that in
order to get a crowd of people,to look towards them and to
listen to them right and toteach them.
Chris (09:59):
Yeah, can we dive into a little bit of denver history?
Matt (10:04):
sure, hold up, hold up.
Okay, go ahead Before that,real quick.
There's another question On topof that.
I was wondering how much of ourunderstanding of higher and
lower is intrinsic, justnaturally built in and just
naturally you know like we justkind of have this natural
understanding of what higher andlower is and how much has been
(10:28):
influenced over time, like howmuch, how much might we be, you
know, be taught to think whathigher and lower is, and so
often we can discard the loweryou know.
So often we end up likediscarding things as as taboo or
or you know, evil and and darkthat not necessarily are are bad
(10:52):
right, sure, yeah then we don'tintegrate those things and then
we they go into shadow and youknow, what goes in the shadow
ends up coming up unhealthilybecause sure we didn't properly,
you know, bring that into our,into a whole person integration
I think it calls into questionwhat there.
Angelo (11:12):
There are proper things that should be considered lower.
Right, and it depends.
It's an orientation problem,right?
Yeah, so if you put somethinglower when it shouldn't be,
you're humiliating it.
It's funny the word humilitycomes from the same root word as
(11:36):
hummus, which means earth orthe ground.
So to humble yourself is to belower.
Ah, okay humble yourself is tobe lower, and in Christianity
and also in Islam and all sortsof religious practices, you bow
and you prostrate yourself, andthat's a good thing to do in its
(11:59):
proper place.
You would want to do that inthe presence of something that's
meant to be higher thanyourself.
It's a sign of respect anddignity, and even in certain
countries you would bow just toshow respect, when it's a form
of greeting.
You bow in the presence of evenjust a stranger.
Matt (12:27):
I promise I want to get to your point real quick.
But on humility that is.
People so understand this ideaof humility, I think.
But it's just necessarily to.
It's almost tied to just lowself-esteem with a lot of people
.
You know like, oh, how could I,you know, do this and be that
(12:48):
and all all this kind of stuff,right.
But I think in practical terms,it's much more like a proper
consideration of what's aroundyou.
Yes, Giving due regard tothings and and you know, in your
attitude, you're not aboveregard to things.
And and you know, in yourattitude, you're not above doing
certain things.
(13:08):
Right, like, say you know.
Like, say, fitness, for example, I love fitness.
Like, say, you're going to thegym, but then you know you're.
If you have this attitude like,oh, I could, you know, oh, I
could, I could do all this stuffand I don't have to watch my
fitness, I could just eat.
Or I don't have to watch mynutrition, I could just eat.
You know, all these differentthings I want to eat.
(13:29):
Not paying attention, not beinghumble to what's required of
you if you really want to aspireto that higher goal that you
have.
Angelo (13:38):
Yes, right, that's humility.
Matt (13:41):
That's the opposite of arrogance, which is just
ignoring and thinking thatyou're too good to do certain
things too good to listen topeople too good to pay attention
.
Angelo (13:55):
Those who exalt themselves shall be humbled, and
those who humble themselvesshall be exalted shall be
exalted.
Chris (14:09):
So there's a a scene in that disney movie hercules right
where um hades minions.
They're, uh, they're humblingthemselves in front of hades and
they're like, oh, we are worms.
And then they transform intoworms literally.
Um, I don't think that'shumility.
Um, maybe in the right place,right, like I might say
something like that if I'mpraying to jesus and I'm like
compared to you, my lord, I amas nothing right, I am dust, and
(14:33):
unto dust I shall return in itsproper place, right in its
proper place.
uh, there was a time in my lifewhen I had to really meditate,
like what is Like, how do I knowif I have humility?
Is this a real thing?
Because, especially if you growup Christian, like humility is
like the thing that they put onyou because pride was the first
(14:55):
sin, yep.
And so you have to be humble, tonot be like the first, ultimate
evil sinner Um, who is Satan,by the way, in case you didn't
know well it was the firstsinner was adam right well,
pride was the cause of the fallof the fallen angels, and also
(15:16):
humans.
Yes, so I defined humility notas like humbling myself in the
sense of claiming that I was aworm, but rather humility is
simply admitting that which istrue.
Angelo (15:35):
Okay, yeah, maybe there's a difference between
being humble and debasingyourself.
Chris (15:40):
Yes, exactly, most definitely, and I think if you
debase yourself you used a greatword that's a form of arrogance
, like that's taking yourselfout of a place that you don't
belong to and entering intosomething darker or worse you
mean a place you do belong toand going to a place you don't
(16:02):
right in this sense I'm sayingthat I don't know.
