Ep. 8 Honorable Actions

This episode we talk about living a principled life and make the tough moral assessments of self. Some language in this episode can be triggering to some people. Proceed with caution.

For future topic suggestions or feedback please feel free to contact me by email at tiberiusryuu@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:06

Everything is secret is a community space to explore what it means to be spiritual while belonging to a greater community. With your host, Tiberius Ryu.

SPEAKER_02: 0:26

Hello, I'm your host, Tiberius Ryu, and I'm glad you are here. It has been a while. I apologize for going MIA on you all. Uh, it's been a very busy winter, summer, oh, everything. I've moved around a couple times, uh, well, once, uh, but it's been a transitional period for me. I had my child for the summer, and that took up a lot of my time and energy. Uh, really grateful to have that time with her. And uh, I'm I'm kind of excited to get back to doing some recording. I've got a space again where I can sit down and be somewhat undisturbed. Um, and you know, I've got a lot of stuff on my mind. I've been rambling around uh just so many topics I want to talk about. And uh I do think I have taken a stance uh previously against speaking about politics on this show, and uh this is going to be a precursor warning to you. I am going to be lifting that ban uh in upcoming episodes. I just find that it's it's somewhat unavoidable to get into some some talk about politics and and the like. And uh with with my path, I I follow a druidic path, and I really am starting to feel compelled to start discussing some of these topics. Um my role in my community. I I believe that it's important that I facilitate these conversations in a constructive way. So I will be doing some of that in upcoming episodes. Lucky for you, if you want to avoid those topics, this isn't one of them. This is just your warning that it it may be coming up soon. Um, so I'll I'll try to put something in the title if we rip into some political topics or or some stuff that might be a little bit uncomfortable for some people. Um, as I always try to do, give those warnings. Today I want to talk to you about honorable actions. What in the world is that? I've been thinking a lot about this topic, and really what comes to mind for me, what triggers this topic in my thoughts and and has me thinking about it a lot, is just being exposed to dishonorable actions, or um, what's really common, I think, that we see in the world today is hypocrisy, where people will say one thing and then you'll watch them and they do something different. And I know a lot of us experienced this in childhood. Um, we we had parents that would often tell us, do as I say, not as I do, something along those lines, or they would be trying to instill some sort of moral or ethical code in us and these rules and this this structure, and it was so confusing because we would see them break their own rules. And one of the things that's been popping into my head lately is this um this concept that you know we we want to be um it not necessarily instilling uh a view of pacifism in in our children, but we we generally, I think most parents generally try to instill this idea in children that fighting is not the solution to anything, and that we need to look for other solutions. And then our children watch us consuming media that is just so full of violence and war and you know, MMA, and all of this stuff that is just very violent, brutal, and it's all about fighting, and it's all about overpowering those who oppose us. And that's a very conflicting um information for for a young child who's who's trying to figure things out and they're being told one thing and then they're seeing another, and and you know, um this idea of uh I don't know if it's nationalism or patriotism or or whatever, the the idea um as a westerner living in the US that um we have this this military that is here to protect our freedoms. And um and and you know, I'm trying not trying to get into a political debate on this one, just it's just matter-of-factly, we it's my basic understanding that this is the purpose of our military, but in that basic understanding, I have to admit that um when all else fails, we have decided as a society that our solution to disagreements when when they can't be resolved by some other means is violence. We'll go to war. Um, and I'm not saying, you know, either way, whether your moral compass should say that's wrong, or whether your moral compass should say that's right. Um, that's that's not the point of of bringing this up. I mean, that's debatable, and there's, you know, it's another thing. We we discuss things in such a binary, black and white, right and wrong. You know, this is we're we're just um we've gotten to a place in society where we're we're consuming so much information that's just so sensationalized, and um we're told these these um points of view that are so polarizing that there's really no middle ground. But when you think about something like uh the violence of war, for example, um, and you know, dealing with Hitler, uh that that was