https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=FDmGAYL2NXI
we cannot treat people like objects. While they might have an object manifestation in the world, the thing that is guiding the object manifestation is the subject or the person behind it. The intentions are informing whatever expression is being made within their manifestation. If we start relating to the manifestation instead of what is making or causing this manifestation to be, then we’re making a category error. We literally are and that’s dangerous because in history, this category error has been made intentionally by many people in order to do bad things and to justify these bad things to groups of people. Don’t do that. It just occurred to me, Manuel. You’re famous for pointing out, don’t identify against a thing. If a human is subject and object, if you’re just seeing them as an object, which objects, then you’re identifying against them by default. I’m back again today with Manuel Post to do another DLogos discussion. Because my intros tend to go on a lot, I’m going to let Manuel introduce the topic today and we’ll see where we can get. Manuel, take it away. I’ve been noticing two ways that people use language. I have been perceiving a lot of confusion as a consequence in the individual using it, but also in the conversation that it’s being used in. I think it’s important for us to explore. I think there’s two ways that we relate to the world. One is where we try to understand what’s happening in the world. And then there’s another way in which we’re trying to understand how to relate to the world. These two are obviously connected because they’re talking about the same reality. They’re not focusing on the same aspects of reality, because not the same things are important in this world. You’re trying to understand things, you’re trying to observe, and you’re trying to relate to the relationship between things and how things are affecting each other. When you’re trying to relate to the world, you’re trying to relate to how you’re affected and how you can affect things outside of you. Those two things are fundamentally different. They lead to a different language. They lead to a different line of thinking. I think when we’re not aware of these two things and we start confusing them, then we start thinking, well, that we can relate to the things outside of us while we can’t, or that the things outside of us have an effect on us that they’re not really having, but the effect is useful for the way to interact with them. For example, when I put my hand on the stove, the stove will repel me, but the stove is not repelling me. My relationship to the stove is as if the stove is repelling. And I think that it’s useful for me to have both awarenesses and have both lines of reasoning open for me to explore what the best relationship with the world is. Yeah, that sounds good. I think one of the things you’re highlighting here is that there’s two different ways of knowing the world. One of those ways tends towards this individualistic objective material reality, the standing nowhere or the view from nowhere, which is useful but limited. And the other way is how we are connected, how we participate. So while it may be useful in the scientific frame to say, well, the stove doesn’t repel my hand, it’s more useful in a practical frame, in a pragmatic frame, in a frame where you have to interface with the world where you’re a part of it to say, my hand is repelled by the stove, right? Because the relationship of the hot stove to the hand is more important than the state of the stove, right? So the stove may not be hot, but the fact that you don’t go near it either way in some cases is adaptive because then the chance of burning your hand is zero all of a sudden, right? So yeah, I think that’s important. And it is wrapped up in the two types of knowing. And I think that’s a good way to, or two ways of knowing, right? And I think that’s a good way to segue the conversation. Like that’s a good foundation to go forward from. Right. So maybe we should get some connections going, right? So this idea of metaphorical truth that was introduced by Brett Weinstein, at least in this corner of the internet, where your description of the world gives you evolutionary adaptivity. So its function is not determined by the value of accuracy of description, but the value is determined by the affordances that you get by acting in the world in that way. Right. And I think for Feige also has a similar idea, although I don’t know if he’s really aiming at the same thing where he’s talking about the language of training, right? Where he’s taking it a little bit away from the functionality, but he’s introducing it as a necessary pre-stage before something else, right? Like which would be mastery or something. And then the language of description, I think, is the thing that he’s contrasting. So yeah, this idea has been recognized by a lot of people. And then, well, like why would we have such a thing? Like why would it be important to have such a thing? And in some sense, when you’re participating with things in the world, you need, like people say, you need to look beyond the ball when you’re hitting it with baseball, right? Like so there’s this thing where you need to grasp beyond the immediate activity to what you want to manifest as a consequence, well, not as a consequence, through it. Like you want to reach through what you’re doing into bringing something else in. Right. So there’s this, yeah, I don’t know where I want to go with this, but there’s something important there, right? Where you’re grasping with something that’s ineffable. Like it’s not there, but you can relate to it. And because we can’t grasp it, we can’t see it, right? We can’t hold it. It requires different language. It requires us to have a different description of it. And in some sense, it requires us to treat it as if it’s alive, right? Like as if it’s a person, right? Like because it’s not static, it’s dynamic, right? Like what we’re relating to doesn’t stay the same across time. And the fact that it doesn’t stay the same means that we have to be able to adjust to it. We have to identify its nature, right? Like the way that it’s expressing itself to us. And when we’re relating to the world in that way, then all sorts of options open up. Right. Well, and I think that’s really what it is, right? It’s optionality or potential, right? And then so what the objective material reality worldview gives you is a focus on the present with, because that’s all you can know through materialism, through science is what the present state is. You can try to make predictions on the future, but it’s actually pretty poor at that at the end of the day. That’s why political predictions are terrible and economics is terrible, right? It’s bad framing for predictions because it’s not representative of how the world is moved. It’s only representative of the actions that the world has taken in the past. And so those frames are very limiting because they can’t account for potential. They can’t account for the spirit of the movement behind them. Right. And I mean, I did a video on metaphorical truth, right? And the fact that the other side of that is literal truth doesn’t exist in some sense. Like you can’t nail it down because it’s too many variables. So there’s a way in which this trying to be quote objective pulls us away from the future, away from potential makes us recede from possibility in some sense and focus on maximum control or maximum understanding or maximum accuracy, precision, reliability and consistency over maximum potential for miracle, right? Or for wonder or for awe, right? And that’s wrapped up in the types of knowing. Do you know something sort of concretely? Do you know it as an object? Do you know it as a proposition or do you know it poetically in the ways that it can interface with you in the relationships that you can make with it and it can make with you, whether that’s nature, another person, a group of people, a sport, a school, right? All of these things have spirit and understanding spirit can’t be done through logic, rationality and reason. They have to be done through the poetic in informing of the world. And that’s what allows us those deep connections of deep sort of intimate connections with everything else. And you can’t privilege one over the other necessarily, right? You have to be careful if you’re going to do that and recognize that you sort of need a balance of both in order to live in harmony in the world. Yeah, so you bring up this idea of a person. It was like, yeah, well, what is a person, right? Like a person is some, well, I was going to say something, but it’s a subject, right? Like it is a thing that you’re subjecting and you’re subjected to and that can take multiple identities in relation to you, right? And the fact that a person can take multiple identities means that you can have multiple relations between the multiple identities that you can take on and they can take on. And then you get into like this really complex field where there’s all of this optionality available that is, well, combinatorially explosive. There’s no way