Facing Challenges Using Creativity and Resilience

In this episode of the M3 Bearcast, host Malcolm Travers dives deep into the nuances of personal development, mental health, and the social dynamics within the Black and LGBTQ+ communities. Drawing from the "Scenes from M3 Live" stream, Malcolm bridges the gap between digital content and real-world application, challenging listeners to move beyond surface-level solutions.

Cultivating Anti-Fragility Beyond Boundaries

The episode kicks off with a nuanced discussion on mental health and the concept of boundaries. While setting boundaries is often touted as the ultimate form of self-care, Malcolm and guest Gregory Drayton explore why they are sometimes insufficient. Malcolm shares his personal journey navigating the anxiety and "news leakage" following tragic events, such as the shooting of Alex Pertti. The conversation shifts toward building anti-fragility—the capacity to remain grounded even when life is messy and boundaries are inevitably crossed.

The Real-World Cost of Magical Thinking

Malcolm addresses the "hellscape" of social media commentary regarding Black men’s health and the rejection of modern medicine. He examines how "magical thinking" and conspiracy theories—ranging from the "firmament" to spiritual warfare—act as barriers to community progress. The discussion highlights the collective financial and social burden when members of the community opt for "comforting delusions" over proactive healthcare and logical problem-solving.

Creativity as a Tool for Political Resilience

Facing a daunting political landscape, the podcast offers a message of hope centered on innovation through pressure. Reflecting on how the DMV and businesses adapted during COVID-19, Malcolm argues that the current "existential crisis" in American politics is an opportunity for creative restructuring. He discusses the need for nimble thinking to combat authoritarianism and corruption, emphasizing that growth often occurs during our most difficult eras.

The War Between Humility and Pride

Finally, the episode explores respectability politics and the pressure to be "twice as good." Malcolm and Greg discuss how this pressure can lead to a dangerous lack of accountability. They argue that true growth requires the humility to admit mistakes—like Greg’s $10,000 banking error—rather than hiding behind a facade of perfection. The episode concludes with a reminder that mistakes are not failures, but guideposts for correct action.

Join the Community

If you value these deep dives into dialogue, insight, and creativity, consider supporting the grassroots mission of Male Media Mind.

• Become a Patron: Gain access to our private Telegram groups, Book Club, exclusive VIP room, and patron-only after-shows at patreon.com/malemediamind.
• Follow Us: Stay connected and join the live conversation on:
  • Instagram
  • Facebook
  • YouTube
  • X (Blue Sky)
  • TikTok

Visit malemediamindlive.com for all social media links and upcoming broadcast schedules.

Would you like me to create a shorter, more "punchy" version of this description specifically for a YouTube or Spotify upload?

Transcript

 Ep 90 Senes from M3 Live

Ep 90 Senes from M3 Live

Speaker 15: [00:00:00] Welcome to the M three Bear Cast. My name is Malcolm Traverse. Male Media Mind is a grassroots organization, dedicated, uplifting, and unifying our community through dialogue, insight, creativity, and knowledge. And on this podcast, I go into detail with some of the topics that I raise on my live stream. And this week I had some

videos that I played from TikTok. That were around relationships, communication, mental health, and spirituality. So let me get into the videos and explain my thinking around them. So the first video was about boundaries ostensibly, but ultimately, it actually came up

that what boundaries do is protect your peace. They're insufficient because the world is not neat enough for your boundaries to always be effective. And so while boundaries are a good starting point for people who are dealing with neuroses and mental health issues, [00:01:00] what ultimately makes life manageable is building capacity to deal with situations that are outside of your control.

I used an example dealing with the recent shooting of Alex Pertti in Minnesota, and some of the issues I was dealing with, mental health, anxiety, anger, just sleeplessness, um, because of some of the videos that were finding their way into my feed. And of course, I drew boundaries. I, I listened to myself and I made sure to remove news media that

encouraged anger and was trying to stoke resistance to the authoritarian regime. That's a, seems to be arising within our executive branch. I understood why people were making that sort of content, but I needed to step away from it, and I felt no guilt about doing that. But at the same time, [00:02:00] there's leakage, right?