something that most citizens of the world are in agreement on that this this was a necessary violent cause to to stop Hitler and and his regime. And again, I'm not saying whether that's right or wrong and where your moral compass should land on this. The point of it being that it's very confusing to someone looking on, um, whether it be our children or you know, some uninvolved, take an indigenous tribe that's been undisturbed. And and if we walked in there, you know, with this message of peace, and and we want to teach them, you know, easier ways of doing things, and then they get to know us, and then they start looking into our history, and they see all this violence, and they look into our the way we live now, and they see all this violence and all this just contradictory information. That's what I want to talk about. When I talk about honorable action, I mean is what we're showing others consistent with the belief system that we're telling ourselves and and oftentimes telling other people. So the first question that I pose to myself on this topic is do I live an honest life? Do you live an honest life? And by honest life, I mean are you being true to yourself? Are you being honest with yourself? Do you ponder difficult questions and come up with an answer that that you are comfortable with? And do you decide um where you stand on moral issues and on ethical issues? And then and then do you stick by that? Do does your behavior show consistency with your thoughts? And you know, this is I can call back to some of the previous episodes when we were talking about trauma, um, and the kind of the rephrasing of that. Um and I was discussing, I like the idea of referring to it as moral injury, right? And this is the connection to honorable action, because a moral injury is defined as as when what you're experiencing is inconsistent with your moral code, right? And so a lot of times that trauma that we're we're having trouble getting through is seated in our own inconsistency, our our behavior is not consistent with our moral compass, and we're struggling with that, you know. I know that I have personally struggled with my actions not being consistent with my moral code, and and that's difficult. It's difficult to get past, you know, how how do I do this? How do I commit these moral violations to myself, right? And then, and then once we're able to get to a place that we can do this with ourselves, where we can be honest with ourselves, and we can be consistent with ourselves, then we extend that outward, right? And and we we begin to share our moral ideology and our ethical standards to people around us, and then we first start by holding ourselves consistent and accountable to whatever that that standard is, and that's what you could call uh living a life on principles, right? So, do you allow yourself to be guided by a moral compass? And here's a pretty important question Is it your moral compass? Because this is an issue, and and I'll fight you on this. Um, you know, and it's really uncomfortable to hear for some people, but we all have a different moral compass, and that's okay. We're not in a hundred percent agreement on everything when it comes to morality, right? Just a simple example I'll toss out there is some people choose to not eat meat products, excuse me, because they believe that that um that consumption of that product is immoral. That's a simple example to throw out there where there's a large population of people who are in disagreement with that moral compass. Now, this conflict can exist without us having to prove the other person right or wrong, right? The the vegan who chooses to not eat meat because they believe it's a a moral problem, they can live in their truth and they can be consistent with their moral beliefs, and they can not eat meat, and that's just fine. That's that's okay for them, and there's nothing wrong with that. And and people who don't believe in that same moral value, they can live in their moral reality. Now, obviously, that is not a moral dilemma to a carnivorous human being, right? Uh, a carnivorous human being, most uh I'm speculating here, probably most of them don't even think twice about where their food is coming from, and and it's not a moral dilemma. Um then there's some others who consider that as a moral issue, um, but there's some rationale or some understanding of that moral issue, excuse me, as being a necessary evil for survival. Um, not unlike a large amount of humans agreeing that taking soldiers in and violently stopping Hitler was a necessary evil, right? There's not a big moral conflict with that decision, and similarly, there's not a big moral conflict with consuming meat products. So just just throwing out some examples of where we can we can exist with slightly different moral compasses. And and again, that it's not my morality that is important to your honorable behavior, it's your morality, right? So my honorable behavior is dictated and judged by my moral compass and by my ethical standards and by my principles of living. And if I am abiding by those things which I claim to subscribe to, that I claim to be principles important