of grasping the full potential. And you can imagine that you have that same type of relationship with the dog, for example, right? Like the dog also doesn’t have one identity with you, right? Like the dog can catch the ball, right? Like the dog can hug you. Like there’s many things. It can give a paw. But the amount of identities that the dog can take on compared to a human being is severely restricted. And then, well, we’ve been talking a lot about hammers, right? Like hammers also have a set of identities that they can take on in relation to us, right? You can use a hammer to hammer a nail into the wall. We can use a hammer as a weapon. And we can use a hammer as a throwing object. So there’s still these types of relationships. But these relationships are constrained to the materiality, right? Like the affordances of the materiality and not this extra personhood element that is also able to act towards you. Right. But I like that. So maybe it would be a little more complete to say a person is both a subject and an object with a maximum material and non-material potential. Right. Yeah, right. Right. And the subject is creating the material expression of the object. And I’ve been really, really hammering. Oh, wow. That one was unintentional for some reason. But I’ve been hammering on this idea, right? Like we cannot treat people like objects, right? While they might have an object manifestation in the world, the thing that is guiding the object manifestation is the subject, right? Or the person behind it, right? Like the intentions are informing whatever expression is being made within their manifestation. And if we start relating to the manifestation instead of what is making or causing this manifestation to be, then we’re making a category error. Like we literally are. And that’s dangerous because like in history, like this category error has been made intentionally by many people in order to do bad things and to justify these bad things to groups of people. So like don’t do that. So it just occurred to me, Manuel. So you’re sort of famous for pointing out like don’t identify against a thing, right? And if a human is subject and object, if you’re just seeing them as an object, as that which objects, then you’re identifying against them by default. And when you only identify against them and you don’t engage with the potential, right? And the subjective aspect of that might be the aspect that helps you find the affordances, right? Whether they’re material or spiritual, right? Non-material, right? That might be part of it is that, yeah, if you’re going to objectify something, you are necessarily identifying against it. And not that that is bad, but it’s bad if that’s all you’re doing. Because then you’re not finding a connection to it, right? You’re deliberately severing the connection. You’re saying, no, there’s no connection here. I object or it objects. Doesn’t matter, right? At that point, you’re just severing connection. And that’s why we see a lot of this behavior, especially recently with people just outright stating, I want to disagree. And it’s like, no, no, no, we’ll agree with you. No, no, I don’t want you to agree. It’s like, why? Why? Why wouldn’t you want to find agreement? And people really don’t want to find agreement sometimes. And maybe they don’t understand the implications or they project implications that aren’t there. But that’s a severing of intimacy. That’s a severing of connection as such. That’s a John Dravici short term definition of short form definition of religio is connectedness. It’s like, yeah, well, you’re rejecting that connectedness. You’re deliberately severing any possibility of intimacy when you object, when you do nothing but object, when you say, no, no, this is, I object to this or this is objecting to me. It’s the same move from a different perspective. But the move is to cut the connection. Well, why don’t you want to be connected? Is it because the connectedness might put you in horror or is it because the connectedness might put you in awe? Either way, that can be pretty scary. And I think that’s one of the things that John Dravici talked about, right? That there’s an axis of horror to awe. They’re really the same thing with a different surveillance, roughly. If you’re at one end, you’re in horror. And if you’re at the other end, you’re in awe. And also, this goes back to awesome versus awful. Is it an affordance that you can relate to in potential with wonder? Or is it an affordance that’s so boundless you can’t relate to it and you fall into despair because there’s no connectedness, because there’s nothing to connect to? And that’s the difference, roughly speaking, or some of the difference between horror and awe. Yeah, so I really like that, right? So what are you doing when you make something or someone that is an object? Well, you’re reducing the complexity of your relationships, right? So now, like you have a classification or a objectification that you can relate to, right? So that person is trying to harm you, right? And then in some sense, it doesn’t matter whether that’s intentional, unintentional, actual, like that all is irrelevant, right? Because now you have this object that you can treat in a certain way. And you know how to treat things that are dangerous, like things that are trying to harm you. Well, you need to protect yourself from them, right? And whether you do that by verbally distancing yourself from them, making them smaller than you so that you can feel bigger, right? Like there’s all of these things that we can see in the animal kingdom, right? They have all of these responses. Or you’re going to literally attack them, right, in order to provoke a fight and assert your dominance, right? So that as a consequence of having asserted your dominance, now you can reestablish relationship in the hierarchy where you’re on top. So yeah, like this objective thing has its uses, like you can see, right? Like there’s use in being able to do that, right? Because if you make the correct determination, right? Like this person is going berserk at me, you need to treat them as an object, because treating them as a person will get you killed. And so then the question becomes, well, okay, so there’s a border there, right? Like there’s a border there where it’s okay to cross it or not to cross it, right? And one of the things that I think might be really useful if you’re capable of it is why you can treat people as an object for like a really, really smart period of time in order to reach a goal, right? For example, like if you want to get past someone, right? Like you can literally treat them as an object that is blocking your path, and then you can get around them and that’s okay, right? But like you can’t keep having that relationship, right? Which people actually do, right? They get upset at them, right? Like, oh, there’s this thing in my way and I had to get around it and then it’s like, yeah, but it’s also a person and like, maybe you shouldn’t treat people in that way. And then so there’s this thing where you need to flip back, right? And then the other thing that you have to do is, well, like, am I justified in taking this object relationship, right? Like, is there a valid reason for me to take on the perspective or am I just acting out my emotions, right? Because my emotions, especially if they’re strong, right? Like, they are the thing that put me in this horror paradigm, right? Because they’re like bringing up like this intensity and this focus that’s welling up within me. And it’s like, yeah, like I can hold this and be in this complex intimate relationship at the time. And Mark is like, yeah, I know that. So go at it, Mark. Yeah, yeah, I think that’s, yeah, we get, we get, we don’t understand how things work, right? Because we do this middle out thinking thing where we look at something after it’s happened and then evaluate it, right? But what’s happened to us in the moment is we’re being possessed by our emotions and our emotions are steering us, right? Or a spirit is moving us or something. And that’s what’s causing the motion. So when you look at it in the middle, right, you go, oh, well, I did this, therefore I must have been feeling this. It’s like, no, that’s not necessarily true, right? And then you try to justify it. And people do this in conversation all the time, right? They say, well, you, you know, you accused me of acts. And it’s like, we made literally no accusation whatsoever. No accusations were made, not against you, but against anyone or anything. Like you’re, whatever went on in your head, that didn’t happen. Like that’s really important, right? So you heard something and then what did you hear? Well, you know, right? And then, and then you can hear them fumbling to justify their, their claim. It’s like, well, you made a claim that there was an accusation made. If there was, let’s find out what it is, because I can’t apologize for it unless I know what it is. It doesn’t make any sense to apologize if you have no understanding whatsoever of what you did wrong. And I would just not say never apologize or something, but you know, if you’re just apologizing to appease the person, you