Episode 3 | The End of Innocence: A Journey of No Return

In this episode, we dive into the profound concept of losing one’s innocence. Whether through childhood stories, fairytales, or the harsh realities of war, we've all encountered this theme in different ways. Sometimes, losing innocence is a gradual and natural part of growing up, while at other times, it can be sudden and forced upon us by uncontrollable circumstances. We’ll also examine the choice some make to hold onto innocence as a way of escaping reality. Join us as we unpack the layers of what it truly means to lose innocence and how these experiences shape who we become.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Hey, y'all, this is Erica with Students of Life podcast.
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(00:58):
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Speaker 2 (01:16):
Welcome to the Students of Life Podcasts. And I am
your host, Courtney, and with me is my wife.

Speaker 3 (01:23):
Here you go. How you doing the wife?

Speaker 1 (01:25):
I'm a good husband. How are you?

Speaker 2 (01:27):
I am doing awesome? You know, I'm very proud of you.
You know, you're stepping up your game. You're stepping up
your game. Okay, you're still undergraduating this in this in
this game that we're playing.

Speaker 3 (01:38):
Okay, you're almost there, almost ware, you.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
Know, to the next level in this podcast thing that
we're working on.

Speaker 3 (01:46):
You know, because you did the AD.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
I feel like you know you did the ad. I
feel like you're going to allude to me being a
sidekick in some way.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
Well you were a sidekick, but now you can you
definitely like barb Gordon.

Speaker 3 (02:02):
You know, like Barbara Gordon. You know, you know, you know,
like bat Girl.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
Yeah, I know who Barbara Gordon is.

Speaker 3 (02:08):
Yeah, so is that its not? Is that not good?

Speaker 1 (02:11):
She's still a sidekick.

Speaker 3 (02:14):
No, but she was very pivotal in Batman's success sometimes.
Yeah she was. Okay, Yeah, she was definitely pivotal.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
You know.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
You know what, if that makes you happy, then I
will I will be your Barbara Gordon. Yes, yes, does
that give you joy?

Speaker 2 (02:31):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (02:31):
It does.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
But you on your way though, you go graduate. We're soon,
I promise you. And what's next We're gonna find out.
We will find out, I promise you. We'll go get
on top of that.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
Okay, let me know where you find out.

Speaker 3 (02:45):
Yeah, you should be happy about that.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
If you're happy, I'm elated.

Speaker 3 (02:49):
Hey, if you like it, I love it.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
Your joy makes me makes me excited.

Speaker 3 (02:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
So let's get ready to get into this to this episode.
This episode is the end of Innocence, the Journey of
No Return, and so in this episode, we'll be talking
about how innocence is lost. So can you give us
the definition of or the explanation of what loss of

(03:15):
innocence is, because it's not a real definition of it.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
Exit, Yes, I can do that. So it's generally thought
to be a time or experience in a person's life
where they become more aware of the pain, suffering, and
evil in the world around them. A few of the
causes of loss of innocence can be a death of
some form associated with the time period, be it literal, sexual,

(03:38):
or emotional.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
Yeah, you know, And so what we need to know
also understand with just the loss of innocence. You know,
it's a gradual process and it happens over time. You know,
there's many different aspects of it. You know, you can
lose innocence gradually, you can lose it at roughly or

(04:01):
either two. You can hold on to it just a
just a tag a bit too long.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
You can get it, yeah, yeah, you can. You know,
Normally when we do these episodes, we can tell you, well,
this is a little bit worse than that. But I
don't think that any of these ways are worse than
the other. They all have a drastic effect in some way.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
Yeah, they all have a drastic effect. But safe instance,
when you gradually lose it, it's just part of living.

Speaker 3 (04:32):
We always we always experience that one.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
But even when you can sometimes gradually you know, lose innocence,
sometimes it can still be pretty harsh to deal with it.
But it's still better, yeah, to lose it gradually than
all it wants, because if you lose it all at once,
that's it's very difficult to come back O return from
that one.

Speaker 1 (04:53):
Well, you know, when I think of losing it gradually,
what I think about is just going from you know,
each stage of life, you know, from and an infant
to a toddler, to an adolescent to a teen and
then finally a young adult, than adult than someone you know,
you become elderly. Right, But I think the most pivotal
part of that is from maybe that that fifth to

(05:14):
maybe like tenth grade, those years in kids' life that's
where they seem to kind of lose it rapidly just
through life experience. Right, it's a gradual loss, but it's
still like one of those dangs that happened really fast.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
Yeah, But as you lose in this like in some
of these instances, some things you got to accept the
fact that we just can't help. Yeah, absolutely, you know,
you know, sometimes you can't help what you're gonna lose.
You know, like death is a gradual process, and in
a part of life it is, no you just you know, gradually,
you know, that kind of loss is just a part

(05:48):
of it. You can't escape it, right, you know, that's
the one that always follows you.

Speaker 1 (05:53):
Yeah, absolutely, you know.

Speaker 2 (05:54):
Or you know, gradual process you know of when you're young,
losing friends, coming and going, you know, to to realize
that everybody isn't your friend.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
Yeah, that one hurts.

Speaker 3 (06:04):
That one hurts.

Speaker 1 (06:05):
Yeah, I think every childhood experienced them kind of hurt feelings,
you know, at least once, because you go from thinking,
you know, James and Tamika your best friends. Then you
find out well, maybe not correct. And when that maybe
not happens, it changes you a little bit, makes you
a little less trusting.

Speaker 2 (06:22):
Yeah, And or parents divorcing, that's normal today, it is.
At one point, wasn't that normal? But today it's a
normal thing, you know, And that's just a gradual part
of experiencing life. Yeah, So in losing innocence, do you
think that there is an age where it should be gone,
you know, or the majority of innocence needs to be No,

(06:45):
pretty much out of your system.

Speaker 1 (06:47):
I no, I don't.

Speaker 3 (06:48):
I don't come on, give it to me, okay.

Speaker 1 (06:50):
So I believe that, you know, in some way we
should all be able to hold on to some some
form of innocence, right. And I say that only because
be ignorant to some things a lot of things in life, right,
it allows us to keep hope.

Speaker 3 (07:06):
Correct.

Speaker 1 (07:07):
So no, to be born with your answer, No, I
don't think there's ever a time where we should lose
all of our innocence. I don't care who you are,
what age you are, because we all need hope.

Speaker 3 (07:19):
Yeah, and we're going to always have hope.

Speaker 2 (07:21):
But when I look at that one by the time
you saw getting like eighteen and twenty one, I think
a lot of innocence needs to be like, you know,
like what kind of innence gone? You know, like you
know what you're thinking. What I'm thinking is like your
innocence and how you view the world, you know, very optimistic,
and it's not And.

Speaker 3 (07:40):
There's nothing wrong with being optimistic.

Speaker 2 (07:41):
I won't everybody understand that, but that's not how it
will works sometimes.

Speaker 1 (07:47):
Well, it sounds like what you're saying is, by the
time somebody is just say twenty one to twenty five,
you should not have rose colored glasses on anymore.

Speaker 2 (07:53):
No, you shouldn't because now it's detrimental. It's detrimental to
your to, your mind state, you to and the outcomes
of your life because you'll be putting in, putting yourself
in a position of being very hard to cope.

Speaker 1 (08:06):
Well, okay, so let me ask you this question then,
is that is that innocence or is that just people
being able to just be naive.

Speaker 3 (08:16):
It's the same.

Speaker 1 (08:17):
You think it's the same.

Speaker 3 (08:18):
No, No, it's it's closely related.

Speaker 1 (08:21):
No, interchangeable.

Speaker 2 (08:22):
Yeah, it's not necessarily interchangeable. But you know, when you're
just naive, it's something that you don't want to let go.
But Frederick kind of alluded to that one A little
dark guy he did. I mean, he was a dark guy,
you know. You know you got to be careful with
you though, And that's why I like him.

Speaker 1 (08:37):
She would take you down a dark hole and have
you depressed as hell.

Speaker 2 (08:40):
You said you stat into a business. Theres back ship
I never came back from.

