you know, winning Jeopardy taught me something, I appeared on the last episode with Alex Trebek. And I never expect it to go viral, I thought, I had no idea that people would latch on to that story, and how it reminded people of their own experiences, and how it reminded people have family. I never seen a happier group of children in my entire life than these kids that were super skinny. Some of them they, they often all had raggedy clothes and holes in their shirts. And they were just happy to live another day. The way the question is now framed just by the mere fact that there is exposure to multiple options, you forget the option of neither. So just like that, I think that can even be applicable to a party, right? You think of one side versus the other.
And when in reality, you could also just pick a person based on their meritocracy, their values.
And so what is failing? Why is there so much division? Well, it's because the political parties realized, hey, if we make it a moral war of good versus evil, if we say, hey, the problem is not with the politician, it's with the people who support the politician. That's how we get you. We give up our right for independence, for the safety of interdependence. And as a consequence, we yield, we yield, we yield. But if you yield too much, you're nothing more than a slave.
Hey, friends, you're tuned in to the learn or be learn podcast, a show where wisdom meets curiosity in order to discover the human experience. I'm your host, Shiva, D. And remember, you either learn from or you learn from. Now, let's get back to the show.
All right, welcome back friends to another great episode. So today, I have Bert the core, we actually met locally at our gym, and we hit it off. And he you know, he mentioned that he's running for Congress. He's a congressional candidate. And then I talked about my podcast, and then a month later, here we are. So, you know, actually, Bert and I were having quite a great conversation, I had to stop and Midway and say, you know, I think we should start recording this because I think the people would love to hear this. And I think, you know, there's a lot of great points that we were discussing. So, you know, before jumping right back into it, but I'm, I'm glad you're on the show, and I appreciate you being here, Shiva. First of all, thank you so much. And to everybody listening. We were actually talking because Shiva has this incredible painting in the back, right? So I asked him, I said, Hey, buddy, where'd you get that? So then Shiva told me how he spent time with a with a tribe in the outskirts of Kenya in the desert, which led us to talking about what joy is. And so Shiva, if you don't mind, would you would you tell us about your experiences about effectively trying ice for the first time, again, forgetting who it was? I guess I'll start off. Yes. So I did biological anthropology research in Kenya for six weeks, where essentially, we collected different anthropometric data, which is you know, height, weight, BMI, blood pressure, blood work, all this stuff. And we compare them to each indigenous group different community tribes, and to see if there's any statistical significance in their health and the way of life and how they live. So birth starts asking me, you know, well, what were some of the things he noticed? And what is joy mean to you? And that got us on the topic of how I shared a little story about how I would work 14 hour days in the heat, and it was really intense, but really rewarding. And just walking on the sand was joyful. And twice. I remember on that trip, they had these coolers that had solar power on them, and they were meant for the blood samples, but we only collected them at the end of the trip. So they surprised us twice, by putting soda cans in there. And they're giving us a soda one night. And I remember the joy and not just my face, literally everybody's to taste a cold sugary beverage because we hadn't had sugar in forever. We hadn't had something cold in a long time because you know, the water bottles would just sit there in the heat so we'd be drinking warm water all day every day and and it was an absolutely joyful moment, one that I cannot forget and had never experienced with some
So minor right? Something so small, gave me such joy in that very moment. And then that led us to the topic of joy. Shiva, I have to ask what kind of soda was it?
They had they had coke sprite and Dr. Pepper. I think I went with Sprite. Ba Excellent. Well,
the the, you know, one of the more interesting things to me is trying something for the first time. So I don't know if you know this about me but I grew up in India, in the in literally in the jungles my grandfather raised me. And my grandfather was first actually a few kids who live past his childhood. And he
was fortunate enough to have an older brother who helped to basically finance his studies and
the famous story goes from our great grandmother had one set of earrings, that's the only possession she had, she had these gold earrings, and she gave one of them to my grandfather's brother, stepbrother to basically pay for his education. And my grandfather got accepted into the forestry department, which was a pretty big deal back then, you know, at that time, we're talking post colonial India, it's still heavily invested by the British it was considered a you know, tough position to get into. He was fortunate enough so literally goes from the village with nothing to getting into the forestry department, which is a very big honor. And
he ends up rising to the to the top of the forest department, he became the chief commissioner before us for the state of Bihar. So when my parents had an opportunity to come here to the United States, they left their one year old son under the care of their my grandfather, you think about the sacrifices that a lot of people have made to come here. But my childhood was spent on the backs of elephants going from Game Reserve to Game Reserve. I thought everybody had a pet elephant, baby elephant, that's not the case.
You see tigers?
Oh, yeah, all the time, we had a tiger cub. The other was, was out there. So they found a little tiger cub by the mother who died. And so we had a tiger cub, that got sent to the zoo, obviously. And it was a pretty insane childhood to go from that experience and then going to a different jungle of New York. And and, you know what my parents just like other immigrants, you know, my dad is another story came here to this country with $150 in his pocket, and a dream and manage to make the life for himself that he has today. And it's, it's a, it's an incredible thing to be in a place like we are in the Dallas Fort Worth area, to see such a vibrant community of people who have come from all walks of life. And I think the beauty the the true beauty of our country, is this concept of hope. And to those people who are listening, that was something that we were actually mid conversation and Shiva said, Hey, we should really start recording this. I see a lack of hope in our society for the first time. Since I've said to you, to me, America is nothing but hope hope is uniquely American. And it's such a good thing. It was the hope that I had to make friends. You know, I looked over my grandfather when we were coming here and I said, Papa, you know, how do I tell who's an American because one of my friends, I've never seen white people before. Now we're where we grew up, you could tell a lot about somebody just by their name. What religion they are, you knew what, where they worked. Sometimes you knew what they would eat, sometimes even knew where they came Trump, right? Just by. Right, right. Isn't that crazy to think about?
I go as far to say is I've noticed people even just looking at you can start to tell you that. Absolutely.
