Bonus Ep: "Fear & Loathing in Big Sandy"

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Bonus Episode: "Fear & Loathing in Big Sandy" – Seth Forrestier had more to say, and so did we! In this special bonus episode, we dive into a fun, freewheeling conversation with Seth, covering more untold stories, insights, and laughs. Don’t miss this candid and unfiltered discussion!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
The world tomorrow. The Worldwide Church of God presents Ribert's
w Armstrong and.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
I am here to bring you the truth.

Speaker 3 (00:11):
No one else is telling you the things that God
is telling you through me.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
He's making through me the Lord let me experience what
it is to be a new bride. You know, I'm
not worried about what I'm about to say, though it
may be graphic. We're coming to the Lord and if
you can.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
Take it, beyond the veil is the chamber. That's the
wedding chamber. The Lord told me that. But from then on,
visions begin to come.

Speaker 4 (00:40):
When this comes up on me, it produces the vision.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
I'm able to.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
Tell people what's wrong with them, what they must do
in life, the sins that they are holding back.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
In their life. Hello everyone, and welcome back to the
Coltning Store podcast. Mattie here. Today's episode is a little
bit of a different one. We have a bonus episode
with Seth. So some of you may remember Seth from
several episodes back. He had more to say. We wanted
to talk to him some more. I was actually sick
when Ashley recorded the first two episodes with him, so

(01:12):
I didn't get to talk to seth until this episode
that you're about to hear. So we just kind of
had a free wheeling conversation, talked about a lot of
different things. I thought it was really fun and I
hope all of you enjoy it. Take a listen.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
No, So basically, I think I wanted to just talk
about kind of the mental state of being in a
very high demand group or cult or anything that's trying
to control your emotions, because that's a very important thing

(01:50):
for them, to control your emotions. And anytime you're in
a group like that, there's a weight that's on you.
And I don't think I was ignorant of the weight,
you know, for I was in it for thirty two years,

(02:15):
basically thirty one years.

Speaker 3 (02:18):
Yeah, so you knew nothing else.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
I knew nothing else. But you can actually see this
in my sermons, in my writing and stuff. I had
basically assumed that life was supposed.

Speaker 4 (02:36):
To be hard, sad, and I hesitate to say miserable
because that I might be a little too strong for
what I thought.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
But I had basically assumed that you were supposed to
just be sad and at your breaking point at all times.
And that's that's something that is just accepted along with

(03:10):
the worldview that this is a proving ground or a
training ground or something like that. So when I heard
Jordan Peterson talk about optimal privation for the first time,
you know, that totally made sense to me, because I
grew up in a worldview where this was a training

(03:32):
ground that you were supposed to be knocking off the
sharp edges. And even though I felt that and accepted it,
I did not understand that that's not what life is

(03:54):
supposed to be. And that's you know, that's a moral
judgment that perhaps people won't agree with me on. But
I have found since leaving and since finding more or
less my own way, that you don't have to carry
that weight all the time. It doesn't have to be miserable,

(04:21):
and that's a huge thing. I don't know if you
grew up with that kind of weight or the recognition
of it.

Speaker 3 (04:28):
I think I didn't realize how heavy it was until
I put it down. I didn't understand so many things
that were actually burdens that I was carrying around with
me all the way from like you talking about emotions
and just being taught from the time you're a toddler

(04:53):
that there are certain emotions that are okay, and then
there are certain that are not okay. So it takes
a lot of effort to suppress and hold that in
as a child, and then you continue doing that and
develop different coping skills. But it's all to deal with
that weight that you're talking about, and you might be

(05:15):
able to function pretty well and pretty highly, but like
once you put it down, it's just like I had
no idea that it could feel like this, to just
feel like this being alive in the world.

Speaker 1 (05:31):
Yeah, there's I joke about. I took niquill one time.
I was really sick, and I have all kinds of
sleep problems, but I took niquill one night that just
had this horrible flu or whatever, and I woke up

(05:52):
the next morning. I probably slept about ten hours. I
woke up and I heard the birds outside as I
was waking up, and like I saw the sun come
through the windows. I felt my toes, I felt my
fingers like it was I had slept and I had
just woken up and I was rested, and it felt

(06:16):
so weird that I've never forgotten that. Wow, And coming
out of that very heavy belief system was the very
same feeling. We went on a vacation. We had never
been on a vacation before. You know, you go to
the feast every year, but you certainly can't afford to

(06:39):
just go on a vacation. And we went on a
vacation to the beach and we did nothing like We
just went to play in the water and sit around.
And I think we probably spent four or five days
out and I had a blast. My family was with me,

(07:04):
we were doing things together. I didn't have to go
run sound somewhere at six o'clock in the morning. Until
Maddie knows exactly what I'm talking about here, I'm sure
the first several years we were married, my wife considers
those just hellish because we would go to the feast
and my outlet, you know, my service was that I'm

(07:26):
the sound and video guy, and I was the guy
who know how to do it or knew how to
do it. I had the equipment. I was willing to
spend all the money. I didn't have to buy more equipment.
And you know, you go to the feast where supposedly
this is family time, and I would leave at six
o'clock in the morning because I have to get there

(07:48):
before choir practice and turn all the equipment on for everyone,
and then inevitably there's you know, after church events that
are going on, seminars and stuff, and I got to
make sure that the sound in the video is going
on for that, And so Tabby would spend the whole
feast taking care of all the kids, and you know,
we went on this vacation and we were together. It

(08:10):
was just it was great. I've it might sound cliche,
but I had never I had never been relaxed like
that before. Yeah, I try to balance what I'm saying
to what I would have thought five or six years ago.
And there's definitely a lot of people who would argue

(08:31):
with that and say, no, we're happy, we're here, we
have the feast is the best time, but you know
how tired you are when you leave. Part of the
value of the Sabbath, as we were taught, it was,
you know, the rest every every day, every week, you know,
and you need that because you're you're giving everything you

(08:53):
have to this thing that's sucking all of your life
and your money and your emotions and everything. There's these
memes online that I've laughed at so often. Every time
I see one you have the husband and the wife
yelling each other and the kids. So we have to
go to church right now. Why aren't your shoes on?
Why aren't you dressed? Everyone? Get in the van. We
got to go to church, and we got to go

(09:14):
be happy. Get in the van.

Speaker 2 (09:18):
We're going to praise Lord.

Speaker 1 (09:20):
Exactly, and that we know that exists. We joke about it.
We've all joked about it at church. How miserable you
are Sabbath morning does? It's so much work and yet
we still continue to do this and we don't put
two and two together that hey, this isn't what it
says it is.