Speaker 3 (08:43):
When I did.

Speaker 2 (08:46):
Ship, I thought I scaped that this. I looked back
and still saw some of me still down there.

Speaker 1 (08:51):
You know, the rest of you.

Speaker 2 (08:54):
Oh it's gone. Yeah, the abyss and the abyss a mind,
you know what I'm saying. So mine is eradicated, never
to come back. We're talking about the universal like exterminator
came in, took.

Speaker 1 (09:11):
Mind universal, black hole, just suck it out, gone, not
the sound effect.

Speaker 3 (09:21):
But but no.

Speaker 2 (09:23):
But overall, I do believe you have to, you know,
around that age, you know, have most of it out
the way because it'll be too easy to be manipulated.

Speaker 3 (09:32):
And that's just for you.

Speaker 2 (09:34):
You got to understand that everybody doesn't have your best
interest in mind. So if you get to a certain age,
I think that it needs to be gone. But innocence
has nothing to do with a specific age. You can
have innocence for a long time. You can have in
this for a long time. It's not just for a
newborn somebody that's in elementary school.

Speaker 3 (09:53):
It's still a lot of adults even to this day.

Speaker 2 (09:56):
It's innocent to certain things like this right here, because
you know, this is part of losing it in since
even as an adult, especially when you start believing that Hey,
my talent is going to take me where I need
to go. But when you get into it and you
start realizing, it's not about just talent, it's not about talent.
It's sometimes it's about what you know, and in the

(10:17):
worst case scenarios, it's about what you do or.

Speaker 1 (10:19):
Who you do, who you know that you know, I
will say, becoming becoming an adult, that's what That's one
thing I learned, especially in my career. It's not really
what you know, because there there are people, you know,
who who have been doing this this career feels less
than I have. And in my opinion, that's a lie.
Not my opinion though, for a fact, they don't know

(10:41):
half of what I do. But it's you know, based
on who they know, they're further ahead. And it's kind
of like, you know, my last my last job, you know, Psyox,
you had somebody who was not even from that world, correct,
who came in I trained, and then that person ended
up getting the position that I applied for with my

(11:02):
knowledge that I gave her based on who the hell
she knew.

Speaker 3 (11:05):
Correct.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
So yeah, I've lived that one, and it pisses you off.

Speaker 2 (11:09):
Actually that's and it is lost because in that in
that moment right there, you believe you believed that my
skill set, that your skill set is the thing that mattered.

Speaker 3 (11:18):
But it didn't.

Speaker 1 (11:19):
And ever since then, I have made it my business
to never allow that to happen again.

Speaker 3 (11:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:23):
So after that, not long after that, actually, you know,
I started networking with multiple people throughout different industries, different
hospitals here in Memphis, and now my name is quite
known where it needs to be known.

Speaker 3 (11:35):
Right.

Speaker 2 (11:36):
But that's a harsh reality that I believe that we
hold on to it a little bit too long. We
hold on to it too long, believing that your skill
set it's a thing that sets you free.

Speaker 3 (11:46):
But sometimes it's not.

Speaker 1 (11:47):
Doesnt matter, It doesn't matter, It doesn't matter.

Speaker 3 (11:49):
It don't matter, you know.

Speaker 2 (11:51):
So I do have a question, okay, and it just
tied to kind of our last episode, which was Fate.
Do you think losing innocence is in one's control?

Speaker 1 (12:03):
You would ask me that, hih? I would people heard
my stance in the last episode. Yeah, but no, I
don't let me say this because this is a great
area where I can admit I do ride the line, right,
I think depending on.

Speaker 3 (12:19):
Get them count?

Speaker 1 (12:21):
Really, I do think the type of life that you
choose to live. You take you know, you take control
of the type of innocence that that you lose right now.
That being the case, you know, as we said in
the opening of the show, it's very likely that over
time you're gonna lose it anyway. So I feel like

(12:42):
that that's a little bit of a great area because
as you as you adult, you grow up. You you know,
you go from age to age, stage to stage. Yes,
you leave some behind, you have to.

Speaker 2 (12:51):
Yeah, But the question is do you think that free
I mean, I said free will, And do you think
that innocence you're losing in it? Since it's in ones
is a is a choice you think we have control
over that?

Speaker 1 (13:04):
I think it's a great area, honestly, I do. I
feel like there are times, you know, where where we
give it up willingly to move from stage to stage
in life.

Speaker 3 (13:11):
Okay, So are we predestined to lose our innocence?

Speaker 2 (13:14):
You're asking the same question I'm just asking a lawyer.
We predestined to lose our innocence?

Speaker 1 (13:19):
Yes, you're honner.

Speaker 3 (13:23):
Sore.

Speaker 1 (13:24):
Suppose that's only a small part of fate, though it is.
It's a tiny part.

Speaker 2 (13:28):
But I was I was, I was inquiring, Yes, you're
I know, because I know that those are trick questions
and those are very hard questions. You know why it's
hard for you to answer because when you mostly think
about innocence, you know what you think about kids, You
think about kids, kids, and so you don't want to
believe that you know, in these scenarios that you know
it was predestined for safe instance, you know, because I

(13:51):
use an extreme just to get the point across that
bad things can happen to a kid, it was predestined
to happen.

Speaker 3 (13:58):
No one wants to believe that.

Speaker 2 (13:59):
Everybody who wants to believe that you know, that thing
willingly happened, and it couldn't have been predetermined for it
to happen. It's hard to believe that it was fated
for a kid to go through something that was very harsh.

Speaker 3 (14:10):
It's hard to imagine that, right.

Speaker 1 (14:11):
But in that case, though, that's an immediate loss of innocence. Yeah,
you know, and I know most people's mind's probably going
to gravitate straight to like, oh, like like sexual, but
I mean no, there are other ways, and there are
you know, they're like children who grew up in poverty,
children who who have to take care of their siblings,
or maybe a child who maybe they're not they're not
living in poverty, but maybe you know, mama's never home

(14:34):
because she got to work two three jobs to make
sure that they're not living in poverty. That's you know,
So there are multiple ways that this happens outside of
you know, where our mind always just gravitates to because
it's not always sexual. But sadly, the world that we
live in today, when you hear of something horrific happening
to a child, that's normally what it is.

Speaker 2 (14:53):
When we're talking about losing innocence, and I'm trying this
to fate, is that fate doesn't care about.

Speaker 1 (14:59):
Your age, does not.

Speaker 2 (15:01):
You know, we want to believe, you know, you know,
in a very good outlook with some of these things,
but no matter the outcome is good or bad, Fate
doesn't care your age, whether you're a new born or
whether you're ninety nine.

Speaker 1 (15:13):
Absolutely, but fate, fate is in that way of similar
to death, it doesn't matter right, you know, when your
time is up for a particular thing.

Speaker 3 (15:20):
It's over.

Speaker 1 (15:20):
You know, your cord is cut.

Speaker 2 (15:21):
So this is inevitability Okay, you know, losing one's innocence
is inevitable. I agree, And it's inevitable under certain circumstances.

Speaker 1 (15:31):
I agree.

Speaker 3 (15:32):
And which was me? Which would be you know, being
robbed of being.

Speaker 2 (15:35):
Robbed of innocence because there's a lot of things that
transpires where that right there is out of your control.

Speaker 3 (15:43):
You know, we're talking about it.

Speaker 2 (15:44):
At first, this gradual process, you know where it's or
you lose it over time and you get acclimated to it.
You know, it's just like when you jump in cold
water at first, but after you sit there for a minute,
it's okay, it feels better. You know, it's gradual, you
get acclimated to it. When when you lose in this
is like that. It's easy to acclimate to the harshness
of the world if it's gradually put home. But everybody

(16:08):
do does not have that ability to gradually lose it?

Speaker 1 (16:12):
Well, I mean, yeah, that's the luxury. It's not affoid, everybody,
It's not you know. I guess that's kind of similar
to a child losing their parents, Like my parents took
me to school this morning, but when I come home,
they're going to see them again. Correct that that's instantaneous.
That was I just saw my mom made me breakfast,
my dad helped me get ready and brush my teeth.
They took me to school, and I'm never going to

(16:32):
see them again. That's terrible. That's that's hard to deal with.