Matt (16:10):
Now all that word stuff is getting all jumbled up so I
don't know like when talkingabout oh my god, I'm so glad
we're talking about the pollshere, because this is so
necessary like when you havesomebody who's just been been
put down, you know it feels likelow and then you get into that,
(16:32):
that, that victim state, thenyou live, but you have all this
pent-up angst.
You have all this, all thispent up.
You know, you knowself-loathing that so many other
people like they're doing thesethings and you're just taking
it or whatever, and that's againthat's in shadow, that's going
to come out in a bad way.
(16:53):
That's going to come out in likea really bad way.
Angelo (16:57):
So yeah, even the notion to bury something you're,
you're putting it underground,right, bring your emotions.
How?
Matt (17:04):
many of your emotions, your desires, your true values,
all those things you feel arebeing sacrificed, and you're,
you know, you feel like you'rebeing put under right, and so
then that ends up having to comeout inevitably, you know,
(17:26):
whether it's destructively toother people or destructive
towards yourself too, sometimesboth.
Angelo (17:34):
Yes, so what was this Denver history you were talking
about?
Chris (17:39):
yeah, so please, uh, no, we were just speaking, um, you
know.
So, once upon a time in denver,uh, the ku klux klan was like
just everywhere.
They were really involved withthe city and everything.
They were, right, extremelyopposed to the Catholic Church
(17:59):
here in Denver.
So what did the Catholics do?
They went to the top of a hilland they erected their seminary
right there.
That's why, if you ever go tothe Denver Seminary here, it's a
tower on top of a hill and backwhen it was first built,
everyone in Denver could see ithill, and back when it was first
(18:23):
built, everyone in denver couldsee it like that was our um,
putting ourselves up aboveeveryone else and looking down
on the ku klux klan, whodeserved it.
Angelo (18:28):
Yeah so that calls into notion this, uh, this idea of
the difference between space andplace.
So a space is just is just anarea, but you don't necessarily
know where you are.
You have nothing to orientyourself.
So when you're lost in theforest and you're wandering in,
(18:50):
the forest looks the same andyou don't know if you're going
in circles or going in a certaindirection, you have no
orientation.
But as soon as you havesomething vertical and you can
see it, like, let's say, thenorth star or a steeple of a
church or a pillar, somewhere iserected to give you orientation
(19:11):
that then becomes a place thatyou can.
Therefore you can mark it, youcan understand it and you can
move around or towards or awayfrom something, but you can
orient yourself because of thisvertical.
Chris (19:33):
I love that idea and the first things that are coming to
mind are just videos of peoplewho are out in the ocean, like
maybe they're on a, on a luxurycruise or something, and then
they turn the camera out andit's just pitch black because
it's the middle of the night andyou can't see.
There are no lights out in themiddle of the ocean and yeah, I
do have to credit jonathanpageau for that one.
(19:53):
Oh okay, I wish I could say itwas mine.
I'm a genius.
Angelo (20:04):
Jonathan Pajot was talking about this idea of space
versus place and he talkedabout in the Bible.
There's a lot of symbolsorienting things upward right,
and so the lower you go, thedirtier something is, and so you
get like iron.
And then you get like somethingless than iron, like a shinier
(20:25):
metal or something like that,and the higher you go you get to
something like gold, and goldis like a shining thing which
you associate with like the skyor light or whatever and so when
case of the sea, a lighthouseright.
Right, right, A lighthouse is anorienting thing and it gives A
place that shines light.
Yes, it turns it into a place.
(20:45):
But in the Bible, isaac anointsthis stone with oil, and it's
really weird.
To somebody who doesn't reallyunderstand the symbolism, it's
like why are you pouring oil onthis stone?
But what he's doing is oil is asymbolic substance that makes
things shiny, it makes thingshigher, closer to light, and by
(21:10):
anointing this stone, he'sraising it up and he's marking
this lost desert area as a place, and so that area is now
recognized as significant.
It's the place where his stonewas anointed.
Matt (21:26):
You know what's funny, this thing with hiking trails
too.
Like you'll see people stackingstones called cairns is what
that's called Like where you seepeople balancing rocks,
balancing rocks and likestacking oh yeah, and trails,
there's a name for that.
So it's interesting, like youknow.
(21:48):
Again, the verticality and the,the making it a place you know,
making it significant yes,there's a book called an altar
in the world.
Chris (22:00):
I forgot the author's name, but she travels to hawaii
and she's just kind of exploringthis volcanic area.
There's some water there andshe notices someone had built a
rock kind of thing like that andit looked it resembled a table
or an altar and that was theinspiration for the title of her
book just the idea that someonewas here and they brought
(22:22):
sacredness to where they were.
They didn't need like icons ofchurch not that there's anything
wrong with those things,necessarily but bringing
sacredness to where you are, inspace in place making a place
for it, right, making your own.