need to know that. And I don’t generally subscribe to that theory. I won’t just apologize to a random person without understanding what I’m apologizing for, because I’ll just do it again. Right? So I don’t want to do that. So if they can’t tell you what it is that you did wrong, maybe whatever it is you did wrong, wasn’t wrong. Maybe it didn’t even happen because that, that’s possible. It may not be likely, but it’s possible. It’s something important to get right because if they objected, you should know what they objected to. And so should they. Otherwise they’re, they’re possessed. They’re moved by a spirit they don’t understand. And, or maybe it happened and you were moved by a spirit you didn’t understand because you didn’t realize what happened. So there’s a possession potential going on there, whether you’re possessed or they’re possessed, really doesn’t matter. You want to get to the bottom of that. So it doesn’t happen again. Right? You don’t want to, you don’t want it to keep happening. That’s no good. So what do you, you know, how do you interface with that? Like, how do you, you know, how do you recognize that? And this is part of this subject object balance that you need to maintain that, you know, strangely again, maps to intuitive knowledge, right? Which is more subjective, right? Versus say the concrete type knowledge, which is more objective, right? Where you’re disconnected from things, right? You’re trying to play that middle ground, that objective material reality ground where you, where things relating to you are objects because you’re not related to that in essence, right? So you’re trying to cast an area where you’re not related and therefore that’s an object. Whereas the other way around is maybe you’re related to everything and now you can’t, you’re paralyzed, you can’t make change because you don’t know what connections you’re, you’re changing, right? And both are important aspects. Yeah, so what I heard is that there’s people, they’re in emotion, right? And then in some sense, they’re still in that emotion when they do the reflection, right? Like that’s still holding them and then there’s still this element of objectification, right? And then you can just imagine like, oh, like I’m not the person who does this, right? Or like people say this all the time, my child would never do this, right? So there’s this identity that where people are like, yeah, I’m not this person and therefore the problem has to be at the other person. And the reasonable thing that would have made me respond in this way would be this, right? And then that’s the thing that they say. And then like, and you can see, right? Like the way that I described that, right? Like it was all in relationship, right? It wasn’t in what actually happened, right? It was like, okay, like if I am like this and these conditions and that, then we get there. And this is again, going back to what we started with, right? Like this is this language of relation, right? Like where you’re using the way of relating to describe what happened, right? Like an actual thing, a description of the state. And that’s the confusion of these two levels, right? Like you’re confusing, like, okay, this is the way in which I participated with, this is what happened. And to have the recognition that when you participate in something, especially if we’re getting emotional, right? Like if it gets intense, then we lose the awareness of the actuality, right? Like what is happening, right? Like what is manifest? Like I’ve been having drunk drives on my bicycle back home, but then I’m like, how did I get here, right? Like, I’m missing a piece. Like, I’m not aware of how time progressed between where I am and where I was. And it’s like, yeah, like sometimes we’re unable to keep the mental awareness of how things are rolling out. And that’s not necessarily bad, right? Like, because effectively what it means is we use all of this cognitive capacity that is limited to participate in the moment, right? And like, if you’re threatened, like, yes, maybe you shouldn’t be thinking about, oh, like there’s a tree there. And like, there was like a nice sun coming from the right, like that’s all information that’s not relevant because you have to deal with the threat in front of you. That’s kind of like relating to the motivation, right? And then, well, the question is, well, like, how do you want to deal with it? Well, like, first of all, like you want to recognize that it’s happening, right? And I do think that when it is happening, you have a moral obligation to make the other person realize, like, yes, like, there’s something wrong in the way that you understand what happened. And maybe, not maybe, probably that moment is not the moment to resolve that, right? Because they’re still in that emotional state. But it is important, right? Because if we don’t start correcting people on their misinterpretations of what is going on, then they will literally start deluding themselves, right? Like they start generating a false self-image, and that’s horrible. Right. No, that’s good. Also, so when you’re going through your description, I’m thinking, oh, yeah, so you’re doing something, you’re in the moment, you’re participating in the world in some way, and you lose chunks of time, but you get to your destination. That’s a description of a flow state. So the description of flow state and the description of a state of drunken bicycling, or any kind of drunken activity, where you have an end result, you don’t remember the middle is the same. So if you want to rely on flow state, for goodness, because it doesn’t sound like it’s only good. It sounds like it can be very bad. And I think that’s part of the issue is that there’s a way in which we are relating, or we understand the goal of the interaction to be relating in a way. And so we’re like, oh, no, I want to have a good relation with this person, right? So one of the ways this manifests is, you know, when John Breveke and Jordan Peterson did their first talk, right? Well, we want to manifest Phyla Sophia, not Phyla Nikea. It’s like, wait, are you sure? Because, well, I know what you’re talking about. Because I mean, in that particular conversation that they had on YouTube, a lot of people didn’t know what they were talking about. So is that good? I mean, I think I followed a good part of it. I did an eight part series, probably 16 hours with Karen Wong on the meeting code about it, which is great fun. But 16 hours for a two-hour conversation, just to break it down and kind of try to understand some of it, maybe not even all of it. So that’s kind of a big bar. That’s a high bar. Because they’re in the flow state. By their own admission, both manner. Oh, we’re in the flow state. Can anybody follow you in that flow state? Are you able to do the language of coaching or teaching or the language of explanation in either case? Because I don’t know. Like maybe, but it didn’t look like that to me. It looked like it took a lot of knowledge and time, energy, and effort to follow some of that conversation. And I will admit, I didn’t follow all of it. I don’t think Karen Wong followed all of it either. And we’re both pretty well versed in both men. So what is that about? Well, they’re having a relationship with each other that I cannot have in that moment. And even if I watch it, there’s a missing component. And maybe I see the spirit of it at times. I glimpse the spirit that they’re invoking in the conversation. Fair enough. I think that happened. I’ll make that claim. You can watch the eight part series and decide for yourself if you want. But if you’re assuming that there’s a way to have a good relationship with somebody, and define good as no conflict, for example, you’re going to be in for some disappointment in life. Because that may not be possible. And you may have to have the conflict and go through the difficult times and be hurt and hurt the other person in order for you both to grow. Because I think that might be necessary for growth, is the argument, is the conflict, and the resolution. You got to have a resolution. And people often seek that end result without realizing that they didn’t get the end result. And they’re trying to justify why that didn’t happen and put that responsibility solely on the other person. Yeah. So your description of watching this conversation is like, okay, so there’s two men, and they’re having intimacy. And part of that intimacy is that they’re relating. So they’re in relationship. And when you’re the third party watching, you don’t have the participation that they’re having. And that participation is bringing something of themselves in there that is shaping what is occurring. And because you cannot bring something, well, you can bring something of yourself in that to shape what is occurring. Because that’s how you watch. You’re connecting what they’re saying to the information that is inside of you. But you don’t have the same thing. Because they’re shaping it based on what’s inside of them. But you can’t shape it based on what is inside of you, because it’s already happened. It’s already actual. You don’t have levers to pull to change what is going. So the