Speaker 2 (16:35):
Yeah, because they never come back. I'm not saying that
you can't recover, because you can recover from them. It
just becomes very difficult.

Speaker 1 (16:42):
It does.

Speaker 3 (16:43):
It becomes difficult.

Speaker 1 (16:44):
It does, you know, or you know, like we've said before,
the loss of innocence. But this is not just children.
This is children and women, not not really very many men.
But sex trafficking is terrible right now. It's awful. I
mean it always has been, let me credit that, but
it's gotten worse as people are more brazen. So maybe
you got a woman who was taking care of her family,

(17:05):
then she got married, so she still has rose colored
glasses on, but one day she's kidnapped. Now she's used
in abuse every day and full of all kinds of drugs.
That's an instantaneous loss of whatever innocence she.

Speaker 3 (17:17):
Had as a grown woman, yes, but as a kid
is worse.

Speaker 2 (17:21):
That was far worse, far worse, because even you know,
like in a scenario like that, you know, But that
one right there is that's a damnar like a loss
of innocence too fast.

Speaker 3 (17:30):
But we'll get to that one.

Speaker 2 (17:31):
But majority of those girls, even if even if they
do make it out, if they do make it out,
they're forever changed.

Speaker 3 (17:39):
Not only for ever change, but the majority of them
commit to it, you.

Speaker 1 (17:41):
Know they do because because they can't they they can't
leave what happened to them. So the big ass word
is all they can do. They they have to stop it.

Speaker 3 (17:49):
Yeah, they self terminate.

Speaker 1 (17:51):
They have to stop the hurt and the pain somehow.

Speaker 2 (17:54):
Because that's a traumatic thing that it's hard to get
over psychologically, absolutely, you know, it's something you know that
happens to the brain. It's too traumatic where it can't
coat because you know, the brain will naturally go into
a defense mode to protect yourself, that's what it's going
to do.

Speaker 1 (18:11):
And when the brain can't protect itself, it shuts down.

Speaker 3 (18:14):
Yeah, it does.

Speaker 1 (18:16):
It stops doing all the things that it should do.
And now all you're love with are these thoughts of
helplessness and god knows what else. Correct And that's usually
why them poor ladies don't make it out.

Speaker 3 (18:25):
Yeah, they don't make it out.

Speaker 2 (18:26):
But you know, but like with that right there, tremendous
not just a loss of innocence, but that depending on
what happens, that's losing innocence too damn fast though, you know,
kind of like in the movie Full Metal Jacket, Yeah, Pile,
when we was full of a metal jacket, when we
were dealing with private power, that's what he was named.
He came in there very jolly. Initially, he was a

(18:48):
happy kid, right, you know, so of course you have
to have just got out of high school or pretty young.
But but regardless, he came in at a pretty young
age and have a long boot camp takes. They drove
him crazy, They drove him crazy, and now you know
he killed He killed the sergeant and after that he

(19:09):
killed himself. Yes, the brain or the human can only
take so much in such a short amount of time
before it snaps.

Speaker 1 (19:16):
But you know, the situation with Pyle was, it was
it was terrifying. It was because when you think about
what happened, the kid went in happy as can be, right,
and he had no idea what he was about to face.
So not only you know, is he he's having to
get his mind ready to go to Vietnam. Now he's
got to deal with these issues from his sergeant, his

(19:36):
you know, his platoon makes or whatever they called the military. Yeah.
But worst of all, his best friend joined in correct.
So the person who should have been there, you know,
in terms of friendship, to protect him, to be there
with him, to go through this with him, to help
him through this, his very best friend, he jumped in correct,
you know, And in that moment he learned life ain't shit.

(20:00):
You can't even trust your best.

Speaker 3 (20:01):
Friend, trust your friends. The guy who's who was there
to help him.

Speaker 2 (20:04):
He tie his shoes, tied his shoes for him, He
tied his shoes for him, He button his shirt up
for him. He was there for him. That was there,
was his There was his gun with his gun, kept
him with his gun. But he joined in too, and
they drove him and that drove him crazy.

Speaker 1 (20:18):
It did. But you know, I'm pretty I'm pretty sure
anyone who's been to the military can tell you there's
a pretty quick loss of innocence there. Yeah, but it
has to be. But he lost that. It was both
gradual and instantaneous.

Speaker 2 (20:31):
No, it was all instantaneous because it was verbal and
it was physical.

Speaker 1 (20:35):
That's what I'm saying. But it was over weeks. It
happened on the one day.

Speaker 2 (20:38):
No, but rapid loss of innocence also, you know, doesn't
always happen in just a day, you know, saftands twelve weeks,
that's a pretty short amount of time. It is four months, right,
So safe than says you're going from being extremely happy
to being verbally abused, you know, being verbal abuse, physically abused,
and then publicly embarrassed all at the same time. It's

(20:59):
too much. I agree with that, it's too much. I
agree with that, you know. But you know, but there was.

Speaker 1 (21:04):
No coming back for him from that.

Speaker 3 (21:06):
There wasn't.

Speaker 2 (21:07):
But that's like, you know, we digested a lot of
media over our lifetime, you know, so a lot of things,
even when we was younger. You know, it was dealing
with this loss of innocence and rapid at that yeah,
you know, you know, like like two fairy tales, you know,
of course, you know, one of my favorites still is
Handsome and Gretel. You know what I'm saying, going into

(21:27):
the woods and they're putting the bread crumbs down and
they turn around, you know, to get them back home.

Speaker 3 (21:34):
But they looked down and the birds, the birds were
eating bread crumbs.

Speaker 2 (21:38):
Then they ran into the witch. Then the witch, an
adult who they thought would keep them safe, keep them safe, right,
fed them. But she wanted to eat them.

Speaker 3 (21:46):
Yeah, okay, yeah, I wanted to eat them.

Speaker 2 (21:49):
But to survive, they had to do the unthinkable as
a kid, they had to cook that ass I had.

Speaker 3 (21:55):
They had to kill her.

Speaker 1 (21:56):
They did, and.

Speaker 2 (21:57):
Then they left the home. But you know what, they
didn't need no more. They didn't need Birry comes to
get back home.

Speaker 1 (22:04):
They didn't.

Speaker 2 (22:04):
That was a sign in there to say, you know what,
we crossed over. We crossed over.

Speaker 1 (22:09):
We are not the children that came to these woods.

Speaker 3 (22:11):
We're not the children that came into the woods. Now.
And so now they took their time getting home.

Speaker 1 (22:15):
They did.

Speaker 3 (22:16):
They took their time getting home.

Speaker 1 (22:17):
They weren't scared anymore.

Speaker 3 (22:18):
They weren't scared anymore.

Speaker 2 (22:19):
But you know, and even still that symbolic, you know,
the forest is symbolic of you know, being lost, and
the wild is it's it's everywhere, you know, it's spread
throughout you know a lot of our you know teachings,
you know, even in the in the Bible, they called
it the wilderness they did, you know, because they wandered
for forty years, you know. But you know that was
there was a loss of innocence. And another one that

(22:40):
we digested, what was that little red riding hood. Yeah,
they were right there.

Speaker 1 (22:46):
Yeah, they were just trying to take some baked goods
to a granted.

Speaker 3 (22:49):
Yeah, but there was like a like a hidden message
in that though.

Speaker 1 (22:52):
What's the hidden message?

Speaker 2 (22:53):
The hidden metrige that there's always something lurking, a predator,
always lurking in the woods for for something that don't
know because she was innocent, she didn't know that the
wolf wanted to eat her.

Speaker 1 (23:02):
No, she was skipping along mind her own. But that's
reality though, it is. And you know, I think again,
when we say the word predator, I feel like people
think in terms of like sexual predators or things like that.
But no, no, no, no, no, because you know, depending on
where you work, your boss is a predator. You know,
anytime somebody takes credit for your work, or anytime someone

(23:26):
purposely holds you in a position because they benefit from you,
they're predator. And you're little, you're there, pray and you
don't realize it, you don't see it. You don't know,
you don't see it because you're because you're innocent to it,
because you would think this person wouldn't do it to me.