Absolutely. And, and in a in a, you know, totally heterogenous society like we are that that's such a foreign concept. You know, because by looking at somebody in the street, you can't even you can't tell how much money they have, what they do, where they come from, who they are, what their religion is, I mean, unless they're overtly displaying these, these, you know, these shibboleths of of status or stature, you have no idea what they write. And so I asked my my grandfather, because I said how do I tell who's an American you know? Somebody say there's a white person I've never seen my grandfather said it is you know, obviously this is the Hindi but never forgotten. Maybe he said, The Japanese are hard working. The Germans are punctual but an American you can trust them with a handshake. You think about that. That was the ethos of what America was 7000 miles away at the end. The DVDs. There's a and I still believe that, you know, I think America, the the America, my first vision of America was when our pain and 747 broke through the clouds. And there's Manhattan, you know, at night lit out. And I thought the streets of New York were literally paved with gold. Because once again, in India, we had the typical, you know, yellow sodium vapor lights, everything is yellow, especially this the end of the 80s. You know, here, they're all these lights, I've never seen lights with different colors, you know, sprawled across the city. I remember having to wait for the power outage to come back. Nonstop power outages. And, and I remember thinking, wow, the streets of New York must be paid. And guess what I found out they were our country is literally paved with ingots of possibilities. So when I, when I meet people like that, like that young lady, I met the other night at a restaurant who's going to community college, and is working on, you know, getting her associate's, and then her bachelor's and I said, what's cool? What's the matter of, you know, you look a little sad. She said, Well, I, I feel hopeless. So what do you mean, you feel hopeless? So I have no hope. There's no guarantee that I'm going to be successful. And I thought to myself, this is the polar opposite of America. You know, we are truly the richest, most wealthy, the most uniquely driven country in the entire world. Yeah, you know, the analogy I'll give, if I were to use a box of tools, okay? If I laid out a box of tools in a warehouse, right, and right. And once again, this is me being very reductive. But if you took people from another country, they would wait to be told what to do. Okay? You take a group of Americans and you put them in a warehouse with a box of tools. Before you know it, somebody's taken out a hammer hammer and figuring out what to do. reading the instructions, things gonna get hacked, something will happen. You know what I mean? You know, that the hope is quintessentially American Hope is what got us to the moon in less than a decade, when Kennedy said, Hey, we're gonna get up there. And the reason I decided to run for Congress, by the way to those listening, I'm running for Congress in in Texas three, on running as a as a Republican in Collin County, and hunt County. And ultimately, what got me running was when I saw that plane take off from Afghanistan. And I saw people clinging to the wings, in the hopes that they could escape Afghanistan, and then they were falling off. You know, that image is seared in my brain. It is so symbolic of the trajectory our country is headed in. Now I was in the US Navy. During 911. No, I enlisted in the Navy in 2000. I went to high school, actually a block away from the World Trade Center, the first high school I went to Stuyvesant High Schools, block and a half away from the World Trade Center. And I'll never forget 911 You know, those of us who are I don't know if you're old enough Shiva. But that day was pretty young. Yeah, you were pretty young man. And the America was a different country before 911. And, you know, to go from 911. And to think of the trillions of dollars that we've spent to build up Afghanistan, and then to see it bookended with Afghanis, who are trying to flee the country, and then falling off an airplane as it's taking off as we're fleeing with our tail between our legs. Without telling our allies to it was and leaving Americans behind. To me, it was the final straw. And I thought to myself, we are financing foreign wars, we are rebuilding other countries, we are meddling in the affairs of everybody else. Instead of investing in infrastructure here, instead of fixing our schools, instead of fixing our bridges, which are over 50 years old, you know, 50% of the bridges are over 50 years old. We have transmission lines that are not properly transmitting power. I mean, you've seen what happened in Texas when the grid failed. You know, a single truly a single x class solar flare could wipe out large portions of the grid. We're doing nothing about it. We have supply chain issues that were completely gutted. Because of COVID. You know, we saw that firsthand, from PPE to toilet paper and transistors, the semiconductors, right, you know, and what do we have, we have politicians who are running to fund a war in Europe, we have a Polit we have politicians who are running to fund wars in Sudan and Syria. But hey, when it comes to feeding kids in school, whoa, whoa, whoa, when it comes to allocating money for a capital infrastructure project, well, well, well. And so going back back to the original point, why am I running? And what did I hope to accomplish? Well, I had this thought. I said, Okay, if I do get a chance in government, what is the end goal? Right? What what is, if I were to think of the term legacy, what would the legacy be? What is the purpose. And I had this kind of far fetched vision, where I literally saw, I saw a future where the first child was born in space. And I said to myself, I want that child to be an American, I see it clear as they see an American spacecraft and I see a child being born in space. It's the first child born in Spain. I thought to myself, Wow, this Congress is so myopic, our government, our leaders are so myopic, that if you were to hold 435 of them, because that's how many there are. I would be lucky if we find one. Who wouldn't laugh that image? Often I say, Why? Why can't we be dreaming of a future like that? And as opposed to constantly looking to the past to find solutions? Why aren't we reverse engineering a future and creating that future? Now? Why aren't we taking the steps that empower people to dream that big? And it comes down to this, it's Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Right to in order to think like that, you know, that is at the very tippy, tippy, tippy, tippy top. Right now we're in a place where people don't have shelter. We can't afford homes. Right? The average cost of the home 500 grand. That means that you have to
do you think this idea of hope being lost is due to the hierarchy of needs, not being met
100% 100% Find any society find any society that loses its joy. It's because somewhere, you know, the Chinese call that the mandate of heaven, hate the you know, somebody, somebody fails in their task to provide the basic needs for the people. And if we're in a situation where we are we're placated in a sense, by having moral outrages over wedge issues, you know, we are sacrificing the 80%. Good for the 100% platonic so the 100% ideal, nobody will be perfect 100% of the time, I'll bet my entire life savings, whatever on it. No, but he doesn't. Right. Well, what I do know is that there are there are ideas that can always be optimized. So for example, immigration, let's talk about immigration. Right now. Pardon me, I spent so much time along the border. I drove the entire length of the southern border starting the San Diego ending up to the tip of Texas I drove up and down farmer not up and down. But I had to do a u turn. So technically up and down Farm road, the Farm road down south, which goes from Big Bend National Park all the way up to Marfa, you know, where parts of that highway actually criss cross over to Mexico. I spent time in border towns where sheriff's were showing me Hey, we have three active cartels. And we need cash dodge from the federal government because there are houses that we find with a billion dollars in cash and these people to sniff it out. I spoke to Border Patrol agents that are like, Hey, how do I deal with the cartel which is, you know, go through the desert and a trove $300,000 Trophy Truck and he showed me his GMC, which is from 2010. And they have to buy their own flashlights and gear. I spoke to ICE detention centers. They said well, you know, the majority of people coming in are young men. They're not really families. And they've also spend time on farms, where I saw some of the most hardworking people you've ever seen starting at three o'clock in the morning and there's this wink wink nod nod we need you and we can't do this without but at the same time. Hey, what about our community? What about the three plus million Indians who are here on h1 B visa hell who are stuck basically being indentured servants, albeit well paid indentured servants at times, but they're stuck with their h1 B visas. You know, here we are quickly to cry out about Dubai in the UAE and this and that for having you know them taking your passports but is not the same similar situation. Because now you have people who are being told, Hey, you have 115 year wait until you can apply for a green card. These are Indians, Vietnamese, you have Chinese you have people who are skilled laborers here who guess what if they were to try to go to community college, they'd have to pay the highest out of state tuition costs, which ends up being what shifting ran at a community college, yet an illegal immigrant. Yes, I'll say it because guess what, it's inflammatory. Maybe somebody will listen, right? Why is that person? Why does that person getting more rights than somebody who has been here and is trying to do things legally? And then it goes back to a further question. Why have we even created a situation where three and a half million people a year think it's okay to cross the Sonoran Desert to get here so solution In my idea, let's create a seasonal migrant worker visa, you come here, you work seasonally, you're documented, if you want to extend it, you can do so with your employer, it adds time. Okay, for DACA kids, once again, I understand that it's no fault of your own. But let's start with some kind of a path. So my idea is this, if you're between 18 to 35, let's get you away. Let's have you join the military a few years service, you get out with an honorable discharge, you get your citizenship if you're a DAC, you know, when it comes to when it comes to the housing crisis, right? I don't know what the right answers are. But I can tell you this, we have, we have been utilizing EB five program to help the wealthiest in the world come and get, you know, green cards for $500,000 a pop? And what are you doing? You're coming in, you're building a housing tract in the worst part of town artificially inflating it. So each unit costs 15 $1,800 a month in rent. And so how about we figure out how to take care of that solution, we can create some kind of a thing that's not section eight, but we can actually, I don't know, maybe we can create a different type of a loan, that can actually serve somebody where, you know, it's a, it's a push pull, it's a federal loan, we can do something like the VA home loan.
Right? Even taking like a step back. You know, I think, oftentimes, we see and another big issue here is, what I'm where my head is going to is two things. One is, we are not often taught the right things in order to go into this world, right? Yes, go through this indoctrination system come out of it, and we go. Now what, you know, I have, you know, I just went through college, you, you will have massive debts. Now you need a car and you need an apartment, things are going up, prices are going up. And you weren't taught, you know, find financial literacy. You know, when you mentioned trade schools and things and you're not taught high income skills, you're just told, do whatever you want, it's not really a big deal until it becomes a big deal. And then I think the other part of that. The second point my head was getting to is we've reached a point in society where I don't believe we can have civil discourse anymore. I don't think we can agree to disagree on things, which is a shame, because that's where ideas are truly made, is when people feel comfortable sharing opposition's to reach whether it's a compromise or reach, you know, the best believed decision.