Angelo (22:38):
And though the word alter alt is, is um altitude
related to altitude, right, it'sa raising up.
Chris (22:47):
So if you think about, uh , with all these connections,
but I mean, that's what I'msaying.
Is the vertical, is this notion?
It?
Angelo (22:55):
is it's ingrained into us this notion of up and down
and uh the church itself.
You a lot of times in uh townsthe church will be the tallest
building and the steeple of thecross will be the thing.
That's what makes it a place,is a thing to everybody can
(23:17):
orient around, and and everyonein that community is not only
physically oriented by thechurch, but spiritually and
culturally they all are supposedto be oriented towards this
spiritual practice.
And so the church physically is, is representing something to
(23:40):
give you.
It's an analogy for somethingspiritual.
Matt (23:44):
Yeah.
Angelo (23:44):
And the same thing goes for within the church.
There's so many raising upsjust within the structure itself
, the altar.
Also, anybody who practices amore traditional form of
christianity will recognize theraising of the host right um
(24:05):
down to like windows.
If you look at gothic windows,they're all arrows pointing up
so the idea is, the earth isusually represented by a square.
Squares are stable.
Squares have four corners.
That's where you get the fourcorners of the earth notion, and
(24:27):
squares are things you canbuild on top of.
Circles are associated with theheavens, the spheres, so it's a
square that turns into a circle.
And then the christians, orused the trinity, so they threw
a square, circle, triangle, andso your gothic window is a
(24:47):
raising from the earth towardsthe heaven, with the arrow
pointing up yeah orienting youwow I got one more for you too.
Matt (24:57):
Think about why we raise our hands up in the air like
this and wave them like you,just don't care right yeah,
absolutely absolutely.
Angelo (25:11):
there's so many examples that that we just take for and
it's just built into us fromprobably several different
things that we empiricallyobserve.
I mean, for one thing, the sunis in the sky.
Chris (25:27):
Yeah.
Angelo (25:28):
And that's our source of light and heat and warmth, and
we associate it with life.
So this very important thingthat we use to orient ourselves
is up, and also our heads, the,the, the thing that we associate
with intellect and that drivesour body and that we also
(25:52):
associate with the most intimatepart of ourselves.
If you think about it, when youthink about another person, you
think about their head andtheir face.
You don't necessarily thinkabout their whole body first,
you think about their face.
Okay, so the head is on thehighest part of the body.
It's elevated, at least forhumans, that's true.
So it's almost natural thatthere's this, this vertical.
Chris (26:16):
Yeah, um notion, I think from an evolutionary perspective
I mean, we were probably in thebeginning.
So, um, we mentioned earlierthat we don't want to just
discount the earth right justbecause we're talking about the
vertical and altitudes andhigher ups and whatnot.
I think what we probably didright is we probably climbed
(26:37):
some trees, we probably climbedsome mountains and we probably
climbed some mountains and wehad this idea like that took a
little bit of time, that took alittle bit of effort and work,
but now I'm on top and now Ihave supervision over this area
that I have.
It looks beautiful and thatidea of beauty probably played
on our minds a little bit whenwe did that, and so we put a
(26:58):
value on altitude and height.
Yeah, but, without the groundright, without our roots,
without a place to dwell,without shelter, you know we
need to be on the ground too.
We cannot.
Matt (27:09):
We need to have both it's like and there's a balance there
.
It's like a forward orientationthing too, going, you know, now
we're kind of going to the, thehorizontal bits, but not really
, um, in terms of like it's.
It's kind of it's really sexy.
Think about expansion and likebuilding and doing all this,
(27:30):
like no, I want to go forwardand do all these, all these cool
things.
And it takes, it takes effortfor us to.
You know, we have to regardslowing down like think about
why the rudder of a ship is atthe back of the ship, right,
that allows you to coursecorrect, that allows you to.
You know, you can't just be okayall forward, all the time you
(27:54):
have to be able to do themaintenance things you have to
be able to do.
You maintenance things you haveto be able to do.
You know, making toughdecisions away from what you
might like to think is, oh, thiswould be really fun and this
would be really really awesomeand uplifting, but I can't do
that because I have anassessment to do this.
I have to you know I have to, Ihave to to go, I have to go
(28:19):
deep and listen to my instincts.
I have to listen to my you know,uh, my intuition and what, what
my gut is, what my gut istelling me that my emotions
might well really want me to gothis way, but my right, but my
my instant, my intuition istelling me no, that's not a good
idea.
Chris (28:38):
You have to well, you kind of need like a um a system,
right, a virtual system thatsupervises your um, your
behavior to some, to some degree, and even even the word super,
I think, means above exactly,it's latin for above, so I
cannot get that idea of asupervisor out of my head.