intimacy that you can have when participating as an observer is severely limited. And in some sense, that’s good. You don’t want to participate in an MMA fight. You want to observe it. There’s benefits to not being in the ring. I don’t want to be in Jonathan Favakie’s head, because I don’t want to read all these books that he’s read. I really don’t. And the fact that he’s able to condense that knowledge into something that he can communicate and express in a condensed way is really valuable to me. So there’s all of these aspects where there’s benefits. But there’s also the aspect of, I have not read these books, so I cannot have the relationship that John is expressing in that moment. So there’s this trade-off. And that is important. And maybe I’ll go this into, well, it’s important to participate in things in life. Because if you’re just observing, you’re missing out. You’re not bringing yourself in, so you’re not able to grab out of it what you would be able to grab out of it if you were bringing yourself in. So the communion, the coming together of these spirits and participating with these spirits is going to open up reality in profound ways. And so yeah, that’s a call to action, I guess, to the people watching. If you’re just lurking in these videos, that’s different than going into the comments section and asking a question or sharing things and getting feedback or talking to other people about what you heard. That process, we think, is really important for you to develop the understanding that is just beyond exposure to the ideas. Right. So the exposure is important. We’re not saying don’t expose yourself to ideas. We’re doing a video. Let’s be realistic. We’re not saying don’t watch the video, especially all my videos, because you should watch all my videos. I can confirm that. Minus one. Minus one. No. So what we are saying is in order to gain that relationship, that connection, that intimacy, you should interact. So you should leave comments. You should ask questions. You should be critical. All of those are perfectly allowed. Right. And you may not get engagement. That’s possible, but unlikely, because I’d rather like to engage. I’m rather disagreeable, much like Manuel. And so doing that helps you to engage in other areas as well. Right. Like a lot of people, especially when I was online a lot more, we’ll say in different forums and such, a lot of people were online because they had poor social skills. The way they developed social skills was talking online, and then they could go outside and talk to people outside, too. This was not a hidden secret. It wasn’t under the surface. Everyone knew that’s what was going on and talked about it rather openly. Oh, I have social anxiety, and therefore, and you see that on the Discord server nowadays. I have a lot of social anxiety. All right. Well, let us help you with that, right? Because Discord can help you with social anxiety. The technology can. It won’t by default. It just doesn’t do that to you magically. That’s not how that works. Technology is not ruling you. Right. The spirit of wanting to engage in a richer, more intimate environment outside of your computer is the thing that drives you to steer the technology to help you to do that. And that’s really important, knowing where the driver is, where the motivating force is. Technology is not the motivating force. Technology is not the thing that is the process that makes you do things. That comes from your will. That comes from your desire. That comes from your passions. That comes from inside of you, your emotional valence. And then you use the technology, because technology is just a tool, to manifest that. And then you can engage more and more. And it is the engagement that’s unique and important. So yeah, seeing things in the world, engaging with videos. I watch a lot of videos, maybe a few too many, encourages you. So if I watch a video on Robert Murray Smith’s channel, it’s got a great channel. Maybe I go, oh, you know what? I want to play with magnets today and see if I can generate power. Or whatever it is. Maybe I want to build a battery. I buy all the stuff and build a battery. There’s all kinds of ways to engage in that fashion that are actually super important. And it’s the type of engagement that sets you up in the realm of intimacy. What kind of deep connection can you have with something? What kind of affordance is there to connect to, to be intimate with? Whether it’s a thing or a person, it doesn’t really matter. Because again, there’s a big difference between random mug and the mug that my grandfather gave me. There’s a difference in intimacy there. It’s a quality difference, not a quantity difference. Still talking about one mug. What makes one mug better than another mug? Well, some of it is the quality. How mug-like is it? How easy is it to hold? Did it come from your grandfather? Was it used by some famous person? All of these things are re-enchantments. And the way we understand intimacy is through contrast. Because we have to realize, oh, there’s me and something else, and they’re different. This is where the individualization helps, that the objective idea helps. There’s a difference between us. But then we need to go subjective, find the affordance to how to bridge the gap. How do we connect to that thing? How do we get this connection? Because I want to reduce the contrast, because that brings down my anxiety, roughly speaking. Yeah. I was in church today, and I had this profound feeling that there was something missing. And then I was like, oh, I can bring this to the table. So I was sensing this lack, right, or this affordance that wasn’t filled. And I was like, I can do that. And I was like, oh, so then I had to decide, do I want to live up to this call, or am I not going to do this? And then I was like, well, if I’m not going to do it, how is it going to happen? And then I was like, okay, so I guess I’ll have to do it. So I’m telling you this, because this is my experience of things don’t happen in the world unless you make them happen. And that just became really real to me in that moment. And that just called out to me. And you maybe don’t have to do that in relationship to other people and their needs, but you should be doing that in relationship to your own needs. If you feel the need to gain better understanding because you’re lost, you should participate in ways where you can generate the grounding that allows you to feel secure to act in the world. Yeah, so I wanted to connect back to what you said, because you opened the door, Mark, but I lost the thread. So I’ll do it back. You lost the thread. That happens in DLN goes. Yeah, so there’s this idea of contrast and connection and object versus subject where subject, you’re trying to find a way to find an importance. But in object, you’re trying to relinquish all connection or deny all connection. And when we stay on the deny all connection side, it’s no good, but we need the deny all connection side to have distinction, to make a difference. And then the question is, well, how does that tie into connectedness? Well, what kind of connections can you have and how deep can you make them? And this goes back to this, well, there’s a contrast that we created through objecting, through objectification. We’ve created the contrast, a difference, a distinction, and then there’s the subjective. How do we subject ourselves to it or to an aspect of it? Or how can we subject it to us? Because that’s two aspects of subject, and they’re directional based on, are we subjecting ourselves or are we subjecting it? So that’s the way you build connection and intimacy. And then the contrast is tied up around, well, how do we know, how do we make sense of, how do we orient in a way that the contrast and the connection make sense? And I think that really ties back to this idea of a container. The container supplies us with additional contrast. It supplies us with an orientation to the object in a way that we can either be subject to it or subject it to us. And that’s really the key is this idea of the container. Containers have boundaries. It has edges, and it probably has some way of orienting with respect, not just to the edges of the container, the sides of the container, but also with respect to some ideal. And one ideal might be the good. And maybe you don’t know the good, but at least having an idea of the good and a container for the good lets you understand better. Yeah. So the container, to take it back to my story, so how could I see that something was necessary? Where do I base that on? That’s some crazy idea. But that’s what the container is. The container is like we’re all together in this place to participate in a certain way. And in order to participate in a certain way, certain things are necessary. So now I can organize what is happening with inside of me, my experience, but also in relation to the people around me. And I can observe the holes. I can see okay, something could be more here. And something could be more here. And maybe I don’t have the tools to relate to the here, but the first one, I can participate in. And then what happens, right, if everybody starts acting