You know, the, the, it's safer to live in an echo chamber, because then your thoughts are challenged? No, I I think what, one of the biggest things and it's not exactly, pardon me though, the preeminent thing that I speak about to most people, but you actually hit the nail on the head, I've said it before, one of my, one of my secret desires is to get federal funding. So every child, when they graduate high school, knows how to create an LLC knows how to treat $1 as an asset, that was the difference between an S corp and a C Corp. And so they are, in a sense, given the tools to become creators, you know, part of part of this mission is truly and you know, we have to start thinking about how we evolve from a philosophical level for the challenges of the next generation. Right? So education, the current education system was very good for the industrial revolution, it rhymed people to work in a factory, you know, you sit at rows, you got a bell, you know, it's from eight to four, eight to three, you know, just like a factory would be, you have an hour for lunch, you pass over all the work from the back to the front, you sit in rows, the bell tells you when your shift begins when you're on break when the break ends, right. And you have somebody in the front who's a foreman kind of telling you what to do. And that's it. Well, we have to kind of change that, you know, right now, when, when we are we're living in a world where we, you know, the industrial age, in a sense is dead. Now is the age of artificial intelligence and, you know, advanced technology. Go ahead where we say,
right, I was gonna say I mentioned this all the time, in anthropology, we, we talked about the three major shifts in human culture, right, we have the agricultural revolution is when people went from nomadic to sedentary. We have the My mind's going blank, but we haven't there was a second one. And then the third one was the Industrial Revolution, and then printing press the right all right, yes, yes, yes. The printing press was a huge revolution because the ideas of you know, ideas were able to be spread far and wide, much easier than we had the agricultural revolution. Then the printing press, and then now we're in this technological revolution. You know, it's not even fully dated yet, because we're still so new into it. But I saw even on your website, you talked about the idea of implementing policies for this type of fast paced changing world of tech. And I think that is so important, because if left to its own devices, AI will take over every job there is, I mean, there's what will be left for humans, because even just yesterday, you know, I've been, I've been researching health and fitness for well over, like a decade, and I love it, I love researching it and fitness and all that. And, you know, I can create, you know, a workout plan. But I asked Chet GPT, to write me a workout plan, you know, a five day workout plan, I put all these parameters of what I'm looking for what I want, and not even imperfect English. I'm just like, oh, yeah, make sure it has this. Oh, and I include this. And it just like, you know, as if you're talking to an assistant or somebody, and I just put it all down. Within 30 seconds, it wrote me a stellar workout plan, which my mind quickly went to, wow, I can only imagine if I was a personal trainer right now, I would be very nervous. And not just personal trainer, you could do that for a nutrition plan. And, you know, this could be spread across any profession. So a
coder, I mean, you take a look at what outing Microsoft, Microsoft is a prime example of it, Microsoft fires 10,000 people, while simultaneously injecting $10 billion into chat GPT. Right. So 10,000 times $100,000 salary per year, is $10 billion. So effectively, the way I see it is Microsoft sees the value of Chachi Beatty is being having the same amount of value of 10,000 people. And that, to me is a very, you know, interesting prospect, whereas some people might be Well, that's a scary prospect. Prospect. I am a fan of change. I think, you know, what being sedentary is death. If there's one thing that you might appreciate as an anthropologist is, whenever somebody gets too comfortable, they get wiped out. Right, we've seen it now that the kingdoms of war, and at Acadia are long gone like Percy Vissers, persevere Shelley's poem, you know, it was the Mandy's King of Kings, you know, look at my face, you know, same kind of concept, we must move, we must move and we must evolve, we must adapt. And I think that there is a fundamental lack of understanding even what the problem is currently in politics. You know, you have a group of politicians. Now, look, I challenge any one of them to tell you the difference between a y and a Delta transform. So if you can't even tell the difference with a wide Delta transfer, what are you doing, talking about the grid, and grid reliability? You know, if you don't even understand what that's like me talking about, you know, the problems of an f1 pilot. Well, the chicane is gonna give you a lot of trouble. It's like the dude. Right? Yeah.
I've always wondered, that is, you know, why do we have people in place that speak about things that they don't know much about? Right, money? We should often have my right. I mean, we should have, ideally, experts speaking on these types of topics, and giving their professional opinion sometimes as well?
Well, I think the word expert is, is is a bit different to the system. Because if you read article, one of the Constitution, it clearly delineates that there's only two requirements to be in Congress. And that's why if there's anything somebody can take from this podcast, it's this. Look, if you think you have a good idea, it's time to become invested, it's time to run, it's time to get a clipboard. Time to get out there. Because the only two requirements is that you have to be at least 25 years old, and the citizen for at least seven years, doesn't say that you have to go to Harvard graduate magna cum laude, and then, you know, be a Rhodes Scholar and do this. And in fact, it's quite the opposite. I think the framers of the Constitution wanted younger people with innovative ideas to come in, which is why Congress has the most amount of of the three respective branches, but it's also the shortest amount of time. You know, is there a financial burden, though? Extreme financial burden, and this is this is one of the barriers of entry that I you know, I not only have I learned, but also there are ways to overcome it. So think of it this way. The average congressional campaign costs about a million dollars and this million dollars, right? This million dollars is not tax deductible. So when somebody makes a country contribution to my campaign, something you you write off in your taxes, right. And so There's so in a sense, what do you do? Right? How does average Joe Schmo get into a position where they can even say, Hey, I'm running for Congress? Well, step one, get a clipboard. And a clipboard like I, you know, I think that the biggest walls that we build are the ones that are mine that say that we can't do, right? Get a clipboard, number two, start talking to people. Number three, read the actual rules by the Secretary of State. This is when the filing dates are, this is what you need to do. Number three, register with the FEC say that you're forming a committee, your committee, right, you're going to need a treasurer. And you're going to, you know, it's not necessary to have somebody who's a GC or someone in those lines, but it helps to have somebody who can help guide you along. Your initial startup costs, something like $1,000, right? between 500 to $1,000. After that point, you figure out if you're lucky enough, you gotta you gotta fundraiser, somebody who can help connect you truly with people who are financially invested in politics. You call your friends and families, you put some of your own capital and your own resources into running. And you have the discipline get up in the morning.