(29:01):
And right, for some reason, he'son the lifeguard chair and he's
saying we're headed for a cliffthis way, we need to head this
way.
And he's like a tribal leader,right, so he, he puts in the
work, he gets the ability tosupervise and now he leads
because he has that supervisoryability.
And it's not just true forright, like we just said, um,
(29:25):
it's not just true for ourphysical leaders or wherever
we're going.
We need a virtual system forourselves that points us in the
right direction and helps us togrow up.
Angelo (29:37):
Grow up, grow up, that's another one.
Matt (29:41):
That is, grow up, leveling up.
Chris (29:44):
Live up to your potential .
Angelo (29:47):
Yeah, it also brings me back to the mountain, because
the mountain is not only anupward journey, it's a forward
journey, and when you're lookingdown from above, it's an inward
journey.
Chris (30:04):
So that's why the wow so prevalent.
Was that also jonathan pegeauor no?
That's all that was really good, I love that because you gotta
be you gotta be glad we recordedthat your feet, you can.
Matt (30:14):
you can be looking at yeah , you can be looking at the
mountain, looking at the peak ofthat mountain, but you've got
to keep your feet moving andyour feet are what's closest to
the earth, right?
I'd love to talk about this theconnection between higher and
lower and necessarily feelingstruggle or pain for, let's say,
(30:37):
for a better cause or for for abetter yeah, sacrifice
sacrifice, like even even goback to you know.
Lifting up your arms.
Your shoulders get tired aftera while.
Lifting your arms up for a whileright if you're moving on that
mountain, say you're moving on acouple, a few good miles on
that mountain, you're using yourfeet, your legs can get tired,
(31:00):
you're using.
You know this notion of workyeah, you need to.
Angelo (31:04):
You need to bring order, um in order to get to your goal
, and when you relax, the chaostakes over and you do roads, all
the the structure that youbuilt.
I also want to talk abouthierarchy and authority because
no, I'm just kidding.
(31:26):
Yes, because it's a hard, it'swell, it's often associated with
the pyramid, right, andrecently it's course, associated
with negative things, becausethe idea is that all hierarchies
are indicators of power and thewill to power and can be
(31:49):
tyrannies, right.
So when you hear aboutsomething like a pyramid scheme,
you're like, oh dude, that's ahorrible pyramid scheme because
there's like one guy at the topreaping all the benefits and all
the guys at the bottom aren't.
But I do think there is a sensein which there's a rightful
hierarchy and we've talked aboutthis a little bit, I think, in
(32:10):
uh, when we were talking aboutgood and evil where there
there's a if everything's in itsright place and and this notion
of uh, there there is somesense of a value structure that
you do want to have to orientyourself or else it's all just,
or else there it's just spaceand exactly.
(32:32):
Yeah, you're without a compass,right and so, uh, even the word
authority has the word author init, and an author is a person
writing a story.
They get to decide what thestory means.
They get to decide who is moreimportant and who is less
(32:55):
important.
The author is in charge of thestory.
So, yes, to have authority isto be the person who should be,
uh, the one writing the story,right?
Matt (33:07):
yeah, he's in its rightful place, you know I've got to
give some insight on this, likeas a step-parent, from a
stepfather experience, right.
So my wife, pretty much, youknow, raised our son till he was
you know, it was just themuntil he was like seven years
(33:28):
old, right, and he basicallydoesn't know, you know, no
contact with his dad, all that,all that kind of stuff you know.
And so I've been in his life alittle over a third of his life,
which is crazy to me, right?
So that means that Iconsciously this is the way I
love to think aboutstepfatherdom is I consciously
(33:50):
stepped into that family, Iconsciously chose that family,
right?
So he's used to, he's been likeused to things, you know,
between him and his mom and in alot of different ways, right,
and I come in and I'm likewhat's my role, you know?
I'm like what's, you know whatis?
What is this thing about beinga stepfather specifically, right
(34:14):
?
so I'm like you talk about, likeon the job, training, you know
that is that is something I'mlearning, learning as I go right
, and I definitely fell intothat, where it's like you know,
and this is such a sovereignthing.
Going back to the archetypes,right, I mean, that was a whole,
a whole learning journey for me.
(34:35):
Right is is that mindset of thesovereign is the one who calls
the shots.
That is such, that can be such adeeply ingrained idea, and that
ended up causing struggles too,between us, you know, because
it's not necessarily just thefact of you being the one who
(34:55):
calls the shots that makes you aleader, is the qualities of
being a leader that makes you agood leader, right, yes, so I
had to adopt this new, this newframe.
Right is what is like?
What does that mean?
Like, what does it mean to bethe stepfather?
What does it mean to be aleader?
