Sit down, buckle up, and put your listening ears on! Today's episode is a hard-hitter in the best way possible. Join us as Tim Wolfe shares his thoughts on conformity.
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Welcome to Here We Are. The podcast where we celebrate the beauty of being a nerd by learning about nerdy things from fellow nerds. I'm your host, Joy Blue. I'm telling you right now. You better sit down, buckle up, and put your listening ears on for today's episode. This is one of those conversations where I had initial ideas on where it could go, and then I got wrapped up in this place of glorious surprise as this beautiful conversation unfolded in front of me. We are going to be diving into concepts that we live with every day, but we might not always consider in the world around us. It's abstract, yet real. Practical, yet philosophical. I am so excited. You may even want to grab something to write down some notes with. It is that good. So without further ado, here's my friend Tim Wolfe to talk to us all about agency and conformity
Tim Wolfe:I'm Tim Wolfe. What do you need to know about me? I'm a product of the sixties and seventies in many ways. I lived and worshiped at the feet of my older cousins who did all those things, right. Some went to war, some protested the war, some went to Woodstock, all of those things. And that was when I was learning to read and loving to read. And I was doing things like sneaking books that I shouldn't have been reading at my age under my pillows and hiding them around the house and all of that. And so that's my roots. I am still just by nature, predisposed to something that's radical. The radical has a lot more appeal to me than safe. I was thinking about conformity this morning and why we value that so much, right? Why we like to press people to conform. Whether it's gender roles, whether it's racial stereotypes, whether it is whatever you take your pick, this is the way you behave at work. This is the way you behave at home. This is the way. And I look, and I think that, you know, in all the ways that we talk, we, we, we just mask it in so many other names, right? Whether it's religion, sometimes it's just political correctness. This is thing, right. Or it's politics. This is what a Republican is. And we're finding out that nobody knows what a Republican is. Just like, we've not known for many years what a Democrat is, but we still conform. We accept these and it is this. And I'm wondering where that impulse comes from. Because if we conform, then that means that somehow or another, we suspect that we all have identical or remarkably similar stories and we know that's not true. Right? And I know that as much as somebody may look like me and talk like me and walk like me, that if we started parsing their backgrounds and where those impulses come from, there's just no way our stories would ever align. We might find some common points, but not enough to even connect those dots correctly. Right. And so I always wonder, first of all what the purpose of conformity is outside of just management. You know, this somebody wanting to manage someone and I don't like to be managed. And so that's a problem for me, but the other piece of it is, is what makes us think that works. And that's a challenge for me in some regards. And so that pours into how you and I know one another in our work, in the ballroom. And you're sitting in the back of the room, kind of watching me flounce around. Right. Uh, But I think that conformity, particularly in a business setting, which business is really just an extension of a school setting, right? So education starts conformity and on it goes. And so we just go to work and behave like we are at school. And uh, still think we're we never get outta sixth grade. And all of this pressure to do these things this way, just negates the power of the stories that are in the room.
Joy Blue:Yeah, that's really interesting. I had a couple thoughts while you were talking about going back to let's go like a couple centuries ago, conformity was acceptance, was being a part of a tribe.
Tim Wolfe:Yeah.
Joy Blue:And yet we live in a society that both values conformity and individualism, but doesn't necessarily allow for both.
Tim Wolfe:Right. Right. But even in tribalism in genuine, authentic tribalism. Right. And I'm not I'm nobody's sociologist or anthropologist. I've studied ritual a lot. And the interesting thing about authentic tribalism and I'm not talking about clanishness necessarily, is that the rights of individualism are embedded in the life of the tribe. You see? It's
Joy Blue:me more about that.
Tim Wolfe:So it is not about gross conformity that we all look like this and do this. The individual's contributions and strengths, all of those things are honored and respected. You can look at native American cultures, you can look at African cultures, even within the tribe, conformity, may not even be a value in that tribe. In fact, the tribes may actually thrive on the diversity within that tribe way of its survival. Right?
Joy Blue:a really good point.
