Have you ever peeled back the layers of a Necco wafer, finding its simplicity cloaked in nostalgia? That's how Noah described his personal eureka moment during our Jungian word association exercise, leading us into a discussion that transcends the confectionary. We wove through whimsical debates and metaphors, contemplating how our roles in family, career, and society inform our identity and understanding of the world. The episode is a tapestry of insights, highlighting the contextual nature of meaning and how intertwined it is with the many hats we wear throughout our lives.
Embarking on a mission to unravel the knotty concept of purpose, we asked ourselves whether being tethered to a 'mission statement' might restrain the natural flow of experiences. We tussled with the paradox of striving versus acceptance, and whether our goals truly echo our purpose. As we conversed, we considered the influence of cultural norms and the courage it takes to forge one's 'left hand path' of personal authority in a world where traditional guidance seems to falter. Join us for a chapter that challenges the clarity of our rationalizations and the stories we narrate to ourselves.
In closing, we engaged in a heartfelt exploration of fulfillment as a personal quest, potentially at odds with our internal narrative. We discussed the layered nature of reality, from the elementary to the complex, and how aligning our stories with our base needs can help steer clear of emotional turmoil. The episode is a candid reflection on our internal dialogues and the importance of living in the moment, underscoring the idea that fulfillment is often found in the joy of the present and the company of loved ones. Don't miss this opportunity to be part of a conversation that might just provide the insight you need to weave your own story of purpose and fulfillment.
Have you ever peeled back the layers of a Necco wafer, finding its simplicity cloaked in nostalgia? That's how Noah described his personal eureka moment during our Jungian word association exercise, leading us into a discussion that transcends the confectionary. We wove through whimsical debates and metaphors, contemplating how our roles in family, career, and society inform our identity and understanding of the world. The episode is a tapestry of insights, highlighting the contextual nature of meaning and how intertwined it is with the many hats we wear throughout our lives.
Embarking on a mission to unravel the knotty concept of purpose, we asked ourselves whether being tethered to a 'mission statement' might restrain the natural flow of experiences. We tussled with the paradox of striving versus acceptance, and whether our goals truly echo our purpose. As we conversed, we considered the influence of cultural norms and the courage it takes to forge one's 'left hand path' of personal authority in a world where traditional guidance seems to falter. Join us for a chapter that challenges the clarity of our rationalizations and the stories we narrate to ourselves.
In closing, we engaged in a heartfelt exploration of fulfillment as a personal quest, potentially at odds with our internal narrative. We discussed the layered nature of reality, from the elementary to the complex, and how aligning our stories with our base needs can help steer clear of emotional turmoil. The episode is a candid reflection on our internal dialogues and the importance of living in the moment, underscoring the idea that fulfillment is often found in the joy of the present and the company of loved ones. Don't miss this opportunity to be part of a conversation that might just provide the insight you need to weave your own story of purpose and fulfillment.
So we've actually already discovered the meaning of life. I don't know if you guys recall, but in a previous episode of the Unbecoming Platypus, we three of us independently discovered our own meanings for life.
Frank:Yeah that's right. Noah's was unwrapping.
Noah:Are you saying we've had this conversation before?
Frank:No.
Jake:Yeah, mine was something like being.
Frank:Yeah, mine was something like being in the game, that's right.
Jake:I like that. I like that.
Noah:Is this that?
Jake:worksheet. We did yes, yeah, we used a young word association test to.
Frank:Discover the meaning of life.
Jake:Yeah, we applied it to the problem of what's the meaning of life?
Noah:What is the meaning of?
Jake:life yeah.
Frank:How has that changed your life?
Noah:I don't know. It's still on my counter at home, so now I have a paper on my counter.
Frank:Yeah, all right, I didn't keep it or anything personally.
Noah:Yeah, I think I should hang it on my fridge.
Jake:Yeah, you should. I do think of it from time to time and I think honestly, it was a really cool moment of getting to know you guys better, because it was very much like this I say these words but actually like uncovering what's also in the subconscious, sort of said oh, we're kind of all saying exactly the same thing. It makes sense why the words come out on the surface, but the stuff underneath was revealing similar qualities.
Frank:Yeah.
Noah:So we think those were our meanings of life.
Frank:I don't think we have to think that. What do you think?
Noah:I don't remember it, enough about it, but I didn't remember it as the meaning of life.
Jake:The problem that we were trying to solve.
Noah:What is the meaning of life? Wow.
Jake:Then we started with 16 words and then we grouped them down.
Noah:I remember the exercise. I just don't remember it as the meaning of life.
Frank:But if you could do a new meaning of life now with no reference to that one what would you say it is? Today.
Noah:I don't know if I know the meaning of life.
Jake:Oh, I do.
Noah:I do too, it's unwrapping. Yeah, I think unveiling this is different, it is.
Jake:I mean, unwrapping is definitely a gift, no doubt, right.
Frank:But unveiling, Unwrapping seems like there's a wrapper. Unveiling there's just a veil.
Jake:Mm-hmm. Yeah, the wrapper was absolutely intentionally put there. Maybe the veil just fell on top. Yeah.
Noah:Jake, he's way more into creationism than I am. It's true, yeah, god is a present wrapper Is that how you think it is now why God just put this whole thing into a wrapper.
Jake:He just got his big old desk. He's just wrapping it up. He uses double-sided tape too, on the underside of the wrapping paper, to really like you don't even know where the seam is. Wow, yeah, it makes the mystery a little bit more interesting. Well, I have never seen a present from God.
Frank:What I've never seen a double-sided, underwrapped, taped gift.
Noah:No, you just didn't know that it was underwrapped, taped gift that could be.
Frank:But now your eyes are going to change. Oh, you know what?
Jake:Necko wafers. I never understood how those are held together. How'd they do that? That might have been a good idea. I mean, I don't know.
Frank:I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. How'd they do that?
Jake:They studied nature, just like Leonardo da Vinci whenever he created the first flying machine after studying birds.
Frank:Do you remember Necko wafers? I do. They come in like a wax thing. There's no reason for it to be securely around them, but it is.
Jake:I do recall Necko wafers. I believe the last time I saw one or tasted one was 1994.
Frank:Yeah same. That's the only one I could come up with If I thought container that doesn't seem like I understand how it's secure.
Jake:Do you think that Necko wafers was trying to be in competition with Nillow wafers?
Frank:Maybe in a literary competition of sorts.
Noah:Necko wafers, saw Smarties and Nillow wafers and was like I got an idea.