Even content creators who were not talking about the shooting, end up talking about it, and it found its way into my awareness and part of having good mental health is being able to deal. With those moments that are inevitable in our messy environments. So I want to, uh, introduce you to the video and then, um, some of my comments on air during the live stream.

Okay. 

Speaker 6: Boundaries have started doing the emotional work for a lot of people.

They've become the solution, and in a lot of ways we're rewarding that if you say you set a boundary, people assume that you're taking care of your mental health. And I would disagree because it doesn't always mean that. But what often, what often goes unnoticed is this, the boundary isn't just protecting you, it's holding everything together.

Meaning, in order for you to be okay, the distance has to stay without it, the discomfort comes back, the emotion comes back, the reaction comes back, and that tells me something important. [00:03:00] And it should tell you something important that the boundary isn't coming from a place of self-trust all the time.

It's coming from the fact that you don't yet know how to stay with what you feel long enough to truly understand it. And at some point, that's the work that you're meant to learn how to do yourself. 

Speaker: Okay, so this is what I was getting at when I heard this video and something that I have been thinking about for a while is this idea of.

Both resilience and anti fragility. So resilience is just the idea that we don't all react to things in the same way when something bad happens to them. Sometimes some people are much more impacted than others. I know this is just sim simply for myself that I am that type of person. It may not seem that way from the outside for other people.

And my perspective could be wrong, 'cause I don't really know how everything affects everyone else either. But just a general impact. I was just thinking about that the reason why people develop [00:04:00] certain forms of mental illness is because of how they re respond to their environment. And two people raised in the same environment can be affected very differently.

And I don't think it's necessarily something wrong. This is one of the reasons why I think people. Misconstrue this idea of some people just more sensitive than others. Sensitivity is not necessarily a bad thing. It could obviously be a good thing in forms of like creativity and, emotional empathy for other people.

But if you are put in a situation where there are people who really don't give a shit about your feelings or you're in a culture in which showing any sort of emotions is frowned upon you can develop certain neuroses, certain patterns of behavior that are self-destructive, certain antisocial coping mechanisms, and those, we eventually will call mental illness of some sort, right?

But really it's just your adapt adaptation to your environment based on your personality. And [00:05:00] so boundaries are one of these things that help us, separate from those those triggers, those that sort of negative spiral and let you heal and, help you manage your emotions so that you can figure out, what it is that what it is you need to do.

Like basically you're listening to yourself, you're listening to your body, you're listening to, the things that you need, and then you're expressing those to other people. The point is though, you're not always gonna be able to shape your environment, and I think expressing your boundaries is just like the first step in a longer process of healing.

And I think just going down the line and getting into therapy, exercising, managing your life, getting to where boundaries are expressed, but are not necessary for you to be okay. Getting to a place where even when people are not [00:06:00] sensitive enough or listening enough to what you need and want that you'll, you'll, you can manage, like I can think of many times like in a school environment or a work environment where you don't really have a as to how you're treated in, in certain situations, and you have to be able to deal with that.

Managing, I forget the way they described it, is good mental health is the ability to manage and navigate the stresses of everyday life. And I think, our stresses in our lives now are, are getting worse is, especially like I was thinking about, we were talking about the, the cameras and everything.

We're seeing things we weren't meant to see. We were knowing things that we, are previous generations were not exposed to. It's only gonna get worse and we can't use, how do I put this? We can't use boundaries in all those situations. 'cause I was thinking about that with the news coverage, right?

I couldn't stop all the coverage coming through, it was impractical to [00:07:00] hide myself from what is there. On some level, you have to build up capacity to be able to deal with it.

What sounded like what Greg was saying was like, Greg, boundaries are not enough. I don't think that's what she was saying. I think what she was saying is that like when someone has gone through something difficult, boundaries work. They, they are a necessary part of the healing process, but they're not sufficient.

Like it is a good start, but part of the healing process of truly healing from some trauma is being able to be okay even when someone violates your boundaries. 

Speaker 2: Yeah. 

Speaker: It is because what she was saying is like, when the boundaries don't work, because they don't always work, because people don't always respect you, you shouldn't then also just revert right back to where you were before you started implementing boundaries.