Speaker 2 (09:41):
Ashley, did you have that same kind of feeling about
the feast and regular Sabbath, at least more towards the
end that Seth was just describing, Because when he's saying
especially the feast, like part of you is like, yes,
I want to do this, but the other part it's
just it's genuinely is like a burden and it's pulling

(10:02):
every bit of energy that you have out. And then
for Sabbath mornings too, What what was that like for you?
Did you ever feel that where you're like, okay, like
I'm not resting today.

Speaker 3 (10:14):
Yeah, I mean I think like as a kid loading
up in the van and like going driving to Florida. Sure,
that's fun. I'm not doing all the work mom and
mom mostly is, you know. And then uh, but as
a mother being the primary person responsible for getting the

(10:35):
kids ready and everybody's dressed and looking nice and I'm
getting myself ready and and the whole entire you know,
two plus hours, I'm just like trying to like manage
the kids, especially when they're little, you know, because you
don't you don't maybe you've got nursing a nursing baby,
and you've got a toddler which you know, had all

(10:57):
that stuff going on at once, and you're trying to
keep them from being disruptive and or just crying being
normal kids. It's a long freaking time to lay on
a blanket for like a two year old, you know.
And so I felt this level of stress of just
like I don't want our family to like distract other people.

(11:21):
So I'm like up and down and up and down,
and yeah, absolutely it is not RESTful. You get back
and you just want to crash, But when you're a parent,
you cannot or you got to go back to work.
Or whatever it is.

Speaker 1 (11:37):
Yeah, there's a you make me laugh trying to keep
the kids quiet. There's a if you listen to the
old John Oguinn Bible study series, you can hear me
as a baby in those.

Speaker 3 (11:52):
Really, so you were just always a trouble maker?

Speaker 1 (11:58):
Yeah, Well, I I feel bad for my wife. You know,
we we had, we have six kids, and that's like
going to church for her was anything but relaxing or
joyous or peaceful or anything like that. It's none of
those things.

Speaker 3 (12:18):
No, and then even after services are over and people
are mingling, you're just like trying to keep track of
the kids that want to run.

Speaker 1 (12:26):
Sure they don't knock over old people or offend the
deacon or yet.

Speaker 2 (12:33):
Well, and I think you you mentioned it at one point.
I don't know if you talked about it in this context, Seth,
but in one of your other episodes you talked about
the COVID like break for us. I think maybe I've
talked about this before on the podcast. Forgive me everyone
if I'm repeating myself, but Liz and I have even

(12:53):
talked about this recently. When the break happened, like we realize, like, oh,
this is what actually feels like like where you didn't
have to do all of the things that we were doing,
which we still had to do a few things probably
like you did, like you had to be there with
the six people or whatever. But even that, it's like, oh,
this feels more like what it is supposed to be

(13:16):
to rest.

Speaker 1 (13:17):
When we left LCG and stopped shopping because we went
we went all over the place. We went different splinter groups,
we did an all Spanish speaking group, we did visited
a Baptist church, we did all kind of stuff. We
shopped around. When we finally found a place that was calm,

(13:40):
then the sabbath became much more like that, where we
could rest and kind of enjoy ourselves a bit more.
It was much more liberal church in just terms of
armstrongsm not necessarily there wasn't a liberal church in political sense,

(14:01):
but that was a big difference. And as part of
the reason that we ended up staying there for so
long was just because it was way less taxing and
I didn't have any responsibility there, and I more or
less flat out refused to take on extra responsibilities. Yeah,

(14:23):
and that was kind of difficult to do, and I
felt bad for it at first, but looking back, I
was polite about it. It's just I learned that it
was too heavy.

Speaker 3 (14:33):
Yeah, and there's such a big emphasis on serving. I
don't know if you felt that, but it's like, you know,
the thought was, if you are adept at something and
you can do something, then you should be doing that
in service.

Speaker 1 (14:54):
Yeah to the brethren going to regardless of how you
feel about it. Exactly. Part of the re that I
decided to run for office here locally is just because
I'm capable of doing it, and I feel responsible, as
you know, a member of the community to do the
things that I'm capable of.

Speaker 3 (15:15):
But I feel like in the church setting, you don't
get to choose.

Speaker 1 (15:21):
Yeah. Yeah, I played. I played in a band for
a long time and we played all of the church
functions and things like that. I remember this one time
I decided not to play this one show because I
just didn't feel like it. And I was close to

(15:45):
the close to when I quit quit playing professionally, and
I was just getting burned out. And this guy in
the congregation came up and just berated me for not
using my talents to honor God. Like, you have this talent,

(16:07):
you're good at playing this instrument, you're supposed to be
doing that. It's like, bro, I'm tired. I've played this
show many times before. That's very very closely related to
that is like working having a business. We tried to
hire church people as much as possible because that's you know,

(16:32):
it's highly advised to take care of the members the
need jobs and everything, but you end up feeding people
who want to be fed, who want to have a
job handed to them. That was We've learned that so

(16:52):
many times over and over again. The the ideology of
the group is very demanding. Yeah, and it goes all
the way down the social letter to just if you're
if you have if you have a job in your business,

(17:14):
that's your position that's open. You know, you really need
to give this person a job, whether or not they're qualified.

Speaker 3 (17:22):
So when whenever you were like hopping around and looking
for somewhere else to go after you left LCG, did
you still feel that like burden of weight or I
like to describe it as just fatigue, Like I just

(17:44):
even when I left ELCG and I tried to attend
with UCG, you're not in Church of God for a while,
I did find it a little better in some ways,
but I still had that I can just describe as fatigue.
I'm just like it was. It was such a huge

(18:05):
step stepping away from all of it.

Speaker 1 (18:09):
Yes, but it's not that it's not the same thing
at all. You're you're you're stepping away from something entirely
different when you step away from all of it. Yeah,
we when we left LCG, you know, it wasn't of
our own doing, right, and we went to Church of
God Assembly and uh, we were there for just a

(18:32):
couple of Sabbaths in a feast because you know, we're
stuck with no church. Right before the feast, that was
an absolutely huge relief because everyone in that building had
just been put out basically, So we were in this
kind of temporary community where everyone had just been blindsided.

(18:55):
I think they were probably four hundred of us there,
and like there was an email written about all of
us collectively that we were all effectively marked. So and
my story for leaving living is very similar to all

(19:15):
of the people who eventually became this other church. And
so that was that was a giant weight off. But
maybe four days into that feast, there was a there
was a meeting to kind of spitball and planned where
this church was going to go, because this was this

(19:36):
was just really fresh and more or less unplanned. At
that meeting, the armstrong Ism just kind of came in
from nowhere to kind of just fill the void. And
the people who end up who ended up like being
the loudest voices were the most authoritarian armstrong m hm,

(20:02):
like the real deal. And so, you know, we we
get back from that feast and there's like maybe a
hundred people roughly in my area. We're like two hours
east of Dallas Fort Worth, and we're kind of meeting

(20:26):
halfway between where everyone can be together. M But the
church politics entered the equations so quickly, like with within weeks,
there was a literal coffee pot war, you know the
her jokes about those you know, the people they can't

(20:48):
agree on who gets to bring a coffee. There was
an actual there was an actual like face off of
sorts that like involved my kids and it was like
whether or not there could be hot chocolate at church
because it made a mess and this person was okay

(21:09):
with it. And then that hundred people decided to meet
in different places because of that, right, and we're talking
like this is with this is within months of its or.