Jake:You know what? In the 70s, the treats game was all about the wafer.
Noah:Silence is the right response. It is so, god, as a rapper. Rapper, yeah, present rapper, sorry.
Jake:In any case, Past rapper too.
Jake:I was thinking a little bit about the meaning of life, this conversation that we were planning to have, and I think that all of these things, there's some bullet points that we're looking at here. One of them is the meaning of personal values, another is the importance of personal values, finding purpose in different life stages and stories of finding purpose. And for me, when I think about these things, there seems to be this sort of bi-directional relationship between meaning and identity. The meaning that I ascribe to the world around me sort of tells me my relative position and role in that environment and at the same time, my role and how I perceive myself relates to and modifies the way I perceive my environment. And I think that we have a lot of different roles.
Jake:So, for instance, the individual. You know, I could see myself as just a person in this great, big, wide cosmos. I can see myself in the role of my family, I'm a father. I can see myself in the role of the workplace or society, and when I see myself in these different places, I assume different identities and I become this sort of different player in different games. So I don't know, that's sort of the framework that I start with when I start thinking about meaning, because nothing has meaning alone. But it's always like in this context.
Frank:Yeah.
Noah:Yeah, I was reading almost those exact words about organizational design yesterday.
Jake:Okay, what'd you find out?
Noah:The idea that there's lots of thoughts, the idea that we all have different roles, so even an organization you can have and most do have different roles, and these are separate from the person. And then, when you break it all the way down to purpose, there's a purpose of a role. An individual has their own purpose, an organization has a purpose, and these things like an individual's purpose and organization's purpose are separate generally. I mean sure you could work for an organization that you feel has the same purpose as you. I guess.
Jake:Sure, you're like an aligned admission or something.
Noah:And generally it's not good to project your purpose onto an organization, the same way that you wouldn't project your purpose onto Thatcher in a parent-child relationship, because you realize that he's got to have his own purpose and he's not going to fulfill whatever you think your purpose is Right and it's the same in an organization, but a role's purpose is smaller than the organization's purpose, but it works towards the completion of the organization's purpose. Anyway, all of these things are the same on a human level.
Jake:Yeah.
Noah:And so what? I think? My point here is that our purpose, each person's purpose, is different from one another. It is individual, it is our own, and so you have to figure it out for yourself.
Jake:Yeah, I mean, I was.
Noah:Which is interesting, like bringing it all the way back to how we started, which is, what's the meaning of life. That's an interesting Sort of thing to think about, because I maybe the meaning of life is independent. I Mean as individual, I'm sorry, not independent. Yeah, it's different for everybody.
Jake:I Agree, and I guess, just to rewind for a second, the the topic is Finding meaning and purpose, which I think implies this Lack of that in some situations and if there is a meaning of life, I think that might be what it is sure like that, that journey toward finding or or creating some sort of peace with the role that you're playing in the world.
Jake:But I'm I'm curious. I mean, I feel a lot of purpose in my life at this point, but I think there has been a larger portion of my life where I Was trying to figure that out.
Noah:Do you feel a purpose or do you feel multiple purposes?
Jake:Yeah, it's. That's an interesting question. I think that sort of where I started out was saying that purpose is Premised upon sort of the role that you're playing right. So I think I have many purposes in the various spheres that I exist in. You know the one, the purpose of the father. For me is very much a Helping another individual to express their desires and aspirations and Finding a way to help them find that voice, while also teaching and guiding. You know, that's one purpose and it's not necessarily the same one that I have in my workplace. By any means, if I tried to assume that role in my workplace it wouldn't go well. So I do feel a series of purposes in the different spheres. Well, at the same time, there does seem to be some sort of overarching narrative of like the purpose for Existing in the world, or a sort of a cohesive narrative around that. Do you guys, do you have that experience of either now feeling a purposelessness or In the past that you didn't feel like you had a purpose and you were driving toward one?
Noah:Having a purpose is not something I've ever identified heavily with. Okay, which has been a struggle for me. It's something that I'm actively exploring, and For many reasons, because I think I'd be more fulfilled or happier or have something to shoot for. Quote-unquote, or Even from the standpoint of people. You know, research shows the people who do things for a higher cause are less prone to anxiety or depression or these things. I Don't think that means I don't have a purpose. I just don't think that I have a sort of salient example or salient sort of Structure for that. Mm-hmm, I think for me, purpose.
Frank:It feels like synonymous with Usefulness or resource or something, and most of the ideas about it are negative for me not negative and like efficiency, that having a purpose or believing you have a purpose will get you to do things Aligned with the purpose that you believe you are here for. So I suppose having one is good for that reason. But I I don't think it's the same as meaning at all, which I Think of as a very individual process, just literally being present in the world and Responding to it in the ways that your individual characteristics might tend towards. So when your boss does this thing that you hate, you can shut that down. That's that feels like not being there and it feels like crushing your meaning.
Frank:To me. That's the world. Whatever connections there are, something inside of you was saying you should do something here and you didn't, and the world's worse for this. And if I were to say there's a meaning to the world, it's to sort of follow those intuitions. That's what it feels like to me and Putting a structured purpose above my life, like a banner that I'm here for, like the mission statement. It just seems prone to shutting down what you're really for, which is to connect a bunch of ideas that don't get summarized well into a mission statement.
Jake:Mm-hmm.
Frank:I don't know. That's my two cents on this topic.
Jake:That's really interesting. I mean what I hear and what you're saying. There is this idea that the mission statement would be a box in a way. Yeah, that almost keeps you from like If meaning is a definition, if a meaning is, this thing just happened and I'm going to describe what it means. All of a sudden, if there's a overarching mission statement, in that the meaning or the definition itself has changed and Morphed to sort of align with this lens, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Frank:Yeah, this isn't close enough, but I think we can make it make sense. So it's it doesn't make sense, I know that, but it does for me.
Jake:So I'm gonna try. This is my life.
Frank:So yesterday I tweeted something about dishonesty, because it's something it's ever useful, and someone responded with there are lies that are harmless and even helpful. Like if your girlfriend says were you looking at that girl? What do you say? The Bad answer is no and the good answer is what girl? And I mean I fully disagree. Play on every level. It's just a better Discourse for the relationship. It's better in the long run to say I was looking at the girl and here's why that's gonna lead you to a more fulfilling life. Maybe it has short-term discomfort. Maybe it has short-term discomfort this Definition around the relationship that I don't want to have a conflict in. It Feels like purpose on the relationship that might prevent you from having an authentic exchange. And it feels like the same thing in life. If you put this purpose over it, then all of your exchanges inside of life are based around this idea. That's just there for no Like. It may not be your purpose. Yeah, it's just what you keep repeating. So you keep doing things like it.
