We've got cool anecdotes and insights that'll keep you engaged and maybe even make you chuckle. We don't stop there, though; the conversation steers into the sobering intricacies of local governance, highlighting how a church's noble mission to shelter the homeless crashes against the cold wall of city policies.
Remember how your grandma always had a saying for everything? Ours was about how the mercury's dive and rise can make or break your day—or your sleep, for that matter. Join us as we discuss the impact of temperature on our slumber and the heartwarming concern we receive from loved ones during a freeze. We'll also get our nerd on debating the universe's composition, the physics behind temperature, and the language that surrounds this everyday phenomenon. It's a blend of culture, science, and a dash of comedy, like a delightful stew of brain food.
But it's not all laughs and banter about what’s cooler than being cold. We delve deep into the essence of human agency and self-worth, pondering over the subtle art of decision-making and the psychological hurdles that often obscure our paths. We unpack happiness, the resilience to bounce back from setbacks, and the significance of adjusting our life's 'blueprints' to find that sweet spot of fulfillment. So come for the banter, stay for the insights, and leave with a renewed perspective on happiness.
We've got cool anecdotes and insights that'll keep you engaged and maybe even make you chuckle. We don't stop there, though; the conversation steers into the sobering intricacies of local governance, highlighting how a church's noble mission to shelter the homeless crashes against the cold wall of city policies.
Remember how your grandma always had a saying for everything? Ours was about how the mercury's dive and rise can make or break your day—or your sleep, for that matter. Join us as we discuss the impact of temperature on our slumber and the heartwarming concern we receive from loved ones during a freeze. We'll also get our nerd on debating the universe's composition, the physics behind temperature, and the language that surrounds this everyday phenomenon. It's a blend of culture, science, and a dash of comedy, like a delightful stew of brain food.
But it's not all laughs and banter about what’s cooler than being cold. We delve deep into the essence of human agency and self-worth, pondering over the subtle art of decision-making and the psychological hurdles that often obscure our paths. We unpack happiness, the resilience to bounce back from setbacks, and the significance of adjusting our life's 'blueprints' to find that sweet spot of fulfillment. So come for the banter, stay for the insights, and leave with a renewed perspective on happiness.
Let's buy something that podcasts for us and we could save that time every week. Oh, there's an option, I'm sure that's by what something that podcasts for us and we can save this time every week. Oh, that's how I feel about all your automation, thinking it's.
Frank:I know, and it's OK with me, You're wrong. No, and it's OK to be wrong.
Jake:Whoa they had sugar to this tea.
Frank:No, it just really good it's.
Jake:It tasted like like that first sip had a syrupy quality.
Frank:Yeah, like it's a really chai syrup.
Jake:It's a really good tea Good I tried to tell you I walked in as an interesting.
Noah:I walked in and I smelled it and I said I have to have that.
Jake:That's a good I walked in and smelled it and said it smells warm in here.
Frank:It's that hot cinnamon sunset.
Jake:Yeah, can we stop normalizing making associating caffeinated beverages with nighttime? What's up with that, guys? Why do we do this?
Frank:Are you sure that? I don't know that it's normalized.
Jake:Sunset. This is one night, you're right.
Frank:In the one case it's normalized to all. What about?
Jake:whenever you go to a restaurant and they say, would you guys like some dessert or coffee? What's?
Frank:that that is just a part of dating culture.
Noah:Do you think?
Frank:normalized. No, it's like I need to overcome this insulin spike.
Jake:It is. I was going to say Italian restaurant. So you're right, italia, it's pretty normal to eat dinner pretty late for long periods of time.
Frank:Can you pull this in Anyway?
Jake:yeah, noah, what's the smell of warmth for you? Electrical fire yeah, that's similar to what I said. I was like either chai tea is the smell of warmth or it's that smell of whenever you turn your furnace on for the first time of the season.
Frank:Yeah, that smells nice Space heaters the first time you turn them on after a year.
Jake:Yeah, that's pretty good. I actually cranked the Martin up this morning and I mean it's been on for a month.
Frank:Just a little reader context if you're reading this podcast. The Martin is a heater that Jake has in his living space.
Jake:Yeah, it's sort of like a standalone heater for the attic that was turned into a living space. Yeah, it's been on for a month or so, so I got that sort of burnt dusty smell the first time I turned it on. Cranked it up a little bit hotter this morning due to the whole negative 11 thing, yeah and got that smell again. So I think it just reached a little further, got some new dust, perhaps charred some carbon that hadn't quite been, you know.
Frank:Yeah, what are you interested in being angry at your city?
Jake:Not really.
Frank:Tangentially or at all.
Jake:Sure go for it. Ok, seems like you're interested in sharing.