And so that's all that I was getting from it. And I [00:08:00] think that I've seen people institute boundaries badly in the sense that they are a. A castle with moats and with alligators and you could get close to 'em if you tried which is bad, and I think that you should be able to trust yourself, trust how you feel in situations.

Your boundaries should be something that you naturally engage. Like it's not something that's artificial at all. It's you're literally just listening to yourself.

Speaker 16: So this next video is about acknowledging problems that maybe can't be fixed rather than going into fantasy land and pretending like it's okay. There was one subject that was brought up on a previous live stream where a guy just posted that black men need to go to the doctor, and he was [00:09:00] coming out of his checkup.

The comment section was a hellscape of black men talking about how going to the doctor was a scam that you just need to work out. And a lot of homophobic shit was thrown his way. And, I didn't really speak up during that live stream because there was six people on the panel, but, I was thinking it's not gonna resolve itself by.

The people not going to the doctor just dying because we live within a larger context. That's something that was brought up in the conversation. Was it the Darwin Awards and Survival of the Fittest, but it's not survival of the fittest individuals, it's the survival of the fittest community, the the fittest organism or the survival of the fittest species, right?

The fact that there's a large group of people who don't believe in modern medicine is something that we all pay for. [00:10:00] And likewise, we could say the same about religion and magical thinking. It's something that I'm come to realize that you cannot directly address with people. But at the same time, I cannot sit by and say that it's not causing a problem.

I just know that I don't, I'm not gonna add to the problem by antagonizing those people who aren't ready to let go of their comforting delusions. So we had a little conversation about that

Speaker: I think it was interesting last night we were talking about the, the guys who will not go see the doctor, huh? We were like, oh, just let them die. 

Speaker 2: Oh natural selection is a thing.

Speaker: It's not though. You know why? Oh, because it, it, it, it affects everyone, right? Yeah. I dunno. [00:11:00] I, I didn't wanna get into it last night, but it did. It was like, you know what? Because they are black men and we are black men, we are in the same demographic, so that. Our insurance covers are tied into that demographic, which means that you're gonna be paying more for your insurance period.

Right? And those people are not going to die at home. They're gonna die in a hospital and they're gonna incur thousands of dollars in medical treatment that has to get paid by the rest of us, which means just everyone's gonna have to pay more. And it is not a solution to say that you just die. Although mind you, you also can't do anything about it.

I think that's the frustrating thing. Oh, 

Speaker 4: you can't, 

Speaker 5: yeah. 

Speaker: You can't get those people to go to the doctor. They're never gonna go. But it's also our problem. And this is another one, magical thinking is a problem that you can't solve. I re I really thi it is a problem, but I think you have to at least, at least [00:12:00] admire, I'm not gonna say what you have to do in my estimation.

I have to recognize that it is a problem that is, that affects everybody and there's probably nothing I can do about it. I'm gonna play it real quick. 

Speaker 9: It makes no sense that faith is a moral virtue. For what reason would God value believing the correct, unbelievable story over things like character?

What we do know is that anytime a religion values faith as a moral virtue, it becomes a way to prime the brain towards conspiracy thinking. So here's a post that said, Christians, what's a conspiracy theory that you 100% believe? So here's some, examples. The firmament is real. The government knows this, and they all lie.

Anxiety and depression are demons. 90,000 people liked that. I see this one all the time. Eight blood types, eight people on the arc. We can't leave the earth, we can't leave the fermin firmament, waking up in the middle of the night is God urging you to pray for what's? For what's to come. That's 72,000 most of Hollywood and political people are demons. The devil knows that he will lose. He's just too prideful. Dragons and unicorns actually existed. [00:13:00] Jesus is coming back in our lifetime. That if the devil isn't on your trail, it's because he already has you. Again, this idea that mental illness is just spiritual battles.

This is an interesting one. Greek mythology is real. It's the offspring between fallen angels and mortals. 2000 people liked that. Like real human people, the Epstein files are never gonna be released because they make deals with demons. And so if it did get released, everyone know it would know that God is real.

