Jul 2, 2018
Welcome everyone to episode 209 of the Everyone’s Agnostic podcast. I’m Cass Midgley. I'm going to die. A big thanks to each and every one of our Patreon and Paypal supporters. Today my guest is Devin Andre Woodard. Devin is a young professional living and working in Austin, TX. Devin is a passionate man, who, after being burnt out of spending years pouring his entire being into Christian fundamentalism, is attempting to discover the freedom that comes with embracing life as it is, and making the most of the time we're given.
We taped this conversation on
June 9th, 2018. The
intro music is by Dave Weckl called "Just Groove
Me" The segue music is
"Ghost II" by Corey Kilgannon, a favorite of my
guest.
We
interview people you don’t know, about a subject no one wants to
talk about. We hope to encourage people in the process of
deconstructing their faith and help curb the loneliness that
accompanies it. We think the world is a better place when more
people live by sight, not by faith. Please subscribe to our
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Thanks for listening, and be a yes-sayer to what is.
You've probably received a pop-up warning on your computer or your phone saying you've been infected by a virus, click here to have it removed. But if you do click it, it will give you a virus. Just this week my son got a call from Apple Tech Support telling him his phone had been hacked and that all the phones in his family plan would soon be hacked accessing all their personal info, passwords and use their friend list to invade all their friends info. He naively fell for it and proceeded to do whatever the person on the phone told him to do, including download an app on daddy's desktop computer. Which almost completed the hack for which they were warning against. It reminded me of Trump's weak, lazy, cowardly, insecure tactic of warning people about fake news, when in fact every time he opens his mouth, its fake news. An accusation is made against someone that is not true of the accused, but IS true of the accuser. There's a quote attributed to Joseph Goebbels that says, "Accuse the other side of that which you are guilty" and although there's no proof that Goebbels ever said it, it is a common tactic throughout history. Sometimes in full knowledge of its genius; sometimes from stupidity and pure survival mode of insecure bullies. But as weak as the accuser is, this tactic is not; it is highly powerful in wreaking destruction and creates a vicious vortex that entraps any victims who fall prey to it. How does one fall prey to it? If the accused get defensive and say "no I'm not" it plays right into the hand of the accuser. As in this 10 year old scene from a SNL Weekend Update episode where Amy Poehler subtly accuses Seth Myers of having a small penis. Immediately after she jabs him with the joke she holds her hand up for a high five and says "up top." Listen to Seth's reaction.
So it's a trap to fight against the accusation but it's also a trap to agree with the accuser. When we agree with their accuser, we can fall into a trap of shame and even look to our accuser for a solution, like my son did with the fraudulent Apple Tech support guy. Either way, too much attention is given to the accuser. The best thing is to just hang up. Because both the accuser and the accused can become what they hate.
You know the phrase, "it takes
one to know one?" This is a phrase of empathy, which can be good.
But even empathy has its pitfalls. Many say that compassion is
better because, in the metaphor of someone falling in a pit,
empathy gets down in the pit and both are now worse off, whereas
compassion throws the fallen a rope. Now, in this age of Jordan
Peterson mania, that sounds like something he would say (and I
believe he does) and so I just threw up in mouth a little bit, but
as with all truth, sometimes you find it in places that make it
hard to swallow. When we hate our enemies, we are apt to
swing wide in the opposite direction and merely mirror the poor
emotional health of our enemy. But consider a modification of that
adage "it takes one to know one": It takes one to hate one. How
much of my own intolerances are a result of my ‘dislike’ of my own
weaknesses or past weaknesses in any particular area? Often my
impatience manifests when I feel ignored or invisible. In traffic
it appears. Often I see everyone as trying to block my progress or
ignoring me or being insensitive or even thoughtless. At the same
time, they're probably driving slow in the fast lane because
they're compensating for years of having no power or voice or have
been oppressed by others and this moment of power feels good to
them, whether they know why or not. So our life-long developed
pathologies are clashing on I-24. And if we hate or resent certain
people its often because we either see their actions reflecting
back to us what we don't like about ourselves OR the opposite:
we're not like them at all and thus don't relate to their
weaknesses and thus can feel superior and judge them, thereby
hating them, and thereby becoming like them. Judgement of others
and self keeps us in this fucking cyclical pit of stupidity and
immorality.