Frank:Well, it just reminded me of this thing which is for a while now our church has been working with other churches in Edwardsville to create an overnight warming center for the homeless so that it would get activated. I believe it gets activated under 20 degrees. Ok, it's not a homeless shelter, it's just death prevention on the nights that you would die if you were to be outside Understood. So I guess last night was the first night it got activated this year and they've done a ton of work to keep it staffed and ready to turn on it anytime and I guess the first when they said it's open. Tonight the city went and locked the doors of the church from the outside and said that they have to pay seven and fifty dollars a day or apply to be a homeless shelter or something.
Jake:Had they not gone through like licensing, no, they had.
Frank:But there's like some disagreement about whether it's a homeless shelter or death prevention and it only gets activated on a few nights of the year.
Jake:But how'd you like to be the guy that got called up and told hey, so you know that locking thing that you do part of your job description.
Frank:I want you to go get this church, go lock them up from the outside. Yeah, I guess they paid the seven fifty.
Jake:So yeah, people got in. But, come on. Yeah, I think anybody who heard that would be like all right, here's my credit code.
Frank:All right, just a little silly.
Jake:Yeah.
Frank:Brandy was very angry this morning about it.
Jake:Understandably. It does feel like something you could maybe retroactively do, like hey guys, that thing you did last night.
Frank:Actually seven hundred fifty dollars, yeah, yeah, or just like hey, bad, bad kids next time.
Jake:No, no, we don't do that.
Frank:Yeah, yeah, it's about keeping the riffraff out of our community.
Jake:Yeah, we did have a riffraff once and everybody seemed to love him.
Frank:What do you think?
Noah:Noah, I don't have many thoughts.
Jake:You don't? He's achieved some sort of enlightenment. What I don't know, that's what I said last week You're, like Jake's achieved some sort of enlightenment, oh, ok.
Frank:I didn't hear a chief. Oh, I don't know. Oh yeah, Jake has thoughts this week.
Noah:Last week he didn't have any. It's about the riffraff man.
Jake:Yeah, it's because of the riffraff. No, it's actually due to the sleepiness Last week. I was so sleepy, Did you sleep well?
Frank:last night I did In the ice.
Jake:Yeah, I had the, the Martin, crank down. You all know what that is. You all know what that is now.
Frank:And actually only the readers know.
Noah:Also depends on what gets cut out.
Jake:I keep it on the lowest Cut out.
Frank:That's the greatest line in our podcast history.
Jake:That's right. So I keep it just on the lowest setting, because it is very temperamental. Get it and it'll either be extremely cold or extremely hot, and if it gets extremely hot when I'm sleeping I don't sleep. I need it to be pretty chilly. So I keep it at the lowest setting. However, you know, I don't have like a thermostat or a thermometer in my room, so I don't really know what it is in there. But I do have a water kettle and the water kettle tells me what temperature the water in the kettle is, and it was at 37 degrees this morning. This morning.
Frank:That seems colder than ideal.
Jake:It was nice for being in the bed Did make a sort of obstacle to getting out of the bed. Yeah, like a brick wall of 37 degrees.
Noah:I didn't realize it was so cold outside this morning because you must not have people that care about you, because I got like five texts telling me it's so cold.
Frank:I also don't have people to care about me, then no, I don't. Oh man, I've actually got a text from my mom again this morning.
Jake:Are you guys staying warm, honey? We have feels like 31 below here and it looks not much better there.
Frank:I don't know, that's weird. This is a great indicator of what you said it was, but I get it yeah.
Noah:You must not have people with high anxiety in your life, the person who cares about me is a person who cares about me, is in one of the hottest places in the world.
Jake:What would she think if she saw negative 31? She would crystallize. She'd be like no, I don't think I'm gonna.
Noah:Well, I sent her a photo of the negative six on my thermometer in my car. Yeah, Did she read that in Celsius? She said, OMG, that is way too much, I wouldn't go out in that cold. And then she said, oh no. First she said what, how much is that in Celsius? And then she said, OMG, that's way too much. After I answered negative 21.1.
Frank:Celsius. It is too much. That's what I'm saying.
Noah:Too much what.
Frank:Negative numbers. They're just too much. They're not too little.
Jake:Oh sure, we're talking absolute values here.
Frank:Yeah, someone chose the zero. It's arbitrary.
Noah:Yeah, we have two zeros.
Frank:Well, it's arbitrary.
Noah:Two different zeros depending on how you.
Jake:It's arbitrary. In Fahrenheit it's actually pretty understandable in Celsius. Why? Because there's so much water in the world. It's sort of the default state of matter. The default state of matter's air. Come on now. Do we have to talk about this? It's a gas man.
Frank:There are way more gases than liquids.
Jake:The default state. Are you kidding me?
Frank:No, I'm not. If you look at all the matter that we're aware of as humans, most of it's gas.
Noah:Your body is like 90% water.