Right, go ahead. Well, also, my mind goes to the idea, right, where, especially in previous elections and campaigns, we see that ultimately, the money goes towards ads and marketing and trying to share ideas and getting your voice and then your face and your name out there. But what an idea that it's very interesting to me that came up is the future of where this is headed, right, especially for younger people that may have that financial burden to overcome is, what if social media was the leverage instead of money for younger people, right? So imagine, someone has a following of 10 million people. And they're a fairly young person, they can also leverage that as their platform of voice for politics or whatever they're getting into business. Right? So my mind almost goes to that direction where ultimately, the money's being used to reach people. But for young people, I guess an alternative to having money would also be having an audience
that in of itself is already happening today, Hollywood is casting people based on number of followers they have, you know, there are agencies in Hollywood that will charge you know, $10,000 for a tweet. Oh, yeah, little, little round secret. And, and don't think it's any different from politics. You know, there are definitely people who amplify messages. There are people who utilize their platforms, you know, some of the largest names that you can think about in politics are actual paid accounts, that are there just to attract followers and this and that, but everything, if there's a way to monetize it, and this is one of the great things about the United States, hey, I love it. I love capitalism in the sense that, you know, if there's an opportunity to create and grow capitalism, whether it explodes greed, whether it exploits, you know, some kind of desire for innovation, will, will allow, will create an ecosystem where that can happen. But I also believe that the power of the United States is at a point, which we've never seen before in human history, no, a single B Two Spirit, and a b two has been replaced by the beat 21. But I'll give you an example of the B two tiny radar cross signature and can deliver its payload and be on its way back to Alabama, and land before the payload even hits. Okay. We have 21 carriers out of which 11 are super carriers, you know, each one with 70 Plus airplanes. We have f 22, stealth, F 22 fighters, we have nuclear ballistic nuclear missiles. I mean, we are the most powerful thing on earth, and the only thing protecting the earth from the United States is the people. And when you have a government, that is not afraid of the people, and when you have a government that has suddenly decided that it doesn't derive its power from the people, but that the people derive its power from the government. That is an extremely dangerous thing. And it's very dangerous, what we saw during COVID Okay, I'll open the can of worms the uncomfortable topic. You know, because I was an essential worker during COVID. I was in Richland, Washington, where the second case of COVID hit the entire country that night, my hotel filled up with NIH personnel. And while entire towns were shut down, why well the whole country was shut down. I was flying around all over the country because, you know, these government projects don't stop. I'll just put it like that. I remember I had a severe panic attack. I was on a I was on a jet. And I was the only passenger on the jet. And I thought to myself, oh my god, is this ever going to end up spawning in the Dulles, Washington Dulles and was a ghost? And when you get on these sites, a it's fun. No work the entire time, you know how many nurses how many doctors how many foreign and how many police officers have to work through all that stuff? Not knowing if every day? No, you were you were thinking, okay, if I'm exposed to this, I'm going to hurt everybody. I know, I probably. And I ended up getting it in the first wave and almost killed, right? Just for the government to turn around and say, well, guess what? No. And there were people who refuse to get vaccinated or that's not and suddenly they found themselves in jeopardy, suddenly, they became enemy number one. People who didn't wear masks, right in California. You know, if you were caught in the street without a mask, you would get in serious trouble. You know, which I'm saying the amount of leeway and gaslighting that people have to endure over the last couple of years was a level of insanity that I don't want anybody to have to go through again, you know, even by sharing, hey, the it might have leaked out of a lab triband from ecosystems, right. And so, in a sense, going back to this whole Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right?
Well, actually, I want to add on to what you're saying real quick, right? And I often encourage the audience and listeners to think independently sometimes, right? And, and I understand, right, when the, the thing when the pandemic happened, everyone's freaking out. Many people have never experienced something like this before. They weren't prepared mentally, things like that nature. But, you know, by 2021, you start looking around, and you started questioning what is really going on here, because I was on flights back, you know, semi back to normal society, and I was on a flight. And you know, they're very strict about keeping your mask on when you're entering when you're on the flight. But when they give you some pretzels, it's a kind of and a sprite, or whatever you want, then everybody takes off their mask for 15 minutes, even though you're in a pressurized cabin, right? And then you have to put it back on as if that 10 minutes was, you know, your, your immune for 10 minutes, and nothing can happen to anybody or yourself. And then you got to put it back. I don't know, it just, it started to make you wonder like, you know, really what is going on here because it didn't add up?
Well, I understand, you know, both points of view, in a sense, before the pandemic, and I call it the pandemic because I said before the lockdowns began, you know, I was aware of something coming out of China, I'd heard about it from people, you know, I keep my and I said, Hey, look, Something's coming. I don't know what it is. But you know, I this was back when I had Facebook, and I put it out and I said, Look, this practice common decency, wash your hands, if you're coughing wear a mask. So you know, you know, we don't know what this thing is be kind to the elderly. I got pilloried by the say that say by people saying How dare you tell us to wear masks this and that. This? You know, I have a condition and I get the same people who six months later, were yelling at people, because they said cloth masks were ineffective. They said, How dare you? Who do you think you're? So it was interesting to see the conversion of people from one side extreme to the other side, because I think it the government had a chance to seize an enormous amount of power, and truly get away with a lot of stuff that would have never flown before. And I think as a consequence, people lost a lot of hope. People realize that they were powerless. They were just cogs in the machine. And people stopped dreaming. We saw so many businesses get destroyed.
Right? There's a lot of angst. So you know, also, you know, I'm wanted to add, I'm sure, as you remember, and often probably even experienced as an immigrant, the immigrant mindset of picking your battles. Yes, I think we learn that very well, coming to the US is, you know, because let's say somebody says something racist to me, you know, I have to assess the situation, is it worth picking this battle? And oftentimes as in, you know, growing up in the United States, as an immigrant, you start to really analyze is this battle worth picking and going back to the mask thing, you know, it's wasn't the end of the world so we wouldn't pick those battles. Oftentimes we just comply. And then, but I do think regardless, it's important to question and not to,
not to lose, not to lose our humanity, because that was the thing about COVID. To me, the worst part of the virus wasn't the virus itself. wasn't the wasn't the infection, it was the infection to society. It was how it brought the worst out in people. It was how you had a group of people. And now say, I mean, what majority of the people who identified as being on the left, were actively calling for those who weren't vaccinated, to not get medical service to be rejected from society, I mean, to not be allowed to go to grocery stores, because there was such an, an aura of fear that was created around people without understanding. And rightfully so there's anger to it, you know, when it comes to our community, you know, the, the immigrant experience, you know, this was another thing that I didn't see, as I didn't see people sticking up for our rights either. Now, I didn't see people standing up when that little when that little kid was bullied. And outside of Dallas, remember that there was a kid who was bullied and there was videotape. There's nobody shouting for his rights were were just told to be quiet, be quiet, it'll pass on. You know, there was nobody who stuck up for us. I remember after 911 I was in the Navy. Hey, and I remember right? I went to high school in New York city block away from the towers. And I remember when all those Sikhs were targeted, there was a guy in California who was shot for wearing a turban, there were all these people who were beat up assaulted for wearing turbans, and this and that, and there were Sikhs, okay. There was nobody. I remember that, that that grandfather who was pushed down by the police, because he didn't understand English. And the police thought he was a robber. He was a 6070 72 year old grandpa wearing the Houthi walking around in the neighborhood. And they paralyzed him. There wasn't a single call to action in our community. And so I wanted to, I wanted to also create a voice for us where, you know, we are not swear, if I can do it. And look, I encourage people to disagree with my ideas. Because disagree with my idea and run, run for office, if I can inspire one person to be like, You know what, that guy's that guy smart? Or that guy's stupid, whatever, I can do a better job. Man, wouldn't that be amazing? We need younger people to get in Congress has an age, an average age, I think it was like 58 or 60, something like that. For Senate, it's like 68, or 70. You have a President right now who he wins, he'll be 90 years old 90, you have another guy who might win, you know, with Trump, who might be in his 80s. Now, don't get me wrong. I don't care who you vote for, ultimately, it's your choice. But if we are forcing retirement on people, when they're 66. What are we doing given the nuclear codes to people, you know, if we aren't taking a vested interest in our government, if we aren't the ones creating the future that we want, regardless, if some people agree with you, some people disagree with you, whatever it is, if you think you have a good idea, the beauty of America is that we get to create. And as opposed to, as opposed to harnessing that power, as opposed to figuring out a way to create joy for other people around us and realizing, hey, it's kind of like jury duty. No, you shouldn't have people who are in there. 30 years, 40 years, 50 years, you should be going in there getting a couple ideas, getting out. So you can give somebody else a chance, right, making this world a little bit better and getting on moving on with your day. Instead, we are it is COVID showed me one thing, people find it way easier to be told what to do and to follow than to actually figure out what to do what's best for themselves. And their communities.
It reminds me with what you're saying reminds me with the saying old ideas don't die people do. Right. And for society to evolve, you have to have new fresh ideas. Enter the the discussion. And and it seems like they're almost gatekeeping in a way. Because it's, you know, to hold on to their seat of power is often what I've noticed. But why is it? Do you think that younger people are not interested in politics? Or? You know, because if you look at the numbers, it's often younger people are also not as involved in politics. Why do you think that is?
Am I allowed to say? I don't know? I don't
know. Of course, yes. Yes.