Speaker 3 (21:24):
People just like what does the Bible say about hot chocolate?

Speaker 1 (21:28):
Like just so it was it's just interpersonal communication though,
and what we what Tabby and I noticed right away
we started calling it living two point zero because it
was if you take the same people and the same ideology,
you end up with the same thing. Again, well, isn't.

Speaker 3 (21:46):
That similar to what you experienced, Maddie whenever you guys
left Dad, You're like, we got to recreate something without him,
and then it's like you're dealing with some of the
same issues.

Speaker 2 (21:58):
We're thinking of that the whole time that you were
talking said that probably not extreme as extreme as the
coffee pot that's bad. But yeah, you're right though, when
you have all these people and well meaning people too,
I feel like that's all that you know, or have
known at least for most of these people for decade

(22:18):
two decades, like for me, my whole life. So that's
all that you that's the only context that you have.
So that's obviously the way it's going to go. You
can have an intention that it's going to be we're
going to do it differently, but it's like, but are
you though, really, like do you have the tools to
do it differently, and we didn't, and so it was
nice for a while, but it just wasn't built to

(22:39):
last if we were going to really try to be different,
which we just couldn't, you know.

Speaker 1 (22:43):
And you probably didn't want to either.

Speaker 3 (22:46):
Yeah, and it might have been what you all needed
in order to actually take the next step out.

Speaker 1 (22:52):
There's there's no way I could have gone like cold Turkey,
because I still like there's a certain amount I still
believed a lot of the things like this, you don't
want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, And
I was like, no, I still at the beginning, I
wanted all the structure I wanted. I wanted everything to

(23:14):
be the same, but slowly and being able to see
that I wouldn't. This is something that I'm very adamant about.
I would not change any of my past. I wouldn't
trade this experience for anything. I don't wish that it
didn't happen. I'm I'm perfectly content with it. It was

(23:39):
you know. One of the people that reached out was like,
I'm really sorry all this happened to you. I wish
it didn't. Said no, no, this is this is me,
this is everybody has to go through things and that
that kind of multi step leaving. Uh. That's the only
way that I kind of started to understand how bad

(24:03):
certain parts of it were because I got to see
that as you start stripping away, like first you change
who's in charge, and nothing, nothing changes, It's just the
same thing. Then you start changing a little bit of structure,
and then things kind of start breaking down a little bit.
But then you just start going down the line, and

(24:26):
you know that that hot chocolate spat. I got to
see that. And I absolutely love all the people that
are that were a part of this this I can't
state that enough. These are is there, very well meaning people.

(24:46):
I love them to death.

Speaker 5 (24:48):
But you know, when you have like this, this extremely
hyperbolically patriarchal system plus deaconesses, you.

Speaker 1 (24:59):
Know where they have there's no place for them in
the structure. They just exist.

Speaker 3 (25:06):
And you know, I never understood that at all at all.
We had one in worldwide.

Speaker 5 (25:14):
My only she did.

Speaker 1 (25:17):
My only experiences with deaconesses my whole life has been
the people did get upset at potluck, like because they're
supposed That sounds horrible, but they they have they have
like this one area or these one or two really
small areas where they are supposed to be in charge

(25:38):
and do this thing, but they're not really because the
second that the minister is like, well what about this,
it's all done. And so I don't blame people if
you have If you want to be a functioning number
of a group, let's say a church, and your only responsibility,

(26:01):
the only rope that you're given is that you're in
charge of the snacks table. Why would you not be
a little bit territorial about that. I mean, I get it.
That's everyone needs purpose. Well, that's like, that's a huge

(26:22):
point about all of this, is that we all need purpose.
And the the high demand called church, whatever you want
to call it, it's it's its purpose is not to
give you purpose that that might be on the brochure,

(26:43):
but that's not what it's there for.

Speaker 3 (26:46):
No, you're serving a purpose for someone else.

Speaker 1 (26:51):
I tell people this in my in my industry, I
kind of teach my industry nationally and I I'm very
very adamant about this. Every industry has these leeches that
come on and they want to sell you services and
marketing and all this kind of stuff. But all they

(27:11):
do is make you the product. They just trade you.
And I'm adamant to all of my followers in my industry,
don't be the product, you know, stop letting people buy
and sell you and these groups, you're the commodity. They
might the booklet might say this is about your salvation.

(27:35):
It's not, and it's not even a consideration. Go and
look at the public audits of churches and just see
how much money is there. It's not about your salvation. No.

Speaker 3 (27:54):
And I feel like in the groups that we all
came from, there was a lot of poverty. And I
don't know what the median income of membership was, but
I feel like, I mean, everyone I knew was struggling financially,
so all of this like it was it was the

(28:17):
poor propping up the you know, I don't even want
to say we were propping up the ministry, but it
was like certain people at headquarters that were really like
reaping all the benefit of this. Like, yeah, we didn't
even own we didn't even own our own buildings to

(28:38):
have services in.

Speaker 1 (28:41):
You know, we all grew up, you and I especially
grew up here in stories of our parents' generation driving
to the feast and our and our grandparents' station wagons.
You know, with the flat tires of four flat tires.
In nineteen seventy nine, WCG was making one hundred and
eighty three million dollars a year. They didn't pay for

(29:01):
people's flat tires. Like it's like, no, there's that's not
what it's about.

Speaker 3 (29:08):
And it was always a question of whether the van
was like, you know, trip worthy exactly.

Speaker 1 (29:18):
I remember that so well, Like we had all all
of our vehicles as a kid, Like we went for
a while, we went to church. My dad had bought
a seat from a van from a from a junkyard
and mounted it in the bed of an S ten
pick up with a camper on it, you know, and

(29:40):
that's how we got to church.

Speaker 3 (29:42):
How many times did you have car trouble and break
down on the way to the feast, because I remember
several times that happening.

Speaker 1 (29:51):
So I as a kid, I'm not sure I remember
a trip that didn't man like, I don't know that
it was ever like catastrophic, but you know, you my
dad certainly couldn't like afford a mechanic just to like

(30:11):
do the feast tunea on it.

Speaker 3 (30:13):
Right, right, So you're just like how far can we
make it.