Jake:I don't know. I would have to look into this Because, depending on the gas, there's a whole lot of space between the actual yeah, but we know the difference between gas and liquid.
Frank:Let me find out.
Jake:And then we have to look at the atmospheres of the different celestial bodies in the world or in the universe, is it? More gas it might be. Who knows man, I made this up, I just I just I know that's why I had to push on it. It could be right though.
Frank:This person doesn't know. All right, but I'm going to go with it because they have a BSC in chemistry from the University of Auckland In New Zealand. Yeah, keith.
Noah:Alpress, of course I'm curious why you first said this person doesn't know.
Frank:Well, because it's four years old and I think the state of science has changed.
Jake:That's why but I'm going to go with it the state of state change.
Frank:science has changed in the last four years.
Jake:I wonder what sort of change management they've got around that.
Frank:Yeah, but he said, keith, he said dark matter particles make up 84% of the known universe and it's slightly embarrassing. But we are not sure what those are, so he feels embarrassed. I don't know if he's done anything about that in the last four years, but that's what we're going to really talk about today.
Noah:This is absolutely. Can you comment on this post? Can you say, can we have an update?
Frank:Also. Obviously, you were embarrassed. Have you done anything about it in the last four years?
Jake:Whether or not the Celsius scale zero is arbitrary Does not depend on whether or not water is the default. Liquid is the default state of matter. However, I did kind of make it sound like that was true, so I'm reeling it back. Would you say you're embarrassed. I'm just saying it's not 100% arbitrary, whereas Fahrenheit does feel pretty arbitrary, I don't actually know what the Fahrenheit scale is based on.
Frank:Oh, I had some guys in Los Angeles or something.
Jake:Oh yeah, the.
Frank:Los Angeles Fahrenheit.
Jake:Yeah, you know.
Frank:I also don't know what it's based on.
Jake:Claude and Lefevre.
Frank:I hope that's their name, claude and Lefevre Fahrenheit.
Noah:Did you say Lefevre or Lefevre? I said Lefevre.
Frank:Lefevre.
Noah:Fahrenheit. It's got an E on the end.
Frank:It's an R.
Jake:It's kind of like it's kind of like it's implied, it's an implied R. It's kind of like Brett Favre, only.
Frank:Love Favre.
Noah:It's like Brett Favre, except for you pronounce it the way that Favre is spelled.
Jake:Oh, the Louvre.
Frank:You see how I just started to feel like Keith about matter on this. You know what I mean.
Jake:It's a little embarrassing. Oh yeah, keith. Anyways, if there's a, default state.
Frank:All substances start as solids at the very lowest possible temperature absolute zero negative 273 Celsius. So from that perspective that's a default. I tried to find the default state. That was neither of ours. I like that. That's good. That's a countermeasure to argument.
Jake:No, I'm an expert.
Frank:Yeah.
Jake:In any case, I'm just saying at least you know, Celsius zero is state change.
Noah:This has become a States of Matter comedy podcast.
Jake:Yeah, sort of a self help through States of Matter comedy business podcast. Yeah which we're going to tie all this in. Guys, if you just stick around for the ride.
Frank:Yeah, did you hear Alex Hermosi recently bought school? They did.
Jake:That's school, that's it.
Frank:That's cool. Cool is where you go on the way to cold.
Jake:Depends on which direction you're coming from.
Frank:No, cold is a relative measure. If you're going too cold, you have to go through cool.
Jake:I don't know if that's true. Man, what's absolute zero?
Frank:Freezing.
Jake:It is free zero molecular movement, cold Cool.
Frank:Yeah, you had to put them in another order to disagree with me. If you would have said freezing cool cold, then you'd be right. I'm saying cool. Cool is not between cold and freezing. I'm sorry, exactly my point there are no agrees.
Noah:Now I think you're confused.
Frank:My point is cool is on the way to cold.
Noah:Depending on where you're coming from.
Frank:OK, so you're coming from freezing. You're going to cold. Where's cool?
Noah:after. It's on the other side right, so it's on the way.
Frank:No, it's exactly where I thought it was.
Jake:When you say it, I think that we love to argue you can't be colder than cold, and use cool to get there. Actually, what's colder than being cold Is a known barrier.
Noah:Oh, that's cooler than being cool.
Frank:Exactly my point, even vanilla ice or whatever.
Jake:No, it was Andre 3000. Oh dear Lord.
Frank:You're right. Sorry, vanilla ice, put ice in his name, man.
Noah:So did ice cube.
Frank:That's true. I considered that one as well.
Jake:Oh, there was.
Frank:Yeah.
Jake:There was some sort of meme that had like vanilla ice Ice tea.
Noah:Ice tea, ice tea.
Jake:Yeah.
Noah:Oh yeah, I hate that.
Jake:I'm not an expert on this and I won't claim to be one.