I'm facilitating the bestinterests of my child.
That, to me, makes it verysimple, right wow so know for.
(35:21):
so, whether it's nutrition,whether it's you know this or
that, and what this extends toalso is I want him also to be
someone who a lot of parentscan't admit this Like.
I want him to actually besomeone who exceeds me as he
gets older too, because that'sevolution exceeds me as he gets
(35:45):
older too, because that'sevolution.
That means that I've done myjob to help him to be the best
version of himself, to be thebest you know, to put him in the
best position for success rightwell, absolutely, and that's
love right sometimes challenge,sometimes challenge too.
Oh, absolutely genuine love is,is willing the best for for
another and your kid.
Angelo (36:02):
You want them to not make the same mistakes you made
absolutely you want to elevatethem to the best possible
position.
That they could be in, even ifit's higher than yourself, and
really you're, you're not gonnabe here forever.
No, what's the point of tryingto hold your position above them
forever?
No you want, you want them togrow and their kids to grow and
(36:25):
for it to keep, yes, going.
Chris (36:27):
Oh, absolutely I think most of most parents.
Now, I'm not a parent, right,you guys are, but I'd like to
believe that most parents wantthat for their kids, to exceed
them, I think the problem is yesthe problem is not every mother
and father has a good qualityof being, of those two things,
(36:50):
and they don't have a goodquality of value like.
They don't know how to like theydon't have the values
themselves, so they don't knowhow to pass those good values on
to their children, right, well,it's tricky, um, parenting is
really hard raising anotherhuman being because you you're
still learning about yourselfoftentimes while you're raising
(37:12):
a whole other person.
Angelo (37:14):
Um, I think, archetypally, the mother and the
father.
There's this idea we kind oftalked about this before too
where the father is oftenassociated with the above um,
which is why I think the itmakes sense for a lot of
abrahamic religions to associategod with a father and we
(37:38):
associate the earth with themother, right.
And so at the bottom, you havethis generative principle.
It's the thing that givespotential and and provides the
soil for everything to grow.
And from the above, you have aconstraining principle.
It's, it's the calling, it'sthe thing that trims down and
limits and gives the orders andsupervises right.
(38:00):
And so the archetypal father isthe one imposing a structure,
imposing order through rules andlimitations, and that's why the
father gives ten commandments,right.
That's why they come as rulesof what not to do.
Thou shalt not, that shall not.
It's a limiting principleversus the mother is this
(38:24):
generative principle, and thosetwo, in their proper place, in
their proper order, will makethe best thing ever, because the
bits that aren't needed aretrimmed off and the bits that
are needed to grow.
Matt (38:37):
Have enough nutrients from you from below and you know a
really beautiful way that thatworks out too.
Say, you have like a man andwoman in relationship, and how
that works is if you have a manwho is responsible and knows how
like it isn't just about theimpulse of taking charge, but
(38:57):
you actually know how to getthings done effectively and she
doesn't have to worry aboutthose things, actually know how
to get things done effectivelyand she doesn't have to worry
about those things.
He's like oh, we had this.
You know, we had this problemwith the with one of our
vehicles recently.
Like somebody did this hit andrun, like the bumper was like
hanging off and this whole, thiswhole thing.
Right, yeah, I know bastards youknow, but it's like the less
(39:19):
that she has to worry about that.
And like we collaborate we, youknow, we, you know, we, like
you know we exchange resourcesand thoughts and all that kind
of stuff.
But basically I'm figuring outwhere you know, where we can get
this fixed, for how much, allthose things, right.
So she doesn't have to have thatweighing on her mind.
(39:40):
Just knows, oh, is going andgetting it done Right, right.
So she can't have to have thatweighing on her mind, just knows
, oh, he's going and getting itdone Right, right.
So she can then relax.
She can then focus hernurturing energy on areas where
she's going to do her best.
You know her best work and bemost you know, taking care of
the home.
(40:01):
She loves bringing flourish andbeauty to the home.
That's one of the most awesomethings about her is that she
loves the beauty of the homespace, so it's like being able
to focus on that and not have toworry about the car frees up a
lot of mental energy?
Chris (40:19):
Absolutely you were taking care of some
practicalities of the situationand she was the family nurturer.
Angelo (40:26):
Yeah, yeah.
So, going back to the questionof authority and what ought to
be at the top, I like the ideaof the meritocracy right the top
and they, if they aregenerously, you know, oriented
(40:48):
towards the, towards a highergood, they will bring everyone
up with them, right?
if you're a person, they are,yes, well, yeah, obviously,
obviously roll those diceobviously the entire thing needs
to be oriented towards, towardsa higher good, or else, if it's
a self-serving person at thetop, it won't work.