that way within that container, they start filling up the holes that they can fill up, and everything becomes better. There’s something that is manifesting. As a consequence of the container, that allows all the people to orient within the same conditions. They’re contributing to the same project. They’re not contributing in the same way. They don’t have to have the same skills. But everybody is able to facilitate what needs to be occurring in the moment. And the thing that allows that to happen is the container and this shared arena that everybody’s in. And yes, so that also gives you the grounding, right? Like, okay, do you feel lost in life? Well, maybe that’s because you’re not in a container, right? Like, you don’t have a structure which in your participation in the world makes sense. So you’re lost, right? Like, you don’t have a home. Like, that’s domicile. And you need to construct that container, right? And you need to accept it, right? Like, you need to be subjected to the container, right? So that you can make the container a subject in your actions. So there’s this reciprocal nature where you develop intimacy with your container, where you know how to express yourself within the container and how the container affects you. And there’s plenty of people like that come up to me and they start talking and they say, well, like when I’m in an environment where I know what the rules are, I can be social with people. But when those rules disappear, I don’t know what to do. And well, what is it? Well, there’s the externality providing the container for your actions. But like when that container disappears, you don’t have your own container to continue participating and to continue generating the things, right? Like the way that you could offer things to people and the way that you can be receptive to the way that they’re offering things to you. And that’s a skill, right? Like, that’s a thing that you have to generate through participation and through experience. And to take it back to this idea of contrast, right? Like you are able to find distinctions, right? That aren’t there if you’re not relating to the world in that way. So you need to have the awareness of like what you’re doing. You need to construct a purpose, right? Like a reason for being in the situation. That allows you to say, well, like I’m here to pick up girls, right? Like, okay, well, that’s a reason to talk to a girl, right? Like, if you need a reason to talk to a girl, well, that’s one. Like, and if you’re not going to talk to a girl, like, you’re not going to fulfill the reason for actually being there. So like, then you might as well not be there, right? So then you have a decision to make, like, am I going to stay and actually do it? Or am I going to leave? Or am I going to be a hippo? Right? Like that’s also an option. So yeah, that’s kind of how you can deal with that. Yeah, I like what you were saying. So one of the things it looks like the container does is afford you the possibility to find holes, right? Which are really just potential. And potential in relation to the boundaries of the container. Maybe you can’t see all the boundaries of the container, but you can infer it from how other people are behaving who are closer to those boundaries. Right? And so, yeah, it doesn’t require you, it allows you to drop the requirement for seeing the world with the same perspective as other people. Because you all have the same goal in a container, in the same container. And that’s why these containers matter. But there’s this concept that we’ve been thrown around with, which I’m jokingly calling the Jesus container, right? That large container for the world. Why? Because your communities need to be set in a container themselves. Because those containers that aren’t what we call communities, which are very important and absolutely necessary, can’t self-correct. And they can’t be judged easily and clearly without being in a container themselves. Now that container should be wide open, obviously, but I think Jesus container is wide open, roughly speaking. And that’s really important that we have these wide open, larger containers. How do you meet the world? Like Jesus, right? How do you meet the world? Like Buddha? How do you meet the world? Right? There’s all sorts of formulations, right? And that’s the thing. That’s what religions, roughly speaking, provide, is they provide the super large container for you to know the general aspect of how to meet the world and to come to terms with the fact that when you meet the world or when the world meets you, things are going to happen and they’re out of your control largely. And there’s a limited amount of control you have over some things, but you don’t have control over everything, or most of anything really. And then how do you deal with it when that goes horribly wrong? Well, this is what the larger, say, religious container actually provides you. And if you don’t have one, you will feel domiciled, you will feel lost, you will feel untethered, unable to orient in the world, and a religion or religious-like structure will be provided to you. And you won’t be aware of it. You’ll just act it out. Because we have to have this ability to orient, but we’re lost. This is the awe and horror thing again, right? Infinite potential without boundaries is horror because you have nothing to connect to. There’s no intimacy there. There can’t be any intimacy. There’s no possibility of intimacy in an open world with no boundaries. There’s no possibility whatsoever. And so that’s horrible. That’s horror. I’m all alone in the world, and I’m so far away from everything else that I can’t even find it. And then even if I did and I connected to it, how would I know if that connection were good or bad? I don’t have any boundaries, any container that can show me, no, this is too far. No, no, that’s not far enough. No, no, you need to move towards the good, right? Or towards the furthering of the container even, right? There’s no, that data is not there. So that’s why it’s important to have these containers, multiple containers, in relation to one another, in a relation that you yourself understand so that they can self-correct. Or if they blow up, as they often do, you can get into a similar enough container that you’re not losing all that much. There’s still a loss, it’s still horrible, it can still be traumatic, but you’re not losing all that much because you have that larger container that’s still holding you. Yeah, so there’s another condition, right, where you don’t have this open container where you’re in horror, but you just reduce the container to the parts that you control, right? And then you retreat from the world, right? You effectively become dependent upon- Reciprocate narrow. Yeah, it’s reciprocally narrowing, yeah, and you’re dependent upon other people because they’re facilitating you in your existence, right? And like, you either might be on welfare or you might like just do your job with your like hat down, like closed off from everybody around you, right? There’s ways that you can fill that in, but like that’s no way to be in the world, right? Like that’s the people that don’t want to be in the world. And so yeah, like either of these things is not an option. Like you can’t walk into the world in horror and you can’t make the world so small that you can only have to deal with things under your control, which are going to be material objects, right? Like you’re going to end up like having a relationship with things that you can control, right? Or you might be like, oh yeah, my computer, that’s the thing that I can control, right? And then you end up like playing computer games and then you’re like, yeah, but these people, like even when they’re on the computer, they’re still horrible. Like, so I’m just going to play that game against the computer because the computer isn’t horrible because like I know and I can predict what the computer is going to do. And these people, these are way too complex, right? So what are you doing? Well, you’re reducing everything to an object, right? And the things that are persons, right? The things that have this subjective reciprocal relationship with you need to be excluded from your reality in order to maintain your own identity, your own consistency, right? So you need to in some way get the freedom, right? Like to have this internal consistency and the participation in the world, right? And then this biggest container, right? Like where you effectively establish the way that you can be in relationship with the world is the thing that allows you to hold back, right? Without them needing to be in any tension or whatever, right? Like people, sometimes people like create like two identities, right? Like, ooh, this is me when I’m at home and then this is me when I’m with people or whatever, right? Like, so they’re holding this tension and there’s there this hypocrisy like in the Greek tragedies, they had these masks on, right? And these masks were the way that they presented themselves to the public, right? But then behind the mask was an actor, right? And the identity of the actor and the identity of what they were acting out