to me, if I'm abiding by those things in my actions, then I'm living an honorable life. But if I'm consistently violating my own belief system, my own moral code, my own ethics, then I'm not living honorably. And then there are some there are some basic human moral codes that we can at least say we're in a majority agreement on, right? Um not murdering other citizens is is probably one of them. Um not raping someone um or or forcibly um sexually assaulting someone or or or I don't know, there's there's a whole lot of these moral issues that you know, I and I apologize um for just dropping those on you. Um I should be more general. There are a lot of moral issues that we can probably agree on, um and and that's fine. The importance is is really holding ourselves to a standard and being consistent with our actions. So are we being when we talk about the the general moral um agreements that we have in society, our our social construct, are we are we being decent human beings, right? Am I decent to the people I come in contact with? And you know, there's this there's this tendency. Um I know that I've suffered from this in the past and and sometimes still do. I mean, I'm I'm far from perfect people. I um I just want to get this out there again. I think I've mentioned it before, but but I'll mention it again now. I am um by nature, I say by nature, um, but it's it's really more by nurture. Um I'm a very let me rephrase this. I have very violent tendencies. Um and when I say that by nature or by nurture, that I have violent tendencies, um, what I mean to say is that it takes a lot of um thoughtful effort on my part to resort to other solutions, other uh other options um in conflict. Um I was about to say because, but that that's not the right word. Um it it's just a fact that when I was younger, I resorted to violence a lot. That was um my knee-jerk reaction to to conflict. And it's taken a lot of effort to overcome that as a knee-jerk reaction, and I um I will admit that it's still in there, you know. There's there's times when my guard is is down, or um, you know, if you corner me, if you corner me and you don't give me an exit and you threaten me, and um and it's very clear that I am I am not um there's no way out, um, no rational path. Um, I can become quite violent. And um and I know that exists because I've I've had a couple of people do that to me. Um even after I thought that I'd I'd had this um this was a thing of the past and I'd I'd resolved it and I was this non-violent human being. And then suddenly I'm put in a situation and um, you know, I'm I'm threatened and I'm cornered, and and boom, the beast comes out. So I know that it's it's still a part of me, but I acknowledge that. And I I work very hard to find other solutions and to to retrain myself on on how to re react and respond to situations. And uh what I've found is it's it's very rare that um that someone doesn't recognize that that um I want out of a conflict uh or that there's no immediate solution and it's it we need to pause and revisit at a later time. Um usually there's some rational um exit plan, exit strategy when when the conflict gets a little bit too um excitable. And uh, you know, probably you know, ninety better than ninety-eight percent of the time, uh probably even better than that, um, people acknowledge me um choosing an option to suspend uh the conflict and revisit it later, or just terminate the conflict and walk away and agree to disagree or whatever. Excuse me, I've got this scratchy throat tonight. Um but it's a very very, very rare occasion that someone decides they're gonna corner me and and not not let me, and fit I mean physically corner me and and not let me escape the situation. Um anyways, a little bit of a tangent there, but uh I just want to acknowledge that you know we're not perfect and you know honorable action isn't like this again, it's not binary, right? It's not you are or you aren't. The point is um to set a goal out there of and and then seeing yourself as this person that that you want to be, you know, this this honorable person, and then moving towards that goal, right? And when you come up short, acknowledging that, looking at what it is that that you aren't doing the way that you would like to be doing it, right? And sometimes that may mean you need to revisit your core value system and and go back to those first couple of questions I asked. You know, do you follow a moral compass? And more importantly than that, is it your moral compass, right? And that's really important. Because a lot of times I think that we are we adopt a moral compass that has has been taught to us um by you know our um our nuclear family, our culture, our um the the society that we're raised in. There are a lot of influences that will inform our moral structure. And if if we're hopefully if you're listening to this podcast, you're on a spiritual path and you're on a path of healing and and a path of kind of ascending above where you were, right? Becoming a better person, becoming better at this thing called life. And so I think it's perfectly appropriate to sit down and look at you know what it is we