Jake:That's a that's a really Interesting thing because it brings me back to this idea for me, which is that there's this constant balance between accepting reality on its own terms, accepting Everything that's happening right now and being at peace with it, while also Striving to make it better. Like these almost feel contradictory and they're difficult. What you're saying, in the way that I perceive it and interpret it, is, if I have this Purpose that I'm driving toward, it's going to make being at peace and accepting reality on its own terms really difficult, because it doesn't align with this very rigid definition or purpose is how I'm interpreting it, whereas, at the same time, like why do people have a purpose? Why does an organization have a mission statement? It's because this does focus our efforts on the horizon and drive us Somewhere different than we are now. I think that's the utility of some sort of purpose.
Frank:Yeah, I there's like I do think there's value in them for efficiency. I Mean I have goals but I wouldn't ascribe them to purpose like I. Just I don't find that to be useful. Like my purpose is solving complex technical problems. Mm-hmm if I have a brain injury, my purpose is destroyed. Hmm, why would this be worth it, if brain injuries are in the possibilities? Mm-hmm it wouldn't be worth it. I wouldn't want it. Why would you want to put yourself in that box?
Jake:Hmm.
Frank:As a person, I mean as an organization. Sure, like Costco's purpose seems good, you know sure.
Jake:So that's that's an interesting thing, because it points to the sort of fluidity of Identity my identity right now is sort of based on my past experiences and who I understand myself to be at this moment. There are these very critical and acute Changes that can occur in life that would drastically change my identity, were that definition too rigid to accept. It so is, and I think that's what you find. You find a gymnast who is A fall from the rings and breaks their arm, and I'm no longer a gymnast. I am no longer the person that I have been, and now I'm useless. And this depression settles in. Yeah, go, holy shit, I have to reinvent myself. So Is there a value, though, in sort of compensating or accounting for every potential reality? Is it like? Well, I should account for the greatest possible outcome and also the worst possible outcome?
Frank:No, there's no value in any of that. I mean, I really think there's almost no value in any of it, which is what my actual point is Like do you think a cheetah thinks much about his purpose, or do you think he just goes and catches his food?
Frank:and eats it and like the cheetah's purpose may be clear to us, but I don't think he spends time thinking about it and I definitely need to find himself by it. I think he's in the game. He's just doing the things he likes, and for me, the things I like are solving complex technical problems.
Jake:Yeah.
Frank:And if I have something that's incompatible with that, then I'll do the new things I like.
Jake:So for me this is really interesting. I had this. I was in several archaeology courses in college and in one of them it was archaeological theory and they had us do this exercise at home, which was to map out our entire living room or bedroom or whatever it was, on paper with a graph and then to draw little illustrations of everything that we found there and then, on a separate sheet it was, you label the little illustration on your drawing and then it's like okay, on the other sheet 1a, describe what you found there. And your goal in this exercise is to describe it bereft of any sort of knowledge firsthand knowledge about what it is. So if I see a couch, I can't say this is a sitting device or something like that. I have to just give it descriptions of what it is, because in archaeology you might find these pot shards or something like that, you might find posts in the ground, but if you describe them as, oh, this was absolutely a cooking site and this over here was absolutely where they had their communal gatherings or something Like that's interpretation there has to be. This base layer of this is just kind of what it is at a base level, and this exercise was very, very difficult.
Jake:And the whole point here is that our brains are constantly deriving purpose based on context, but there is some sort of base level at which it's just sort of happening, it just sort of exists. And when I hear this idea of purpose and I think of the cheetah, I think okay, well, we can say the cheetah has a purpose. But even that is an interpretation. So purposes is sort of again this, like the word association test that we did. It's like, okay, we can pull out everything from the depths, we can excavate it, but it's almost unwrapping itself. It's almost unveiling itself in real time and you might look back retrospectively and say there is some sort of narrative here. All these things led to this moment. This is the culmination of all these things. But in and of themselves, was there any purpose and do we need there to be?
Frank:Yeah.
Jake:There seems to be some drive in the human to want it.
Noah:Yeah, I think purpose and meaning both are. They're difficult to talk about because I think they can change for the same reasons that you're mentioning with the archaeology example. It's that we there usually is like if something, especially something that we create, I mean there's obviously an initial purpose for something, but what that turns into over the course of time can be completely different, and that is partially based on what we ascribe to it. So I don't know, I just think the conversation is difficult because I think there can be multiple purposes, I think there can be pivots in purpose, I think there can be multiple meanings and again, I think it's super individual, yeah, yeah.
Frank:I mean I have tons of bad association with purpose as an idea and it goes like way back. I mean I remember people who like, or finishing high school and they're like what's God's purpose for my life? Do you think I should go to Olivet or Greenville College or the Peace Corps? What do you want to do? God doesn't care what you do out of those choices.
Noah:For sure I mean for sure if he did- but the people who were asking that question were definitely into God. Yeah, I know, because you said Greenville, olivet, the Peace Corps, I know.
Frank:It's on purpose.
Jake:I totally see what you're saying here and it does make me think of mythology. I won't go into great depth here, but I'll create a very high level distinction. When you're born into a culture, you're given certain stories. You're given these stories about the world around you and where you fit into it. In some cultures, especially Eastern cultures, it's a very sort of communal identity. You exist as a cog in this machine. We're all working together to build society or just to exist whatever. In Western society we've really focused on the individual and creating individual egos and identities. When you're given this story, you have this opportunity. It's referred to as the right hand path. Most people do this. They say the story I was given is the one that I believe. I see myself as my role in this story and I will fulfill it. I think there is purpose there that you can find and you can feel fulfilled by that if you fully believe that story.
Frank:Nothing bad happens. That makes it impossible.
Jake:That's the other piece. Then there's a fracture point. Often this fracture point happens when maybe the story doesn't align with reality. That's the real baseline way of saying it. This could mean anything. It could be that my story told me that God created the earth 6,000 years ago in seven days, and I go yeah, but science is kind of telling us that that's not true. I have this sort of friction point. It's this moment where I have to question the story. If I do, I begin to step down what is referred to as the left hand path. This is the one that's more dangerous and it doesn't have an authority. I think that's the difference between the right hand path and the left hand path. The right hand path says, for lack of better terms, something like God ordained this, god set in motion the role and the purpose for my life, and I have to find that role and that purpose.