Frank:He says, after he tries to demonstrate his expertise and fails.
Jake:Yeah, I'm the one who said what's colder than being cold? So I don't yeah.
Frank:Which is fundamentally flawed. Yeah, well, actually you know his point was the same as mine is that you can't cool, doesn't go anywhere except for just before cold. Wait a second On the way down.
Noah:Are you presuming to know Andre 3000's point?
Frank:Yes, yeah, it's a universal law of physics.
Jake:That's ice cold man.
Noah:Please look it up. Please look what up the universal law. This is a problem, though Cool and cold. This is a problem about the, the scale itself something about it.
Jake:This is a problem with the scale itself measuring coldness, and cold being a point on that scale, it is possible to be colder than cold.
Frank:No, newton's law of cooling states that the rate at which an object cools is proportional to the difference in temperature between the object and the object surrounding. Simply put, a glass of hot water will cool down faster in a cold room than a hot room. It's saying cool belongs before cold.
Jake:If you're coming from hot. Using cool as a verb.
Frank:No matter what, if you're going to cold, you have to be coming from hot.
Noah:I like that you're so in this.
Jake:I don't know if that's true, because there is something colder than cold and which I don't know what the name.
Frank:Okay, I agree with you that there's something, there's absolute zero and we can say that's colder than cold, which is an undefined variable. Yeah, but what we can't say is to get from colder than cold to cold, we need to go through cool, exactly, which is why you're wrong. That is my point, so how could I be wrong?
Jake:What do you think my point is you that cool is on the way to cold.
Frank:All right, I don't know what your point is. Still, though.
Jake:Okay, so let's say that cold is at a point on a temperature scale. There is something colder than cold.
Frank:Yeah.
Jake:And there is a way point from that negative position to the cold position, and it is not cool and cool is on the other side, over here, that's hot, that's cool. This is cold. This is colder than cold. What's in between? Colder than cold, not cool, cool, exactly. But you've been saying you have to go through cool on the way to cold.
Frank:You have colder than cold. Cool is over there.
Jake:I think that you switched positions and he doesn't realize he doesn't understand.
Frank:No, I don't think you ever understood my original position.
Jake:What do you think it was? You have to go through cool to get to cold. Cool is a position on the way to cold.
Frank:No, I didn't say that. I said the inverse of that, which is that we have a recording of it. To get to cold you must go through cool.
Jake:Which is not true, and I'm pointing to it right now.
Frank:No, it doesn't make it untrue.
Jake:You just said you have to go through cool to get the gold, except that if you're at colder than cold and here's cold- yeah you don't have to go through cool to get there. I.
Frank:See what you mean, but it's not what I'm sorry about.
Jake:Well, this has been a heated.
Frank:I was talking about on the way down, man, I.
Jake:Know you were talking about on the way down. This was an argument entirely based on semantics. That's dumb, I agree.
Noah:The most important thing is the Frank was wrong.
Frank:No, I wasn't. I can't be wrong. We didn't even have a fundamental argument. We did for ten minutes. No, it wasn't. There was no fundamentals. We had an argument about nothing.
Jake:I was trying to state fundamentals and get us on agreement.
Frank:Anyways, I do think this is an important conversation because it shows what we do so much in our mind, which is try to blame someone or do anything except take action, which we could have just drawn this who would ever draw it from that direction?
Noah:What do you mean? Cold is on the left, why it's due to the number scale. Man, you obviously have zero understanding of the stop.
Frank:I think this is about whether your glass half full or glass half empty kind of person.
Jake:Wow.
Frank:Anyways, that's what I was talking about.
Jake:Sorry, I'm still trying to get over the fact that it's drawn the wrong direction. There's no direction, I agree, but it's disorienting, but also.
Noah:It feels to me like cool is on the way from cold to hot.
Frank:Why is you just can't read the directional arrows? You know, I see that you put arrows.
Noah:I don't see that they mean anything this is my point, guys.
Jake:This is a coldness scale. Cooling is a verb that describes movement on that scale and cool is a point on the scale. Yeah this is. This is too hard to talk about and we should give up.
Frank:Oh, you don't think cold is absolute.
Jake:No, it's a range.
Frank:Who's range? It's subjective.
Jake:However, we do have what I would call a normal range of shared definition.
Noah:You know what we need. We need a ranger like Like the truck we need a ranger to come in here and set the ranges park, texas. Yes, all of this.
Jake:So anyway, no, you're actually really right, frank.
Frank:What was I right about cuz I forgot?
Jake:don't say you had a plan.
Frank:I did, but it was based on me making some false premise about what we were talking about being related to what we want to talk about, and I don't remember what that was.
Jake:You also did it while trying to force me to tell you that I was wrong. Did you think that was?
Frank:I didn't think it was important to you to be right. It's always important to me to be right, I know, and that is what we were talking about. Oh, perfect, let's go for it.