I'll hazard a guess. I think it's, I think it's because when you're worried about paying your rent, when you're worried about you know, how do I work a job and go to school? If you're worried about a, my electricity bill is gonna get cut off? Or, oh, my gosh, I'm dealing with a life threatening condition. How do I pay for my medical bills? Once again, it goes back to the Maslow's hierarchy of needs to be I mean, I know it's reductive. But yeah, you can't think I wasn't able to I can't say all the people I wasn't able to think outside of myself until I got to a position where I had my baselines incurred until I was able to buy a house and you know, have a have a stable relationship. and be proud of who I am and get to a point where I started looking at my gifts as opposed to my imperfections. How could I even get out of my own head? How could I even get out of my own way?
And what I'm right, let alone think about the projection of the country and where, but that makes sense.
That doesn't mean that we can't think beyond that, you know, winning Jeopardy taught me something. I appeared on the last episode with Alex Trebek. And I never expect it to go viral. I thought, you know, there was an answer I gave about a cheesesteak. And luckily, John's roast pork and Philadelphia semi so cheese steaks. Thanks, John, if you can, no idea that people would latch on to that story, and how it reminded people of their own experiences, and how it reminded people of family. You know, I don't want to talk about baring your soul that was that was me, baring my soul to people.
But I had shown the human experience.
Yeah. And I and I had to, I had to choose. No, I had to choose whether or not to tell people the reality of it, you know, good and bad. Or to sugarcoat some Fairyland nonsense. I chose to be very truthful, because I said, Okay, what's the harm? You know, people are a little people forget about it, people will care some people, but maybe I can spread a little bit of positivity. And so I wrote an op ed that CNN published on on January 7, the day after that, you know, that that riot at the Capitol, that basically, we're all in this together, the literally the greatest miracle I know, is the head, we are on the outer hole of a spaceship hurtling through the cosmos, and a single rocket wipes all out. You know, it's a pretty sobering realization.
I think I literally had that thought the other day. It's true, though.
True. You know, we like we have to learn to get along and we have to learn, you know, not in some Rodney King, like, Okay, we all just get along. No, I mean, truly, like a we got to put our brains together and figure out solutions for a lot of different things. You know, whether that is energy independence, whether that is figuring out, you know, but we can't, we can't dream that big until we start solving societal issues that are baseline. Now I, part of the reason why I identify as a Republican is because our, the Republican Party was founded in 1854, by Abraham Lincoln and Horace Greeley to fight slavery. Okay, anytime you have to think about an organization look back at the Mission document. What is the mission state? It's the fight slavery. And what I see now is modern day slavery. You know, I call it the Uber trap. You drive Uber, you make $700 a week, right? That's 2800 a month, maybe 3000. If you're lucky, right. By the time you're done with taxes, you're left with two grand your apartment, because you're sharing it with one or two roommates, it still cost 800 $900 You have your car payment, you have your gas you every expenses, you ever, you know, once you go out, you have a couple of beers with friends, what are you left with? 100, maybe $50 A month you're living paycheck to paycheck, before you know it. Couple years have gone by, you know, what if you get your girlfriend pregnant? Or you know, whatever, you and your significant other start a family. Now, what do you do? How do you? How do you translate your job? into something that makes more money? How many side hustles does somebody have in life? Now are you effectively going to be an automaton? And so this is your and it goes back to this bookends perfectly to what we were talking about in the beginning, which is the concept of hope. You know, the right now, Americans aren't feeling at least my generation and younger aren't necessarily having the same sense of hope that I had as an immigrant when I first came to the United States. And it's because not that the American Dream is dead. It's that Americans aren't able to dream because they're too anxious to go to sleep. Your basic needs aren't being taken care of. We have a politician, you know, like the current politician here, things key itself. Look, the guy. I'm not saying, you know, he's a good guy or a bad guy. That's irrelevant. I'm talking about him as a congressman. Now, I wasn't elected in the popular election. He gets in there because van Taylor ends up resigning post-primary, local, you know, establishment guy, local judge gets in. Okay, but what's he doing? He's having lunch with Vladimir Zelensky, saying that the biggest threat to us is this award you that he votes for troops in Syria, he votes for troops to be in the Sudan. You know, he cuts veterans rights, like do how many like how many? How many I could list like 80 problems that we should be focusing on. Before worrying about the Ukraine. I can think of 80 things to cut before we cut benefits for the veterans. You know, that's all I'm saying that you know, we have
it's so true. So many people are focused on surviving, you know, my dad said this, and it stuck with me so well, he said, people work their whole life to make a ton of money only to give it back to the doctors and hospitals. And that's so true. Like, if you look at some of these surgeries, man, they're 150k for heart surgery, and then hundreds of 1000s for different surgeries. And these numbers are insane, completely insane. Well, they will literally wipe out your pockets, even if you spent years saving them up. So it's it, these basic needs are not being fulfilled. And that's why I think many people are, you know, losing hope and are stuck in their own worlds. And it's harder to come together. And think of bigger pictures because we're all struggling to survive in this socially constructed system that we've made, right, like going back to the idea of Kenya, those people are surviving to, but they look very happy the children, I had never seen a happier group of children in my entire life than these kids that were super skinny. Some of them they, they often all had raggedy clothes and holes in their shirts. And they were just happy to live another day because love and
because Love, Love is Something Love is something that first comes from love itself. You know, I think we are we forget so much in our society because of the societal pressures. That love comes from within love comes from being able to look in the mirror and say, Wow, I have gifts and I that I can offer I have light. And we are so we have been taught by society we have been taught by social media we've been taught by influencer, taught by fake asked people to do the following is to build walls to protect our light. When the reality is, it doesn't take anything to reach over. And metaphorically, light somebody else's wick, you know, with your candle flame, your light doesn't go out. If anything that spreads that vibration spreads in the universe. And yet strong gust of wind might come and blow your ears out and snuff it out. Maybe somebody will light it, but cares, you know that the fundamental, the fundamental truth is that we don't know a damn thing. We are fumbling around in this existence trying to create something better than we had it yesterday. You know, that is quintessentially what hope is. And we live in a country, which is so evolved that a squirrel has rights. If you were to take a squirrel and microwave it you would beat up by everyone, including me, you'll get beat up, beat up in jail, poor little like a women that the NFL players. World has rights, it is worth protecting women have rights, people who love whomever they have rights, right. And so what is failing? Why is there so much division? Well, it's because the political parties realized, hey, if we make it a moral war of good versus evil, if we say hey, the problem is not with the politician. It's with the people who support the politician. That's how we get you. And yeah, you know what? I'm unabashedly conservative. Okay, do I believe in the Second Amendment? Absolutely. Because there's a fundamental argument for me to be made, that the Second Amendment is the reason why all the other amendments exist. You know, okay. Do I Do I believe that we should be spending money here, for example, as opposed to Congress deciding over one weekend to send, you know, what was it I think, $25 billion to Ukraine in one weekend? You know, would it be a better use of Congress's time if over one weekend, they allocated $14 billion to the USDA, so every single child in school could eat for free? Yeah. So on the one hand, am I am I a bad person for saying, Hey, I like having my guns, but at the same time, I want little kids to eat it. Does that make me a worse person than the person who says, oh, we should ban all guns. But also we should send all the guns to Ukraine, instead of this is the dichotomy that I'm talking about. And what I'm saying is this like, ultimately, ultimately, mode, the majority of the legislation that Congress should be passing, the 80% that I'm talking about should be agnostic of Republican or Democrat, they should be geared towards American growth. We should have free trade, we should have competition in the market. We should allow for small businesses to take out loans right now, if you're a small business and you walk into a bank, good luck getting a loan for $250,000. You know, I spoke to so many business I spoke to this business was talking about hey, I need a CNC machine that so we can make precision arts we have an invoice in hand ready to go. It will create eight jobs and bring my company money. local bank said no, it's too risky. They would rather give out a loan for $10 million than they would for a 250,000 Reo because it's less risky. I'm saying, what kind of a society have we become where we are so bogged down by regulation, that this is the end result, Occupy Wall Street perfect example. You know, Occupy Wall Street came about because Wall Street was getting bailouts, corporations were getting bailouts before the end user before the customer at the end. And what is what does Wall Street do? They realized, well, you know, if we put a rainbow flag, and we have a diversity, we can now become the arbiters of equity. Right? I mean, it's a greatest hoodwink, I've seen in my generation. And that is, I believe, people are losing hope, because they feel they cannot change the system. And so we are looking at people were looking, we're looking at everybody who speaks a voice, and we're using words like ally and all this nonsense when people really don't care about you, when people are really getting up there. And they're doing it for their own fame. For the most part, they're, they're truly I think, their vested interests are towards their donors, your vested interests are towards staying in power, and their vested interest is towards enforcing their will on people. And my fundamental belief is that the way that the government of the United States is set up is not to tell people what to do. But it's to create options, so people have freedom to choose what they want to do. That's it. And I urge literally everybody, including you, and you see something, if you see an opportunity to you know, whether it's for city council, whether it's for dog catcher, I don't care if you feel like you can optimize a system better than somebody currently occupying it. Don't let them tell you. Because you know what, when I went to a dinner, I had a precinct chair, tell me who do I think I am? Wanting to run for Congress? These were his exact words, who do you think you are? You're selfish? You know, the guy hasn't even been in there yet. Who do you think you are? How dare you literally use those words. Now me. I'm 25 years old, at least, I've done a citizen for at least seven years. That's how I do. And that's what you do, you know. And, ultimately, going back to this, we live our life 60% of it. living somebody else's dreams, those people that you spend time with in Kenya, are spending virtually 100% of their life living their dreams, they went with a son took them with a water took them with the animals took them, they lived in a flow in a state of flow, that cannot be replicated in modern society. Because the very contracts that we signed with society, is that we give up our basic freedoms, we give up our right for independence, for the safety of interdependence. And as a consequence, we yield, we yield, we yield. But if you yield too much, you're nothing more than a slave.