Tim Wolfe:You have shamanistic gifts, so that's your thing. We're not gonna expect you to get up in the morning and go work in the fields. Cause you have growing gifts and you are good. This is your... This is what you want to do. And so, I think that in our rhetoric obsessed society of the present time that we sometimes embrace ideas without exploring what they are. Right. So this is my tribe. Well, what, who are you in your tribe? You're trying to point to a tribe to tell me something about you, but in a real tribe, it would be who are you in this tribe? What's unique about you that makes you a value to this tribe? Because a tribe's survival is really dependent on the wealth of its resources and that would require that everybody would need to have unique gifts to bring to this. Right. And so that's the interesting thing. I'm gonna flip back to the ballroom again, where everybody comes in with these preset notions about what constitutes a good presentation and what all you have to do, and they're all mimicking one another, because they're thinking that's what good looks like. And we use that phrase. This is what good looks like. I don't know what good looks like. What good looks like on you would not look good on me. And the stronger the tribe is, the more, what good looks like, on Joy and what good looks like on Tim not only gets respected, it gets lifted and it gets, encouraged. And that's a whole different notion. I think.
Joy Blue:I have so many questions popping through my head. Who benefits from conformity?
Tim Wolfe:Managers. What I call the school marms, right? They are the ones that want everybody to behave a certain kind of way, because then they can quickly identify the outliers and control them. Conformity is good for management. That's why when you go to the airport, they tell you what group you're in. And this group gets this benefit and you get to go here. And it's now just conform, just get into this row. And, I wonder what it would be like if we all got on an airplane, we had to negotiate among ourselves who got the overhead compartments. Right. But no, this group gets this and this group, and there's a way that you create hierarchies in the way that you create management. Right. That's the problem. And so now you're not living in a free world at all, but you're pretending that it's free, right? Because the assumption is that you can conform this way or that way, but it's not really free because I'm managing you. I'm not honoring the wholeness of whoever you are. And so I'm not advocating you know, anarchy. But I just think that there's a more holistic way of looking at these things. And conformity really is not for my benefit at all. My conformity does not help me. It helps the people who seek to control and in many ways do control me. Right.
Joy Blue:That's so interesting. On the gig that we were at last week, I did have a conversation with some other people while we were there about the concept of free will,
Tim Wolfe:mm-hmm
Joy Blue:Which oddly enough, kind of dovetails into this as well
Tim Wolfe:Yeah.
Joy Blue:and how free will isn't necessarily even free.
Tim Wolfe:Right.
Joy Blue:Because of this concept you're talking about of conformity. You might think you're making your own decision, but you're not necessarily.
Tim Wolfe:well, I mean, because the way the world is constructed, there are pragmatic limits to your free will, right? I'll take a good example. The people that dropped out in the sixties, right? That whole just, I want none of this. I want none of or I want none of this capitalism. I want none of this sexism. I want none of this. We're gonna go to Bixby Arizona and live on a commune.
Joy Blue:Yep.
Tim Wolfe:And we're going to work the land and there are still survival needs right now, things that mean that at a certain point, we're gonna have to create a social structure. Somebody's gonna have to be the person that makes sure we all get up in the morning. Somebody's gonna have to be the person that runs the kitchen. We have to understand there's a responsibility that is embedded in freedom if you're going to maintain it. And that is understanding that me exercising, my free will brings with it a tremendous amount of responsibility to protect that freedom, which means that I'm also gonna have to deal with the pragmatic constraints that I have to move in. Because otherwise you get these people like these folks that are living out in the wilderness, amassing guns for the big coflagration and canned goods and all of that, they think they're living free, but the fact that they're amassing guns and things, they're still participating in an economy. They're still participating in a structure that they are trying to reject. And so there's a little bit of reality testing and maybe a rethinking of what free will and free choice and all those things really are because, I think that we would want to go from zero to 90. Oh, that means I'm not responsible for anything except myself. And the problem is, but you don't live alone, even if you think you live alone, you don't live alone. Um,
Joy Blue:we are part of the whole,
Tim Wolfe:yeah. We're knitted into this. Even the most solitary species on the planet have to come out of isolation to breed.
Joy Blue:yeah.