Speaker 1 (30:17):
It's just yeah, like yeah, every we we grew up
with these stories. Everyone went to big Sandy, you know,
on a on a can of fix a flat and
a prayer. You know.

Speaker 2 (30:29):
But did you have a small man sitting in a
metal chair in the back of your van because we did,
yeah to beat that.

Speaker 1 (30:46):
Yeah, we never had that.

Speaker 2 (30:50):
Man, I wish I had a photo.

Speaker 3 (30:53):
Listeners were probably going to be wanting some context.

Speaker 1 (30:57):
Yeah, I'm so lost.

Speaker 2 (30:59):
There isn't actually there. I mean, that's exactly what it
sounds like. We didn't have more seating. I guess, so
metal chair back of the econ online van. There he's up,
no view, you're just looking at You're just looking at
church clothes.

Speaker 1 (31:22):
Oh man, that's that's something, you know. I was listening
to a bunch of other podcasts the other day on
the same subjects, just like I was. I just got
on a binge and I was like all right, and
start started to listen to people's stories and stories flooding
back into my memory and everything. And you would you

(31:44):
would think, you know, ten percent of your income spent
in eight days would be a lot. But when you're
like already, you know, not even middle class and can't
afford to pay those ties all the time, and you
got to split it up in the spring Holy days too,

(32:05):
just to make sure that, you know, you change that
fan belt so you can get one hundred miles down
the road. Uh. This certainly wasn't even even up into
my married years. There's no money for like, let's just
go buy a new set of tires to put on
the vand before we go to the feast.

Speaker 3 (32:24):
No, you buy a new tire when the other one's
completely disentegrades while you're driving, and then like you have
to buy a.

Speaker 1 (32:32):
Tire and then you get that one used of course. Yeah, yeah,
And this is this is a you know, got more
of a theological point. But when the feast turns into
like glam living like you, that takes a lot of money,
you know, especially when it's like, hey, let's make sure

(32:53):
we have a feast site at a place that has
a golf course or something. And then those of us
who make you know, less than fifty thousand dollars a year,
like even the Motel six is one hundred and fifty
dollars a night, you know, Uh, oh yeah, that's just
so untenable. I'm very very happy that that's all behind me.

Speaker 3 (33:17):
Did you have a moment what was it a moment
or was it just a gradual knowing or did you
have a moment where it was just like I'm free,
like this is over.

Speaker 1 (33:32):
To be honest, that vacation was very, very impactful for
me that way because I didn't have any responsibilities out there.
I didn't have anything to do, We didn't. It also
crossed it crossed the Sabbath and uh, I was like, no,
I'm not going to stream anything today. I'm just I'm

(33:53):
going to go wade in the beach. And happened to
be an air show. We were were on South Padre
Island and there happened to be an air show that day,
and so we sat in the water and watched planes
fly over. And that that day specifically, I think I

(34:15):
even I wrote a little bit of poetry that day
about how I felt, because it was that was the
that was the end for me, and the weightlessness was
just it was fantastic. And that's not to say there
aren't things that are still you know, heavy. I still
have a large family and two dogs and a cat,

(34:37):
and you know, a business, and I'm worn out all
the time. I'm also a workaholic, but I'm I'm I
never I never understood quite how heavy emotional baggage is.
Part of that is just how much guilt weighs too,
because it's I think that's probably guilt is probably the

(35:03):
bricks in the backpack when it comes to that kind
of weight, like I was talking about the you know,
the Mormon friend, guilt is a very very heavy thing
when it's just dumped on you all the time for
any little thing and every little thing, and then if
your worldview doesn't allow you to get rid of it.

(35:29):
That's a very funny thing about Armstrongism is that they
they do not understand nor teach grace at all, like
it does not exist. Grace to them is just if
you do these things correctly. Grace is the opportunity to

(35:50):
be forgiven for being righteous, like that's it. And so
leaving that personal guilt behind was very, very very freeing,
and you can actually, like I found that you can
actually grow as a person. Like let's say you have X,
y Z that you want to be better at or
something like that. If you're not car carrying around all

(36:13):
of that guilt, you can actually like go and process
something the prayer. When I said in the second episode
that that I miss prayer, I had, like I said,
a two and a half hour conversation with my wife
about this because she was so taken aback by that statement.
I never learned because theologically there was really no place

(36:34):
for it. How to deal with things. What I was
taught was that you confess your sins and you pray,
and you you have faith that God will take care
of them. So the nuts and bolts, example, I can't

(36:58):
afford to pay the water bill, and I know I'm
not going to be able to afford to pay the
water bill. Rather than looking at that rationally, I was
taught to pray about that and put that in God's hands.
Now that does a few things. Number one, your water
bill's not going to get paid because God's not a genie,

(37:20):
and that's not how any of this works. But what
the prayer did was it's to give you a place
to dump that responsibility, to place that responsibility somewhere else
and as cheap as it sounds, that's what I missed,

(37:42):
because that's way easier to like, just you know what,
this horrible thing is happening. I'm going to make this
someone else's problem. What I didn't realize that I was doing,
and this part I don't miss it all, was that
I was not actly addressing anything. I wasn't dealing with anything.

(38:04):
When trouble or conflict, or or sin or or anything
would come in, Rather than process it and make appropriate reactions,
I could just say this is your problem.

Speaker 4 (38:24):
Now.

Speaker 1 (38:25):
The downside to that is that your water bill still
doesn't get paid, and then next month you have two
water bills, and then the third month your water gets
turned off. Like and if part of the guilt that

(38:50):
I've just let stay in the past is that kind
of thing. I am still very slow to process things,
and it hurts to says things. You have to. You
get some conflict that comes in and you have to
spend time thinking about it. You have to analyze what happened,
What did I do, What was my response, what will happen,

(39:13):
what could happen? All those kind of things. Put all
the pieces in the proper places and be an adult
about it. One of the things I had to learn
in regards to that, You know, if you don't have
the money to pay the water bill, stressing about paying
the water bill is not going to make the water
bill get paid. That's something that you can't learn if

(39:34):
you never get the opportunity to deal with things. And
I think so much, I really do think, and I
think we talked about this in the first pisode The draw,
the shining flashing Vegas lights of any sort of cult
or any sort of high demand group, is that kind

(39:56):
of shelf just to put everything on. I told my
wife the other day, it's like when you're cleaning out
your car and there's everything is in your car. You
have little bits and pieces of everything. If you try
to like take each piece and go put you know,

(40:17):
this piece of clothes away, and this pencil away, and
throw this French fry away like it takes a long
time and it's very very taxing. What these groups do
is give you, like this big bin, there's this big
rough coat bin, and just say dump it all here,
forget that any of it exists, and go stack this

(40:37):
in your house. Now you're not gonna be able to
find that pencil. You're not gonna be here both. You're
not gonna be able to find that piece of clothes
that you're missing because you never processed any of it.
You just gave that to someone else. And now that
I don't have that anymore, I can't just dump something

(40:58):
off on God.