value in life and ask ourselves, is this mine or is it my mom's? Right? Is this is this something I believe in, or is it something my dad believed in? Right? Is this something that I feel very passionately about and and want to enforce in my life, or is this something that the society that raised me, the culture I was raised in, believes? You know, and and some cultures, they you know, if you're caught stealing, they cut off your hands, right? So that's a moral code in that culture. And and you know, I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but if I was raised in that culture, I would probably expect my hands to be cut off if I was stealing stuff, right? So it's okay to sit down and and really, really dissect what it is we think we know about ourselves. I think that's where we really start setting the foundation and the building blocks to be a successful being where we can we can be compassionate towards others and and maybe even more importantly, compassionate to ourselves. And you know, my stepmother used to say something to me a lot, and and she would say it in a very hurtful way. Um but it it always stuck with me, and and I've I've kind of taken it to heart in a different way. So she she used to always say, you hate yourself. And and you you say that you love me and you say that you love other people, but there's no way you could possibly love anyone else if you don't even know how to love yourself. And it was so hurtful. And you know, I don't know how many nights I laid in bed just crying because she didn't understand that I loved people, you know, I've always been very empathic, and and I've always cared a lot about other people. And here's this person's you know, tearing me down and using this against me, right? And and telling me I don't do it. But now looking at this this restructuring of who I am and becoming a better person, I realize that I I can better love other people and I can better teach other people if I've first learned for myself, right? So really getting to know who I am and really getting to the point to where I can embrace my whole being, right? For who I am, what I am me, right? Not this thing that my parents wanted me to be, right? This thing, this person that that my parents were trying to mold me into. That's that's not me. That's their ideal child, right? And you know that that was their goal. And that's okay. That's okay. Parents don't mean harm when they try to instill morals and and ethics in us and and try to guide us on a path to success. This is not something that's that's generally done in any type of uh mischievous way, right? They they usually generally mean well. Not always the case, but generally they mean well. But the truth is, I'm me, right? And I have my individuality and I have my own path in life. And it took a lot of years to really dig through all the crap that that my parents and society and and everything that I came in contact with through my developmental years that was telling me who and how to be. It took me a lot, a lot of years to dig through all that and find the me that was there the whole time. And I've talked about this before. You know, there's this little flame inside of you that you just need to find. That's you. And then then just open up and let that light shine, right? So it's really important. Um, another thing that uh a counselor used to tell me all the time, it was like his mantra. It was to thine own self be true, right? And you know, for years and years and years I've I've pondered on that and thought about it and and tried to really, really take it to heart and and be honest with myself. So weird tangents I'm going on here, but it you know, I'm just another one of the things that I'm really, really bad at. Well, I'm I'm pretty good at it, but it's in conflict with um with the honorable actions that I want to want to live in. Um and and that's judging. I'm I judge people a lot. Um and so I see I see actions that don't line up with words, and you know, I cry internally, I cry hypocrisy. Oh, this freaking hypocrite over here, he says this and he does that, or you know, she says she's this person, but she really acts like this person, and you know, um I kind of want to say we all do that, but you know, that's a cop out. I do that. And what this brings to the forefront of of my um my being is this realization that I do the same thing. That's why it bothers me. And that's key. That's that's a really key thing in in this process of growth. Um, the reason honorable actions is an important topic to me is because I am deeply bothered by my capacity to live with dishonor. Yes, you heard that correctly. The reason I'm so passionate about this is because of how much it bothers me when I'm not doing it. Okay, so um that lightens a little bit of the load of me being judgmental of other people because I'm also willing to apply that to myself. I'm willing to judge myself and say, you know what, bro? You ain't perfect. And the only reason their behavior is bugging you is because you do it too. Because honestly, um, it really doesn't matter in the long game for me, if your actions don't match your words, it really has