Tim Wolfe:And when they come into that, they come into a reality of these other pragmatic things that have to happen, whether I'm a peacock and I gotta put on a fancy dance or whether I'm a lion and I gotta fight the head of the, whatever it is, I'm suddenly thrust into some pragmatic things. Those things are not to be ignored or resisted, they're to be recognized and then say, so how do I achieve my freedom within sort of these pragmatic parameters. So you're right. Free will is not free in the idyllic sense. I think though that a lot of us, because we don't understand that don't pursue freedom that would be satisfying and liberating. Because we don't understand that there are just pragmatic constraints to living a free life. You see what I'm saying? One of my favorite professors in the whole world was this magnificent man, and an extraordinary writer, theologian Ted Jennings who refused to be categorized. But denomination didn't matter to him. They didn't, They didn't know what to do with him. Gender didn't matter. He had a lovely wife, but he wasn't particularly interested in those boundaries, all of those things. And yet he was very aware that he lived in a very real and material world that needed changing and You cannot change the system from without. And so then you sit and you start talking and he drops off things like, well, when I was working with Steven Biko in South Africa and you go what? You know, or when Ron and I were living in central California, working with Caesar Chavez and the grain growers, or when I was down in Mexico, help working with the, and it's like what? And his work was really literal.
Joy Blue:Huh.
Tim Wolfe:But that was the way he expressed his freedom. You see. He went and did things to was like, you can't do that. And it was like, well, watch this. And I've tried to embrace that in my own life. He was like, you can't, it's like, well, why not? There's no reason why not. I'm not ignoring the pragmatic constraints, but I'm not succumbing to them either. Right. And saying, okay, I know I have to make a living and I want to live well enough that I'm not panicked about my living because that draws too much energy away from the real work I want to do. So I'm gonna go into ballrooms and I'm going to be the best I can be. So people will ask me back. That keeps the lights paid and the walls up. But if you ask me what my work is, I'm not gonna talk about that because that's not where I experience the freedom. I feel free in those spaces, I wanna be very clear, but that's not where I experience the freedom of my full self, which is over elsewhere doing kind of crazy radical things. You know. Fighting for things that I think need to be fought for. And when I was still in seminary and I'm a second career seminarian and I only, I've only been at this for about 10 years. We decided that it was a, just a crime. Uh, What happened was a kid from Kenwood high school, my school was in Hyde park in Chicago, kid from Kenwood high school got shot. And because he was over 17 years old, he could not be taken to the pediatric level one trauma center that the university of Chicago medical center had. He had to be taken to Stroger hospital, which in traffic and there's no good route out there is a, sometimes a 45 minute drive and he died in the back of the ambulance. This was at a time when Chicago's murder rate was at a height and nobody was saying the obvious, most people are dying in the backs of ambulances on the south side, because there's no level one trauma center on the south side, you'd have to go to Oak Lawn, and you gotta go to the near west side. You gotta come north. And if we could stop people dying in ambulances, the murder rate in Chicago would plummet. Which is what we've seen happen every year since we finally pressured U of C to open their level one trauma center. When that came up and the kids from Kenwood high school got alarmed and the kids from the university of Chicago got alarmed because I was working in a congregation that sat on that campus, then we got alarmed and we all got busy and got busy working. And that's where I felt freest. I felt freest standing in front of a hospital on a subzero February day, leading a prayer vigil. I felt free there. I felt free laying on the president's lawn to draw attention to the fact that he's not moving. I felt free doing these works. Ironically that my less free work, my professional work that pays the bills had equipped me to do in some ways, Right. But I also wasn't like, okay, I'm just gonna quit my job and run off here and do this, because now I'm a liability to the movement. Am I not? Because now somebody gotta feed me and house me and take care of me. So the pragmatic always in some way, will set parameters around free will. But freedom, is that it's a depth thing. It's not a broad thing. It's how deeply free am I? How free am I to get up and not worry about what anybody thinks, cuz I'm gonna go do this, and then bring that back to my professional life or my family life or my social life and hand it to folks and say, I expect you to be proud of this.
Joy Blue:Hmm.
Tim Wolfe:And that's the shamelessness that comes with real freedom. And it's, this is what I do. Think what you will, I'm not embarrassed about it. This is what I do.
Joy Blue:I'm trying to make sure I heard you right. There's so much in what you just said. And I think what I heard you say was and this is something I've been working with a lot, like. It's adjacent to free will, but the concept of agency. Of I have the ability to make decisions for myself. I have the right to advocate for myself and because I belong to myself, I can then reach out and use whatever resources I have for the benefit around me.