Speaker 3 (41:00):
Odd.

Speaker 1 (41:01):
I have to process that and that's that's difficult. Well.

Speaker 3 (41:07):
Also also like whenever you are whenever you're praying, like
about the water bill, and then you know, nothing magically
happens and you don't have water. That's a consequence that
came from not not paying the water bill. But you
have this mindset as we all you know that in

(41:27):
that environment that we're supposed to struggle and that this
is a trial. And so in a sense it's still
it is still like not our responsibility, right because these
are the things that are going to happen.

Speaker 1 (41:43):
Correct. You go to church that week and you talk
about it, and the minister says, well, you know in
the Kingdom, there's going to be people who weren't able
to pay their water bill, and you're going to be
able to teach them about faith helps. That's that doesn't
make you a better person, That doesn't help you grow.
You've actually done the opposite. And to what we were

(42:07):
talking about in the second episode, like the desert that
you come to when you leave, like there's this thing
we got across, this void. That's part of it is
that now you have to realize, oh wait, this thing
just happened. I just did this thing, I said this thing,
whatever the situation arose. Now I have to process this,

(42:27):
and I don't have any of the tools necessary for
taking us apart and understanding it, and it takes a
long time to kind of get used to those tools.
And some people like if you were say INWCG or LCG,

(42:48):
but you grew up in public school, maybe you have
some tools that the homeschool kids don't have or something
like that. But not only do you have to collect
these tools, you have to start using them. And that's
why I'm a big proponentive, you know, meeting people and
joining clubs and doing the put yourselves in low risk

(43:10):
situations where you get to learn how to use those tools.

Speaker 3 (43:14):
So the hurdle though for people who are still in yeah,
and this was something for me, is it's so ingrained
that you don't mingle with the world. You know, in
quotes yep, and everyone else outside your group is the world,
and there are these inherent dangers with getting too close

(43:38):
or getting too involved. And so even like for me,
if there was a little bit of interest when I
was still in the church of you know, like just
growing my friend group or kind of broadening my horizons
a bit. That's always a factor. Well, I don't want
to get too involved because they don't know.

Speaker 1 (43:59):
God, right, and so you don't want to be unequally yoked.

Speaker 3 (44:03):
Yes, So it's just like that is a hurdle that
has to be cleared, and I sometimes like I just
couldn't clear that until I was further along.

Speaker 1 (44:18):
Yeah, I think I don't know that there's like any
sort of magic bullet for that, because yeah, I'm you know,
if I had one, I would love to give it.
But making friends outside of the church was literally the
last thing that we did.

Speaker 3 (44:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (44:34):
Yeah, I had to be out first because that's it's
the only thing that helped me there. And this was
perhaps just specific to me, but I owned a business
and I you know, I talked to twenty ish people
a day, sure regularly, So yeah, I at least knew

(44:55):
how to talk to people, right. But I know there's
a lot of people, you know, my age, that don't
have that experience, and I don't know what to tell
them except for I don't think you can make an
argument in your head where God is upset with you

(45:17):
for meeting people. I just I don't see that as
someone who has been a very, very devout believer of
that ideology, there's still not a good argument to be
made for why you can't meet your neighbors and talk
to them.

Speaker 3 (45:34):
Well, I always heard that you don't want to be influenced,
and you know how sneaky and sly and acious.

Speaker 1 (45:43):
You know, that's why we weren't allowed to talk to.

Speaker 3 (45:48):
Yeah, that that you were like you were gonna slowly.
It was like the slippery slope into hedonism. I guess
which yeah out. You know, like you said, you made
a really good point in our prior recording where you know,
you said like these are people like you and me,

(46:11):
and they have dreams and goals and families and jobs
and and and I really do think we almost dehumanized
everyone else outside of the group to an extent, Like
I didn't. I viewed them as those are unbelievers. Those
are people who aren't called by God. I feel sorry

(46:33):
for them, and I want them to be called, but
they're not, So they just have to be over there.

Speaker 1 (46:39):
I feeling I can't let them too close to me. Yep,
I don't know how to I don't know how to
turn this into some sort of test, and I'm gonna
probably spend all day tomorrow thinking about how to make
this into some sort of test. But I used to
really like the movie Fiddler on the Roof.

Speaker 3 (47:00):
Yes, we too, well, because that was when we were
all allowed to.

Speaker 1 (47:04):
Watch exactly they were Sabbath keepers. You're right mad, So
we watched on Tabby and Zane and I we had
like we just watched classic movies and epics all the time.
We're always trying to see, you know, every old movie
we can find. Anyway, maybe a year ago we decided

(47:27):
to watch Fiddler on the Roof again mm hmm, and
I was not just angry but boiling mad. And I
looked over and Tabby is like red with anger. Then
we pause it because we all three of us had

(47:47):
to talk about it because when Teva disowns there's her
name Halo Halo from marrying the German boy. Yes, we
lost it something like that. Yeah, we lost it because

(48:08):
it was I had watched that movie probably five times
and seen it on stage once, and I had never
felt that way before. I had always kind of been
on Teva's side, like, oh my daughter's leaving the faith.

Speaker 3 (48:25):
Yeah, oh, I've got to just wash my hands.

Speaker 1 (48:28):
Ever where we watched it that time. The anger that
came from watching a father disown his daughter, Like, I
guess I challenge challenging. You know, any father still in
a group listening to this, like, watch that movie and

(48:50):
defend that case, knowing at the end of the movie
that he's going to be very upset about that. You know,
he comes around. But it bothered us so much that
we had been on the other side of that argument
that it was okay to tell your family by and
never talk to your children and your grandchildren's I'll tell you.

Speaker 3 (49:10):
What that movie for me as a teenager, that was
a reminder that served as a reminder to me that
exactly what would happen. Like I even had one of
my friends from school said because there was a boy

(49:32):
that I liked, and she was like, oh my gosh, Ashley,
you're gonna be like Fiddler on the Roof. You know
you're going to be dis owned. And I knew it.
I absolutely knew that would happen, and it did happen, ironically,
and I didn't even marry someone. I didn't even marry
a Catholic, Yeah, which is what I.