Frank:It doesn't have to be God right.
Jake:It does not. It's some sort of authority, whether it's the president. The president said I need to be a good patriot.
Frank:I think my mom and my dad are probably more likely than the president, but yes, it can be any authority.
Jake:It depends on whatever that identity is. Which sphere are we talking in? Then the left hand path says wait a second, I don't know if I can trust what I've been given. I am my own authority. I have to decide if this is right or wrong.
Jake:I think in our societies here we're dealing with a lot of that, because it's really hard to hold on to these stories that are passed down to us, whether it's you got to be a good patriot of the best country, or you have to be a good Christian or whatever it is. It's hard to hold on to those. So we do find ourselves sort of listless and becoming our own authorities. That's a very difficult place to be in because it's all relative. It's like, well, I have to determine my own purpose. I have to determine my own meaning, my own value system. When I think of finding purpose and meaning, this is the sort of conflict that I find in myself and the sorts of conversations I've had with others as well. It's like we're a generation without elders. If I was born in this tribal society, the elders would tell me this is the right thing or that's the right thing. Here I have to figure it out for myself. That's the struggle, yeah.
Frank:You want to talk about belief bundles? Sure, that's what I hear. Yeah, I mean, I do not think the elders are hard to get a hold of. I do think they're maybe not the people who birthed us, correct, but there definitely are people all over the world that have a clearer view of reality than us.
Jake:They. Yes, I can agree to that.
Noah:Their view of reality.
Frank:Yeah, they know more. They've spent more time here, they've seen more things. They understand it better than us.
Noah:Their reality. I just think every reality is different. So that statement is tough to swallow.
Jake:I have a really hard time not breaking this down to really complex concepts. It's very difficult.
Frank:I mean, there are also people who are older, who have totally incompatible ideas with you. That's what I think you're saying, just because someone's been here a lot longer. That's not even what I'm saying.
Noah:I'm saying that, something that you've said, I think, in different words, which is that everybody has their own reality. You've said before, I think, that if I live the same exact life as this person and I had the same circumstances, I'd make the same decisions, I'd be the same person, but everyone's reality is their own, and so this idea that there are people with a clearer view of reality is faulty.
Frank:I don't think it's faulty. I think they're compatible ideas. So if you grow up in some tribe without electricity and you want to become a YouTube star, you should talk to Mr Beast. You don't have any foundational reality that are the same, but there is a person with irrefutable evidence that they know how to grow on YouTube and you should get in contact with them because they do have a clearer view of that reality than you, I can see it in that term.
Jake:I see what you're saying.
Noah:I don't see that as reality.
Jake:I agree, that's my issue, yeah.
Noah:I think we're having a different conversation.
Frank:Why is it not reality?
Noah:Reality is, I think, more all-encompassing. You're talking about a very specific, like an industry-specific or experience-specific sort of deal here, which I agree with what you're saying. For sure, mr Beast is going to have the best YouTube advice, I don't disagree. But to say that there are lots of people out there that have a clear view of reality, I just don't agree. I think we all have our own reality and I think that from that lens, I don't think that anybody can tell you. This is what I keep saying purpose and meaning. These are individual and I don't think that anybody can tell you about your reality.
Jake:So I would distinguish these, and there's no actual words to describe this. The best that we can do is we can say up, down, in, out, there are these opposites. Think about it like on a number line it starts at zero. You can go infinitely positive, you can go infinitely negative. I think that in some ways my brain at least, and I think what Noah's saying here when we think of reality, we almost think of those negative numbers. Let's strip away everything from here and look at the base layers, and that's actual reality. However, there's also this other side and it's like okay, what about all the layers that we can build up? We do live in a world that has 15 million layers and on the top layer is this system of getting followers on YouTube? That does exist. There's something in my brain that goes okay, but it doesn't have to. There's something about that other type of reality that has to. It's like the elementary layer, and that's where my brain goes and why I think there's a translation that has to happen whenever we're having this conversation.
Frank:Okay, I don't follow.
Jake:Totally lost. I tried. That's okay. Like I said, it's really hard to talk about.
Frank:What is a negative 1000 layer item?
Jake:Okay, so there was this Austrian philosopher named Adolf Bastion, and he created these.
Noah:He thought he was going to say Hitler.
Frank:Yeah, I did not think of Hitler as a philosopher but, I, was hoping he would just tell me a negative 1000 layer item.
Noah:Oh, what a story. Well, he said Adolf, and you kind of sat out over here and I was like you thought he was going to say and he said that there are elementary ideas and then there are folk ideas.
Jake:He said that it's similar to something like a play being played out in different languages. So you know, it's the play Hamlet, and over here it's played out in Brooklyn by a Jewish community and over here it's played out in China by a Cantonese-speaking community. And the underlying essence, the elements, are all the same. It has the same order, the same flow, the same characters. It's in a different language and it probably focuses on different elements of the societal dynamics. Right, he says the play, in this analogy, is the elementary idea and the way that it's expressed is the sort of folk idea. Right, it's how it's expressed in a given society.
Jake:So, given this sort of dichotomy, there's a base layer of the elementary and that is that you know these things do exist. It's sort of the mystery layer. It's like I am somehow a conscious meatbag on a planet that is a rock circling another rock. These are sort of elemental to our senses. There may be a level below that. I don't know what level negative one million is. The positive layer is after we realized we were here, we started to become generative, develop societies, talk to each other globally and develop technologies that then created these other systems. It's like these couldn't exist without us having done the other stuff. The other stuff already existed before we were here. That's the difference of the sides on the number line. For me, does that make any sense at all.
Frank:Yeah, I think so.
Jake:Yeah. So like when I talk about meaning and purpose, I look backwards and it seems like the difference between the way we're thinking about it is I look backwards and I say okay, why do I exist? And you say well, we're standing here and our ground is base layer 15 million. Let's figure it out on this layer. Why would we go to negative 1000 for this? I exist in the layer with YouTube. Let's figure out what we're doing here.
Frank:Okay.
Jake:Does this make sense?
Frank:No.
Jake:Yes.
Frank:No, it makes sense, but it's not integrated. It doesn't. It's not real. It's like made up. That's what it feels like. You can't be on those layers.
Jake:You are on those layers.
Frank:No, you can't. How can you be on all of them? But what is a layer?
Jake:Like I said, it's hard to talk about the layers are our stories.