The government knows Jesus is real. Oh, this is an interesting one. You can inherit demons that have attached to your family line. This is why I'm so harsh on magical thinking. It's because on the service level, people will be like, these are just my beliefs. You have to accept them. You have to respect them.

They don't cause any harm. When really when we look closer and the encouragement of this kind of magical thinking, conspiracy thinking, it actually has a large scale, real world effect on society. And this is why even though I talk about nihilism and existential crisis and deconstruction and the meaning crisis, and there's tons of problems, there's problems with secularism, I'm still willing to take on those problems because essentially I see that we have two choices here.

We can either coddle ourselves with our faith and [00:14:00] our, and our stories and our conspiracy beliefs, and why even make the world a better place? Because Jesus is coming in our lifetime. Why even, have mental health be a thing if it's just demons or if we can let go of the security blanket and let go of this idea that faith is a virtue, then we can actually have the clarity of mind to say, here are the problems.

What are modern solutions that we have that can make life worth experiencing for the most amount of people? And I feel like only one of those actually makes the world a better place, which is actually seeing the problem and dealing with it like it's a problem, versus, oh, this is not a problem. This because Jesus is coming, or this is not a problem because this is actually a spiritual battle, not, a worldly thing that we could to change.

Speaker: So I think my, my major problem with it is that you cannot do that work for anybody else. This is all a personal thing, like what you believe. Because when you attack someone for their beliefs, you're not just attacking, ideas that they may make, feel silly for [00:15:00] having to let go of. You're attacking the people who taught them those beliefs.

You're attacking their family, their, their parents, their grandparents, their siblings, whoever the connections that have deeper meaning for them, even if they know these things are ridiculous. I'll give you an example for me. I was in a relationship with somebody who was religious and I was playing yugi or one of those card games, and he was very concerned.

That I might actually release some demons by summoning a, a card. It's yeah, I see. Like there, there are pentagrams and things on. I know it's, it is laughable. But he was truly concerned for my safety,

Speaker 4: see. 

Speaker: Yeah. And I'm just like, okay. And I had to sit there and I was like, I didn't understand at the time.

I was just, I, I get it like on a metaphorical level, like what these things mean and the, the colors of the summoning circles and what,

the pentagrams of power and blah, blah, blah. But [00:16:00] you're telling me that you think that they're actual people like flesh and blood people, not people in a book, but flesh and blood, people who have lived, maybe even people who live right now.

Who can open up a book and read from that book and summon a creature of some sort. Yes, 

Speaker 3: yes. 

Speaker: Another mention 

Speaker 3: people believe. 

Speaker: Okay, okay. We're not the same. 

Speaker 3: Exactly. 

Speaker: Because I, 

Speaker 3: we're not the same. 

Speaker: We're not the same. And but it was a, it was a revelation for it. I was like, oh, okay. You think people really believe that?

Speaker 3: Yeah, man. Yeah. I grew up Pentecostal, bro. Oh man. Let me tell you some shit. I don't even feel like getting into it. Let me just say this now 'cause I am a Catholic, so both things, I can believe the story of the magical baby in the Virgin Mary. And I can also know that you have to have coils to get pregnant.

You know what I'm [00:17:00] saying? It is a, it is a suspension of disbelief that I, because I am, I opened up a, 

Speaker: I can see that, and 

Speaker 3: I know how children are prorated, you know how people are made. And do I do, I think that once upon a time in a land far, far away, I also love Star Wars. I also love movies that take me away into magical places, but two things can be true at once. You don't. I know that. Oh, God. See, I'm scared to say this out loud. I'm not gonna say it out loud. So 

Speaker: this is the problem. I'm talking about it, by the way. 

Speaker 3: It's, 

Speaker: they're so sensitive and they will be hurt. They could be physically, emotionally hurt. You're saying the simplest a 

Speaker 3: motherfucker gonna see this, a motherfucker from my church is gonna see this and I'll excommunicated.

So I gonna say, 

Speaker: it's so true though. Don't say it. I really don't think you should say it. I I'm not gonna [00:18:00] you to say it's 

Speaker 3: okay. No. Tune in to Patreon. I'll say it, but on Patreon, but not out in the public sphere because 

It's that sensitive. It's that sensitive. 