Tim Wolfe:Right.
Joy Blue:And so what I heard you say was a version of that.
Tim Wolfe:Yeah.
Joy Blue:Of like somewhere along the journey, all along the journey, you've figured out how to use the resources at your disposal to figure out how to live, to use a Glennon Doyle word, like your most true, most beautiful life.
Tim Wolfe:is not always beautiful. and sometimes is it doesn't even feel true, right? I don't wanna paint such a rosy idealistic picture to suggest that there are not moments of profound doubt, there are not moments of sorrow. There are people that that I have loved who when I decided that I was not going to bother anymore with shielding them from my true self, they walked away. And the interesting thing, when people abandon you, and they will, people will abandon you, whether it's in relationships or friendships or professionally, they'll abandon you. And the weirdness about that for me was never that my feelings were hurt, that they walked away because that's their right and go ahead.
Joy Blue:sure.
Tim Wolfe:but I always felt stupid
Joy Blue:Mm
Tim Wolfe:Because it was always like, why didn't I realize that what I thought was going on here probably was not going on. The love that I thought that we had was a love I had. Why was I not smart enough to see? Why did I trust them so much to expect them to bank this curve that I've just thrown with them? How did I miss that? You cannot live as freely as you can without offending people, because people want you to do what they want you to do. And whenever it turns out that you're bursting the seams that they've tried to sew you in, that becomes a problem for them. Because now you're creating disorder in their lives.
Joy Blue:And now we're back to conformity,
Tim Wolfe:So that's why you need, just don't make waves.
Joy Blue:right?
Tim Wolfe:The whole supremacist thing survives on the fear of making waves. That's the whole thing. and I'm not talking about just racial supremacy, I'm talking about gender supremacy. Any time that a group tries to take Supreme authority over something, the expectation is that nobody will buck them, you know, and nobody will complain because complaining will get you in trouble. And it's I'm already in trouble.
Joy Blue:right. And if, yeah, if you're in trouble, then you're not a part of the group, which means you're a loner, which means.
Tim Wolfe:Right. And now take whatever name you want to take from high school. Like now you're a geek. Now you're a nerd. Now you've got cooties, if you wanna go back to the first or second grade now, now you're ostracized. You're marginalized. We've got all these fancy words that mean the same thing. But in the end, you were already in trouble before they kicked you to the curb. Because You were having to surrender a part of yourself to be part of something that doesn't want all of you.
Joy Blue:So, Where can you be all of you?
Tim Wolfe:You just have to make that space and pay the price for making that space.
Joy Blue:So am I hearing you right that? How do I say this? There's a, I think there's a part of everybody that is looking to be able to be fully themselves everywhere they go. There is a narrative I grew up with of you should be the same person, every in every situation you're in. But what I've heard you say is there is a work you, there is a You in relationship, there's a you in activism, there's a you in the pastorship that you're in. Is that being inauthentic? I don't feel like that's being inauthentic.
Tim Wolfe:because this is the difference. One size fits all is not the way that it works. You bring who you are to those experiences. They're all consistent with who you are, but the way that you engage them is different. The passions that bubble up over here...
Joy Blue:Mm.
Tim Wolfe:you know, uh, That kind of stuff. Now I'll give you a good example. I come from a Southern family. I also come from a very strict, fundamentalist family, right? So there's all that stuff. And every so often there is the summons to come south and everybody's getting together and it's usually at my mama's house and there's always a big dinner. And Now, there I sit at this table and unapologetically queer,
Joy Blue:mm-hmm
Tim Wolfe:emphatically Christian,
Joy Blue:mm-hmm
Tim Wolfe:Fully engaged professional person who expects respect on all those fronts. And I sit there among all of these people who are very nervous about that whole juxtaposition. Right. Okay. Because in their minds I shouldn't be successful because I'm out of sync with this, that, or the other. Right. You see I'm saying? also.