were different, right? And Jung talked about this, right? This is what the persona is. And then the ego is the thing that is behind the persona that’s informing the persona. If we don’t have these things in right relationship, then we get horribly twisted inside, right? Because in some sense, like we’re perverting ourselves in order to be socially accepted. Yeah, that’s also bad. Yeah, yeah, I know. I like that. There’s a lot sort of wrapped up in there. I think, yeah, when we try to oversimplify the world to avoid conflict, for example, right, we’re trying to shrink down to one identity, because one identity is more manageable than multiple identities. And, you know, we’re trying to avoid conflict. And the problem is, when you avoid conflict, now you don’t know how to conflict. And the odds that you’re going to be able to never conflict are pretty much zero. And so you’re really depriving yourself of the skills of conflict as such by doing that. And then once you’ve deprived yourself of those skills, now you have a problem. And that problem really is serious, because you need those skills to survive in the world. Like you cannot get along without the skill of managing conflict, even though it’s painful, and it sucks. And conflict is also, again, how we transform. And, you know, you can talk about feeling good after a flow state. That’s fine. I don’t think flow states are transformative past the event. That’s why you lose your memory of what happened, right, because you’re just doing stuff, and you don’t need to memorize it, because it’s stuff you in some sense already know, but are also learning at the same time, right? You’re right on the edge. Sure, maybe, maybe, that’s what’s happening. But you’re not. I am on the edge, because I never drive drunk. But you can see the way in which you can confuse a flow state, a good feeling, this sense of oneness with whatever you’re doing, right? It fades you into the background. You fade into the background. You become fully intimate and connected with the event such that the passage of time itself is not a concern, right? It’s not an issue. It’s not a consideration. And the problem with that is that you’re not transforming. You may be transformed in that action, but you’re not transforming through time. You’re just transformed. You’re having a profound experience, but it’s not necessarily affording you better and bigger. I mean, it may make you a better rock climber or a better driver if you’re driving that way or whatever it is, whatever task you’re engaged in, like programming, another flow state, gaming, another flow state, may make you better at those things, but it doesn’t necessarily make you a better person, right? So just because I become better at using a hammer doesn’t mean I won’t use it to kill somebody. Those two things are orthogonal, right? They’re not connected. They have no relationship. And one would argue being better at using a hammer increases your ability to kill somebody with a hammer. Oh, yes, it does. That is true. So it’s not sort of valence in the right direction. It’s not pointing in the right direction. And so that’s a problem is that you could be enabling a transformation that’s bad through flow state, but you’re not transforming through the flow state. Those are different things. Transformation requires the destruction of who and what you are, at least in whole or at least in part, and a reconstruction into a more efficient or more affordant, right, a place with more ability to connect way with the world. And so what does that mean? Well, that means that you have to take yourself apart or destroy a part of yourself, burn off the deadwood, as Peterson would say. Hopefully in an environment where you have support from other people, because they can tell you, yes, you’re doing good or no, you’re doing bad. They could say, yes, you’re aimed at the right thing or no, this is a bad transformation to make, right? And when you’re making the transformation, they can lend you their agency so that you don’t have to try and do that alone because knocking out the foundation of what you’ve built this far in your life, even partially, is dangerous. And the number of people that can do it themselves is vanishingly small. Like, are you the Buddha? Because I don’t think I’m the Buddha. So maybe I want to be careful with that. Maybe I want some help with that. Maybe I need people around me in case I need help with that, right? And maybe they can give me advice or point me in a direction or tell me what they see that I don’t see because there’s always stuff I don’t see, always. So it’s handy to have those other perspectives. And then I can go through this transformation. And again, within a container, the container helps. It helps other people to cooperate with me by virtue of being in the container. It helps me to point towards whatever the container is pointing towards. And it helps me orient within the container with the contrast. And that helps me have intimate connections with the other people, all of which I think is required. That support network, that structure is required. You can’t just transform with the help of one other person, for example. You need at least a container to do that with. Yeah. So when you’re talking about this flow state, you’re effectively saying you have the flow state within a container. So you’re developing skills in relationship to that container. And if you don’t have a way to extract these skills into a bigger container that can emanate from it into other containers or new containers that you form, you’re basically segregating the skill set. And so the thing that we talk about with this poetic way of knowing or this participation thing, it’s like there’s these universals. So when we connect the skill to the universal, there’s this translation capacity to all these other domains where we are having self-expression, where we can have the skill of this site not expressed in the same way, because there’s a reason that they’re different containers. But you can express it in a different way so that you’re able to get these fundamental relationships. So a way to think about this is the wax on, wax off. So there’s this thing where you’re in the cleaning container or in the painting container or whatever you want to do. And then you’re doing the cleaning, but you’re also doing the physical movement. And then what effectively is being relied upon is that this motor control and this insight that I have when doing this physical activity is transferred to the fighting capacity. And then I can use that to block things. Like I have easier access to that physical movement as a reflexive measure. Because now it’s integrated in my bodily awareness. So the body is also contained. The body also holds information. Like Edgar Tuller talks about, it’s like the body keeps score. There’s all of these things that are stored in your body. And this is a thing that you kind of unlock with meditation or things like yoga and Tai Chi and karate. And yes, there’s all of these ways where you can have this connectedness. Where you can see, well, okay, this physical movement is not happening in just one aspect of my life, but it might be happening in multiple aspects of my life. And maybe I can gain awareness of that I have this movement and then I can look in other containers to apply that movement. And when we start thinking and relating to the world in that way, it just opens up in front of me. Right. And that was what John Bravik, you talked about when you talked about exaptation. Where you have a skill like moving your tongue to help you eat and then suddenly you can use it to speak. It’s like, oh yeah, because we’re using the basic skills of the tongue and making them do something they weren’t say necessarily originally doing. And part of exaptation is taking skills from one arena or container and putting them in another one and getting a different result. Right. And that’s what you’re describing there. Right. So yeah. The whole karate kid, the original movie, where he’s wax on, wax off and paint the fence. Right. Why? Because yeah, you’re going to move your hand the whole way. Right. You got to do this and then this and then this and then this. Because that’s it. And that’s something you’re practicing in karate. You know, you have to do that and you have to do that because that skill is a skill that exaps into defense specifically. And some defensive skills adapt into offense, but most of them are defense. But also they get closer to the course, core movement skills. Right. And there’s a bunch of core movement skills that once you have them, you can run quicker. Right. You can run differently because there’s different ways of running, actually. Right. You can walk differently. Which gives you the ability to sprint and do long distance running. There aren’t too many people that can do it, but there are some people that can do that. And that’s because they know the difference between one type of running and the other. It’s not simply stamina, by the way. There’s actual different ways of movement that are evident. And so being able to exact things to fit different containers is really important. And it’s one