Right? You know, my mind goes back to the idea of we're talking about civil discourse. And it's incredibly unfortunate that we don't have the freedom to express our opinions. Right simple example, I posted once a video of Jordan Peterson, talking about something regarding society, it wasn't even political. But due to his political affiliations, people immediately were triggered by just the mere fact that I posted anything of him at all, and pigeon holed me into, you know, this is what you believe. And it, it was a very eye opening moment, because, you know, I'd have to say my political philosophy has never been about picking a side, I understand from your perspective, why you would need to pick a side
I'm in the most polarizing office partisan office, especially because
I think what third party, third parties never never make it. So I understand that. But from a voters perspective, I actually do think it's better to, to even have, you know, the ability to vote based on the person rather than the party. Because then you're really voting based on ideologies rather than a loyalty to one side it. It reminds me of this psychology, I the psychology experiment. So you know, how companies pay a lot of money to understand human psychology and how to get people to buy their products. And I saw something that was so interesting, right? So there was this. So if you look at fast food, places and restaurants, and you wonder, you know, why are there so many restaurants right, right next to each other? You would think it's counterintuitive, right? So let's say you have a McDonald's, and let's say McDonald's gets 100 sales a day at this location. And I think intuitively we would assume, if a Burger King opened right next to it, you would lose 50% of the sales approximately right you'd have 5050 But apparently the psychology is, both stores increase in sales, which is very interesting to think about. Because the psychology here is a person goes from thinking, when there's only a McDonald's, do I want McDonald's today or not? Versus when there's Burger King and McDonald's next to each other? The question that the person frames in their head is no longer do I want it or not, it's which Burger King or McDonald's on they almost don't even consider that. The other option is neither. Right? It's the the way, the question is now framed just by the mere fact that there is exposure to multiple options, you forget the option of neither. So just like that, I think that can even be applicable to a party, right? If you think of one side versus the other, and run in reality, you could also just pick a person based on, you know, their meritocracy, their values, do they really care about it? And what they're saying their word or, you know, are they just trying to get reelected? Things like that?
Absolutely. And I think that that is bringing up something pretty significant in my thought process as well, which is, we're effectively in a caucus autocracy at this point caucus Hakushu rule by the stupid rule by the bad, call it whatever you want. Because we're left with these artificial binary choices. People aren't paying attention in the parts where it matter where it matters, the primaries, right? You're just saying, Okay, this is the guy who's in office. So this way, we'll keep going. Take a look at Joe Biden. I mean, this guy really has been in office since 1978. You know, he was a senator used to be called the senator from MBNA, which is he was so intimately tied in with MBNA bank, that a lot of shady things with Delaware, you know, and a lot of shady things, his son, Hunter Biden ends up getting discharged from the military because of drug, you know, because of drugs. And, you know, in order in an effort to get his discharge status, improved, he gets an internship at MBNA, where he's effectively an executive, and has to check in every day for a year with somebody affirming, hey, he didn't do any drugs. I mean, this guy voted for the crime bill, he voted for such extensive crack sentencing guidelines, that majority of the majority of the regressive policing that you saw against the black community was directly responsible for some of the bills that he was advocating. This is a guy who voted for, you know, severe penalties for for people to, you know, anytime there were sentence with drugs, enhancements for crimes. I mean, you want to talk about somebody who was the definition of what he's crying out against the other side being I mean, this guy was it. And so now he's running as Grandpa Joe, basically, I'm this happy guy. And if you don't vote for me, you ain't black. And I'm like, Dude, how how, like, how fickle is the public's mindset. And this is the best that the party offers. You see what I'm saying? And conversely, I'm sure people will say the same thing about Donald Trump or they'll say this. But the fact is, goes back to this, we have to get these people who've been in power 30 years, 40 years, look, if you're in government for 1520 3040 years, regardless if you're a mayor or city councilman, and then you move up. And you know, Bernie Sanders is another example the guy has been the has, dude, the guy has been a professional panhandler since he was 24. Literally, I'll say the same thing about some of the people on the right. I mean, these people literally have been in power longer than we have been alive. Okay, and what is the difference between an Earl and a Duke at that point? And if they picked from their class to see who becomes president, what is the difference between a king? I mean, the effectively what we have today is the Manager class, and the managers select their director, from their group of managers, is that I mean, I don't know how much more unAmerican I can make that sound. That is the reality.
Yeah, this literally reminds me of our first conversation, when we met outside the gym. If you if you recall, I had mentioned the phrase that it reminds me of the phrase from the Batman movie, you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain. And we were referencing that to the idea of staying in power for so long. It almost becomes a thing where you need to do anything to continue staying in power. And that's that becomes the new agenda, rather than ideas being spread and shared.