Noah:Can you tell me more about that, Frank?
Frank:let me find it in my notes Somewhere I do have this topic in here.
Jake:You know people could say a lot of things about us, but that we're good at transitions is not one of that's why I'd take all of them out when I edit.
Noah:And I just started the conversation. Yeah, this is gonna be the most eight thing you've ever heard, but I've had more than once the urge to write, and it is truly To to poke the bear. So it is an eight thing, but I've more than once thought I'm gonna write a blog post on like, every, like, every number, like why Ones are the worst number on the enneagram, why fives are the worst number on the enneagram.
Jake:Yeah, and it would be obvious, because it says that all of them are the worst right.
Noah:I just think it would be. If I, if I knew it would be taken as a joke, as Some sort of satire, I would do it.
Jake:But the internet is a place you just have to wait until everyone loves you unconditionally yeah no, this is how you get people to love you unconditionally.
Noah:Yes, you have to walk on the wire but I do think, I do think it's a funny concept like from an eights perspective or from any numbers perspective why every other number is the worst. I think that's a really funny.
Frank:I think this is why you think it's cool, and you should do it.
Jake:Yeah, why sevens think ones are the worst would actually be a very. Why eights think fives are the worst would actually be like an incredible.
Noah:Yeah, why a? Why this eight thinks any number is the worst.
Jake:I think is funny because Well, I agree, but I just think that specific perspective looks at the disintegration dynamics specifically.
Noah:We could do that as a podcast. We could say why is this number the worst from each of our perspectives?
Frank:Yeah, we could start like why do we hate? Noah, yeah, go ahead. Yeah why do you hate?
Jake:Noah. Well, I actually have an eight-wing, so you know we're all the same, so we hate you. That's actually it.
Frank:All right, so anyways, I think writing those blog posts would be what you think is cool.
Noah:Yeah, I mean I I think the idea is cool. I don't know if I feel like doing it.
Frank:Yeah, so putting the time and effort another way of saying agency, I think, is developing Psychological strength. So if you're developing agency, you developing psychological strength. So that's all the things in the world, in your environment, you're willing to overcome them for what you think is cool. That's what I think agency is. Hmm, it's, it's flexing the muscle of what you think is cool in the environment, even when there's risk.
Jake:I Hate Noah because of the way he's holding his microphone stand same I.
Frank:Don't hate, noah, I just like to clear that up.
Jake:I do. You should see the way he's holding his microphone stand. I changed it. It's still bad, it's better, but also.
Frank:I'm just one person at my current place in life and so I'm wrong 100%. Of course you are, yeah, and so I think it's important to say that, because I don't have the answers this and and it's actually very uncomfortable for me to try to act as though I do or even speak Like an authority or something on it, mm-hmm. So it's sort of just what's worked for me, yeah, and I have seen other people do well with it, so it seems like something worth sharing these ideas. But yeah.
Frank:Yeah, so agency, it's doing what you think is cool. It's Sort of like psychological strength. That's the way I think of. It is very complicated, but it does sum up to do what you think is cool. You just have to know that. Um, can I? It's really hard to know what you think is cool sometimes, especially depending on how you grew up.
Noah:Sure, I just made a connection. I think I think when you say psychological, say your term again. Second, psychological strength, yeah, I think for me that is the self-worth piece. You have to believe you Can do it, deserve it, all of these things. That's the self-worth piece, yeah.
Jake:I would agree, like for me, it is the words, like my belief that I have the right to Exist in the world, take up space, make decisions and and that just that is intrinsic to my existence.
Frank:Yeah, you're an agent. Yeah, you have agency. That's that's what it is. That's the thing I'm trying to figure out how self-worth fits in there exactly. But To do what you would have to do it, you'd have to have it to do it right.
Jake:That's what it is yeah, I mean, everybody has things they think are cool, but there are self-limiting beliefs all around those things, so my ability to actually enact those things in the world is limited by my own obstacles that I put in place, and for me, my belief that I deserved to to take up space and and to put my Desires out into the world was the greatest self-limiting belief I had.
Frank:Oh same, yeah, you're right. All right, on some level, the desire for agency does have a prerequisite that you believe you should be an agent in the world. Yeah, because we all are. You definitely are, whether you think you are or not right. Yeah, so, yeah, so I think it's like the combination of preparation, resourcefulness, such a way that you as an individual create the results you want in life. Like that Life isn't happening to you, mm-hmm. Yeah, it's happening to you and you're happening to it. Yes, so, yeah, so I think I guess you could call this self-worth.
Frank:But the, the elements of agency. If I were to try to break them down, there's like the sense of identity. This is probably self-worth. I Think the biggest factor for most people here is like their blueprint of life or how it should be, the worldview they have, the belief bundles they got taught. Should we talk about belief bundles? It's like Sometimes you get like Daniel and the lion's den at the same time as hell, at the same time as sin, and and all of these things are sort of connected in your head in some way. That feels foundational to who you are.