of those weird things, that particular karate kid movie, where everybody loves it, but nobody can identify what is so appealing about it exactly. Right. Because it’s more than just the archetypal story. And I think it’s not just the archetypal story, the archetypal patterns, but it’s this intelligibility that we sense in the lesson. So the lesson is paint the facts. The lesson is wax on, wax off on the car. Right. The lesson is, you know, stand here, right, on one foot or whatever. These are all lessons. Right. There’s a whole bunch of balance lessons. Right. These are all lessons. Okay. But those lessons apply all over the place in places you don’t expect. You can use them to paint a fence. You can use them to block a punch. Right. You can use them to put wax on and take wax off of the car. You can use them to block a punch. You can use your balance to kick. You can use your balance to move more quickly out of the way. Right. You can use your balance to increase your thrust and your punch style. You can use your balance to redirect. Right. And so having different aspects of balance is really important. It’s the same way that we ride a bike. And then, you know, there’s a way in which you can describe how to ride a bike to somebody. But if I tell you, okay, what you do when you get on the bike is balance. Okay. That’s absurd. Everybody knows what balance is, telling someone to balance doesn’t help them to balance. The only way you can know to balance is by doing it. And it’s harder on a bike because you’re moving the pedals and you’re rocking side to side. When you’re doing that, you’re rocking forward and backwards because pedals are round. And, you know, so there’s all these ways in which you have to learn how to do that. And then you’ll notice younger kids on bikes, the bikes all over the place, right? It moves like this and they’re kind of wobbly. It doesn’t go exactly straight. And as they get better at the balance, the efficiency increases and they improve in their skill and then they expend less energy. And then they’re able to bike longer. Right. All of these are exaptations because we know how to balance. We just don’t know how to balance on a bike. Right. And then once you know how to balance on a bike, you might know how to balance, you know, standing on an upright pillar or something. Right. And then when you know how to do that, you might realize how to balance by jumping up in the air and switching feet and balancing on the other foot, which I can’t do anymore, but I used to be able to do. So you can see these exaptations happen everywhere in different containers. And so there’s a thread of intelligibility that is irrespective of the container in some way. It doesn’t work in all containers, but it works in more than one container. And that is intelligibility as such. That’s that golden thread. I think that Peterson was talking about with Verveki in their first conversation. There’s that golden thread there of intelligibility, of the ability to notice the connectedness, the way in which things are the same, the exaptation of the skill such that the skill is valuable, not just where you learned it, but also in other places where you didn’t learn it. Yeah. And what is making this connection? Right. Like making this connection is an insight. It literally is described as a light bulb flashing through, right? Like the sensation of awe. It’s like, oh, yeah. Wow. Like I didn’t see that before. Right. And then the seeing of it allows you to realize that, oh, I could be in a bunch of different ways. Right. Like it opens up this potential space. Then I want to take it a step further. So you have the wax on, wax off, and then you have the balance, and then you have all the other things. At a certain point, and this takes a lot of time and effort, but at a certain point, you have all of these ways of understanding, and then the intelligibility grows into the connected framework. It’s no longer just in the one activity, but it’s in the relationships of the activity and the participation in the relationship of the art activity. And then it becomes like a net. Right. And it gets integrity. Right. Like it gets an internal structure. Right. And in some sense, it is a container. Right. Like that is containing you. Right. Like that structure is a thing that you can build your housing. Right. Because you take it with you. Right. Like it’s always there. Like it’s always present to you. It’s stable. It’s safe. And then you can imagine. Right. Like, okay. So you have these things which are like direct implications, and then you have implications of implications, and then you start building up. Right. Like you build something. That can reach higher. Reach higher. Right. And then when John Favek talks to these parkour people and stuff like that, right. Like they’re inventing things. Right. They’re literally inventing things that, well, maybe never happened. Right. Or like we’re in really strange traditions that like we don’t have direct relationship with anymore. Right. So there is this thing where you’re like, you’re opening this space for yourself, and you’re seeing this thing that other people literally can’t see. Right. Like they don’t have the capacity to relate to what you’re relating to. And sometimes that makes you special. Sometimes it also makes you lonely because like if you’re the only one that is relating to that space, like you can’t connect it to other people. But maybe you can do something with it. Right. Like you can produce something with it, and you can share that. Right. And then this is like the hero’s journey. Right. Like you’ve achieved this thing in the world. Right. And now you bring it back to the community so that it can integrate it, gather it. Right. Like I use it to become a better world. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And I think too, the reason why this intelligibility is important, this connectedness, this is exaptation, this sense that you’re getting a skill that is in some sense, a skill of skills, right, where it’s not just useful in one container, but it’s useful in many containers, is the thing that allows you to approach potential in awe. Because you’re still connected, and you know there’s a way to connect something new to the things you already know. And you know that you may learn something new in the potential that you can connect back to the things you already know. Right. There’s that subject in both senses, right, where I’m subject to this thing, and this thing is subject to me. Right. And that’s what makes a good relationship, is the idea that you’re going to subject these things to me. Right. And I’m going to subject these things of myself to you. And that makes for a stronger, more intimate connection. Right. Because you have an understanding. Maybe it’s an implicit understanding. Right. It doesn’t have to be explicit. It doesn’t have to be like, we’re doing this and you’re doing that. I’m doing this. Right. But it’s there. And it’s part of a dance. And that dance is part of the intelligibility. Because you have this relation to another person or another thing. Right. And that relation is connected through this golden thread of intelligibility. Right. And that is what gives you the safety and lowers your anxiety so that you can interact in the world. And I think that is one of the keys to, you know, I’ve talked about this before, right, where we have this meditation practice. We’re doing it almost two years now. Something in that range. And you know, we have this after chat in the meditation. And the after chat in the meditation, somehow, some way, everything that everyone says makes absolutely no sense. Any possible context. And yet we all know what we’re talking about. And I don’t know. I don’t know how to explain that. But I still claim that’s what’s happening. It’s a very weird thing. Right. But that’s that golden thread of intelligibility. Partly because we have a container of meditation. We have a container of personal meditative journey along with long term wisdom journey. Right. That’s very enriching to us as individuals. And that’s really key is that we can be enriched by our shared container or enriched in our shared container on our shared journey, not in the container, but in the wider world. Like a meditation container, a sangha in some sense is a throwaway container. It’s just people getting together and meditating. Right. But in some sense, it’s providing a level of intelligibility with yourself and with others in connection, in relationship that gives you this golden thread with the ability to sense the golden thread all throughout your life. And it transforms you very slowly. There’s different aspects of transformation is a very slow transformation, right. That ties things together that you couldn’t tie together without this experience. And it goes much better when you do it in a group or when you have a group to do it with, to do it with, and then discuss afterwards. And the reason why is because you’re getting multiple perspectives on the same experience, roughly speaking, within a container. And so that’s the importance of the container. And that’s the way in which we make intelligibility