Speaker: It 

Speaker 3: know it's, does my educated mind, you know what I'm saying?

Your educated mind knows, but you, you, you have, it's, it's fine to believe in something to make you feel better about the things that you don't understand. I think, let's say it that way. 

Speaker: I I I absolutely do that all the time. I, yeah.

I saw this post on YouTube.

I think it was a a TED talk or a clip from a TED talk. And there's this guy who was talking about evolution and how organism see reality or don't see reality. And they were running these models, of organisms that see things exactly the way they are versus seeing things that are more adapted for survival.

And it became clear pretty early that organisms like us that evolved through natural selection have evolved to see [00:19:00] things that are adaptive, not true, and so whatever we see out in the world, colors, sound, all these things are actually just constructed to best suit our adaptive survival needs.

None of it is actually based in reality. So let's say right now you're looking at a computer screen, right? Colors, icons, you see a mouse you see all the things on the screen. Those things are not what computers are, right underneath the icons and all of the colors on your screen.

Or very complicated code and, languages that we could not even begin to understand. That's kind of way that I think reality is. Reality is something that our brain constructs from that very, very complicated code into something that we can understand. And part of the reason why community and relationships are so important is so that [00:20:00] we have a shared reality of some sort right.

With each other. Because otherwise we'd just be off. And, anyone who's ever hallucinated tripped or had anyone who hasn't done LSD or had a actual mental breakdown will recognize, like in those hallucinatory experiences is that you have just left the herd. You know what I'm saying? You're off in your own little reality somewhere.

And it's like that. You could see that as, I don't know. I, I think a lot of people who are philosophical have experienced that either through psychosis or through trips on LSD. I remember there very similar experience that RuPaul went, explained in his book on, on the same idea that you, you start to realize that, yeah, all of this is just shit our brains make up.

If you've ever had a really good trip and then you come back to reality and that reality is shared through other people and you recognize that we mitigate each other's [00:21:00] sense of reality. So that's why it's important that at least in your own mind, when someone says that, I think unicorns and dragons are real, you don't go no bitch.

They're not,

you don't go, no bitch. Unicorns and dragons are not real because slap the dragons at your fucking hand. What you do is you say, Hmm. Poor baby.

Speaker 3: And then you have to be careful about other people's belief system. Yeah, 

Speaker: you do. You do. You have to be like okay with it. But you also don't need to question your own fucking beliefs.

Crazy shit 

Speaker 3: That is 

Speaker: the firmament and the bullshit. I did not even know that. The main reason people thought that they faked the moon landing is 'cause you can't fucking leave the earth. That's what they're talking about. The Berman. 

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Speaker: You don't think you can leave the the earth. 

Speaker 3: You can leave the earth.

Speaker: They don't think you can leave the earth. 

Speaker 3: They don't. And they, they probably think the motherfucker is square, but I they do, they they they don motherfuckers. If you go to the edge of California, you gonna [00:22:00] fall off until their people believe that till this day. Yeah, 

Speaker: they do. They do. 

Speaker 3: Thessy comes back when you have people in charge like that.

Maga they believe that most, this all started with. They eating babies in the back of pizza parlors. Was that, was that it? 

Speaker: Yeah. No, I think they said that Hillary Clinton used to wear the skin of babies on her face. What? To keep her skin young. Yeah. 

Speaker 4: Yeah. That 

Speaker: she was skin a baby and wear their skin on her face.

Yeah. 

Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. Where did, 

Speaker 2: so they could, they could, didn't have any hobbies. They, they didn't have nothing else to do or say or make up, 

Speaker 3: you 

Speaker: know, 

Speaker 3: it gets 

Speaker: like, yeah. People talk about the Illuminati and Beyonce, like it's real, like they really do think there's a, a fucking Illuminati. 

They 

Speaker: do Beyonce's music.

Speaker 3: Somebody on online just said today, oh my gosh, they kicked Nicki Minaj outta the ality. This is why everything is happening to her. No, it's happening to her. 'cause she's a fucking idiot. [00:23:00] Not because of this. 

Speaker 4: Wow. 