Joy Blue:the conformity lines
Tim Wolfe:Yeah, I'm also opted to live up north. I also have opted to live with a man of African American heritage, right. So they can't check one of their boxes with me and it makes them very uncomfortable because the minute they check one, it, the next one is out. So again, this conversation and they like to always rip me about this, that, and the other. And they're talking about stuff in Chicago and making all these generalities and they start talking about a very prominent Chicagoan and an activist. Who's a good friend of mine. I just said, you need to stop there. I don't let people talk about my friends.
Joy Blue:Yeah.
Tim Wolfe:it's just what you're saying just shows how little'you know about him. So you're gonna have to leave that alone. And uh, he's also an African American and my cousin had a daughter who had a boyfriend was there and he was just going to decide to hold court there. This was his went through this whole thing about, I just don't see what all the big deal is about all of these black folks being upset. Anyway, I don't understand
Joy Blue:Mm.
Tim Wolfe:In, and of course already my blood goes up right. And then he says, my great, great grandfather came over from Scotland and he pulled himself up by his bootstraps and he He worked hard and he created wealth that has kept our family secure. And I just don't understand why that's so impossible for them. Now. The well bred, rich Southern boy that I grew up, the Southern grandson, my grandparents and great grandparents were well off people. I don't mean rich, like in current today's sense, but yeah, we had, we net worth. That kid was supposed to just be polite to the day to guest
Joy Blue:yep.
Tim Wolfe:and let that go.
Joy Blue:Right?
Tim Wolfe:The justice kid in me is like, you know, what you really wanna do is fly across this table and slap some sense into this guy. So that's not gonna be an option either, but that's the way that goes. Then the um, husband of an African American is deeply wounded and offended by this because I have had had a front row to the struggle, and so there's that. Then the Christian in me has a certain reaction. All of these. All of these people will converge in these settings. That's where trying to get to. Right. So it's not like you're being inauthentic, who you are. It's not like you're being a different person. You, what you're doing is you are you're modulating the whole court of who you are to fit the moment. Right? So I just look at him and I just said, well, first of all, I think I, it looks like she likes you a whole lot. You may be wind up being a part of the family. We're not dumb people. And I want you to stop telling people that, talking about people pulling themselves up by their bootstraps because that's a physical impossibility. You should try it. If you try to pull yourself up by your boot straps, you'll tip forward. can never do that. So don't use that metaphor again. It's a false metaphor. But second of all, I just have one question about your great grandfather, Shamus or Willie or whatever his name was.
Joy Blue:mm-hmm
Tim Wolfe:Did he buy a ticket? And he just looked at me at me and said, what do you mean? I said, when he got on the boat to come over here and build this life that you are enjoying now, buy a ticket? and he said, well, I, I guess so. And I said, yeah see, my husband's ancestors didn't buy a ticket.
Joy Blue:Mmm.
Tim Wolfe:They didn't choose to come over here. They weren't given an option to find work. They were put to work. And so to compare them to your great granddady Willie.
Joy Blue:Yep.
Tim Wolfe:It's a false comparison and it's an unjust comparison and it only shows how little consideration you've given this topic. So from now on maybe, well, however you do away from here. I don't care, but when you're at this table, I really need you to bring good thought that shows that you've really thought about this. And you're just not repeating what you've heard in barbershops and other places where people don't know what they're talking about.
Joy Blue:Right,
Tim Wolfe:And the whole family just sort of did this and then they changed the subject. But it was like, because I was there being the dutiful son did not mean I shut all that other stuff down. It's just, I don't need to lead with all that other stuff all the time. You see what I'm saying? It's kind of, and no, I don't think that it's being an authentic at all to go in under a different sort of persona's too strong, a word under a different sort of level of engagement. You just don't leave the rest of yourself out.
Joy Blue:Yeah.
Tim Wolfe:I've been with presenters in a ballroom and they've said da, da, da, da. And it's like, you know what? I don't think you wanna say that. Because I don't think you, you have a full grasp of what that means and how people in your audience are gonna hear it.
Joy Blue:right,
Tim Wolfe:does that mean? Let me explain this to you. If I'm a woman of color in the audience, what you just said hits me a certain kind of way you, as a white male with a lot of privilege might have not not understand. Right, I've got fired from jobs for that sometimes. And it's well, that's fine, cuz we weren't gonna work together well anyway. So I don't think you leave yourself ever out of where you are, but it doesn't mean that you always have to come in with a Mack truck and dump all of you into that situation. A lot of that is just back there within your reach if you need it.