by contrasting these containers and saying, oh, wait, there’s a golden thread between these containers. What’s that about? Yeah. So what you just laid out is like a precondition for ethics. Right. So you have this structure with this integrity. Right. And now you have this relationship to the whore, right. Or the positive version of whore. Right. And when you’re in relationship to that, right, you have this integrity inside of yourself, right. Like you can have discernment, right. Like independent of what you’re relating to. Right. So is this conforming or relating to my internal structure? Right. Like does it have a way to interface with that or doesn’t it? Right. That gives you a sense to reject or accept a connection. Right. And if you don’t have the capacity to reject or accept connections, then yeah, like you don’t know what to do. But if you do have that capacity, then certainly you have a valid way to judge things, right. Like instead of just, ooh, that makes me feel bad. Right. Like that’s not a good way. Right. Like you don’t want to feel bad. Like that’s not a valid way to make a judgment about a thing because that’s just a personal opinion. Right. And this is the thing that people always complain about. Just your opinions. No, no, no. There’s a way of being where it’s more than an opinion. Right. And like it might not be an absolute truth, but like it’s closer to it. And then, well, like when you start finding that thread, right. Like so now the thread is a thing that extends the integrity across time. Right. So when we get the capacity to extend that integrity through time, we get another dimension. Right. And now like, now our discernment of good and bad is going to be even more stable and reliable. Right. And now we have, we actually have something, if you can maintain your integrity, right. Like that you can judge other people. Right. Like, yeah, you shouldn’t be doing that because like my experiences have taught me that like if you’re doing that, then this happens. Right. So you have this authority that’s not just your mere opinion that you can appeal to in order to convince people. And that’s really, really important to realize that such a thing exists and that you can gather that or develop that for your own. And also that you need to do that in relation to other people. Hopefully people who already have gone through that process, right. Because like they know where you’re missing out and where you’re good. Right. Like, yeah, I keep on going there. And yeah. So you need to seek out a place where people are gathering to do that. And they want to assist you in going through that process. Yeah. I like this idea of opinion. Right. So there’s a couple of ways, right. So an opinion is something like, oh, you’re just being purely subjective. Right. But there’s a way in which if you are a participant, if you’re participating, you’re not being purely subjective anymore. Right. And so that’s not the same thing because opinions are purely propositional. Right. That’s what people are appealing to. But, you know, so how do you know that? That’s just your opinion. No, no, I know that because I did that. Oh, well, that’s different. Now it’s not my opinion, something I experienced. And that is the difference between we’ll say raw opinion and actual experience. And if you don’t recognize that difference, then there’s a problem. Right. There’s a problem with you. Right. Or the other person, whoever doesn’t recognize the difference between an opinion, which is just a proposition with no experience backing it, no, no intuition of, of, of participation. Right. It’s just, oh, I’m asserting this. It’s like, okay, you know, and maybe your assertion is logical, but maybe it’s not correct because that happens a lot where you can make an assertion and the assertion is not in relation to anything important. Right. And so, yeah, that might be true, right. It might be a hammer is a thing for banging nails, but it’s also a murder weapon. All right. In this particular case. So you can make the assertion that no, the hammer can’t be a murder weapon because it’s always a thing that bangs nails, but that doesn’t help you when someone’s dead by hammer. Right. And so that is just an opinion, right. There isn’t an objective fact of hammers are tools that bang nails, but there is an experience of hammers as murder weapons. And so that’s not merely an opinion, right. Or it’s not an opinion of the type of hammers are only for banging nails, because that’s just a propositional assertion with no recognition of the potential of a hammer. And that’s the problem. Things have potential, which means they have multiple uses, multiple identities, which means there’s conflict. So every object has a conflict within itself in the relations it can have or affordances it can have in the world. And if we don’t know how to manage that, and that I think to your point is the realm of ethics, we’re in a lot of trouble. We really will get to solipsism and nihilism and fall into despair and depression. Yeah, but the good part that there is a solution. The bad part is that, well, it’s likely that you might not have it or you might have a limited version of it. Or you’re rejected. Yeah, or you’re rejected. So you don’t want to deal with that part of reality. So what does it mean? One thing it means is that you have to start paying attention to that aspect. That’s the first step. You are a body being. I assume that you’re actually using your body. You already have a set of these skills that did accept. So there is a grounding. Maybe it’s not sufficient for an adult life, but it was for you when you were a child. So something happened there. And you can expand that. And there is this opportunity to get to a stage where you have this internal integrity. And yeah, this integrity, it is felt, but it’s also in a container. The feeling needs to connect to the world. It needs to have an interface where you can translate what is inside of you to what does it mean? How does that inform my action in the world? So that means that you need a worldview. You need something to hold these things, to contextualize them, to explain them to people, to explain yourself to people. And that needs to be a shared context. It needs to be a system where the intelligibility that you’re trying to communicate is able to be received by other people. So you need to figure out, so now I have this truth inside of me. I don’t know how to give words to it. If you go back to the start, it’s the language of, well, when I do this, then kaboom, kaboosh, kabam, and then magic happens. But it means something. It conveys something, and you need to find a way to express it, or at least the conviction that you get as a consequence of that awareness. Well, then I like this idea of container as validation. So it’s also the way that you move, the thing you exact into, your skills. You take your skills into the new container. But it’s also the validation that something works. It doesn’t have to work in all containers. It has to work in enough containers to make it useful. But then that validates it as more than mere opinion, because things happen in containers, in arenas, and that’s how you evaluate the participation. And that’s the big difference is that there’s a way in which opinion is proposition, but there’s a way in which what you know can be participation. That’s not mere opinion, because it’s experiential. It’s something that happened that you can refer to that was validated by the fact of its existence, or it’s coming into existence. And I think that’s really important. I think that’s actually a good note to sort of end things on, Manuel. What do you think? You want to land the plane here? Well, yeah, I think we’ve experienced enough. Yeah, so I do want to do the call out, right? Start participating in whatever way you can, right? We hang out on Discord, so talk to us, or find other ways of communicating to your friends, or family, or whatever you deem appropriate. Yeah, yeah. Find containers to communicate within and participate within, and find containers that help you contrast in the world, and make sense of the world, and put you in places where you can participate. And don’t be upset if there are containers where other people can participate, but you can’t, because everyone’s got limitations, and everyone’s on a journey, and we’re not all ready to participate in the largest possible container, or some particular container, you know, whatever it is. And seek the participation, but seek the participation in a container that allows you for long-term validation of your activity. And that, I think, is really the key. And I just want to encourage you all, everybody watching, to continue to participate with this. Leave comments, right? That’s one form of participation. Join us on Awakening from the Meaning Crisis Discord, or Bridges of Meaning Discord. And then I’ve got my Mark of Wisdom Discord. We’re usually on one of those three servers fairly often, and willing to talk to people, and interface with them, and participate in whatever limited fashion you can on Discord. And look, thank you for watching, and for giving up your time and attention.