Speaker 2 (23:40):
And so you know what happened to her, She got
eaten butter damn wolf up. But the world just like
this will devour you, just like.

Speaker 1 (23:48):
That wolf will absolutely.

Speaker 2 (23:50):
And so the point is this is that the world
is looking for innocence, so it can always pray on you.
And that's why you have to get away from it
when possible, you know. But I'm pretty sure once you
once she was saved, Once you come out of the
depths of darkness, you come out differently than you went in.

Speaker 1 (24:06):
Well, you know, for her, she was she was literally
cut out, so she was cut back into the world.

Speaker 2 (24:11):
Correct, But it was very symbolic. It was now you know,
it's a it's a transition. And so we need to
understand that this loss of the innocence, this is a metamorphosis.

Speaker 3 (24:20):
You know.

Speaker 2 (24:20):
It's like when a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. The butterfly
can never go back to be a calipillar up again.

Speaker 1 (24:26):
Correct, you know. And it's one of those I think,
you know, when I think a little read ridinghood. I
always think of killer, be killed, eat or be eaten, right,
because that's really what it comes down to, especially an adults.

Speaker 2 (24:36):
And so what what in both of those fairy tales,
because we learned about those very early on in that life,
that was a very abrupt especially if you put it
in a in a real life scenario you try to
you know, make sense of it in that way. There
was an abrupt you know, loss of innocence, like safe
things that happened in real life.

Speaker 3 (24:53):
The majority of people don't come back from it, you know.

Speaker 2 (24:56):
But also you know it, you know, the the loss
of innocence gives this sense of premature maturity. Yes, you
know what I'm saying, it's premature maturity. Like you know,
you're engaging in adult activities or things, or has been
taking or you've gone down that path, but you don't
have the experience or knowledge to really know what to

(25:17):
do with it.

Speaker 3 (25:17):
You know.

Speaker 2 (25:18):
It's it's it's like you know, this horrible ass saying.
You know, young women get it.

Speaker 1 (25:23):
Oh my god, that pisces me off.

Speaker 3 (25:25):
You know, as long as you have a vagina be broke.

Speaker 1 (25:30):
I hate that, that is I hate that, you know
what I'm saying yes, because not only are you taking
their innocence, you're also helping them give a part of
their self worth and that's terrible.

Speaker 2 (25:40):
And so with that, it's it's rapid because you know,
and it's not knowing as it's just rapid.

Speaker 3 (25:44):
But it's premature because.

Speaker 2 (25:46):
Now if you do it long enough, now she has
the idea of this is what it means to be
a woman.

Speaker 1 (25:51):
Yes, yes, and that shit is troubling or not even
just that, but I can use this to get my way.

Speaker 2 (25:57):
Or young men who goes to who go to the
streets too soon, but directed by older men.

Speaker 1 (26:03):
Yes, oh, older men who have been in out of
jail their whole life, who now have kids who they
know won't get the same harsh, harsh time that they would.

Speaker 2 (26:11):
Why do you think they say, for instance, like like
with young boys, why do you think that they go
after them?

Speaker 1 (26:17):
They're easy, they're easy targets because again they're innocent. You know,
think about it. You got a kid who who goes
from a good family, right, who's maybe twelve or thirteen
years old, but he's played these video games his whole life,
since this music is he's heard it, he's watching in movies,
he's seated in you know, music videos, he's heard in music,

(26:38):
He's played games that portray his kind of life as
being glamorous, but it's different in reality. That TV show,
you know, that game, that music. Although people have lived that,
you haven't, so for you, it's hmm, let me see
this is then by the time you realize you shouldn't
be doing this shit, it's too late.

Speaker 2 (26:56):
No, It's almost like in the movie South Central. You know,
you know it sounds central, but I can't remember the
sherm head's name, but you know he was real drugged out. Yeah,
he said they choose kids because they don't ask no questions,
ask no question. I don't ask no questions.

Speaker 1 (27:11):
They don't know to ask questions.

Speaker 2 (27:14):
Just like in the Little Red Ridin Hood. It was
something always lurking in the darkness, ready to pray on
the unknown. Yes, and it happened on those who don't know.
It happens every day, and it happens every day.

Speaker 1 (27:25):
Yep. By the time that those boys realize, you know,
I don't want to say that they're in a sense
as well, because they don't think about it in those terms.
But by the time those boys realize that they've done
and stuff they can't come back from. It's too late
because not only that, but in your formal years, what
else did you learn? So what do you do? So
now this is your lifestyle. That's unfortunate, that's very unfortunate.

(27:49):
But you know, that's the rapid loss of nisis though.
That's a part of what some of us go through,
and some of us were forcing to you know, like
war for instance. Yeah, you know what, that is out
of everyone's control, it is, but we got to deal
with it.

Speaker 2 (28:05):
Okay, Like this right here, I give this one right here,
we use World War two. Like with World War two,
they dropped those bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

Speaker 3 (28:15):
Yeah, and want everybody to.

Speaker 2 (28:17):
Think about this from the perspective of a kid then
and the possibility of how long you think it took
for them to actually overcome this. They dropped the bombs,
a lot of people died, yes, a lot of people died,
and bodies were literally floating in the rivers, yes, floating
in the rivers. But this was the one that got me.

(28:38):
When the bombs dropped, it heated the atoms in the
air to close to a million degrees, close to a
median degrees when literally, when the smoke cleared, bodies were
slaying down. They went to go and try to pick
them up, but it turned the.

Speaker 3 (28:51):
Ash right in their hand.

Speaker 1 (28:52):
Oh that's terrible.

Speaker 2 (28:53):
This was what kids were doing. Some of adults too.
But can you imagine being a kid and that's what
you see.

Speaker 1 (29:00):
No, I couldn't even imagine being a kid and walking
up to find my parents or my siblings and they're
all ash, Like, I think this is you. This looks
like you when I touch you, and you just crumble
in my hand, umble in my hands, And it's kind
of like when Thaniel snapped his fingers.

Speaker 3 (29:15):
Man, that's some ship you don't come back from now.

Speaker 1 (29:18):
You can't see that.

Speaker 2 (29:19):
Or like the book A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Bayo,
that's sad.

Speaker 3 (29:24):
He's a child soldier.

Speaker 2 (29:27):
That's a rapid loss of innocence because he was forcing
to you know, civil war.

Speaker 1 (29:33):
You know, he didn't have a choice. He literally had
zero choice.

Speaker 3 (29:37):
None of them did, None of them did.

Speaker 2 (29:39):
None of them had a damn choice though, So he
had to see his family members get killed. He left
home one day and never saw his family ever again,
never saw his mother, never saw his father no more.
He was literally on the run from getting killed by
the rebels and to even survive.

Speaker 3 (29:57):
He was in the trees.

Speaker 2 (29:59):
He was jumping in the trees, getting chased by by
hawks and they trying to.

Speaker 3 (30:05):
Get up the tree to get him. Or yeah, oh lord,
you know.

Speaker 2 (30:09):
Or he's trying to hide from the from the lions
because he had to hide in jungle, because he was
trying to not get captured by the rebels.

Speaker 1 (30:17):
That's scary just thinking about the fact that, you know,
lions and cheetahs and chi can climb trees, and the
trees supposed to be a refuge. So now the poor
child was scared of what was in the darkness and
the rebels chasing.

Speaker 2 (30:29):
And the rebels chasing him, and he still got caught.
He became a rebel, and he had to become a
killer too.

Speaker 1 (30:36):
He didn't have a choice.

Speaker 3 (30:36):
He didn't have a choice.

Speaker 2 (30:37):
He had to survive. It was like he didn't want
to die. It was like a game no tom, you know.
But eventually he overcame that situation. But man, it's so
The point is this is that sometimes you don't have
a choice based on the life that you live, Like
with him, he didn't have a choice but to lose
innocence real fast because they were survival.

Speaker 1 (30:58):
He did not have a choice.