There are millions of people who are incarcerated behind beyond the bars for the rest of their life. And the key word there is life. Right, if the human mind and the body can't adapt or overcome, that'd be suicides in us. Right? Now, I'm not saying it is a pleasurable existence, but if they can do it, why can't we, you take the next step to do whatever you want to do. And this is this goes back to my fundamental tenet is knowing yourself comes first from, I think, you know, like, I'll share something personal. A couple of years ago. What was it? 20 2015 I had Cana beans and Acana tuna for Christmas. I couldn't find $7 and change to get a Little Caesars Pizza is so specific. I wanted a Little Caesars Pizza and I wanted to pick up the I couldn't find the $7 of change to get it I mean that's how rokai was and I have that kind of ugly cry no one would snot bubbles read like the burst the stock bubble burst yet graphic. I don't care hey, I want to shame right? And I couldn't find and once I got done feeling sorry for myself and whenever I mean you want to talk about rock bottom, I had a Bible next to me and threw it up against the wall the verse that opened up I'll never forget it. It was my speak in the tongues of men or of angels that don't have love and but a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. I realized that in there, man, the only the biggest liar I knew in the world was me. Because I had been saying yes to everyone and yes to everything because I didn't want to disappoint them. And as a consequence, my standards in life just decreased down the drain. Because I wasn't honest with myself, I didn't love myself. When I looked in the mirror. all I saw were flaws. All I saw was this person that I didn't beach near I was being that being that person being that thing that I despised, you know. And the instant I started raising my standards, the instant I started being grateful for the few things I had in my life back then. But yeah, wasn't a lie was a lie when I was in my head when I was like, oh, yeah, I'm so grateful for the trillions of cells. I haven't been grateful for my beat up car, and I'm gonna feel like it was a lot. Yeah. But was I grateful? Was there a part of me that absolutely was absolutely. And when I started realizing that how little actually needed to live, it's kind of like Seneca you know, a man should least once in his life, see how little he needs to live? So you can you know, you know that quote? Yeah, it's kind of like that there is maybe there's a bit of truth in stoicism. Who knows, you know, a lot of people might have been enlightened by it. But once I started truly being grateful for what I was, once I started being grateful for the things that I already had, you know, once I started realizing that the material things in life aren't going to, you know, fill a void in my heart, or whatever it was. Once I realized that, in order for me to love somebody else, I had to learn to love myself, I stopped living for other people's dreams, and I started living for my own. Not it takes, it takes some courage to run for government. It takes some courage to start a podcast, it takes some courage to step into a gym when you're overweight, and do your first curl. When you're all your eyes on you. It takes courage to step foot on the first day of school, and say hello to somebody, it takes courage to take a knife and darted across someone's body and see that wake of red when it's your first surgery. And it takes courage to go to space, it takes everything in light, it takes courage to take your first breath when you're out of the womb. I don't remember, but I guarantee it. It took some courage to do that. What do we have to be afraid of? Death? Well, it's gonna, I'll let you in on a little secret. All of us are going to die.
But if we know I often think you know, the catalyst is to what you're saying. This is the thought that I often have is either way, life is hard for one of two reasons. You're either you know, trying something new, or you stay in your status quo. And eventually life catches up to you and you live with regrets. And that idea of regret is what fuels me to go ahead and try it anyways. Right this this idea of when I first started the podcast, it was man, I don't even know how long I sat there staring at the publish button. I didn't. I sat there maybe for an hour before I press Publish. It was It was so scary. I almost felt like oh my god, what what are people going to say? What are people going to think? Everybody's going to look at me. And, you know, you have to take that leap of faith in yourself and it's self love and that journey of self love, which you mentioned it was so difficult, because growing up I also was someone who always in that giver mindset, maybe even to the point of people pleasing and to take it step back and realize, you know, the one person I wasn't loving enough was myself was a very profoundly difficult journey to, to, you know, work on.
Absolutely man. And, you know, we're all, I think figuring it out. And ultimately, ultimately, that's the beauty of our journey is that we have to figure it out. And either either we can do it with a state of joy, or we can sit sedentary in our room, or we could do it from a state of fear. But as long as we do it, that's the key. It's action. You know, right. That's it.
So, you know, I wanted to ask you this, because you you actually touched upon it. Something I was thinking about the other day for this interview, was, you know, for example, starting this podcast, you become a target on media starting or you running for Congress, you become a target to people. And even just today, I was going through your Twitter, just checking out some of your, you know, your content and whatnot. And, you know, there's always haters everywhere, and it leads me to ask you, you know, especially I'm sure you were aware of this even before he started because politics can get pretty nasty, is, you know, coming to terms with the fact that there is going to be shade, you know, people are gonna throw shade there is going to be hate. How did you recollect and deal with that?
I wish I could tell you that, that, oh, it just bounces off you like water off a duck's back. Oh, man, I mean, people say mean things sometimes against you. Other times, you just laugh it off. You know, I remember the first time I got some hate, I was like, yeah, the second time, it wasn't as pronounced the third time, they got easier the fourth time, just ignore it. Every now and then I'll engage someone, you know, if somebody, you know, I'll never forget, there's an interaction I had with someone who, you know, basically said something very vile. And I went on her Twitter page, I didn't want to make it public. But you know, I just wanted to understand like, Hey, why is this person assuming an untruth about me, you know, and I went on her page, and then I realized, you know, our son was, was killed in Afghanistan and an ID and she was very angry. And so I just, you know, I sent her a message. And I said, Ma'am, my politics aside, you know, I'm just, I'm so sorry for the loss of your son, and want you to know that I'm very anti war. And we might disagree on a lot of things. But, you know, this is one thing that I promise you no matter what, I'll never change. And, you know, she's she just said, Thank you so much. It was it. That was the interaction. And I think, I think people at least on social media, are there trolls. Absolutely. But I think the majority of people who are genuinely were genuinely, you know, engaging to either to try to elicit a response, either are coming from a position where they feel like they're not being heard. Or they are coming from a position where they're afraid that if you get into a position where your voices amplified, theirs will be snuffed out. And this is why I think it is so important to not have an echo chamber. That's why I say it's easier for people to have an echo chamber because you don't need to listen to the dissenting voices. Now. I
are there. They call them keyboard warriors,
keyboard warriors, for sure. But, you know, but but but some people though, there's some people, though, you know, that, at least on Facebook, where you could have larger discussions with people, sometimes you get on long drawn out arguments with people philosophically. And I think it's good to be challenged on your viewpoints, you know, not, I'm sure, there are things that I've said that you've agreed with, and other things that you disagree with, or you're, you know, you're reticent about talking about, but at the same time, we can have a discourse about it, we can have, you know, we can have an environment where we say, Okay, I agree with you on this point. On this point, I disagree with you. And because we live in an intellectual society, you can say, look, here's why I disagree with you. And this is why I think maybe you should take a look at XY and Z viewpoint. And right, I think social media is giving people power in a society where power has been, where power has been taken away from them. This is the Uber trap. I'm talking about where the hope is gone away. You know, when people are experiencing censorship on such a mass scale, you know, you take a look at. Okay, we'll use Donald Trump as an example. You know, election interference, right. There's no definitive proof that there was election interference, right now. But every attempt at bringing up said election interference was either kicked out because of technicalities or it was heavily shutdown immediate. You know, and quite frankly, we're finding out hey, look, the social social media companies were heavily heavily heavily promoting anti Trump agendas and ideas and silencing voices that were pretty Trump, you know, that were being kicked off the platform, they were being deep platformed for whatever little nonsense you could talk about you take a look at the Hunter Biden.
And on top of that, the algorithm also only absolutely echo chatter ban pushes exactly what you need and what you want to see. And I think that's also just as dangerous, just
as dangerous. And so when you have a group of people who weren't a allowed to freely interact and freely discourse, right, when you have college campuses where a dissenting thought is shut down, right. You know, you bring up Jordan Peterson. I'm bringing up How about a woman who spoke up against that that Lea Thomas winner, you know, and she was, she was physically attacked on a site because people cannot handle the idea that somebody would speak up and have a difference of thought. But at the end of the day, I'll never forget, there was a class I took in high school in high school of all places, where, where we had, when we were discussing the Holocaust, you know, they a lady, who had have never forget, she had a tattoo, she spoke about her experiences in the concentration camp, those of us who grew up in New York, in the 90s, we all know, somebody Jewish, who had a tattoo or was in a concentration, most of us can sail. But then she also brought up a Holocaust denier, the following day to give us a different perspective, right? So think about that, if we as high school students can be entrusted to have that kind of critical thinking to, to basically point out the absurdity, you know, of one idea, versus the humanity of another one, that should be our choice. And right now, people feel hopeless, because their government thinks that they're so stupid that they can't even parse out what is true and what is not true. I disagree fully. You know, we are so intelligent, we are so capable. We are literally, I believe the smartest generation who has ever lived, because we have the most amount of information. And we have information in real time. We don't have to wait for a carrier pigeon. Listen to us.