Jake:That's that's a mythology, yeah.
Frank:Yeah, so I think of that as like part of your blueprint, but and and inside of the blueprint there there's really a number line like warm and cold or 100, a negative 100 or whatever About pain and pleasure hmm, we're good and evil, or something like this, and it seems to me, like most people, most actions are to avoid pain or seek pleasure on some level.
Jake:Okay, so yeah, I think, in our least examined state, if we're just acting on instinct or reaction, we're probably Gravitating toward pleasure or away from pain, in some former fashion.
Frank:Yeah, I, I think it's bigger than that. I think I Mean I don't know if I'd say a hundred percent, but I feel like nearly all behavior the humans do are to avoid pain or seek pleasure, and the most likely one is to avoid pain, because we're way better at at visualizing pain, like I don't want to leave this relationship because there may not be another one after it. This keeps you in a relationship. It's much harder to say I should leave this relationship because there's a world of possibilities out there but I can't see what they are. No, that's way harder to visualize, absolutely.
Frank:So the pain seems to be much more common driver, but On some, so on some level, that these associations Form the other part. That goes with the blueprint, which is your state. So you have all these associations with things. Some of them are in your blueprint, like all of them, I guess, but you also have your experience, which gets you to your state. This is just like your current moment state, how you are doing, are you tired, do you have energy? Do you feel negative emotions, positive emotions, like what's going on right in the moment, and that states really important too. That's an important part of Identity or self-worth or Whatever this base requirement is for agency.
Jake:I.
Frank:Think people Become fulfilled when they can make progress on making their life more like what they wanted to be like a hundred percent.
Jake:I would also just say that, because of that thing we said earlier, you are an agent. Acknowledging your agency is actually just looking at reality on its own terms. If I Continue to let life happen to me quote-unquote Really what's happening is I've maintained the position that I was in. I'm still happening to life. I just am doing it in such a way that feels passive. Yeah, when I don't make certain decisions, it is having effects on the people around me and and so by saying, hey, I'm a person in this world, my actions have, you know, effects, we're really just looking at what already is right, yeah, and it's very discouraging to Be in the game and trying to make things happen and be working with people who are disengaged out of fear, sure.
Frank:So I mean, I think there's there's real value in Finding agency and figuring out what you think is cool and and there's a lot of work there is your blueprint, your real blueprint in your heart, and what people taught you may be very different, so much so that the thing you really want in life feels like sin or something that's horrible. I mean, that's just like you're gonna be stuck.
Jake:I'm aware, yeah.
Frank:So, anyways, though those are like the, the basic elements I think you need to know, I Say all the things I wanted to about them. Yeah, so then You're in the moment, you have this blueprint, you have your identity and you have your state, sort of how you're feeling, and so you're left with just decisions to make. Now, like you know these things, and Every moment you have decisions to make, so you can choose. What am I gonna focus on? Mm-hmm, this is the let's. Let's say you're unhappy and you would like to be happy, so why am I gonna focus on?
Frank:Well, if you're unhappy because a car pulled out in front of you and did not cause an accident, then you can focus on identifying the person to blame for this, and often we do. Or what kind of idiot did that? Or why doesn't anyone pay attention, or why is the world like this? These are all blame. And then, if you don't notice that you do that, then you might go into this whole little program about Assigning meaning, or or even if you think you do notice, like that's the. The trickiest part of mindfulness is that you're like, oh, I made an association there.
Jake:Let me spend hours re-associating it to something else there is a real tendency in Humans to to get that dopamine hit from self-awareness. Yeah, they say I am awesome, right, done it. Yeah, but that self-awareness is literally useless unless you turn it into action.
Frank:Yeah, I think so too. So, and I'm most of that is like Like that blame stuff is about protecting us from fears of inadequacy, your failure or Not being valid or loved or something.
Jake:Yeah, which literally amounts to Biological survival from like a genetic standpoint. Did the group disown me? Am I on my own? Do I have to fend off the lions and find food for myself?
Frank:Yeah, and what I'm saying, the shortcut is, is that If they did, you're gonna have to move forward with your life anyways. Right? So what's the point of the blame? That's, that's what the the blame thinks about it. Did you raise your hand?
Jake:That was sort of like a glory Hallelujah moment.
Frank:Were you directing the choir from my?
Noah:wrist felt kind of stiff side of that. I thought you had a question.
Frank:I did too. All right, so Assuming you get through blame, however you do, then you have another choice to make which is like Is there something I should change in my life?
Jake:Mm-hmm.