Speaker 3 (31:00):
The book is worth picking up.

Speaker 2 (31:02):
Please pick it up and read it and get an
understanding of the life that keep what kids go through
sometimes because it really struck me, you know, the experiences
of what he went through and what he didn't have
a choice to go through, and what those kids are
going through over there all the time, you know, and.

Speaker 1 (31:23):
We don't see it because we're not there. It's not
put on us media.

Speaker 3 (31:26):
We don't see that one all the time.

Speaker 2 (31:27):
Yeah, you know, but it's a harsh reality of what
kids have to experience in scenarios they don't have a choice,
just like poverty.

Speaker 1 (31:35):
Well you know that's something similar has happened in Palestine
right now.

Speaker 3 (31:38):
Yeah, yeah, but it's just like poverty though.

Speaker 2 (31:41):
Yeah, you know, like with poverty, you know, you when
you're born, born in it, you don't have a choice
but to lose whatever energies you have because it's certain
things that transpires inside that home that only poverty breeds.

Speaker 1 (31:56):
Yeah, you know, I think we all went to school
with kids who you know, and have a mom or
dad at home because mom was always working, Dad was
always working. Whoever cared for them as a single parent.
It's hard, male or female. Right, So maybe you're working
two three jobs. Well, now you've got a fifteen year
old caring for a twelve year old and maybe an
eight year old. Those two older children that they don't

(32:17):
have any innocence left because they're doing an adult job.
They're parenting their their younger siblings, fixing food, doing homework, babysitting.

Speaker 3 (32:26):
Or one of the worst case scenarios when.

Speaker 2 (32:30):
A father or mother saw to prioritize relationships children over
their children. And obviously, and obviously this would be one
of those scenarios where the mother.

Speaker 3 (32:40):
And father ain't together. Of course, yeah we're not together.

Speaker 2 (32:43):
And you know when they bring getting outside people in, Yeah,
so let it be part of it. And that's a
harsh reality because now kids begin to look invisible, you
get lost.

Speaker 1 (32:57):
Well it's not just a look, they literally becoming because
you have a parent prioritizing themselves over their children and
not even realizing what's happening to these kids.

Speaker 2 (33:06):
Yeah, you know, and that's man, that's all. That's a
hard that's a harsh one, a hard one to deal
with or even fathom.

Speaker 1 (33:14):
It is because you know that have so many faces, right,
did you think about it? We were just talking out
long ago about how we just recently realized that all
these kids out here doing all the Committee's crimes and
doing these things, they're not bad kids. They're making bad
decisions because they're unsupervised. That's the thing, right, There's no
one at home telling them, hey, you bet not. I

(33:35):
wish you would, you know so. And then also, you know,
maybe again parents are always busy. You know, there's no one.
There's no grandmother, no aunts, no uncles to step in
to help them. So you got these kids out here who,
while most of them honestly live in poverty, they want out.
They want out. There's no one there showing them how

(33:55):
to do it. So what do they do? It goes
right back to those men you were singing prayer on
the boys. They see that there are no no parents
at home to care for these, you know, for these
little boys and these children, because even girls are doing
it now, there's nobody at home. But you know what,
I want these new Jordan's you know what I want?
I want these these new Valenciaga tennis shoes. I want
what I see other folks do. Where have I want

(34:17):
to go? Where other folks go? I want to experience
life like this. And you've got some grown man tell
them all right, he let me help you, let me
show you how to do it. And that's what happens.

Speaker 2 (34:26):
It does, and it's hard to man, it's it's definitely
hard to come back from there.

Speaker 3 (34:31):
It is.

Speaker 1 (34:31):
It's rough, and you know, it's hard to think about,
you know, because you're sitting back and you know your
your first mind is what these kids' fault? But is it?

Speaker 2 (34:42):
And that's a hard one, you know, from a perspective
of a kid, because you know, throughout our life we
kind of witnessed this before, you know, where the parent
blames the kid for being there.

Speaker 1 (34:55):
Yeah, but but where were you? The show?

Speaker 2 (34:56):
And God them right, you know, like like like it's
their fault that that the that they were born and
put here just to.

Speaker 3 (35:03):
Be mistreated, yeah, or neglected or out or invisible.

Speaker 2 (35:08):
You know, man, those are moments that shape you for
the rest of your life.

Speaker 1 (35:13):
They do.

Speaker 2 (35:14):
And when we're talking about you know, this transformation is metamorphosis.
We're talking about being transformed into something that's not good sometimes, Yeah,
you know, because now, depending on how severe this is,
it takes a lot of work to recover from it,
if you can. But the mess of part about it
is a lot of us never recover.

Speaker 1 (35:33):
From we don't, you know. And a kid, you know,
who uses juvenile detension as a revolving door tends to
continue the same thing at too wanted, the pentaform. It
doesn't stop once, that's all you know, that's all you know.
It's the same mass childre who are how you know?
You go to school, you work hard, you be a
great student. Well, these kids aren't given that, No they're not.

(35:55):
And because they're given the exact opposite, actually, and in
doing that, they become what you just said. It's what happens,
and it's it's unfortunate and it's sad. But they never
had a chance to even have innocis usually as like
as a small child. It was taken from them.

Speaker 3 (36:11):
At a very young age. Yeah, at a very young age.

Speaker 1 (36:14):
You know, And for a lot of them, they remember it,
they don't recall what it was like to be a
normal kid. So how do you incur from that? How
do you fix that? What does that look like?

Speaker 3 (36:23):
Erica? It takes a lot of work.

Speaker 2 (36:25):
But we also need to understand this too, is that
bad things do happen. Oh, absolutely, every day, bad things
do happen. But you don't have to stay there. You
don't have to you don't have to stay there. You
know you can get help for it. But I guess
I have a question kind of it's as we're talking about,
you know, this rapid loss of innocence. Do you think

(36:48):
fate is what's it's a way to describe it. Do
you think fate has anything to do with the loss
of innocence?

Speaker 3 (36:55):
You know, is the is fate the to the loss
of innocence?

Speaker 1 (37:03):
I don't know. I don't think so. I think, like
I said, it's situational, right, I think it depends on
the situation. I really, I genuinely do. I feel like
that's a great area and it's one of those that
I wish I could even better answer for. But honestly,
I just think that it falls. It's not black, it's
not white, it falls, and just that the nasty, murky water.

(37:24):
It's kind of one of them things you put your
hand into the water and pull it out and hope
for the best.

Speaker 2 (37:27):
Yeah, do you have any moments where you know you
feel like you know or that you remember when you
lost your innocence.

Speaker 3 (37:36):
Yeah, like a moment. No, nothing severe, but just something.

Speaker 1 (37:41):
Yeah, I do. Actually I was an older teenager, actually
older a teenager, early adult, but I had two really
close friends, really really close. I would have done anything
for them, did do anything for them. And one day
I find out that these two friends because I left
the neighborhood we grew up in, I chose a career

(38:02):
and I started in the very early right. I knew,
I knew kind of what I wanted to do, so
I wasn't always with them anymore. So those two got together.
So then it became so what's Eric doing taught Eric? So, no,
they haven't. I was going to school and I was working, right,
So no, I didn't talk to them like that. On
the weekends, I showed up, but during the week they

(38:22):
didn't have jobs, they just hung out. So it became
well less bash Erica, and it became one of them
lying on me to the other one. And then in
my mind it's like y'all doing all this, Like I've
been there for baby showers, I've helped taking care of kids.
You know, I've showed up for funerals I've picked up,

(38:44):
taken to work, brought back home, you know what I mean,
like bought clothes for you as an as an adult
because you need help. But neither one of them thoughts
to even asking me if I ever said any of that.
So in that moment, I kind of learned that friends
aren't always friends. And for me that was hard, because
you know, I was somebody I valued my friends very

(39:05):
very heathy.

Speaker 2 (39:06):
And you you held them real close, and I did.
You treated friends like family. I did, That's what you did.
And so that's also a good point right here too,
is that a loss of innocence also comes from betrayal.