Speaker 3: People like, listen, hey. No, I tell you. But it's just old people and, black colloquialisms. You can't talk when it's thunder lightning. Now I'm gonna been to they grandma house. Shut up while the Lord do they work.

Speaker 16: in this next conversation.

We talk about the ways in which creativity can overcome the shit show. That is the current political landscape. I. Listened to this video and it gave me hope in the sense that oftentimes we come up with our most innovative ideas when we were faced with challenges. And so while all I see in the news are all the democratic institutions that are future congresses are going to have to rebuild, I'm also given some amount of hope that the fact that we have something to rebuild means that we have an opportunity.

To make something better. It's really the only way that advancements are [00:24:00] made is when there is a great need for advancements. And so we are going to be in great need after this is over. And so in some sense, that gives me a little bit of hope. I'll, I'll bring you the conversation

Speaker 10: I wanna remind you that pressure often breeds genius and innovation. I think about my ancestors who created languages and technologies to be able to navigate the challenges of their life. I'm thinking about COVID and how restaurants and different businesses changed their business practices to accommodate the times.

My point is this creativity, creative thinking, creative strategy, creative problem solving. These are important ingredients of constructing a world. Of building society, of building communities, I see destruction, but I also see construction. And that will require hands, that will require people with vision, that will require people with solutions.

And you have that, you have those things. [00:25:00] So do I remember your creativity? Use what you have, do what you can. 

Speaker: Yeah. So I think I was needing this video because I kept thinking about what we're gonna do, to live with the people who instituted the hellscape that we were on. This morning I woke up to a report that Trump was on a radio show and he is floating the idea of nationalizing elections in red states.

Basically trying to, turn the 2026 election towards the Republicans. And I think there's enough, there are enough followers of his to to at least they're gonna attempt it. And that should, make me feel horrible. It does, but at the same time, I think that there, there bungled attempts to try to make this happen [00:26:00] is going to help us be more resilient as a country overall, right?

Like when we see the bungled attempts to nationalize elections when we see the ways in which the president is going to enrich himself through, these schemes, like the Bitcoin stuff that's crazy to me that billions of dollars are being siphoned from foreign countries into his family's accounts.

We're going to have to. Become more nimble in how we deal with corruption, how we deal with authoritarianism. How we can stop one branch of government from consolidating so much power. Because there was this assumption when the, constitution was written that opposing branches would check each other.

What they didn't get was the idea that political parties would be in collusion with one another. And so that when the president also [00:27:00] had a party that also control Congress, he basically controls Congress. At least that's the way it is now. Like they just do what he says for the most part. And so how are we gonna do that?

I think it does take a bound of creativity. Greg played a video on Monday of this guy who just had, was throwing out all these crazy ideas. I was just like, all these are really not great, but I get the idea. That we are going to have to think big about the ways that we change our government. Like a few of them that I, I agree with getting rid of the electoral college is a good idea.

But the thing is that will require a constitutional amendment. So how can we nullify the cons, the cons congressional Congress, whatever you call it. What is it? 

Speaker 3: Yeah. How do we nullify 

Speaker: elector? How do we, how do we negate it without getting, rewriting the constitution? 'cause we had to actually do that for the vice president.

So in the Constitution the vice President is not directly elected, they were actually elected by the House of Representatives. And I think the senators were elected by the House of Representatives was one of the [00:28:00] ways that we first got. Black senators was the fact that when after the Civil War post reconstruction, a lot of the state houses in like Mississippi and Alabama, in Georgia, South Carolina were mostly black and they elected black senators for those few years before before reconstruction ended.

We, we've changed the constitution. We've gotten around the constitution through amendments, through things before. I just don't know what that it's gonna look like. However, I do believe in our creativity. I do believe that when we are faced with a problem, we find solutions, like you were saying with COVID, it, it really did change the way, for instance.

I'll go and get my ID from the DMV. You make an appointment on an app. They could have made that app like 30 years ago. So simple. So nothing, you get an appointment and you don't have to wait in a room for two fucking hours. You just get a notification say, here, come get your [00:29:00] id. 

These sorts of authoritarian regimes collapse. They do. And I, I do believe in our creativity, in our determination to get through it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, 

Speaker 3: it 

Speaker: sucks, but it'll, it'll be okay.