Speaker 1 (49:52):
Think she married, is something like that. Yeah, I just Orthodox. Yeah,
there's little there's little things like that. I wish there
was a way to make some sort of kind of
standardized test about some sort of rorshack test with that,
because if you can watch that and think, you know

(50:16):
he was in the right here, something's wrong. Someone has
a hold of your brain really bad. Someone is controlling you.
We just had a big family discussion about it maybe
two nights ago. Tabby asked all the kids if I
was a better better father while we were in the
church or while or after we were out, and it

(50:38):
was like unanimous that I'm a better father now in
the church, you have God, the church. Family now I
am very much. Family is at the top of my
priority list. I'm not ashamed of that goal, Like that's

(50:59):
just that's the top. And if I have to be
you know, Tom Hagen from the Godfather in order to
maintain that, so be it. Like that's that level of
family is at the top. When it comes to the cult,
stealing money through ridiculously excessive todds, asking for inheritances, all

(51:21):
this kind of stuff. What's even worse than that is
that they demand your allegiance be to something higher than
your family. And that's that's the only way where you
can watch something like fither on the roof and be
on Tebba's side as he disowns his daughter. Yeah, because

(51:44):
family is not at the top. Well, I don't subscribe
to that anymore. And I don't even even within the theology.
And I argue this before I was completely up even
in the theology. There's no place for that church being
above the family. It's just not there. If you can

(52:05):
prioritize your own life and you find that there's something
above your family, something that you'd be willing to separate
from your family for, I just can't do that anymore.
I can't.

Speaker 3 (52:20):
I mean, in what other context would anybody say that
an organization should be prioritized over family? Yeah, only in
the church context. Do you ever hear that.

Speaker 1 (52:35):
You know, the Rotary club wants you to meet every
night and disown your family? Are you like no, of course? Yeah,
that's silly, you know, your work union or like no,
of course not. Why why does this one thing get
preferential treatment like that? I guess as someone who's been

(52:59):
you know, dis owned, I'm not sure there's anything more dehumanizing. Yeah,
that's it's a horrible thing. And yet it's just it's expected,
and I'm happy. I'm happy to be gone from that.

Speaker 3 (53:16):
Yeah, it's a it's a means of control for everyone,
you know, I mean for the at least when I
was a kid, for me staying in line because I
didn't want that to happen. Right, And then you know,
as a member, you know, you're upholding what you think

(53:37):
God is expecting of you somehow.

Speaker 1 (53:41):
Yeah, and that's I could say so much more, but
it's like, this is not a theological podcast or anything
like that.

Speaker 3 (53:52):
Let's get into hermeneutics.

Speaker 2 (53:54):
Yeah, I'm just about this is literally just about to say,
can we talk about the hermeneutics please?

Speaker 1 (54:01):
Now? Oh oh man, if I don't hear that word
ever agram.

Speaker 3 (54:12):
We're saying far away from any type of like fromonts, Yeah,
indoctrination into anything. Like, we're not trying to peddle any
kind of belief or disbelief. Like it's literally these are conversations.

Speaker 2 (54:29):
Nobody here is trying to convince anybody of anything.

Speaker 1 (54:35):
I think X Y Z.

Speaker 2 (54:37):
And there's people I don't like that.

Speaker 1 (54:39):
There's plenty of other YouTube channels, like I listen to
them all the time. If you want to debate religion,
there's the world's your oyster yea, oh my god.

Speaker 3 (54:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (54:49):
If that's your the flavor in which you want to
waste your time, then you just have it.

Speaker 1 (54:56):
Are you Are you religious at all, Maddy?

Speaker 2 (54:59):
No, at all.

Speaker 3 (55:02):
Our next episode is going to be us convincing people
they've got to be agnostic.

Speaker 2 (55:09):
It'll be called anti Hermoneutics.

Speaker 1 (55:14):
I don't even know this Herman guy.

Speaker 3 (55:18):
No, I'm agnostic too, like I've left. So at first
I was like, I'm an atheist, but then I was like,
you know what I I don't know, And that's basically
what agnostic. You know, being agnostic is. And I know
I don't believe in the God of the Bible. I know,

(55:40):
I don't believe the Bible is like a holy book
at all and.

Speaker 1 (55:45):
Very interesting piece of literature.

Speaker 3 (55:47):
Yeah, if there is a higher power, I am open
to that possibility, but I don't think it's a deity.
I don't think it's somebody watching everything that I do.
And so yeah, I mean it's it's interesting because whenever
I meditate, and I got into meditation several years ago.

Speaker 1 (56:13):
And like yoga meditation or like mindfulness.

Speaker 3 (56:18):
Like mindfulness, like I got certified through the Chopra Foundation
for primary Sound meditation, which is just sitting in silence
and there's a mantra that doesn't have meaning. They're just
sounds that if you start thinking, you can just in
your mind say the mantra and it kind.

Speaker 1 (56:39):
Of like clears your head. Okay, So.

Speaker 3 (56:44):
Once when I really started doing that, I really I
felt very connected to something and I never looked at
it like that's God. And I know different people have
different ideas of what God is. I felt very in
touch with myself, like my truest self, the like whatever

(57:08):
was there from the time I came into the world
without any indoctrination, any belief system, and that is such
a beautiful thing to me. And that that practice, I
I don't know what exactly all I'm feeling connected to,
but that was when I thought, Okay, maybe there is

(57:31):
like a source or there's something. I don't know what
it is. I'm open to it. But I would say
I'm agnostic because I don't actually have a like belief
system regarding you know, a God. But the biggest thing
for me is that I'm totally okay with not knowing,

(57:54):
you know, which we were just not okay. We had
to have the answers.

Speaker 1 (58:00):
I can one percent agree with that. That was when
my mom died, that like earth shattering event, you know,
and we were still in it then, and I've I've
never mourned her, like I've skipped that stage. So at

(58:22):
some point I'm going to have some sort of huge
mental breakdown probably, but.

Speaker 3 (58:27):
Hey, I like, just let me say this really quick.
I had that with I know. I'm not saying it's
the same. That's your mother, my grandmother, our maternal grandmother was.
I mean, I was always close to her, but then
when I lost the family, like she became my person

(58:47):
and every time anything good or bad happened, I called her.
She was there for all the moments for my kids.

Speaker 1 (58:54):
You know.

Speaker 3 (58:56):
She passed and I didn't really grieve. I think I
knew how to do it, and I did ayahuasca like
last April.

Speaker 1 (59:06):
Okay, And that was one of my big takeaways, Like
do you feel like you processed that out and put
it in its correct places?

Speaker 3 (59:17):
I did, because I in ayahuasca, you'll have like these
mental images you're not like seeing something you have like
a mask on. But I had this mental image of
being at her bedside, like I was laying on her chest,
and that was the last time I saw her. And

(59:38):
she died right after that, and I was there like
in the moment, and then I was with her when
I was like at her funeral, and I realized, I
guess in ayahuasca, there's just a lot of epiphanies and
realizations without like words to accompany them. And I knew

(01:00:02):
I didn't grieve her, and it was like I was
being told, like you have to feel that. And I
started to cry during the that moment. But then I
told myself, if I let this out right now, I
won't even get anything else out of this ayahuasca journey.