Jake:What's really interesting about us is that we can pass down information genetically, but we can also pass down information epigenetically, with our stories and you know, whereas the bacteria simply has that DNA that passes from one to the next, we as humans are actually passing down information about our environment and how we interpret it. Those layers all build up upon each other and they create something new, and we think we are that, but at some base layer we're still just the amoeba that's crawling around the surface of this big Petri dish called earth. We are on both of those layers at the same time and sometimes the story and the reality or the base layer get in contact, in conflict and friction with each other, and that's why we do this search into the subconscious and we say who am I really? Who am I really? What is this really? Why do I have this biological drive that's overcoming the stories that I think I am? We're on both of those layers at the same time and we're trying to make peace with it.
Frank:If we spend time thinking about it, we might have to.
Jake:I disagree. I think that you're trying to make peace with it, whether you're, I think you start thinking about it. Because you're trying to make peace with it, you say, oh, I don't want to do this thing because it feels wrong, but I have to. It's the way people do things in this society.
Frank:You know me. What's an example Where's one of these super low levels and super high level that are in conflict?
Jake:I mean, I think, your understanding of dietetics and what you need to be eating, as opposed to some sort of draw to the less ideal foods that you might go to whenever you're triggered, like there's this biological thing that's happening and it seems to stand in conflict with what you understand and want to do.
Frank:I see I don't actually. Yeah, I see what you're saying. I don't think the two are in conflict, but there is a conflict. I don't think it has anything to do with nutrition. That's just the drug I chose. Yeah, that's the one I thought was most okay, absolutely.
Jake:It could be heroin, it could be sex, it could be anything. My point is there's a biological impetus and there's a person. I think I am in all the history and information I've absorbed and these things are existing at the same time on different levels, and sometimes brain Frank is going this direction and biology Frank is going this direction. We go wait a second. Something's wrong here.
Frank:Yeah, but brain Frank is the reason. Biology Frank is going the wrong direction. It's not biology Frank that did anything wrong.
Jake:Well, wrong is not a great word to begin with. They're going in different directions.
Frank:Yeah, but I don't think there's a conflict between the two. The conflict is all created on the top layer.
Jake:Yes. With certain ingredients from the bottom layer.
Frank:Yeah.
Jake:This is the whole idea of I'm a Paleolithic individual living in a Neolithic society. You're doing that psychologically too. All your stories are Neolithic ideas about what I should be, about who I am, about living in this technological society. Who you are at a biological level and again, this is only an analogy, because you're also psychologically somewhere else. But you are these two things and you're living on two different levels.
Frank:Yeah, I just mean that I don't think there is an actual human drive to eat processed refined food.
Jake:I would probably need more definition around that.
Frank:I don't think that's a real drive. I think that is a way to get a close approximation to a real drive and once you run that trick, you do it for a long time and a lot of people do it, but it's not the drive. The drive is for comfort or connection or love.
Jake:It's yes, and what? Level does that drive exist on?
Frank:That's the low negative ones.
Jake:So you're saying that they exist, that you exist on both levels at the same time?
Frank:Yeah, but all the problem is that level. Why would you even need to look at it? It's not where the problem is.
Jake:You have to understand how that level works and the rules of that level in order to find peace on the level in which you exist. So if I'm looking at meaning, purpose, all this stuff and I have acknowledged that there are multiple levels to this I can say, okay, strip away all the stories. Who am I at base? Why, what's? What's some story that I can find peace in about why I exist? And then you look at the level where all the stories are and you say, okay, how do I morph and change this story to align with what my base level really needs, and this is emotions, this is biological need for comfort, this is all of those base level things. Those things are real and when we tell ourselves a story that doesn't align with what's real, that's when we start having this dysregulation.
Frank:Yeah, I think of this as all and, being in the game, I think.
Jake:Yeah, my point is simply that when you talk about reality, you talked about it in terms of the world where YouTube exists. When I think of reality, I think of that base layer that we can never actually talk about, because if you put words around it, it wouldn't be the thing itself. Neither one is more right or more wrong. I think they both exist. But when we're trying to have a conversation about reality, there does have to be some definitions put on it, Otherwise we're having a different conversation.
Frank:Yeah, that's fine.
Jake:That was the whole point. So whenever Noah said, yeah, but Mr Beast and YouTube and all this stuff like that doesn't tell us anything about meaning and purpose, I went, oh well, we're talking about different levels of reality.
Noah:I see this sort of being similar to defining a constant to be able to address variables like the speed of light, like once the speed of light was defined, that opened up so many different areas of measurement, right, those negative layers that you're talking about, those are sort of the biological constants that are happening, that help ascribe meaning to all of these things that we deal with. On the positive layers, it's kind of how I'm seeing it.
Jake:I mean, is that my that makes perfect sense to me.
Noah:They do work together.
Frank:Yeah.
Noah:It's the way that Jake is thinking about it, and speaking about it is a little bit more abstract than that, but I hear what he's saying. This is interesting too. This is even in. I was listening to a conversation recently regarding economists. Economists have always done something similar, where they go okay, this is what a rational actor would do. They're looking at rationality, and this kind of ties back to what I was saying earlier, too, about that. We all have different realities. There is a group of people now that are trying to do something similar to the constant in going look, economics has always tried to say this is rational and so, therefore, this is what a rational person would do. And instead of putting the onus on people to be rational, they're now starting to go okay, everyone has a different reality and every decision they're making is a rational decision, and the framework of economics should fit around that. In the same way that the speed of light defines everything else, the constant is that people make rational decisions based on their reality. That's interesting.
Frank:Yeah, and that feels to me identical to purpose, like why would you define it if it's not true? Speed of light? That's true, that makes sense, that's measurable. People acting rationally is total chaos land.
Noah:Right, but that's the sort of definition of change that we're trying to understand, which is people. What seems irrational is based on a definition that we gave it, but maybe that decision, every decision that a human being makes, is completely rational, based on their reality, and therefore the framework through which we look at this, that we look at rationality, needs to change, because we've been calling something irrational that is completely rational.
Jake:That's very interesting. Yeah, I mean. That to me seems similar to this idea of creating a normal range of psychological expression and saying that outside those ranges you have whatever you call it. You know, dysregulated or abnormal behavior or psychological states, like if you take everybody having their own reality and you create some sort of average, there is going to be a normal range of rationality, which is probably what we've called rational, and then you've got inflated and deflated versions on that continuum. But you're exactly right, like everyone I mean in general, even something like suicide or jumping off a cliff to that individual, there was something rational about this decision.