Joy Blue:Yeah.
Tim Wolfe:I had the joy of sitting with Bella Abzog when I was in undergrad. I got to spend the time with quite a few people in my undergrad years that were pretty phenomenal
Joy Blue:Yeah.
Tim Wolfe:and Abzog was one of them. And I, what always appreciated about her was here, she's this radical feminist, east coast, died in the hide liberal Democrat, who could sit at dinner and just laugh and joke and ask about your family and all these kinds of things and never, ever go into agenda work. Right?
Joy Blue:Mm.
Tim Wolfe:And then whenever you were standing next to her and she was on a full on 100% feminist rant, the legitimacy of her words was born out by the authenticity that you experience of her not being the activist, but just being yourself.
Joy Blue:It's all looping back around. So we started with the concept of conformity. And we've gone through a little bit of a journey of talking about how that applies or doesn't apply in different regions, in different settings. We've talked a little bit about agency. We've talked about essentially how to be comfortable within yourself with all of these different parts of you and how to be, I guess, kind of street wise enough to be able to call forward different parts of you to be the most authentic version of you at a certain place in time and to hold true to who you are and not necessarily conform, just because that's, what's expected of you. Did I sum that up well?
Tim Wolfe:That's beautiful. The pressures to conformity often have great intentions. Right. What I'm seeing today in our current culture are a lot of people who are, how can I say it, wanting to press their own sort of higher consciousness, they wanna lead with that. And that's what you draw from. That's not what you lead with. Right. Because in the end, people are going to test you and they're going to reflect on what your story is. That's goes back to story, right? I've got a really good friend who, one day out of nowhere, just announced that he and his wife had decided that they were gonna become vegans. Because it's, are you concerned about health? What is, I wanna just know what this is.
Joy Blue:right.
Tim Wolfe:And um, no, it's because of the environment. And we all know the whole thing with the methane and the cows this. Right. Well, they became very avid vegans to the point that was pretty much all they wanted to talk about. And it was sort of like, oh Lord, okay. I would really just like to know whether or not you think Beyonce's gonna last through the next, you know, you know. Could we talk about something else? Right. And then they became avid vegans who needed to try every vegan restaurant in the world. Right. And so now they are flying to Iceland and they're flying to Mexico and they're flying to San Francisco and they're telling me where the greatest vegan restaurants and, and it's like, how are you getting there?
Joy Blue:yeah.
Tim Wolfe:And it's like, so cow farts aren't good. But plane travel is
Joy Blue:Yeah.
Tim Wolfe:And that's the challenge I think we have whenever we try to attach significance to these moves, as opposed to realizing I'm just sorting it out. And whenever your views become the imperative that everyone else must meet and obey and honor in the room, then the people who really, and I say this all the time, the folks who need agency, the folks who need recognition, the unheard voices cannot be heard if all of these privileged folks are draping themselves in all these causes and making this noise. Because now we just got chaos, you know, it's like have a hamburger, stay off a plane. How's that? Try that. It is this notion of how things quickly become confused with all the virtue signaling and all of this kind of and all of these realities. And in the end it's like, let's go back to the tribe. What are your gifts? What are your strengths? What can you do that strengthens the whole?
Joy Blue:Right.
Tim Wolfe:but a lot of this stuff lately to me seems almost narcissistic, right? This is just how I am. This is the wholeness I found. This is the way I am and da, da, da, da, da. And it's not functional.
Joy Blue:right. It's individualistic instead of
Tim Wolfe:There you go. Thank
Joy Blue:Being Part of a whole
Tim Wolfe:Right. And so what does this mean? does this benefit? Not just me, but benefit us. What does this do?
Joy Blue:It's acknowledging that my actions have ripple effects.
Tim Wolfe:Yeah.
Joy Blue:not just me. It's like what you were saying. Yeah, it's good for you. If that's what you want to do. Sure. Go be vegan. That's great. also acknowledge that that does have ripple effects in a lot of different ways.
Tim Wolfe:yeah. Right. There are all those things that need to be taken into consideration. And I'm very proud of young people and their concerns. I'm also concerned that they think being concerned is the end game and it's not
Joy Blue:Yeah.