Speaker 1 (39:19):
Oh, betrayal probably one of the greatest.

Speaker 2 (39:21):
It comes from from betrayal, you know, and it's hard
to come back from because you never see the world
the same ever again.

Speaker 1 (39:28):
Your blinders come off, essentially, and those roads colored glasses
in the garbage.

Speaker 2 (39:32):
Right, And this is the thing about betrayal, you know what.
The thing about betrayal is what it never comes from
the enemies. It's the hardest part about it, right, It's
the hardest part about it. Betrayal never comes from your enemies.
So a stranger, you know, I expect strangers to be
a stranger.

Speaker 1 (39:49):
That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (39:50):
But so, but I can't be betrayed by a stranger.
I can't be betrayed by them. That you can't be
betrayed by them.

Speaker 1 (39:57):
No, you can't, you know. But those people you hold closely,
the people that you love.

Speaker 3 (40:01):
Those are the ones who go and hurt you.

Speaker 1 (40:03):
They're the probably some of the greatest heartbreaks you ever stuff.

Speaker 2 (40:06):
And so that's what you that's what you dealt with.
You dealt with betrayal. And it cut deep.

Speaker 1 (40:12):
It did, you know, And it cut deep in the
way of I literally grieved those friendships like it felt
like like in a way of death to me because
it was like, y'all of all people would do this
to me, you know, and a simple call you could
have called me on freeway.

Speaker 3 (40:28):
But that was a metaphorical death though it was.

Speaker 2 (40:30):
But that's a loss of innocence because that is going
to the other side part of you dying and you
become something better.

Speaker 1 (40:40):
Something different. I don't know about better, but we'll say different.

Speaker 2 (40:42):
It became something different. Yeah, no, But you know what,
I ain't going to say different, I'm going to say better.
I'm gonna stick with better. The reason I'm to stick
with better because now you see the world for what
it is.

Speaker 1 (40:52):
Yeah, even though it hurt, even though, but that's hurt
I had to go through though.

Speaker 3 (40:55):
Right, right, You had to go through that to grow.
It's part of the process. You know. It was gradual.
It wasn't that it didn't happen all at once, but
it was a very surprising.

Speaker 1 (41:07):
For me. It was a gradual but they made me
their enemy way before I even knew about it.

Speaker 3 (41:12):
Right.

Speaker 2 (41:12):
But at the same time, it just goes into it,
you know, is that you became something better because you
had to go through that to understand.

Speaker 3 (41:20):
The way the world works.

Speaker 2 (41:21):
The ship part about this sometimes is this right here,
when we try to hold on to that innocence, Yeah,
when we try to hold on to it, you know
in a way that it don't serve you, you know,
you know in a way that you don't see the world,
you know, because what we have to do is accept
the world for what it is, not how we wish
it to be. I agree, and some things that we

(41:42):
have to we have to be what we need to be.
But see the world for.

Speaker 3 (41:47):
What it is.

Speaker 2 (41:47):
At least, you know what you can be positive, you know,
if you want to, You can be very religious, even
though I personally believe that being.

Speaker 1 (41:56):
A different kind of innocence.

Speaker 3 (41:58):
But it's still play to you know, you know, just
being over the innocent.

Speaker 2 (42:04):
You know, sometimes, yes, it plays into it, you know,
because sometimes I believe can get us trapped in some
of these situations, in some of these scenarios sometimes because
we look at the world from a very naive perspective,
and so what we have to do is, you know,
safe instance, who can't stay and be so devout in
what we do. Sometimes we can't be so devout to

(42:25):
the point to where it's detrimental to our well being,
you know, because some of these instances, you know, you know,
like with too much innocence. You know, sometimes parents have
an issue with too much innocence in the sense of
I they try to protect their kid from everything, They
try to protect them from the harshness of the world.
You know, So when you try to hold onto this

(42:45):
innocence a little bit too long, it becomes detrimental because
now you not only are you little red riding hood,
but you stand there forever, even after bad things happen,
even after reality hits you in the face. You still
can't accept it sold it owns innocence for too long.

Speaker 3 (43:02):
It's not good on the.

Speaker 2 (43:03):
Out you know, for for your personal well being and
the outcome of you and your life, because now your
life is.

Speaker 3 (43:09):
Void of growth.

Speaker 1 (43:10):
Absolutely, you're stuck.

Speaker 3 (43:12):
Now, you're stuck forever.

Speaker 1 (43:14):
I don't agree with adults having childlife wonder. I don't know.

Speaker 3 (43:20):
But you can't.

Speaker 1 (43:20):
You can't. It doesn't work, you know. But you and I,
you know, Cortney, we run across people where we've been like,
what fucking world do you live on? Where you getting
these ideas from where everything is, where the grass is
always greener on every side, But you don't. It kind
of falls back, you know, into what you said. They've
had on the innocence for far too long.

Speaker 3 (43:42):
And you can't. But people doesn't say.

Speaker 2 (43:45):
When I say religion, I'm not talking about a specific religion.

Speaker 3 (43:48):
I'm talking about as a whole.

Speaker 1 (43:50):
Yeah, every because everyone is similar in that way.

Speaker 2 (43:52):
It's similar in that way is that it wants to
keep you, keep you with the blinder zone with sugar
cut it covered toppings on you on your as that's
what it does, so you don't question the world and so,
and that becomes my issue is, especially when I was younger,
is that you know exactly how this how it's played out.
When you were young, they always told you don't question God.

Speaker 1 (44:15):
Baby, don't we don't know why that happened, but we
don't question God. But why can we?

Speaker 2 (44:19):
And so my innocence, right, you know, So my innocence
was gone in the sense of I couldn't help but
to question it because the older that I got, I
end up realizing if I can't answer this question, what
other questions would I not asked to correct? And that's
the one that struck me the most as an adult.
It's like, if I can't ask this question, if I
can't ask this one, then what other question would I

(44:41):
not ask to whatever the questions that I don't ask,
you know, I will, for one, will NAVI get the answers.

Speaker 3 (44:47):
And then two I'll be stunned too.

Speaker 1 (44:49):
Because suddenly you'll be naive for the rest of.

Speaker 2 (44:51):
Your the rest of my life yep, or afraid or
afraid to ask questions yep, you know.

Speaker 3 (44:56):
And that's not a that's not a good place to be.

Speaker 1 (44:58):
In, No, not at all. If you think about it's
actually scary because that wolf looks for people like that.
You know, to think about this one, right, I think
this is the one people don't think about the older,
older people, right. You know, when you think about religion,
people who have been like devout their whole life, right,
and they get to the end well them never being

(45:19):
able to formulate proper questions or you know, to think
proper independent thoughts. That's why you have so many old
people who had caught up with scammers. Those predators find them.

Speaker 3 (45:30):
Right.

Speaker 1 (45:30):
It happens every single day, you know. You see it
on the news all the time. This grandma got took
for one hundred thousand dollars, this grandfather got talked took
for thirty thousand dollars, you know, But it circles back
to you know, I've always been such a good person.
I've been in church my whole life, and I just
don't understand why somebody would do this to me.

Speaker 2 (45:49):
But we need to understand that religion has nothing to
do with the harshness of the world.

Speaker 1 (45:54):
It does not.

Speaker 2 (45:54):
It don't have nothing to do with it. You can
believe what you believe all day, but it'll still come
after you.

Speaker 1 (45:59):
It will because the predators are still out.

Speaker 3 (46:01):
There because it's still out there.

Speaker 1 (46:02):
They're still there, lurking, looking for people just like you.

Speaker 2 (46:04):
That's reality. And so what we can't do is choose
to stay there. Yeah, you can believe what you believe,
but don't choose to stay innocent. And what I mean
by innocent in this sense it's.

Speaker 1 (46:15):
Ignorant, Yeah, but not questioning.

Speaker 3 (46:18):
Yeah, by not questioning, don't stay there.

Speaker 2 (46:20):
Yeah, this is detrimental to the outcome of your life
and possibly people that you know too, because.

Speaker 3 (46:26):
If you teach them to be naive more innocent too,
then it's just going to keep on going.