Noah:Yeah, I mean there are a billion what would seem like extreme examples that you could give. I mean, I think about somebody like if a person was scared on the street by somebody, like somebody jumped out and surprised them and they turned around and stabbed them to death. That might seem on some levels, irrational, but if that person's experience was living in the wild, where if they got attacked by an animal they had to react right then and there, all of a sudden it becomes more rational and that's the whole point is that everybody's experience and reality and I know that's an extreme example. I understand that that's not something that exists regularly. I'm just saying the point is that person had a different reality and therefore their reaction on the street when they got scared was, to them, very rational.
Jake:In terms of I mean, I don't want to. I feel like we've deviated in every direction. You could possibly deviate here, but I think there are some only 15 million layers.
Jake:I think there are some bullet points here, though at least that that I could say and it's that there may be some sort of purpose that could be unveiled. If only looking at things in retrospect, you sort of start to understand certain motivations about yourself as you look at your story from the point you're at backwards and you can ask yourself those questions. You can say, hey, I've made these decisions. Was I making them based out of aggression? Was I making them based out of a desire for comfort or pleasure? Was I making them because they're truly generative and just what I actually enjoy in this world? And can they inform some of the decisions that I want to make moving forward and that can change and I want to be open to change. But I think that's a way that you can look at your own life, unveil some of that purpose and say, if I want to live a fulfilled life, look at the things that have already fulfilled me and add more of that to the future.
Frank:Yeah, or if I were to say it differently yeah, please, I think it's the same idea. It's going to sound a little snarky, but I mean it as the same idea, and I think it is. The purpose and meaning of life is to live in such a way that you are so in the game that you never consider this question.
Jake:That's. I really like that idea. I have a really hard time with that idea.
Jake:And it's only because I've spent most of my life trying to go back to that place and I don't. I'm not saying it's impossible, I don't know that it's possible, and if it is, I also. Here's that third level Jake story. I wouldn't trust it. That too feels like a delusion to me. I mean, I think there are moments, but I think, that we are a composite of stories, and for me, for me, when what I'm experiencing in my life no longer aligns with or gives me peace in the story I believe about reality, I divert back to looking at reality on its own terms and I say it's not reality. That's the problem. Reality is just existing. The problem is that my story isn't big enough, or my story isn't quite right to actually account for everything that's happening. I need a better story.
Frank:Yeah, I mean it's. I think people are different. For sure, it's never like that for me, but I mean, when I go to that place, it's like this analysis world that doesn't serve anyone and there are trillions of problems and people who need us, and so I wouldn't want to spend my time in analysis central for something that is very likely to change anyways, but I don't have the good bad layer that you do, so that's easy for me to do it that way, and you don't have analysis paralysis when you get into this metaverse in the same way that I do, so it's probably better for you to just go there.
Jake:However, it is always my perspective, based on the experiences that I've had.
Jake:It can't help but be that. It's coming out of me, and the coolest part about human beings is that we can't help but talk about our experience, and when we do, we're unveiling a little bit more about that base layer, about what it is to be human. And listening to other people talk is sort of this way of developing a composite of the cosmos. This is what's happening in everybody right now, and it's not that he's right and he's wrong. It's that something about this reality allows both of them to be true.
Frank:Yeah, yeah, I mean, I see value in going back to the stories, certainly if they're traumatizing, like you should spend time in this metaverse, mythological, all these base layers and understand what's happening. I even see value in planning Like this is what I want to do next, based on everything I know about myself. This is what's next. It just falls apart for me when you call it a purpose because there's too much chaos. You're just going to get hurt. Like why would you call it a purpose?
Jake:Yeah, right, okay, I do have a thought about that, yeah and I. Here's the assumption that's underlying the thought. I believe there's a story, whether you know what it is or not. There's a story that you're telling yourself whether or not you've turned up the volume and listened to it. This is the assumption. If there is a story, then you might as well be aware of what it is and you might as well determine what you want it to be. Because if the story in your mind keeps telling you that you're failing, or if the story in your mind keeps telling you that you're succeeding, but the world around you is telling you, hey, man, you're kind of a narcissist prick, like these are two sort of extreme versions of that but like there is some sort of story that's guiding your behavior, that's telling you that what you're doing is rational and I think it's valuable to know what it is.
Jake:I agree, even if it's not right, like even if it's quote, unquote, not true and it's going to change, and all this stuff.
Frank:Yeah, I agree Definitely on that. On that count like something that was ascribed that is worth viewing. I just don't know. It's the forward looking, hmm, because of these events. This is my purpose now in the world and I'm going to try to fulfill. It is just ends in pain, like it well, that's there's too many chances of pain.
Noah:This is why I think I always come back to and why, when we did the exercise many podcasts ago now that I don't remember what yours was, but I know both of ours were sort of unveiling, uncovering Mine was just being so. That's why I think the theme for me is always unveiling, because, like, the purpose is unveiling, purpose is figuring it out.
Frank:Yeah.
Noah:Not, there isn't a singular purpose. The purpose is just figuring it out and and looking at the past. I mean, a candle casts light, but it also cast shadows, and so being able to illuminate something allows you to see the other things that you need to illuminate.
Frank:Yeah, I think we agree completely, mm hmm, that's what I mean. There's tons of value in it, looking backwards. But living, I think, should be in a way that you don't spend a lot of time asking what your purpose is, just doing it, just finding out what it is, just being in the game, responding to what's happening.
Jake:I think that's really good. I I always have struggles, though, and like the struggle with this one is that I've seen people who create so much pain in the world believing that they're, or never questioning their purpose. Like, for instance, if you have a religious zealot and it doesn't matter who it is and it doesn't matter what the religion is it is. I have aligned myself with some story and I never questioned it. I was just out living it and I told everybody else their story was wrong, because my story is right, but I never knew what it was. I mean, on the one hand, like it's just happening, there's no real value in stopping it, but if I want to live an examined life, sometimes I have to stop and say I'm just playing the game. But what are? What's the result of me playing this game?
Frank:Yeah, but I what you're saying is why purpose is so stupid as a forward looking objective. That's what I hate about it? The thing you're mentioning is why not do it? Because you're likely to get some story that isn't you and just run with it forever and never think. What should I think about this? Do I believe in these things?
Jake:Yeah, maybe I'm misunderstanding you, because I totally get what you're saying about the forward looking potential downfall of believing I have a purpose.
Frank:Religious zealots always have it.
Jake:Yes, and they never question it. So like there has to be this balance between actually looking at it and living your life in such a way that you're just playing the game.
Frank:Without ever thinking about it.
Jake:Except that, without ever thinking about it, you become the religious zealot.