Tim Wolfe:all right. Those concerns should lead you to some kind of recognition of something within you that makes you useful to the greater whole. If we are all just sitting in our cubicles and I'm using that metaphorically being ultra aware and ultra, you know, this and ultra that and are doing all of those kinds of things, and not understanding that it's a community. And that means it's a really uneven and it's jagged and you're gonna bump your head in the low places and you're gonna get overwhelmed in the high places. But you're in the community.
Joy Blue:Right.
Tim Wolfe:And so I think that's where agency is so important because it is not just what I can do for my own betterment. That may be the beginning, cuz that's the lens through which I understand the world. But then when I see people like me... what drove the whole aids activism thing that ultimately changed the way America looks at same gender loving people. What drove that was the horror of able bodied, well men and women, and especially same gender loving women to act on behalf of those because through their own lens, they understood. You see. What this meant, and they understood that this is a horribly random situation that is perpetuated by isolation and marginalization. And so we gotta break the whole mother down. It's all gotta be broke down. We've got to pull into the mainstream. Now what I also on the other side now is now that we've fought for this and it's been 50 years no movement has ever made so much success in so short of time, here we are. And in the middle of that, now, people. Now we gotta go back and reclaim all these queer spaces and it's like, okay, well, what were we doing?
Joy Blue:Right.
Tim Wolfe:So now we're gonna go back in the tent and we're gonna hunker down and be all ourselves again, until we get in trouble. And then what are we gonna do? You can't do that. Your individual agency is not the end. It's to propel you to use that agency on behalf of others. Whether you're modeling it, whether you're actually acting against it, whatever it is, because there's somebody behind you,
Joy Blue:yeah.
Tim Wolfe:either generationally or in terms of resources, there's somebody behind you. And I see this when I'm in fundraisers and that kind of stuff who have everything in the world that you could possibly imagine and are still talking to me about their anxieties and about how they just can't get along in the world and they're glassy eyed from all the pharmaceuticals they're taking and all of this is going on. And then you say, what are you doing outside of tending to yourself? And at the same time they wanna let you know how cool it is and how grateful they are and how impressed they are that my husband and I have been together for 30 years. And how cool it is that we're an interracial gay couple. And they're just all accepting of that. In fact, that probably gets us on a lot of dinner party lists.
Joy Blue:Mm,
Tim Wolfe:But in the end it's what are you doing with what you've been given?
Joy Blue:Right, to sum that up beautifully, like we did start with the concept of conformity and now it's all coming to head and talking about, yeah, you don't have to be what everybody expects you to be. And it's so important to know who you are to know what your strengths are in the world to acknowledge you can't do everything, but you have been given enough tools to be the goodness that you are. So now that you are good in who you are, because you exist, because of who you are, now you have the opportunity to then go and propel forward goodness for others. Because we are a part, are a part of a bigger spectrum. And in pushing forward, I love what you said. There are people behind you. There are people that you are making spaces of belonging for because you are being fully yourself in these spaces and not necessarily conforming to what is expected of you.
Tim Wolfe:Yeah. I mean, I don't apologize wherever I may be for who I am. Right. And whether it's in a corporate arena or a religious arena or a social arena, if you are not comfortable around me, then you know how to excuse yourself.
Joy Blue:Right,
Tim Wolfe:that's not my job to make that's different than hospitality. Hospitality is throwing open my arms and saying, I'm all of this. Come on and get whatever you need,
Joy Blue:Yeah.
Tim Wolfe:but me running around and you make people uncomfortable. Yeah. That's not my problem. So
Joy Blue:They also have the agency to leave.
Tim Wolfe:that's what I'm saying. It's like, you know, if it's too much walk away I just on Sunday saw The Woman King. Have you seen it yet the Viola Davis movie? It's a wonderful movie in many respects. I started life as a film critic. And someone grew up loving films and loving movies that now I look back and I just cringe like King Solomon's minds, these kind movies, Gungadin oh, he's a noble soul because he took the bullet, you know, what?, you know, that kind of stuff. Right. And I hate that I've lost those films to a certain extent because they have a very sentimental value to me. And at the same time I can't have them. Right. That's just the case and what the woman king does is really quite marvelous cause it takes, what is that same kind of adventure movie set in Africa with all of this cultural stuff. And it legitimizes all of that as a conflict between tribes on the continent in which the white interloper is actually creating problems. Right? so there's a very interesting way that they play this all out. It's based on historical truth and the kingdom of Dahomey, there was a group of women warriors and in some ways it's almost like a military training film. We're gonna teach these young women how to be warriors. And they go to this test and it's very interesting to me before they get to the combat portion of the test, they have to run through a Bramble of thistles.