Yeah, you know, I think about that all the time, my people my age, and you know, our age, think, think about man, I wish I had a mentor. You know, you can pick any mentor you want in history and have social media presence as well, not yet. And even in history, you could, you can pick people from you know, previous texts, historic texts, ancient texts, all the way to, you know, Alex or Mozi, if you want to look at business, and all sorts of people can become your mentor, because at the, you know, in our pockets, we have something at our fingertips that can literally give us all the information we need.
You can go on clubhouse and hear people talk live, you can go on Audible or scripted and hear people narrate their own stories, you can go on YouTube and listen to the biggest intellectuals, you can reach out to somebody immediately and send them an email. I mean, we are, in my opinion, the most intelligent generation that is being controlled by people who think we're too fragile to handle and parse out information by our own volition. Maybe it's by design, maybe it is by artificial, you know, you know, conditions that are put up in order to protect certain subsets of society because of the pandemic, maybe it's because maybe it's because we're willingly choosing to do it, I refuse. I reject that notion heavily. I think that people without free discourse without an exchange of ideas, you know, the the only reason a person becomes a slave is if they believe they are a slave. Intellectual, that that's why that's why reading was banned, and writing was banned. You know, since time immemorial, a slave was not allowed to read or write. And that's not just endemic to slavery here in the United States. That's any culture, right? Because the concept of becoming self aware of the concept of having an idea is dangerous is very dangerous. So
true. Right? That's so true.
And so we have arguably one of the most powerful instruments of change the world has ever seen, which is social media. Because now we get the amplification of ideas. If you were to think of it this way now, like if you were a fan platform, yeah. I mean, if you were us platform, absolutely. You know, because now you have two people who can freely exchange an idea in real time and develop a meta idea, a third kind of a tertiary idea, one plus one equals three synergistic idea out of that dialog, right in real time, and then you can propagate it very quickly in real time. And I think that for a I'm a vehicle of control, when you start censoring groups of people that have tasted that, right? You are not creating pressure relief valves. When you start censoring comedy, when you start censoring these kinds of pressure relief valves that allow ideas to grow and develop organically and think of society, like a balloon that's always ready to pop, you know, sometimes the gash needs to be released, right? When you start removing those outlets, when you start, in a sense, thought policing people when you start know, encouraging people to be very mindful of the ideas and the thoughts that they have in their head because they're an enemy to themselves. And as a consequence, they're an enemy to society. That is the very it's beyond dystopian. I mean, there was a movie back in the day, called Demolition Man. I mean, if basically, in a society that's very similar to Demolition Man, you know, you can't touch people, you can't have read me, you can't do this can't do that. You know, you can't, you got to watch what you say. And to me, that isn't freedom. You know, 20 years ago, the United States guaranteed shot more free than that tribe in Kenya did. Now, that tribe in Kenya probably feels a lot more free than the United States. And we have every creature comfort in the world. I'm trying to change that. And all I know is this. I can't change people around me, I can't change, you know, hearts and minds, all I can do is change myself. And somewhere along the way, if other people are inspired, and motivated to change themselves as a consequence, because of some ideas that I've given them or something that I said, That was interesting. I'm doing my part. That's a Starship Troopers show. But I hope you understand what I mean,
in the same regard of what you're referencing, to, as to why you started all this is, I've resonated very much. So with why I started this podcast of what I'm doing. It's, you know, I had a very fortunate upbringing to see multiple perspectives in life, I got to see certain culture and Western culture, I got to see, you know, third, third world country and how they lived. And then, you know, live go right back to the My first world country where, you know, as hard as I tried for, when I came back to the US, I tried so hard to stay grounded to the experience I had there and incorporate it into my daily life. It only took a few weeks for me to reassimilate back into the first world problems of life and air conditioning, and all these things you get your body adapts so quickly back, it's like a, it's like a rubber band. Right? Yes, bounces right back. So, you know, so ever since I've been obsessed with, you know, how can we bring back that symbiotic harmonious relationship? Because I think there is a beautiful middle ground somewhere to be made. And that's only through a discussion of ideas. And that's, I think that's the beauty of why I do what I'm doing.
I think that you are, you're definitely touching on a nerve there. Because I would say, in our society, once again, it goes back to this, our only export is intellectual property, or only export is thought. And in a sense, to find purpose, sometimes. One of the best things that we need to is to do when we have evolved into a state where our exports intellectual property, is to try to get to understanding why. I mean, people since recorded history, have been trying to understand why. And there's nothing wrong with that at all. In fact, if more people encouraged the roast, of having honest conversation, now, it would probably serve us all a little bit better, because maybe we could see where we add value, how we raise energy into any system, as opposed to now as opposed to figuring out what our differences are. We start seeking what our similarities are. And Darwin was wrong. It's not survival of the fittest. It's survival of the most cooperative, which ends up becoming the fittest. shefa that's, there's just we have we have a lot of problems to fix. For sure. And A lot of these problems have been exacerbated by people who capitalize on those problems without proffering solutions. And as a consequence, we have a generation of people who are lost, not only were they socially distanced in their most formative years, right, they were not allowed to have human interaction. Not only did they live in a period of intense fear, because their parents, the air was, was pregnant with fear, you could you could taste it, it was accurate. But they were also subjected to a time where non stop neighbor was divided against neighbor on every metric on ever down to a cellular level, because of a political party that they voted for, because political party suddenly became the arbiters of morality. You know, if you were red, you were this if you were blue, you were this and suddenly, we devolved. For the probably the first time in human history. We're an advanced society, descended down to the most tribal of totems. Right, we were separated by color. Right. Right, became societies has evolved as ours became tribal eyes. Right?
It's like that idea, the psychology of picking aside because you see two sides, rather than
just going as if it works in our connected world full of shades of grey.
Yeah, really. That's, I mean,
the, you know, the human existence, we, you know, we are lucky, if at the end of our life, we come face to face with somebody who's peering into our soul into our eyes, because the world is closing out around us. And they're reflecting a lifetime of love saying it's okay. As we pass into, into death. Can't take any of this with us. Right? None of our not even our thoughts, not our ideas, not or nothing. Right? Well, lucky. If we have that experience, the world fades away. Somebody's looking into somebody. somebody's telling you that. Right.
Right. So I think that has a profound effect on the actions you you would take, if one considers what you said, right? The you don't take any of this with you.
For sure. So while we're here, let's make the best. Let's look out for one another. Let's have some empathy. Yeah, let's disagree. And after we're done disagreeing, let's get back to work. Let's fix our schools. Let's fix. Let's fix our roads. Let's build some rockets. Let's get off. Let's start having fun. Right? Let's start making good music. Right? Let's start making movies where we actually have fun and not have a message every 30 seconds. Let's play some good football. Instead of having rules that stopped quarter 35 times a month. Let's let's get back. All I'm saying is this, let's get back to having fun and the type of government that starts working for the people instead of having the people work for the government.
Right. But there's one last question I want to ask you. And as you're aware, this show is called Learn or be learned. So I love to ask the guests at the end. What is one life lesson that you either learned from others, or a lesson you want others to learn from you as the takeaway message?
Well, I think the one thing I've learned is that I will always be learning. And there's one lesson that I have learned, it's that everybody that you encounter, has a has a lesson that you can learn from them. I don't care how silly or how brilliant or how high up or be a bum down the street, every interaction you have with another human being every interaction that you have with a living thing is an opportunity to learn more about life. And let's the older we get, the more we should be connected, in a sense to have a sense of childlike amazement at this world because we're getting closer to death. And quite frankly, we're just the blip. Or blip. Yeah, yeah, I believe in God. Yeah, I believe in this. Yeah, I believe in eternal life, etc, etc. But those are my beliefs. But at the end of that, Look, all I know is this. There is there's something intensely beautiful about our world. And there's something I learned by reading the doubt a Ching had said, made me laugh. So I was like, Man, this is cold ass line. That said, what is what is a good man but a bad man's teacher? What is a bad man, but a good man's job? And I have learned that I have to work on myself every single day. It's my job.