Speaker 2 (46:31):
On and no one learns, no one grows, no one grows,
no one becomes better.

Speaker 1 (46:35):
Nope, they don't.

Speaker 3 (46:36):
You know.

Speaker 2 (46:36):
So that kind of innocence, you know, breeds victims. It
does victims.

Speaker 1 (46:44):
I've thought about that a few times before, but I've
never said it out loud. But it does, you know,
and not just that, but it's breeding generation of victims,
you know, because now you're teaching your children the same
thing that you were always taught. And it begins, like
like you said earlier, you know, as children, you know,
you ask why did God let such as sud you die? Well, baby,
we don't question God. That's just God's work. So when

(47:06):
you're a little kid, if your family is you know,
suit and I mean like when I say super religious,
I mean like church is all they do kind of religious, right, Yeah,
you know, every time the doors are open, the kids
got to be there. Well, they're learning not to question,
and they're learning to believe whatever they're taught. They take
that with them. Come adults, marry someone of similar faith, beliefs,

(47:29):
some background. Then you have children. Well, now there's two
generations right there. They have no idea how to question anything.

Speaker 2 (47:34):
And that's one of our biggest problems here today is
our inability to question, you know. And so this is
what we do here with students of life. The whole
purpose of us doing this is just think about this
a little bit differently. Yes, no worries of questions. It's
okay to question, it's okay to question. Don't feel guilty
about it. I'm telling you that because I personally, I

(47:56):
know I went through you know, it's not even a transition,
but it was this conflict in myself to question or
not to question. It was a question or not a question,
you know, But but that came with me. You know,
losing my innocence though, you know. Then what way, Well,

(48:18):
after these couple of incidents, two incidents.

Speaker 3 (48:21):
Happened, you know, it shaped the way I saw the world.

Speaker 2 (48:24):
And that's when I began to question, what were those
Well the first one, the first one that was that
one was in that one was in pre K.

Speaker 3 (48:34):
That one was in pre K.

Speaker 2 (48:36):
And Erica, you know, you know this because I told
you I was a dumb ass kid. You said every
time is yeah, I mean really, I mean, he's a
genius compared to me.

Speaker 3 (48:49):
I mean he looked like Einstein compared to year olds.

Speaker 1 (48:55):
That can read. So he made me look dumb too.

Speaker 3 (48:57):
Yeah, well I was a dumb ass four or five
year old.

Speaker 2 (49:01):
I was like five years old, you know, Erica. And
in that moment, you know, when I was looking at
that board and I saw these shapes with these colors
and I didn't know none of that when I was
in pre K. But you need to understand, this was
like a little private school, Catholic school, you know, pre k.
This is what this was. And I had two teachers

(49:24):
and it was it was the most embarrassing thing ever
to not know and then for the teachers to hit you.

Speaker 3 (49:32):
With yard sticks, hit me with yard sticks.

Speaker 1 (49:35):
I thought that was only in movies.

Speaker 2 (49:36):
No, they hit me with yard sticks because I didn't know.
Or at one point they embarrassed me in front of
the class, you know, you know, I'm doing the numbers,
and they start talking in the midst of me doing
those numbers.

Speaker 3 (49:50):
They say, hey, let's go ahead, sit down. You don't
know this stuff, no way.

Speaker 1 (49:53):
Mmm.

Speaker 3 (49:55):
He said, you don't know it, no way.

Speaker 1 (49:56):
That's hard.

Speaker 2 (49:57):
And so one day, you know, and they over, you know,
my shoulder talking about my mother. They didn't know my mama,
but both of those women were talking about my mother.
And yes, there were two black women talking about my mother.
And so one day, had it been maybe the next day,
sometime that week, came brought me. She walked me into school,
dropped me off, you know, and and I looked. I

(50:19):
looked at her, then I looked at the teachers. I
ran the hell out there door. I ran down the
hall through two double doors, ran and I jumped inside
the car and I locked the door. And my sister
was in the front seat. She was in the front seat,
and Mama came out and said, hey, Cordney, open this door, baby,
open this door. I'm like, no, I ain't open this door, Mama,

(50:42):
I said, only I ain't going back in there. I
ain't going back in there, you know. And so my
sister betrayed me. This was the fact, the first active
betrayal in my life. See, it always comes to somebody
that you.

Speaker 1 (50:54):
Love, betraying five year old betrayal.

Speaker 2 (50:57):
Kay, yep, that's that's where it came from. Betrayal always
comes from those that you love. And so we went
back in, you know, and and that one right there,
you know, that one stuck with me for a long
time because I didn't overcome my that learning thing. You know,
I didn't get good in school until, like them in
fourth grade because the true traumatized because I was traumatized

(51:18):
from their learning experience of dealing with those women because
at that point, I'm like, damn, they ain't looking out
for me, right, you know.

Speaker 3 (51:26):
So so it was very embarrassing.

Speaker 2 (51:29):
It was very embarrassing that and it hurt deeply and
I had a bad experience with learning for for quite
some time. And then the next one was that was
that was Adventure River. You know, memphisis water park.

Speaker 1 (51:42):
I had so much fun there.

Speaker 3 (51:44):
Memphisis first water Park.

Speaker 2 (51:46):
This right here is tied to the story about the
boat from the last episode, because this is where the.

Speaker 3 (51:56):
You know.

Speaker 2 (51:58):
Water, correct, the fear of water came from. So we
was at Adventure River, me, my uncle, my sister, and
my cousins.

Speaker 3 (52:05):
That's where we were. We were there and so was
at we was in.

Speaker 2 (52:12):
I think it's what they called the donut back then,
but today we called that the Laser River. We called
that the Laser River today, but I think it was
called a doughnut. I'm not sure.

Speaker 1 (52:23):
Pretty sure it was a lazy river then, too.

Speaker 3 (52:26):
Well, whatever the hell it was. Yeah, I was in it.

Speaker 2 (52:30):
I was in it, and I was inside the I
was inside the inner tube as it was going around,
but I was too short to touch the bottom, so
I had to hang over the inner tube to stay up.
But of course all the inner tubes were in water,
so they was wet. They were wet, and so as
we was going around, it was a guy in front

(52:51):
of me and I saw him. He had a kid
in his arms, and then I slipped out the inner tube.
I slipped out the inner tube and I hit the
bottom of my feet hit the bottom of the of
the Laser River, and I pushed back up because I
wasn't tall enough to have my head above water. So
I kept bobbing up and down. And now I know

(53:12):
I'm in trouble. I'm taking in a lot of water.
I keep pushing. I'm going down, pushing up to try
to catch my breath. But it was very difficult. And
I got close enough to the gentleman in front of
me with the kid, and I reached for him and
he just looked at me. In my eyes. We locked eyes.
I reached for him, he didn't reach back. I went
down into the water, went underneath. I had my eyes open,

(53:36):
so it was his face was distorted, you know, because
I'm looking at him through the water. Then I pushed
back up, and when I pushed back up, we locked
eyes and I went back down. He looked at me again.
I pushed back up, and he never reached. Every time
I came up, about four or five times, we locked
eyes and he never reached. And then my uncle came

(53:59):
from behind. I don't know where the hell he came from,
but I'm glad he came because I took down a
lot of water. He grabbed me from behind, and he
put me in that intitude that day. So the point
of this right here, the innocence was lost in two instances,
you know, because that was a white guy and those
people were and then the teachers were black.

Speaker 3 (54:16):
They didn't give a damn about me. Equally, no, they
didn't care about my life, thinking what your outcome at all?
The outcome of my life at all.

Speaker 2 (54:23):
One literally didn't give a damn if I died, and
the other one didn't care how well I ever did
in life, if you want to be the extreme about it.
They rolled me off, they wrote me off, and so
that right there began my journey of realizing that one
I never thought nobody was gonna ever come to save me. Ever,

(54:46):
that's when it began. It ended two years later, but
that's when it began. And then that's when my ability
to question everything that's going on came to play too,
because I didn't understand and if these people were supposed,
you know, adults, supposed to be authority in here to
look after you and help you, why wouldn't.