Frank:Is there Like the only way to be unhappy is if your, the conditions you're experiencing in this moment don't match your blueprint of how it should be. That is the only way. It's an unmet expectation, right, so you can change the way it is or you can change the blueprint. Those are the only paths to happiness. Yeah, so my point about blame is just that, like there's, there are two areas bright past it, yeah, where all the ability to change the world exists, and so you know, maybe minimize your time there.
Jake:Yeah, and I agree. I mean that is 100% correlated with your position, your orientation to the world. Is the world happening to me or am I happening to the world? That it's huge, it's a big difference. Yeah, yeah.
Frank:And so I think most people know how to change their life conditions in a way. But just the simplest guide I know is to pick where you might want to go. Like, if you have some vague sense that you like science, just start walking in that direction. Like, put one foot in front of the other. If you screw up or fail or whatever, just get back up and keep going in that direction. That seems to be the life conditions ultimate success formula or something. Um, you know, I want to be in a relationship and I'm not Okay. Go try. When you screw up, keep trying. This does seem to be the way to you know.
Frank:I'll only say one more version of the story, because it's so funny and Tony Robbins says it, which is how long would you give your average baby to learn how to walk before you give up and decide that they can't walk? Sure, you know, no one does that. They just say you're, he's going to learn how to walk. Just keep letting him try. It's funny how most of the people on earth walk. It's like the formula for doing it. Babies know it.
Noah:Yeah, so that's life conditions, and I actively critique babies walking when I see it.
Frank:Yeah, that doesn't surprise me at all. Not good enough.
Noah:Baby needs to be better.
Jake:Yeah, he's got sort of like a number scorecard thing that he can flip the number.
Noah:Yeah, like the diving thing, sort of a spectrum like this on the wall.
Jake:Uh-huh. Yeah, it's a 10 point scale, but he does include the decimals, so I guess it's more of a hundred point scale.
Noah:Yeah, yeah, cool is on the way to walking.
Frank:Yeah, so the walking is on the way to cool as far as I'm concerned. The um, that's life conditions. I really do think it's about that simple, like what do I think is cool? Head that way and the details will work out. The blueprint is not easy. I don't think it's a two step process or something. No, but it does start with.
Frank:Why do you think it should be this way? Like I should be able to be in a relationship without having any problems. Why do you think that? Who told you it? Where does it come from and is it true? Yeah, you talk to people in a relationship that have been there a long time. Do they have no problems throughout that 50 years? You'll find out that probably they had some problems because they're two humans for 50 years together. Um, but a lot of times we have these things in our head that there's no evidence to support. They just got in there, and so that's the blueprint side. I don't think there's an easy solution to this one, but I do think it's the other place you can focus. That has a lot of value.
Jake:Yeah, we were talking about having an episode about happiness and I was thinking about it a little bit. And my girlfriend's daughter is non-verbal autistic. I don't know what's going on in her mind, but it's definitely different than what's going on in my mind. But I just watch her play. I mean, have you ever watched a child just spin around in circles? There's no point to this. There's no achievable goal that says I have made it, now I'm happy, but there is pure joy that's coming out of them.
Jake:And when we approach the world from this perspective of play, I think that we embody sort of the best of humanity. We're doing what we think is cool in so many ways. And it's like when we create these finite goals and we say, when I achieve that, I will be happy, or what have you, then all we see is the distance between where we are and where we wanna be. And then we achieve it, but we've made this practice of only looking toward the next place. We don't know how to be happy in that moment. So when you say this is the hard part, I completely agree, because it's that balance between striving for more and truly dancing in this moment that we currently exist in. It's like there's so much beauty here in trial and error, but also I think that's the direction I wanna head in and I wanna try to get there, but being okay with maybe not achieving that specific goal and being open to it changing as you play and realize that there's something I want more. That's really, that's a beautiful state in my mind.
Frank:Yeah, and that's why I chose to define changing your life conditions as so vague as to just take a step in that direction and get back up if you fall. That's it, because it's just play that way. That's another nice way to say it actually just play in that direction. The blueprint's harder but it's not impossible. You just takes work, and sometimes the blueprint ideas have to do with Daniel and the Lion's Den and something that got planted when you were seven years old and you don't even remember it. But it doesn't mean you shouldn't figure it out. But anyways, my main point is that on the way from unhappy to happy, there are three places you can. We tend to be able to make a focused choice about Like. You can either focus on blaming, you can focus on changing your life conditions, or you can focus on changing your blueprint.
Frank:Many people seem to get stuck in the blame one Sure Life conditions are actually easy to change and fulfilling, because if the whole operation there is to change the direction you're walking towards what you want in life, there's no metric. You don't have to do a big step, you just have to do it and it feels easy and it's progress. And progress is what makes people happy. Feeling like you're in control of your life and you're headed in the direction you want to be is ultimately, just the thing that makes people happy. So that one's easy. And I think there's a piece that we don't even have to talk about today, but it does feel important to me, which is a sort of resourcefulness, about agency in times of derailment or stress. I'm in this situation that is over my capacity, like what systems can I have in play? How can I design my environment to support me so that I do make high agency choices even when all my faculties don't seem enabled?