But a person who, let's say,it's a company right, a person
(41:10):
who isn't just trying to be theguy who makes the most money and
gets to boss people around, buthe cares about the company
succeeding and making this thinga successful thing for the sake
of making everyone in thecompany flourish and whatever
(41:31):
the company does, let's say it'ssomething that they create, a
product that that serves peoplewell, if his heart is oriented
towards I want to make the bestproduct that I can.
Um, and not I'm just gonna cashout on this company and leave
everybody to fend for themselveswhen I'm finished with it.
Matt (41:52):
Uh, that's the proper orientation is yeah, no,
absolutely yeah, like somethinghigher than himself, right
leadership development, too, andthat's so good.
We're talking about higher andno, absolutely, yeah, something
higher than himself, right?
Leadership development, too,and that's so good.
We're talking about higher andlower too, because if you have
people who are coming up, whoare on your team, but you're
(42:14):
that person who's very, verycompetent, knowledgeable, and
you know how to teach, you knowhow to explain things.
Well too, Right, you know how toteach.
You know how to explain thingswell too right, like there's
this order of things likeunconscious incompetence, like
being so bad at something youdon't even know how stupid you
are at it.
Right, a level up from that isconscious incompetence.
(42:37):
That's where you're aware ofyour deficiencies, aware of your
weaknesses right, then you canactually look at them, something
about them.
Then there's consciouscompetence.
That's where you know thatyou're good at whatever areas
you're good at.
Right, you're good at it.
You know you're good at it.
You know how to well, hopefully, how to explain it to.
And then there's unconsciousincompetence, where you're so
(42:59):
good at something you struggleto explain how you do it.
It's so automatic for you,right.
And this is where a lot, of, alot of teachers get stuck, a lot
of leaders get stuck is becausethey're just so in their zone
that it's hard for them to step.
You know, not dumb it down, butbut explain things in simple
(43:24):
terms to people to understand.
And you have to have the willfor people to actually
understand.
That's the mark of a greatteacher.
Right, there is when you canexplain it simply and you
actually want people to learnand what that does.
Information sharing is one ofthe most powerful forms of
leadership.
Seriously, absolutely.
(43:45):
Because, then you're levelingpeople up, you're sharing
information, you're compoundingthe competence of all the people
around you.
They can take that knowledge,hopefully even apply it.
Then you've got to hold them to, you know.
Chris (44:02):
I think that that's exactly raises people up.
Another thing that brought ustogether is exactly that thing
Our ability to communicate ourexperiences in a way that we
want to share what we've learnedwith others and draw them in to
our ideas of higher principlesand inner depths.
Angelo (44:24):
There's something to this notion at the top level,
the unconscious, competent,where they're not just aware of
what they're good at in theknown but they're able to adapt
to the unknown right, and we allvalue that as virtuous unknown
(44:46):
right and we, we've all valuethat as a as virtuous.
Yeah, because if you have ascientist and they're on the
cusp of the unknown and they'rediscovering something, you want
someone who knows how todiscover, someone who's able to
say, no, I don't know everything, but I'm good at finding it,
I'm good finding the answer andthat's humility again, right
there.
Chris (45:04):
I don't know everything, but let me try to figure this
out.
Help me, let's figure this outtogether.
Maybe we both don't knoweverything in the world.
Angelo (45:12):
You're humbling yourself in the face of a higher truth.
A good teacher knows that theydon't know everything about the
subject, but they know how tolearn.
They know and that's reallywhat a teacher ought to be
teaching their students is howto learn, not just yes.
Here, stuff all the knowledgethat I have into your brain and
(45:34):
regurgitate it onto this paper.
It's no, and if you don't knowwhere the answer comes from, how
?
Chris (45:40):
do you find it?
Do you know who famously said Iknow that I know nothing.
Socrates, oh yeah.
Angelo (45:48):
That's right.
Chris (45:49):
That's right, he's the original.
Like oh yeah, I'm super humble,I don't know anything, and now
let me slap your intellectaround a little bit.
Angelo (45:57):
Let me show you how much you don't know yeah.
Chris (46:05):
And now that I know that I know nothing, I want to go
back to a specific sentence.
You had said before, um, whenyou were talking about the
metaphor of like, the, thebusiness, the right, the
authority corporation yeahcorporation.
You said the whole thing needsto be oriented towards a higher
good and and that works for thecorporation metaphor, but I
think more broadly that appliesto humanity, all of us.
(46:29):
We need to be oriented towardsa higher good, something higher.
Something greater than yourself,and it starts with being humble
and saying you know what?
I don't know anything.
I don't know everything thathappened on the planet Earth
yesterday.
I don't know what will happen.
Let me orient myself to thehigher good, the higher truth
(46:50):
the higher beauty.