(01:00:24):
So after it was over, I got home and I
literally just was home by myself and I just let
myself go and like I cried and basically wailed, like
I did not know all that was in there, but
it was so much.

Speaker 1 (01:00:45):
I've thought about, like going rent a hotel room or something.

Speaker 3 (01:00:49):
I encourage you to do it, but yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:00:51):
I don't even know what, Like I don't know what's there.
What's funny is I was, you know, I text I
talked to my sisters. I'm very good to my sisters,
and yeah, I'm very close to all my siblingations. But
Ashley and I were talking to each other a few
months back and she said something and I went to respond,

(01:01:14):
and like I found a wall in my psyche, like
a complete wall that I could not cross, and it
was just there, like it was like things that I
have not dealt with. I've thought about it. I've never

(01:01:41):
done anything crazy. I smoke a pipe and cigars.

Speaker 3 (01:01:46):
Anything like that before, but this, and we'll talk about
it on the podcast at some point, but it's like
in my quest for healing.

Speaker 1 (01:01:55):
Yeah, I feel like your credibility like this. I don't
say this lightly, but I feel like your credibility to
the church crowd would take if you did that.

Speaker 3 (01:02:04):
I don't care.

Speaker 1 (01:02:07):
You may not, I have to say, like.

Speaker 2 (01:02:10):
I am still I told you.

Speaker 1 (01:02:14):
I told you like it was. It's such a big
deal that I even shared this on my own Facebook
because I didn't realize how.

Speaker 5 (01:02:23):
This is.

Speaker 1 (01:02:23):
This is not like this is not some sort of
group or some sort of cult on the other side
of the world or scientology or space Mormons or anything
like that, Like this is my life.

Speaker 3 (01:02:35):
You know we are going to talk about it though,
because I think it's so fascinating. I mean, I studied
this for like years before the opportunity presented itself.

Speaker 1 (01:02:49):
I'm curious. I have I think about things a lot.
Zane and I just discussed things NonStop. I think that's
that things like ayowas get trips in general are one internal.
You feel like there was external access in that experience.

Speaker 3 (01:03:09):
It was all it was all internal.

Speaker 1 (01:03:11):
I feel like I just logically when I hear people
talk about and I've listened to hours and hours and
hours of people talking about their experiences. So many people.
Your guy who's on Rogan all the time, Oh what's
his face? He does every holiday event with him Duncan

(01:03:34):
Trussele that type talks about the external influences all the time,
and how curious it is that everyone sees very similar
features and whatnot. I find that complete to be entirely internal.
I don't have a it's not even a question to me.
What I was going to say when you started talking

(01:03:55):
about that is my sisters and my wife have both
seen my mom in dreams. I don't find that to
be religious at all. I find that to be entirely internal,
like they are processing their memories of.

Speaker 3 (01:04:10):
Her absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:04:13):
In a in a space that's free of the constraints
of conscious existence, like you've got space. I've I've never
had a dream about her like that. She like, she
appeared for a very short time in one of my
dreams I have all my life. I've had like two dreams,

(01:04:37):
probably hundreds of times, just like a recurring theme, like
you know, Sherlock talks about his you know, mind palace
or whatever where he can go. I've got two dreams
that always have the same context, and she appeared in
one of those for like seconds. For them, they have

(01:05:00):
like whole dreams, and they are convinced that that's her
beyond the grave. Oh but but when they explain it
to me, the context that they describe are things that
I remember them experiencing with her. Oh yeah, and they
are working out unfinished business.

Speaker 3 (01:05:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:05:25):
Every time I'd take a deep dive on trips of
any kind, psilocybin, iwasca, anything like that, I hear the
same thing. And it just sounds to me like this
is this is internal reckoning.

Speaker 3 (01:05:40):
Absolutely to me, the way that I understood it and
still do is that you're we have like certain guards up,
you know, or we've suppressed things, and this is a
way of kind of just opening that. It really felt
like that to me, like things. And the the lady

(01:06:01):
the shaman that I worked with is like it does
kind of jiggle things loose. And that was because I
met with her ahead of time, like here's what I'm
hoping to get out of it, and this is why
I'm doing it.

Speaker 1 (01:06:15):
And did she kind of guide you to your grandmother
at all?

Speaker 3 (01:06:20):
Like like no, you like sink in your little nesting space.
You bring your blanket and all the stuff, and you
have an imask and a bucket beside you. I mean,
it was it was beautiful, like she she played some instruments,
the lighting was low. Your release was to be relaxed.

(01:06:40):
We did some meditation on our own and breath work
before that, and then we uh we took our first dose,
which was like a little little bitty cup and we
did like a loading dose, and then like thirty minutes
later we did a main one and then you have
the opportunity to do another dose like halfway through if

(01:07:03):
you wanted to. I did not one. I did not
night two because night too was rough. But I still
learned so much, Like seriously, I recommend it, but it
was also scary to like open like say, I'm gonna
let down like the gods.

Speaker 1 (01:07:23):
Like I said when I'm When I was talking to
Ashley and she brought up a subject and we started
talking about.

Speaker 3 (01:07:29):
It and I was.

Speaker 1 (01:07:30):
Conversing with her like we're like we're talking right now,
and then all of a sudden, like I wanted to
bring the conversation further, and there was there's just a blockage. Yeah,
like I can't. And I'm like I'm a really kind
of soft hearted person in general, so like and I'm

(01:07:54):
like big into music and I ride music, and that
I could I feel a should very very I'm very
sensitive to that. And like I started crying like yeah
because it's just like wow, I've never seen that before. Yeah,
but it's it's funny like you could almost see like

(01:08:15):
my signature on it everywhere, like graffiti, like like I
built this. Yeah, there was no deny, there was no
denying that this is me. Yeah, and I've said I've
said you can't go here, yes, and so like you know,
without any sort of aid like renting a hotel room
and hanging out and just thinking about it. I don't

(01:08:37):
know that I could even get past that. I'm pretty uh.
When I go to build something in reality, it's typically overbuilt,
So I would imagine that psychologically I probably overbuild things
the same way, you know, using beams that are way

(01:08:58):
too big when something the third of the size woulduffice.
So I don't know, it's I've thought about doing it
quite a few times. There's also you know, a pilot
on a on a life sentence right now for for
doing it and then going crazy on a flight.

Speaker 3 (01:09:19):
So psilocybin or ayahuasca.

Speaker 1 (01:09:23):
Ayahuasca, No, no psilocybin. It was psilocybin, and he wasn't
the he wasn't the pilot or anything. He actually rode
jump seat on a flight and then had a psychotic break.