Jake:Yeah.
Frank:I don't. This one isn't about the being in the moment so much as being prepared for the moments. Yeah but I think it's an important part, because I've been derailed many times by not being resourceful enough in advance. Sure, if you do start blazing a trail towards what you love and you don't expect a bomb on the way and it blows you off the course, you know you gotta get back on somehow.
Jake:So there is sort of that aspect to the world isn't there. You can have sort of a default disposition to believing that the life is happening to you, or this default disposition to life that I'm happening to life. The truth is is that both are occurring.
Frank:Yeah.
Jake:Neither one of them is 100% accurate and those bombs are the pieces of life that do happen to us, but we can happen right back to them, and I think that's sort of what you're talking about is saying, yeah, I'm looking at reality, I will have some potholes along the way, it's not gonna be a smooth ride, but am I prepared for that? Am I curating a sense of resilience?
Frank:Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think this is sort of really just part of the blueprint like worldview that you've come to, but it feels a little different to me like a like a worst case planning or something you know. Like you can get to the point where you're like okay, I think I understand my defense mechanisms and I know what might go wrong, and that works really well as long as you're on the side of self-awareness, that you've noticed that the defense mechanism is happening. But if you have a false assumption that I know my defense mechanisms and then you're in one because you got thrown in there by a bombs, whatever, you're like, no, I know what it's like to think that people hate me. This person actually does hate me, though, and then you react to this. But you were wrong. They don't hate you, you just did that projection thing or whatever. I don't mean you, I mean me, but the royal me.
Jake:Yeah, that's sort of what I was referring to earlier is almost the other side of that, which is like I don't know. I think you take these things in steps. It's like acknowledging that I am blaming, then acknowledging that actually the reason I'm blaming is something inside of me, and then looking at that equation and saying, okay, the thing inside of me is part of this. It's the meaning that I'm ascribing to it. Now I can look at things a little bit more objectively and the truth of the matter is is that sometimes the thing that you blamed out of your defensive mechanism is actually the causative variable, and that doesn't mean that blaming is actually valuable. It kept you from seeing reality. But sometimes we get that feedback. We say, oh yeah, I do feel good about blaming because I was right, and now I have to protect myself from that sort of thing from now on, and it's like, no, actually you were right, but it was still more valuable for you to see reality on your own terms, cause you can be wrong as well.
Frank:Yeah, yeah, I mean, every time you're right, you tend to reinforce the confidence that you'll be right next time. And you can be right on the minutia and wrong on the worldview, or something like this, you can, you know. Or the or like the details of right aren't the important part, or something like, yes, you were right, no one should do that thing to you and you'll never let anyone do it again. That's probably all good, I guess, except if it disables your ability to have relationships with others then you'll be lonely and have no connection.
Frank:So you know you were right. Good for you lonely.
Jake:Wasn't the most important thing.
Frank:To be right, right, yeah yeah, and again I'm talking to myself, but yeah, anyways, that's an introduction to agency as Frank I like it.
Jake:So can you just summarize that for me?
Frank:Yeah, it's doing what you think is cool. You can also think of it as developing psychological strength, a combination of preparation and resourcefulness, in such a way that you, as an individual, create the results you want in life.
Jake:And this helps us to make decisions.
Frank:Yeah, well, it just illuminates the reality that you're constantly making them so that you might choose the ones you want.
Jake:It's a really good point. Yeah, that's the art of decision making, I think the art of decision making might be a five-part series. I think you're right.
Frank:I would never call this the art of decision making. This might be the things I said. I would call this the things Frank said. I just want to say that one half of my screen is dedicated to the art of decision making notes and the other side has had, for the entire podcast, newton's Law of Cooling. Well, so I really feel like I didn't use the right side of my screen much.
Jake:Did you use the wrong side of your screen? That is the problem, isn't it?
Frank:Which we're blaming the sides of the screen. Man Stuck on that first decision. I was very stuck.
Jake:You're right about that. So we all were.
Frank:Man, I was stuck, I was stuck, I was stuck, I was stuck.
Jake:Man. Well, guys, I hope you enjoyed our discussion of thermodynamics and.
Frank:Agency Agency. Now they relate to one another.
Jake:Hey, plop a comment into your favorite podcast platform and let us know what you wanted to talk about next.
Frank:No, no, the comments are coming in.
Noah:Thanks for listening.
Jake:It's been a very helpful conversation for me.
Noah:I'm fully ready now to write the why the fives are the worst. I bet you are, and right at the end there Jake helped me out with why the sevens are the worst.
Frank:Indeed.