I think. And, and not only that, I think we actually grow through difficult times like this. 

Speaker 3: I'm gonna tell you that I went to the barbershop the other day, got my head. Okay.

One of the barbers was talking about his love for poopy pants. 

Speaker: Oh, no. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. So the owner cuts my hair and he kept Oh, wow. Went over to him and was like, yeah, outta here with that. Wow. Now he made the, the white man in his chair was so uncomfortable. 

Speaker: Yeah. 

Speaker 3: Because I, this nigga, clearly he wasn't a, a Trump supporter, 

I [00:30:00] was like, God, Kevin, did you? Fire that man in the middle, in the middle of his haircut. And he, and he came to me, he said, Greg, we've been friends for years. Can you excuse me for a minute? Lemme go finish this guy's haircut. I allowed him to go finish this guy's haircut. 

Speaker: Wow. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. That's so listen, that's 

Speaker: real though.

Speaker 3: Yeah. That's it. We gotta continue doing shit like that. You know what I mean? Yeah. You dumb ass and, and he probably didn't even vote dumb do. 

Speaker: No, he probably didn't. No. 

Speaker 3: So don't be 

Speaker: afraid. But yeah, they don't, they don't seem to understand that this is different. This is not a regular politics, it's just an existential crisis that America, 

Speaker 2: it's a clown show.

Speaker: It really 

Speaker 3: is

Speaker 16: that. Yeah.

And in this last video he talks about this war between humility and pride. And I thought about how it affects gay community and black communities maybe a little bit differently because. Of the concept of respectability politics. So if you are [00:31:00] trying to prove yourself to be something better or different than someone's stereotype you can run into those sorts of stereotype threats when you make mistakes, and you may pretend that you're not making a mistake, or you may tell yourself that you know everyone.

Does this it's okay. Whatever you, you can lie to yourself. But the problem is you don't grow. If you lie to yourself about the mistakes that you make and so on. There's this sort of

double think that has to happen sometimes where you hide your mistakes from people who might judge you unfairly, but to yourself, you have to. Have a come to Jesus moment about the fact that you did make a mistake. Even if you don't reveal it to people, that it's not shameful that mistakes are normal and you can learn from them.

In fact, mistakes can be opportunities to learn something that you didn't know. In fact, when I think about the [00:32:00] most growth that I make in learning something technology wise or just, research wise, it's often because I made some mistake that pointed out that I needed to go in a different direction.

Mistakes are often guideposts for correct action. You can feel bad about it in the moment and, negative emotions are not to be avoided. They are signposts for you to act in a different way. You follow those actions, you follow those directions and you keep moving. But denying it is a much worse outcome.

And so we had a little conversation about that.

Speaker 11: Humility and pride are at war within you, and the balance between both of those will shape who you are and how you show up. Let me paint this picture for you. I was thinking of this. You remember back in grade school when you would take a test and your teacher would ask you to grade your own paper, and as they read the answers aloud, you'd find that one you got wrong, but in your mind you start thinking that was my first answer, but I changed it.

So technically I was right. And so you check around and make sure no one's looking and you change your answer. [00:33:00] Why? Because you'd rather look right than admit you are wrong. And some of you're doing the same thing in life right now. Cheating when you grade your work and your progress as an adult, dodging consequences, reshaping the story, convincing yourself that your version of the truth is the only one that matters.

That's what pride does. It convinces us that it's better to look right than to be right. But humility says it's not how I look, it's how I live. Humility would rather be wrong and learn to get right than to do wrong and never get right. Look, there's no growth in pretending you can lie to yourself. You can dress up the truth.

You can even fool the people around you. But deep down, humility understands that real growth only happens when you stop grading yourself on a curve and start grading yourself by the truth. 

Speaker: So I think I this one to this one? 

This one I wanted because I think whenever I do see conversations around.

Dating relationships and things like that. I think even sometimes the questions that John brings up on Tuesday, and, people are, are always ready to, point the finger [00:34:00] at someone else, but rarely look at themselves as to like how they're dealing with some things. So for instance, I think on Tuesday, he had the one about ghosting and what was it like, why it's, why would someone ghost in their fifties or something like that, 

Speaker 4: right?