Matt (46:51):
You know that's looking at things in depth too.
I think there's a stillnessthere.
And, going back to the thing ofyou know you can't always just
be forward oriented and movingforward, but like when you're
still, like think about howwater in a lake necessarily is
(47:12):
just still and water just goesto the lowest point, right, and
it's in that stillness, right.
So when you can look at thingsat depth, when you can look,
when you can be still, when yourmind can be still and you can
look at things like why areskyscrapers all pointed upwards?
You know, like they're all.
(47:34):
They're all.
It's, all it's about.
It should be about ascendingtowards something or or pointing
towards something.
You start to make theseconnections.
You know, when you don't haveall the clutter and the noise
shaking your mind, you know andyou can observe things and you
can be curious and you can have,you know, think about the up.
(47:57):
I think that also is like asense of awe too.
Yes, you know, when you have an, an awe experience and you can
experience things at depth andinsights come to you and and
you're, you know your mind, it'slike you're, you're well, I
like to say you're it's likeyour being is dilated yes, and
(48:18):
you know what I don't?
Chris (48:19):
I don't think humanity has had enough of that.
I don't think it's enough forour culture, our societies, our
technology to just progress.
We have to ascend versusnuclear energy our technology
(48:48):
has far surpassed our wisdomability to use it correctly.
Um.
So, again, it's just not enoughto progress our technology and
and our societies or whatever.
We have to ascend towards ahigher point but remain grounded
right, like you can't have thetop of the tree without having
the roots in the ground.
Angelo (49:05):
So, again, there's a balance there we're not just and
it's funny even that metaphorthat from young, the tree with
with its roots reaching down andthe leaves reaching up, yes, is
another height metaphor yeah,dante's inferno was a whole
vertical ascension hell yeah, ohyeah and then purgatory right.
Chris (49:28):
Purgatory is a mountain that you have to ascend and at
the top is eden, like theoriginal eden, um, like a
spiritual eden.
That's just perfect.
It's not heaven, but it's aperfect dwelling place before
you get to heaven and theheavens are spheres that that go
inward yes, yes, they're,they're well.
Originally they're the planetsright you ascend through the
(49:52):
heavens right and then, when hereaches god, god is like this
encased.
How is it?
Oh, it's like a perfect sphereof angels and he's right at the
center, like a rose.
It's.
Matt (50:08):
It's really cool, wow wow, that's if you look at some of
um.
Was it albrecht durer?
You ever seen it?
He was a german artist.
He did a lot of theseengravings, but like hyper
detailed engravings I think thatsounds.
Did a lot of these engravings,but like hyper-detailed
engravings.
I think that sounds like a lotof one that he would do.
(50:29):
He did a lot that were veryreligious and very, very
spiritual.
It's honestly mind-blowing,mind-blowing detail.
Fantastic artist yeah.
Chris (50:41):
Let's Google it.
Matt (50:50):
Go Google Albrecht Durer.
Yeah, yeah, artist, yeah, let'sgoogle it yeah, yeah that guy
was insane in the best way Iwanted to talk briefly to, about
going in depth in in your beingtoo yes we're say, you know,
when we're ascending towardssomething, we're it's, it's a
higher point, what we have, allof this depth within ourselves,
(51:12):
we have all of this.
That is that's inside ofourselves and we say we're doing
, we're doing shadow work, we'redoing, you know, meditation and
we're looking, we're lookinginward.
It's like there's an inward anda downness.
I think that's that's connectedlooking at yourself in depth
and getting to know yourselfdeeply right, getting to know
(51:34):
your.
You know, getting to know likeI'm not just going to move
forward in the mundanity of myday and move forward in my life
in this automatic way, like, letme look.
They look deeply inwardly andbecome, embrace it, like talking
about the roots, like embracingthe depth rather than it being
this struggle or this begrudgingthing.
(51:57):
You know this thing that you'relooking forward to going deeply
inward and getting to knowyourself and being intimate with
the being that is you.
Chris (52:07):
That shadow work that you do with yourself, that is work
and that can get really dark.
But I think there's this ideathat the ascension right, the
spiritual ascension and thepinnacle god, I guess right, the
pinnacle also involves thedeepest depths of our personal
(52:28):
being.
You can't have one without theother.
You got to have both it'sinteresting.
Matt (52:37):
I was, I've been doing a lot of meditating on gratitude
recently, and not just, you know.
We think of gratitude, as youknow, appreciating the things
around us, appreciating ourfriends, appreciating our family
and our blessings and all thosethings.
But I think it's an awarenesstoo, or it's an aspect of
(53:00):
awareness.
Awareness, too, or it's anaspect of awareness you can
appreciate.
You can be grateful for thechallenges that you're going
through, for what they're goingto bring out of you.