Frank:No, you, the religious zealot only ever thinks about it.
Jake:And that's my point they only ever think about it, believing that it is what it is to be playing the game.
Frank:Maybe they could. They could be that delusional, but usually they say things like my nature wants to sin, but I won't do it, which tells me that they know that they want to do something else.
Jake:But that's what the game looks like to them. The game is trying not to do what my nature tells me to do, because God has this desire that I be righteous or holy. This is I mean, and this. This comes from a person who played that game. Yeah, believing that it was the game. Yeah, this is my experience, you're not wrong, I think.
Frank:how do you get those people to understand that it's not the game that they are living in? Delusion?
Jake:I don't know, maybe it's not your purpose to do that.
Frank:Yeah, I'm at you. I don't care about this.
Jake:Yeah, I like to create fractures, I do. I like to ask questions that require action on the participation, and it's like well, you have two options. Whenever I ask this question, you can either invalidate it, you can explain it away, or you can wrestle with it. And what that is is it is saying OK, here's that right hand path. I've introduced a variable that that story can't encompass. My world either has to become bigger or I have to explain away the variable and say it doesn't exist. So you know, for me it's creating that bigger bug bubble, creating a better story, a bigger story that encompasses all of it.
Frank:Yeah, which is what I mean when I say there are people with a clearer view of reality than you.
Jake:They have a better story.
Frank:No, they just have accounted for the variable.
Jake:We just said the same thing.
Frank:Yeah, they may not have accounted for all the variables you know about, which, I think, is what Noah was saying that, like, their reality isn't exact match for yours, but they maybe already did deal with this situation where they can't stop eating food, and they understood that the drive was about something else, and so to go get their advice would be wise. They may not be your dad, so you should seek them out, but this isn't finding meaning or purpose. It's just getting help from somebody who gets it more than you, I think that's one perspective.
Frank:What am I missing in it?
Noah:I still think it's very individual. I think it's too individual to say that. I mean, we could go back and forth on this forever and maybe it doesn't matter, but like that example that you just gave, like I was 330 pounds, I lost 130 of that.
Noah:Yeah my experience is different than yours. I don't know that it doesn't mean that I couldn't give you advice that's helpful, but my experience is not the same, my struggles are not the same, and so this idea that I have it figured out for you is different. I mean, it's not true Like we have different struggles and what worked for me might not work for you. What works for you might not work for me. So, yeah, I could offer advice, having done a thing, but I don't know that that means I have a clearer reality than you. It just means that I figured it out for me. It's just, it's individuals what I'm saying.
Frank:I listened to two experts argue about calories this week in a. Twitter space and they have completely different perspectives on it, sort of like what you're saying right now.
Noah:Yeah.
Frank:Both of them, in complete opposition to each other, have a clear view of reality about weight loss than someone who's obese. Just because their their ideas may not even apply, Well it's still. They do know more.
Noah:Yeah, maybe, and but, but even that, like my view, my view of calories at this very moment is different than the view of the Noah who lost 130 pounds. View of calories yeah, it's, it's completely. It's always evolving, it's always changing. And the Noah who lost 130 pounds, his view of Cali calories made him lose a bunch of muscle as well.
Frank:Yeah.
Noah:Well, and, and this Noah that's sitting in front of you has a different view of calories, for a different purpose, for a different reason, and that's changed over the course of you know, the last two or three years. It's individual and I don't know that that means I have a clearer view of reality, but this Noah has a clear view of reality than the one who lost 130 pounds. I think it does mean that.
Frank:Maybe Would you go back.
Noah:Yeah, maybe I think that I think that the Noah who lost 130 pounds had the view of reality that he needed at that time to lose that weight.
Frank:Yeah.
Noah:And I'm losing weight again right now in a completely different way, maintaining and maybe even building muscle, and it's great. But I don't know if right, this would have worked for that, noah, because I had a lot more fat to lose at that time. It was a different goal. It needed to happen in a certain way, I think, but I don't know that that means it was a clear view of reality. I at either point.
Jake:I would. I would also, yeah, I mean, and again, you'd probably have to define what it means to have a clearer view of reality. I think what we're saying is you have found something that is true. And it's like if this expert over here talking about calories is this is calories and this expert says this is calories and these are never to touch, well, if I say, because I'm right, you're wrong, that's a problem because it just doesn't acknowledge reality. What we need to say is both of these are true and there's some story that is larger than both and encompasses both, and that, to me, is a is the actual, clearer view of reality. It's, and what you're saying is not false. What they found, something true.
Jake:But science and really the way that academic research works, is to say, hey, I did this experiment and I uncovered something within this very specific environment, and it said that people who eat Cheerios have lower cholesterol. This person said that can't be true because I did this study over here and that one, the people who ate Cheerios, they had higher cholesterol. And it's like, ok, what were the variables? This is how science work. We say, oh, it was actually this variable that you know created that effect and it was actually this variable that created that one. And now we know more. Let's put it into the corpus of literature. And now we know things about cholesterol. Like that, to me, is us trying to uncover the greater reality, and Every time that we say, you know, well, actually it's this. Well, actually it's that we're just kind of fighting it. We need a bigger story.
Frank:Yeah, well, that's. I mean. I Think each person's individual reality is as clear as a view as they've been able to encounter so far. So maybe this allows for what you're saying. Of course, everyone's reality is different because they only have the experiences they have leading up to it. But when you talk to Tro and he says calories are not a clinically useful tool in obese people, mm-hmm, this is a clearer view of reality than the alternative. But when you talk to a bodybuilder and they say calories are it and it's all that matters, this is also a clearer view of reality. They are in In congruent. They don't work together, except if you understand the intricacies which are For an obese person.
Frank:They can't stop eating after one cinnamon roll. They eat the whole pack, mm-hmm. And to say, hey, the way you're going to be able to stop eating cinnamon rolls After one is if you break them into 280 units per cinnamon roll. So when you eat one, count 280 and we eat two, count another 280. That will not work for sure. That is a clear view of reality. As a clinically useful tool, because they couldn't count one, they can't stop. But it's also true that calories count. They do matter, but if you can't count them. It's not useful. It does not help with the reality the person is experiencing.
Jake:I just have a hard time with the err part of clearer mm-hmm.
Jake:In linguistics that is legitimately called a comparative. It takes this and it puts it out in opposition to this, and I just don't see them as in opposition. We. Both of them create a clearer view of reality than we had before, but one is not clearer than the other one. Um, the clear rest view that we have available to us is the one that says that person has proven this to be true in this environment and that person has Proven this to be true in that environment. So what theory allows us to account for both?