Speaker: Not recognizing like you are probably the type of person who has heightened expectations around communication, specifically with people you just started talking to, to the point where that when they stop talking to you or they drop off, off that some sort of issue and you ready to blame the other person rather than just say, take accountability for your own.

Insecurities around people not liking you back. You like someone, they didn't like you back, and now you're ready to blame them for the way that they didn't respond to your message. It's like they, they don't know your shit yet, right? Like you, they don't barely know this person. But I think on another level, there is this idea that [00:35:00] within the black community, maybe even amongst gay people as well, that you have to show up.

I think there's something where our appearance, I think, what would you call that? Respectability politics. In both communities where you have to appear better than your, your white counterparts, you have to show a little bit more. You have to 

Speaker 3: yeah. 

Speaker: You have to be twice as good. And I think that plays into that idea of being a little dishonest with yourself about your own capabilities and stuff.

Because if you have to be twice as good, you can't admit your mistakes and actually grow, right? If you were at work and you made a mistake on something, admitting your mistake might actually be a status threat as a black person versus a white person. Whereas a white person could be like, shit, I don't know.

Show me what to do. But as a black person, you're like, oh, I can't tell them that I didn't know what I was doing. 

Speaker 3: Yeah, I got over that though. I, 

Speaker: yeah, 

Speaker 3: [00:36:00] I made a stupid mistake one time and my boss was black and she was like, and luckily she was, because. If it was, I feel like if I had a white box, I would've been fired.

You know what I mean? Yeah. I accidentally printed, put an extra zero on a check and mailed out a check to somebody for a th 10,000 instead of thousand. Yeah. 

Speaker 2: Wow. So how did, how did, how did y'all resolve that? 

Speaker 3: Oh, put a, you put a stop on the check. It was simple. 

Speaker 2: Oh, 

Speaker 3: yeah. But it's still embarrassing. Like you had to call the fucking person that was getting it. Be like bitch, don't cash that. You gonna go to jail, so please. Thank you. So my boss did it for me and she, she, she called me into the room and she says, look, mistakes aren't natural.

That is even a natural mistake. You just hit on zero. She was like, I get it. She's we do it a few times a day. It's, we're a big ass bank. Whoop d woo. You know what I mean? Put a stop on the [00:37:00] bitch, call the customer and be like, yo, and we're gonna wire you the funds down instead of having, because So the inconvenience you with this check.

Alright, so in You won't tell. I won't tell. Nobody tell. But the lesson was the lesson. You know what I mean? The lesson was, yeah, bitch, we still have to be, and she said to me, she said, look, I know you just went to the Norfolk State University and you just graduated and you have all of your things intact in your fresh learning in your brain, but you are still black.

Mr. Drayton, watch yourself. And I never forgot that. Hi Lucy. How are you? If you're watching, never forget that. I never, and it's to tell your kids when they started driving tending two nigga be nice to the police. You know what I mean? 

Speaker: Yeah. 

Speaker 3: Like that. Yep, yep. Yeah, 

Speaker: no, it's true. And I think there is something to be said about that.

Just recognize that you want to learn from your mistakes. You wanna acknowledge your mistakes, even if you have to hide them sometimes. If you wanna still if there are certain [00:38:00] people who who need to see you as perfect or better than you still gotta acknowledge it to yourself.

Speaker 16: I'm gonna bring that to you.

Alright, and that'll do it for this episode of the M three Bear Cast. If you've made it this far, I would appreciate your support as a paid member. It's at patreon.com/male medium mind. There you can get access to our telegram groups. I have a book club, adult content. I also have a VIP room. And just often we have specials and after shows from all of our live streams, or I would say the majority of our live streams have after shows that are patron only.

Become a patron at patreon.com/male media Mind you go to Male Media Mind Live. Dot com and you'll find access to all of our social media platforms. Clicks are there for YouTube, for all of our live streams and Instagram, Facebook, all the, social media stuff. Check us out and I appreciate your listing and I will catch you in the next episode.

[00:39:00] Peace.