You can be grateful for thingsthat may not even seem like
blessings, things that are inyour route.
You can be grateful for, youknow, again, going at depth, um,
(53:20):
the things, the things that wetake for granted, like not just
automatically going through ourlives, but perceiving it deeply,
perceiving these things deeply,being aware of them and having
a felt presence, experience ofshining a light on them.
(53:42):
And it's so funny when you say,like talking about, talking
about the higher and you know,and being inward, and it's like
that's actually one thing.
I thought about it, about thegratitude in that way, and the
awareness is like it's the lightthat that shines through,
matter, the light that shines,the light that shines through
matter it's the light thatshines to those deep places.
(54:05):
You can look in those deepplaces and be grateful and have
that depth of awareness andgratitude.
Chris (54:10):
A great Spanish saint, st Ignatius of Loyola, who founded
the Jesuits, which is thelargest priesthood around the
world.
He developed the spiritualexercises, and one of the first
ones you have to do is you haveto dwell on the sins which
you've committed throughout theday so that you can ask
(54:33):
forgiveness from.
But before you do that, thinkabout all the good things that
happened today and thank God forthose good things.
That's beautiful, becausewithout the gratitude you're
right you don't have the lightto bring into your life.
And another exercise that I'veheard of I don't think it's St
Ignatius, but if you woke uptomorrow without the things that
(54:59):
you thanked God for the nightbefore, what would you have?
I mean, did you thank God thatyou have a functioning vehicle,
have a loving wife and childrenshelter?
Angelo (55:11):
I know I often think about how I'm not sick Like you
ever been sick and your nose isstuffed and you're like it sucks
, man oh dude, I used to lovewhen I could just breathe
through my face and then sobreathing I don't know I had
(55:31):
like a really stuffy nose nottoo long ago and it sucked and
you're talking about.
Matt (55:37):
It's the worst, yeah, and, and so now that I can like, now
that I can breathe, through mynose.
It's like I can like now that Ican breathe through my nose
it's like oh, my God.
Angelo (55:45):
I love that I can breathe through my nose.
Oh my God, it's so amazing.
I wonder if, uh, when you'reyoung, you you just take for
granted your body and you, youjust don't have any like aches
and pains or anything, and youfeel like the world's at your
disposal.
And as you get older, maybelike every day, there's just
(56:06):
another problem.
You're like ah, my teeth feel,weird, my back?
Chris (56:13):
hurts.
Oh yeah, weird.
Yeah, I'm walking weird likeevery day wrong.
Angelo (56:18):
Oh yeah, like maybe every day there's just a problem
and you're like, oh man, can'tthere just be a day where I just
have this body like everything?
Matt (56:29):
works.
Young people just looking like.
What the hell's wrong with you?
Angelo (56:32):
yeah, they don't get it, you'll learn you'll learn young
blood you know, the first time,right now, everything's.
That's great.
Chris (56:42):
The first time that that happened to me, I think I was 30
years old, I'm 33, about to be34.
And you know, when I was a kid,I wanted to be a Power Ranger,
right.
So I'd like jump from all thesestones to stone to stone.
So I tried to do that againwhen I was 30.
And I was like, oh, I can't dothis as fast or as long distance
.
I can't do this as fast or aslong distance.
(57:02):
I can't really do this at all.
Actually, it's kind of like I'mreally tight and I can't jump
to that stone over there.
Oh no, I'm getting old.
Oh man, this is bad.
Matt (57:13):
I had a bucket list thing of being on American Ninja
Warrior at one point.
Chris (57:18):
And then I went to.
Matt (57:19):
I went to what was it?
Urban air, one of those with,uh, my son and it's all
trampolines, yeah, and they'vegot the, they get the course in
the middle and I'm like I am toodamn heavy for no, that's for
really limber skinny people.
Yeah, that's that man that'sokay, I'll trade big problems
(57:46):
for hey again as we disintegrate.
Chris (57:50):
Maybe our minds and our souls can make that ascension
right, even if our bodies can'tyeah, my soul is doing backflips
that's right honestly, I thinkthat's a good place to wrap this
up.
Angelo (58:08):
All right, cool, all right, I think uh this is fun.
Chris (58:11):
Yeah, this was actually really great topic oddly enough,
because what do you?
Angelo (58:16):
you wouldn't think of what to say about the vertical,
but here we are.
So, um, thank you all forbearing with us and uh, so now
let's talk about this uniqueconcept of the vertical and
height and altitude, and up anddown.
Uh, if you've stuck around thislong, uh, thanks for being here
(58:39):
.
Um, please like and share andsubscribe and do what you can to
support the podcast and we hopeto see you next time that's
right, all right thank you verymuch it's been fun.
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