Speaker 3 (01:09:37):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:09:39):
Yeah, and that's this particular guy. He's a pilot. And
that's like take all of the knobs of our cults
and crank them up to eleven. Like, yeah, you have
social pressure, you have you know, you have structural pressure,
you have all these kind of things, like you're breaking
a thousand rules by doing that. You can't even enter

(01:10:01):
the trip on a clean conscience, right, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:10:04):
I will say in Ayahuasca. I did have control, some control,
like they do. They do like encourage you to relinquish,
but there was on the second night, there was something
that I was just like, I'm not going there, just
I'm not. And I was able to choose not to

(01:10:26):
not to see what I was going to see.

Speaker 1 (01:10:29):
I know that's vague, but no, no, no, but it
makes it makes sense.

Speaker 3 (01:10:33):
Yeah, but I don't think you can with philocybin because
they say that's more like a fire hose situation.

Speaker 1 (01:10:42):
But I don't know, well, anyway, I may consider it.
It's it's definitely I'm not sure how I feel about
it yet. If it's it was very it was very
uncomfortable realizing that I had walls. Yeah, and and I
don't know what the I don't rightly know what the

(01:11:04):
effects of that are, Like, I don't know if I
can just I mean, for all I know, I could
build my whole life with that and be just fine.
At the same time, I've lived my whole life under
you know, varying levels of duress. And it wasn't until
they were gone that I realized, oh wait, wow, life
can be much much better. Yeah, And I can only

(01:11:27):
imagine that if I were to process these huge things,
I'd probably be in a better place.

Speaker 3 (01:11:35):
Yeah. I think for sure, anything that we're like holding
in that isn't processed is living in our bodies, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:11:44):
Yeah, And I mean the religion is no different.

Speaker 3 (01:11:47):
Yeah, yeah, I mean that's the worst to me. I
don't know, just the worst thing is how all of
the impacts of what we've experienced and high control religion
that lives in our bodies even after we leave. So
you know, to me, that is a little bit part

(01:12:10):
of the desert you spoke of, is you can't just
be like, well, I'm out like because your body doesn't
know that. Your nervous system doesn't really comprehend that, and
so then you have to You've got to do work
to process that stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:12:29):
Try sharing a video where you were open about something
and it hurts, like that's that's You're not as far
out as you think you that's right.

Speaker 3 (01:12:41):
Yeah, And you just keep learning and I'm sure you've
experienced this stuff just keeps coming up and you're you're
just it's like I thought that I was already in
a good place, and now here's this new.

Speaker 1 (01:12:54):
Thing that day before, day before, yesterday or two days ago,
whatever it was. I started listening. I listened to all
of Tricia's podcasts just in a row. Someone had brought
them up, and I was like, all right, I'll just whatever,
I'm in a cult podcast mood whatever, I'll listen to
all of these. And it got to Dave PAC's son Yeah,

(01:13:16):
and he was like pretty fresh out and I was like, yeah,
son in law, Yeah, Kevin Well. I called him out
in my in my post and just like said, you know,
he inspired me to do it, because yeah, I was.
I was really really feeling it and I was like

(01:13:37):
I really want to share this, but I just it
hurts so bad. And I was like, no, fuck this
this is I'm I'm done, and uh, what's it's been?
My Facebook is so silent right now, and it's the
silent that's like the purposeful silent. And I have pretty

(01:14:02):
pretty decent volume on my Facebook page. It's just very
very silent right now. Because I shared it on a
Friday night. Yeah, I don't know. At least the YouTube views.
I watched the YouTube views jump up by one hundred, like.

Speaker 3 (01:14:20):
Oh, I haven't even left just after I.

Speaker 1 (01:14:22):
Just after I shared it, so I know it's getting
out there. But I was like, you know what, no,
I'm I'm going to rip this band aid off. Okay,
I will survive this.

Speaker 3 (01:14:36):
Well, how does it feel like sharing? Sharing it? Do
you feel any relief from that?

Speaker 1 (01:14:43):
It feels really good. I'm I wish there was more
I could do. It doesn't doesn't feel like I'm my
sense of responsibility is not pleased yet, like and I
don't know that I'm ever going to be able to

(01:15:04):
like please. That sensibility one of the one of the
things that caught me in uh In Kevin's podcast when
he was tiger Back, he wishes that he would have
left like with a sermon, you know, because he had
the opportunity. I wish I would have unplugged my streaming
computer and said this is bullshit and you know, just

(01:15:24):
walked out of the building with my computer. But I didn't.
And I don't blame anyone for leaving quietly and surreptitiously,
because you feel like if you do anything, you're you know,
this is Pacific rim and you're you're the nuclear reactor, like.

Speaker 3 (01:15:47):
Yeah, and there's always that what if I'm wrong.

Speaker 1 (01:15:49):
Like, oh my goodness, and that takes I that is
that is one thing where I don't feel that way anymore.
But boy, that took a long time to get over
the what if I'm wrong. I'm pretty convinced that I'm
not on the wrong side of it now. I just
want to I want to make sure there's something that

(01:16:10):
kind of juxtaposes my happiness now to the dread. Then
from all the feedback I got, that was the biggest thing.
That was like kind of leftist thinking that you're hopeless.
So it's like I listened to it back and I
didn't get that at all. But I'm I'm not too
worried about it. I feel good for doing it. It's
like it definitely took everything I had. It's one more

(01:16:31):
click up on the bar that I did, so yeah,
I mean to me, I can reach for something else.

Speaker 3 (01:16:36):
It's part of the processing too speaking it it does something.
I mean, I think it has for us, and most
of our guests have said that as well, that even
though they felt like they were hit by a mac
truck the next day, it's still there was some type
of release that happened, And there's just something about putting

(01:16:57):
those things into the line.

Speaker 1 (01:17:01):
I wish it was easier to talk about how unreligious
I am, but I feel like that would be so counterproductive.
The Overton window is only so big, and I'm trying
to aim for that. I want people to read descartes,
but it'll destroy you if you don't have something to
put in its place.

Speaker 3 (01:17:22):
All right, well, we appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:17:26):
I'm glad I got to be with both of you
this time, so kudos. I had a great time. And
hopefully we can do this a game sometime where it's
you know, no stress of anything.

Speaker 3 (01:17:38):
Yeah, and you and Maddie can start a band together.

Speaker 2 (01:17:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:17:42):
Hey, I want to play some music so bad. All right, guys, if.

Speaker 2 (01:17:46):
You like this episode, please go leave us a five
star rating and review wherever that is, if it's Apple,
Spotify or another service. It's really helpful. And don't forget
to subscribe so that you can get notified to when
we have new episodes and up based and things like that. Thanks,
and we'll talk to you Houl again next week.