Frank:Yeah, that's the theory that you should. If you want to reverse obesity, or if you want to improve muscle mass, or if you want to do anything, you need to develop the ability to follow through on your intentions.
Jake:Mm-hmm.
Noah:Yeah, but then. But now we're talking about a different problem. I think that's where I'm getting hung up, is that I understand your example between the bodybuilder and tro, even, but I just think they're talking about different problems that have the same variables, but they're different problems.
Frank:Yeah, they are definitely talking about different problems.
Noah:So I. So, when you boil it down to a clearer view of reality, it just doesn't work for me, and maybe I'm still misunderstanding what you're saying. And that's I mean probably even probable, but that's. I'm just trying to tell you where I'm getting hung up on this. So what.
Frank:I'm saying is there's a guy out there who's wearing glasses and he has helped Tens of thousands of obese people become not obese anymore. And there's a different guy out there Wearing a different pair of glasses and he's saying I've helped tens of thousands of people go from a normal physique To very muscular, low body fat, and if you want a clearer view of reality, choose the pair of glasses that matches your reality. So okay?
Noah:Well, this now you're talking about lenses and I'll bring you back to the same idea that I brought up with the candles Is a lens blocks, intentionally blocks out certain things to make something else clearer, so it were still. It still doesn't work for me because you're just You're focusing in on different variables. I don't think this makes one or the other clearer. It makes it clear on a specific variable because it's blocking out the variables that it's not accounting for. It is a different problem.
Jake:Yeah, I mean, I think that is again for me to go back to this idea that, okay, well, there is this theoretical base layer of what exists, and then there's all these other layers that you put on top of it, and to me it's you know what Noah's saying is just like okay, well, the obese person is on this layer with these stories, and the bodybuilders on this layer with these stories, and to me, the clearest view of reality says well, there's layers, and this person's on that one and this person's on that one, and this is reality. It's the series of stories. But again, we have to understand what the underlying story for us is in order to Attack it the way that we want to and derive any sort of meaning, purpose or direction out of life.
Frank:Sure, yeah, I mean, I don't think the I don't know if the purpose of universal reality is that useful to the average person, but I think your path illustrates that. You chose a A similar set of lenses. Like you started with a lens closer to true and you have switched to a lens closer to bodybuilding. Yeah, for sure, because of your individual realities at the time.
Noah:Yeah, but part of, I mean but my first, reality is a part of what makes this reality too, because I didn't understand At that time, I mean this, this could get really complex if we dive into the science of Of the body. But I mean there are things that I think about now that Noah, five years ago, didn't even have in his in his mind, because I was trying to solve a different problem, yeah, which is, at that time, I wanted to be lighter, I wanted to be smaller, I wanted to lose weight and I wanted to lose fat. These are different things but similar. And now I want to lose fat.
Jake:And I don't care about weight.
Noah:If I lose fat, I you typically will lose weight, but I'm not worried about my weight at all. Yeah, from the perspective of Health, the only sort of lens I'm worried about weight In is Doing body weight exercises. I'd love to be lighter so I could do things more easily. Yeah, like pull-ups or whatever, mm-hmm, but I'm not worried about how much I weigh really. I'm worried about losing fat off of my body and I'm worried about maintaining muscle.
Noah:They're just different. I'm solving for a different problem and so, yeah, I'm looking at different things. But if my problem right now that I was trying to solve was I want to be as light as possible, I'd probably do something more similar to what Noah five years ago did.
Frank:Sure.
Noah:Yeah, I just don't see them, kind of what Jake was saying. I don't see one as clear than the other. I just they're solving for different problems 100 percent and there's certainly information I can take from either Noah, that's helpful in either situation. And one thing that I think about a lot now is is muscle as a glucose container?
Noah:That wasn't even a reality back then. Yeah, but it is certainly helpful From the perspective of oh, if I gain more muscle, I have a little bit more leeway in this sort of Sugar consumption area that that maybe I have a struggle with or whatever, right, yeah, so there are things that can be helpful to either one, but I don't think that one is clearer than the other necessarily.
Frank:I mean, I think they're clear based on the problem, but if you take, if you take the problem out, then sure nothing's clear, like neither of them. Calories or Carbs, neither of these are the right lens, for you can't control your eating. Mm, hmm.
Jake:For sure.
Frank:They will both sort of work. They might get you a lot closer to where you want to be with your body, but they do not solve that problem and I wouldn't recommend them.
Jake:Yeah, 100 percent. So this is why I think I mean this is why I think that it is important to sort of understand what sort of underlying story is driving you. It's similar to saying you know what? What drive is it Like? If I'm just playing the game, I might grab a Twinkie every single day. But if I start to look at it and I say, oh, I've been, you know, focusing on this and I thought that was my purpose and and I didn't even realize I was driving in this direction, if I start to look at it and I say you know what? I think I've decided that my purpose should be to be active and available for my grandkids whenever I'm 60 years old or whatever, like this is something that I want out of life.
Jake:I can start to make different decisions about about the world around me and what it means, and then I can start to make different decisions, because those different decisions have a different meaning based on the purpose I've defined.
Frank:Makes sense and I think people should skip it if they don't need it. But if you just feel like you're following the purpose, maybe yeah do what Jake's saying for sure.
Jake:I mean, ultimately, if the base layer of reality is just that things are, you could live and die in 40 years and or less or whatever, and like there is no meaning. So you just go through life and it is what it is. This is what it is at the base layer anyway, whether you think it's different or not.
Frank:Yeah, that's. My main problem is all the things we say and predict and purpose of fire or whatever. I mean they could work out the way you want, or it could be nothing, or you could have a thousand reasons you can't do it, or all of these concepts that just mock it up. Just be like just do the things you like. Do the things, take care of the people you love be, present. I think that's enough.
Jake:It is enough. It certainly is yeah.
Frank:And I think we should end this podcast.
Jake:I agree, I agree. I think that there is some Some subjective thing, sort of an interest subjective thing. It's different for everybody. We can point to it and we can say it seems to exist in everyone that there's a desire to feel quote unquote fulfilled and yes, If there's something lacking there. I would say it's probably some sort of conflict or misalignment between what is actually driving you and what you believe about the world around you, your own narrative.
Frank:Yeah, we should talk about that on our next episode about fulfillment, woo, which we need to add to the list because the next one is supposed to be about vulnerability, but it'll be about fulfillment. Anyways, thanks for listening everyone. Thanks, guys, thanks.