Speaker 1 (55:07):
They That's hard, that's a hard realization for a child.

Speaker 3 (55:12):
And that too when it began.

Speaker 2 (55:13):
That's when I saw the question, like if they're supposed
to be here to help why didn't they show up?

Speaker 1 (55:21):
And the answer is simply because they didn't give it down.

Speaker 2 (55:23):
Because they didn't give it damn. And so you know,
life goes on, you know, and I became who I became.
We all become who we become. No, but that right
there was just you know, dealing with the you can't
you don't stay innocent like that. And so the whole

(55:43):
point of thissiness is don't stay innocent. I know that
sometimes it's it's rough to deal with this stuff at
a young age, at a young age to come across it,
But don't stay, you know, in a in a state
of innocence forever.

Speaker 3 (55:56):
You gotta grow. You got to see the world for
what it did sometimes and.

Speaker 2 (55:59):
Play your play a role in you know, kind of
like making this thing better, making it better, you know
what I'm saying. So do you think that you think
children can overcome their suffering? It's but it's a reason.
It's a reason. I asked this because in the book
A Long Way Gone he said that he thinks and

(56:20):
believes that kids have the ability to overcome their suffering.
I agree with him, and don't write them off with him,
And so I oppose the same question to you.

Speaker 1 (56:28):
Yes, children are resilient. You know, their their little minds
and their their lively spirits have a way of being
able to keep them resilient and to keep that fight alive.
As children, you don't know what you're fighting for, right
you don't know what's out there, but you know you
can do more, you can be more, and that that's

(56:50):
just your brain preparing you for what's what's to come.
I don't think a children in I mean children innately
know that they're gonna have to fight, you know, from
an early age. You don't think that, you know, so
they still have hope, They have childlike wonder. That childlike
wonder brings them hope. So yes, I do believe that
children are resilient and children can overcome most things.

Speaker 2 (57:10):
And I do believe that that's a big, a big
thing that they can't happen. Kids can overcome the bad
things they go through no matter their age. And be honest,
even as an adult, you can always overcome this thing.
You can, you know. But what we need to understand
is this, don't stay stuck in the past.

Speaker 1 (57:32):
You can definitely cannot.

Speaker 2 (57:33):
Look you know, it's you know, don't stay stuck in
the past if you don't stay stuck in the past
on what we're talking about, like these losses up innocence
to a degree, because these can be traumatic experiences sometimes, yes,
and staying stuck in the past and staying stuck on
the trauma or on those traumatic experiences, and you carry
that into your future. Now that becomes your future too.

(57:55):
So your past becomes your future.

Speaker 1 (57:57):
It's like being stuck on the carousel.

Speaker 2 (57:59):
And so this becomes one's fate at the end, because
if I can never get rid of what happened to me,
that means I can never become something new and move forward.

Speaker 3 (58:10):
So can we overcome myselfering? Yes? We can. Kids, Can
you overcome yourself from hell? Yeah you can.

Speaker 2 (58:15):
You can overcome your suffering. But I tell you this,
don't stay stuck in the past.

Speaker 1 (58:20):
There's a whole life to live.

Speaker 2 (58:22):
Look forward and become something new. That's the only way
you can separate you and the things that you go through.

Speaker 1 (58:29):
Yeah, you know, it's something Honestly, it's as simple as
don't ever give up hope.

Speaker 2 (58:33):
Don't give up hope. But you know what that brings
me to, You know, I guess another story. I guess
you know and it's when I think about when I
think about Hope, I always think about you know, partly
I think about the story of Adam and Eve, you know,

(58:53):
but I think about that when simultaneously with the story
of Prometheus and Pandora. Most people don't over at the
old story that Pandora and Prometheus story are connected. But
the whole point of this, and I get to it,
is that when Zeus made Pandora, he made her with
the gift of curiosity. She was the first human that

(59:17):
a god made, and he gifted her with the curse.
You heard that gifted her with the curse of curiosity.

Speaker 3 (59:24):
He gave her.

Speaker 2 (59:25):
He gave her off as a gift to Prometheus's brother,
and he told her, Hey, whatever you do, don't open
this box that I gave you as a gift. Don't
open the box. But we all know what Pandora did. Yeah, opened,
Pandora opened the box. She opened the box, and all

(59:49):
the bad inside that box came out. It came out
because at one point, you know, at this point, the
world was perfect.

Speaker 1 (01:00:00):
Into the world.

Speaker 3 (01:00:00):
She let evil into the world.

Speaker 2 (01:00:01):
The world was perfect, and Zeus wanted to stop it
because he was pissed off he had a grudge as
his own creation, right against his own you know, So
he releasing it to the world because fire was giving
the man and it was living a great life. He
didn't want that. So she opened the box with her
curiosity because he knew what she was going to do.

(01:00:24):
She was going to open this box. So she opened
the box, led evil into the world, all the chaos,
all the plagues, everything, then she closed it. Then right
after that she opened it one more time, slightly opening
it was a gleam of light, and with that gleam
of light, hope came out.

Speaker 3 (01:00:46):
And so what I'm saying is is that.

Speaker 2 (01:00:50):
Through all the bad stuff, all the things that we experience,
we go through the past that we carry into the future,
no matter what it is that you go through, there's
no it's just like the last thing that was in.

Speaker 3 (01:01:02):
That box, there's always hope.

Speaker 1 (01:01:05):
Would it owe from home? Say, Ice has hope.

Speaker 2 (01:01:08):
Ice has hope, And so we can overcome whatever the
hell we face if you choose to and don't give
up in the face of it, we can do that.

Speaker 1 (01:01:19):
Yeah, because that fight that's left in you, it's hope.

Speaker 3 (01:01:22):
It's hope.

Speaker 2 (01:01:24):
The moment that you stop fighting that's when you gave
up hope.

Speaker 1 (01:01:27):
Ye, And when you give up hope, there's no returning.
You can't get it back.

Speaker 2 (01:01:31):
You can't get it back. So get out there, y'all,
and either you're doing this shit or you ain't. That's
what we do. Either we're doing this shit or we ain't,
So keep fighting.

Speaker 1 (01:01:43):
So you know, Accordney, this episode I feel like was
a little bit heavy and it may be hard to
digest some of the ideas that we came up with
and discuss today. So are there any main takeaways that
you would like people to take away from this episode?

Speaker 2 (01:01:56):
Yeah, I present the information in the order that we
giving it to everybody, you know, in this episode. That's
what we'll do. And so we'll do a quick recap.
Number one, Innocence it's both a shield and the vulnerability.

Speaker 3 (01:02:08):
Okay, it protects us from harsh realities.

Speaker 2 (01:02:11):
But it's part of growing up and maturing Number one,
So going to number two. Losing innocence too quickly has
long term emotional consequences and it's normally through trauma, and
it leaves deep marks on the brain.

Speaker 3 (01:02:26):
Psychologically.

Speaker 2 (01:02:28):
Three, Maintaining too much innocence can be dangerous for those
who will choose to remain innocent and they misunderstand the
world that's around it. Lastly, healing is possible even when
innocence is lost. All it takes is resilience and growth
and you will be able to make it through.

Speaker 1 (01:02:50):
Yeah, so you know you guys. I want to leave
you with a quick question, just something for you to
ponder over. Where we destined to lose our innocence at
a specific time or did our choices along the way
lead us there?

Speaker 2 (01:03:05):
Okay, well, thank you everybody for listening, and please go
to the Students' Life podcast dot com and please share
your thoughts with that question.

Speaker 3 (01:03:18):
We would love to hear it.

Speaker 1 (01:03:20):
You can also find us on Facebook.

Speaker 2 (01:03:22):
You can, and please if you found any type of
value in this episode, share it. It'd be greatly beneficial
to the show.

Speaker 3 (01:03:31):
And thank you. This has been the Students of Life podcast,
Live and Learn.

Speaker 1 (01:03:36):
Life is a lesson.

Speaker 3 (01:04:00):
Bumble cap.

Speaker 1 (01:04:05):
Comical cabal bumble cap

Speaker 3 (01:04:16):
Copal cap