Joy Blue:Mm.
Tim Wolfe:And they get cut up, and the scenes after they succeed are of pulling these thistles out that they've acquired just to get into the fight.
Joy Blue:Mm.
Tim Wolfe:And I love that and it made my heart race a little bit, because I think there's some truth there that you can't just jump into the fight and start taking the heads off of the enemies to whatever it is that you're fighting. You gotta go through the brambles.
Joy Blue:Yeah.
Tim Wolfe:take, you gotta take the thorns and you gotta let your flesh get torn and you gotta suffer some before you get to the real fight. And I see so many people thinking that there's a workaround for that and there's just not.
Joy Blue:yeah.
Tim Wolfe:And at one point Viola Davis says your flesh is going to be scarred. You're going to have all kinds of scars, but that's your credentials. That's your cred.
Joy Blue:Yeah.
Tim Wolfe:And I think in fighting conformity, in looking to live free it's, as I said before, freedom is a deep thing. It's not a broad thing. And the deeper you go in trying to really experience and understand freedom, the more brambles you gotta run through. You gotta have to go through some of that and you're gonna, you're gonna get scarred and you're gonna get hurt and it's gonna be painful. But you can't just read a book like after George Floyd, everybody started reading these books. And now you're not a racist anymore? Yeah that's not how this works. Okay. So many of my active old activist friends will say freedom ain't free and that's the way it works. So. If you don't want to live a conformist life, you have to take the beating that comes to get into that. And then after a while you just don't feel the pain anymore because it's,"child I've been through worse." you know, it's okay. Whatever. You take that and you run with it, I gotta go. And so that's sort of the way that I get into that. Anyway.
Joy Blue:Tim. This has been a wonderful conversation.
Tim Wolfe:Thanks for the opportunity. I don't get to sit down and talk about this very often. It's just sort of do you know, I'm in it, but thank you.
Joy Blue:I, I have loved this so much, and I'm so grateful for you giving me a little bit of your time and your thoughts.
Tim Wolfe:Well, thank you. Thank you so much.
Joy Blue:So Here We Are. Wow. We covered so much ground in 38 minutes. Here are some of the major takeaways for me. This first one is pertinent because I personally do everything I can to not quote, get in trouble.
Tim Wolfe:But in the end, you were already in trouble before they kicked you to the curb. Because You were having to surrender a part of yourself to be part of something that doesn't want all of you.
Joy Blue:The choice is being who you want me to be, but sacrificing who I am. Or being who I am and sacrificing who you want me to be. If I've learned anything this year, it's that I'm choosing me. This next one hit me deep as well.
Tim Wolfe:You gotta take the thorns and you gotta let your flesh get torn and you gotta suffer some before you get to the real fight.
Joy Blue:I hope you'll take time to sit with the parts of this interview that poked at you and brought up potentially uncomfortable feelings. Where have you conformed rather than stayed true to yourself? I have so much to think about, and I hope you'll join me in processing this interview as well. Once again, thank you so much for coming and sharing your process with us, Tim. I hope this is only the beginning of curious conversations we'll have together. If you've got a flavor of nerd that you want me to celebrate, I would love to hear all about it. So go ahead and email me at herewearethepodcast@gmail.com and tell me everything. I love taking time to sit and make space for nerd to be celebrated. If you really liked this podcast and what I financially support what I'm doing, head on over to Patreon.com search for Here We Are the podcast and sign up for one of the many beautifully written support tiers that I'm really proud of. I would just like to announce that for the first time ever in Here We Are history, I have a sponsor in the holy guacamole tier. John Marovich, thank you. Not only for letting me interview you, but for believing in me and for being holy guacamole. So until next time don't forget that curiosity wins and the world needs more nerds. Bye