Take the shanty call center of scam hackers
calling my son. They're trying to get rich and they can justify it
because they resent other rich people. They may never admit this
but the thinking is "They’re crooked, so we’re justified in being
crooked too." Victims often become victimizers. And this is all
about people acting, behaving, thinking in RE-action to others,
only mirroring their adversaries, as opposed to acting, behaving
and thinking from one's own core. To stay above the fray of
insecure bullies and accusers and jealousy and resentment. To avoid
such traps and swirling eddies that pull us into that muck and
mire. We can and should assess and evaluate our circumstances and
relationships all day long without
falling into the trap of judgement.
Blame, no matter where it lands, helps the situation. Honestly,
keep in mind that every fucking human being on this planet is
fighting the same battles-- with their history, their abuse, their
shortcomings and insufficiencies, and most will never have the
wherewithal or self-awareness to understands what's happening to
them in real time, but you can! Listeners of EA podcast have such a
huge advantage over the rest of the unevolved world because those
people are losers and we're winners and if they only knew as much
or had as much knowledge as we do, they too could be as cool and
healthy as us. They probably don't even read books or go to
therapy. It must really suck to be them...oh wait. I've become what
i hate. Ground me William Shakespeare. "Suspicion always haunts the
guilty mind." What? Say that again. "Suspicion always haunts the
guilty mind." So by seeing myself as guilty, as bad, as evil, I'm
more prone to be suspicious of everyone else? "Something like
that." And by lifting myself out of guilt, by giving myself a
break, by giving myself the grace and forgiveness that I would give
my own loved ones, I help alleviate the suspicious lens through
which I see others? When I assume that people driving slow in the
fast lane, or people that over groom their lawns, or people that
scam little old ladies out of their money, or people that are
ignorantly afraid of people different than them, when I assume that
they are bad people, I'm letting suspicion stifle what might
otherwise be curiosity. Hell even apathy would be healthier than
suspicion. "I don't care why that person's being a dick" is no less
moral than, "I wonder why that person's being a dick?" One is
slightly more mature than the other, but requires more energy than
I might have at the time. As long as I don't let myself feel too
superior to their assholery, because I certainly display my share
of it in other contexts. It's kinda "live and let live" with just a
tad more care than that, but not much. At the end of the day, it's
saying yes to what is. This place, this planet, this human race is
MAJORLY fucked up, and we don't help it get well by responding in
ways that are either the same type fucked up or the opposite type
fucked up, we're still adding to the fucked upness of the planet
when we react in kind. Nietzsche wrote, "My formula for greatness
in a human being is amor fati--a love of fate: that one wants
nothing to be different, not in the future, not in the past. Not
just to bear what is reality, much less hide myself from it, for
all idealism is just dishonesty in the face of what is, but to love
it. I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is the
reality of things; then I will be one who helps make things
beautiful. Amor fati: let that be my love henceforth! I do not want
to wage war against what is ugly. I do not want to accuse; I do not
even want to accuse those who accuse. Looking away shall be the
only thing I say no to. And all in all and on the whole: some day I
wish to be only a Yes-sayer." Now Nietzsche was a white,
straight European male in the early 20th century, so he may be
afforded privileges that allow him to apply and practice that more
thoroughly than others, but it is at least a virtue and value to
which to aspire. Hatred is the easiest of emotions to invoke. Love
requires self-awareness and intention. At minimal, we would do well
to select our enemies carefully, for more often than not, we will
become like them. Thus, if your enemies are people, those people
will often define you. If you are not defined from without, you
will be defined from within. My hunch is that we humans kinda need
enemies and will create them if that role is vacant. I suspect the
enemy is within all of us and thus can have the uniting effect of a
common enemy, and yet, an enemy that we will not emulate. My tattoo
defines my enemies as Fear, Pity, Resentment, Victimhood, and
Insecurity. If we'd all resist these enemies within, without an
ounce of shame for having them, we might be able to laugh and drink
and eat and cry together with those we formerly identified as
enemies. That's a tall order. But I've got a short life.
In summary, there are two paths of weakness, small creativity, and short-sightedness: 1) accuses others of the same behavior the accuser is doing, and the second judges others for the same behavior the judge ends up mirroring. Both are afraid, as we all are. The high road is refusing to let fear evoke a reaction we'll later regret. Just close the false virus pop-up, hang up on the scamming caller, journalists ignore our baby-president and keep reporting the news, stop judging yourself and thus others who reflect back to you what you either don't like about yourself or don't like about them, live with a clear conscience so you'll be less suspicious of others, and don't take yourself or the size of your penis too seriously.
Corey Kilgannon Ghost II video
http://www.thepaepae.com/self-hate-as-a-metric-of-intolerance/23098/
http://www.thepaepae.com/the-paradox-of-animosity/258/
https://www.fhu.com/articles/hate1.html
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/enemy