very little effect on my life. So the reason I'm letting it bother me is because it's a reflection of my own behavior. That's really important. You know, most of the time, in my experience, my personal experience, for me, when I'm bothered by someone else's behavior, it's because I'm bothered by my own ability to do the same thing. So I want to get into some examples of um conflict, a conflict between our moral compass, our ethical code, our principled ideology of living, and our actual actions, right? Um so I I live in Massachusetts, and um as such, I'm part of a society that believes in um taxation, believes in policing, believes in the rule of law, and the enforcement of said laws. And I don't disagree with these ideas, right? I'm in agreement with them. So I believe that sure a portion of my income shall be allotted to design laws to keep us safe, and a force shall be employed to go and enforce those laws, right? And you know, I I say it kind of mockingly, but I I truly do agree with that, that basic the basic principle of policing, and and I support law enforcement in its in its general purpose. Right? A lot of people do. But do I then support law enforcement in my actions? And you know, most people generally will say, Yeah, I support law enforcement. Well, ponder on this for a moment. If you're one of those people who believes that um law enforcement is good, the the general idea of it, and that um we should support them in their work and and support them in what they do, then ask yourself, do you speed when you're driving? Ever. Do you ever put yourself in a situation where you have mismanaged your time, you haven't planned accordingly, and you find yourself running late to an appointment or a gathering or whatever. And so you decide to make up for your poor planning, or maybe it was just something that popped up. Life happened and got in the way, you know, your child got had had an accident right as you were leaving, and you had to take them in and change their clothes. Whatever it may be that's caused you to run late, do you make the active decision to violate the posted speed limits? Because that's in conflict with supporting law enforcement. You're causing them to have to take action against you, right? And there's a lot of other little examples of things like this talking or texting while driving, depending on what the agreed upon law is in your region. Uh littering, something that I don't do. I I used to do when I was younger, but even then, not very much. Um digital piracy. Do you download music illegally or pirate some movie that hasn't been released yet, but you know, some website that has it hacked, and you can just go view it there? Um something as simple as riding your bicycle on the sidewalk where it's prohibited. Do you drive without your seatbelt? Do you take illicit or illegal drugs? Um do you ever drink and drive? Do you not clean up after your dog in public? Um I mean there's there's so many simple little things that we pay through our tax dollars um police officers to enforce. We pay them to enforce it. And so if we're doing those things, that we've made an agreement to ourselves, to our society, that we're in agreement that these things shall be laws, that that these are unacceptable behaviors, so we're going to pay our hard-earned money to create a force to go police this and stop people from doing it. Well, are you contributing? Are you contributing to the need for policing? Or are you contributing to the support of those police by not violating these things? And we can go into some some gross violations, you know. There's there's a lot of other things that we can be doing, um, getting into domestic violence, getting into white collar crimes, you know, there's tons of stuff. Um, distribution of illicit or illegal drugs, lots and lots of stuff. Um you know, are you do you report your taxes? Um honestly, right? Things like that. Just there's all sorts of stuff that that we are in these kind of social agreements on, and and really, you know, it it depends on your moral compass, right? Where do you stand on these issues? A lot of people don't really have a moral dilemma over speeding while driving. Um, a lot of people don't have a moral dilemma over littering, right? You know, it's there's this social agreement that maybe they're not in agreement on, you know. Um wearing a seatbelt, something like that, you know. A lot of people like it's my body, right? Um, but you know, think about it really, really deep down, think about this and and what our con what your contribution to society is, right? And something something as um as simple as a seatbelt, right? I and I believe that um every state now has a seatbelt law. And and I may be wrong. If I'm wrong, someone can can correct me on that. But most states at least have a seatbelt law. If you're driving a vehicle, you have to wear a seatbelt, right? Um, and if you're not wearing the seatbelt and a police officer sees you not wearing the seatbelt, it's their job. He's being paid to pull you over, right? So you may not have a moral dilemma over that issue. It may not bother you morally whether you're wearing a seatbelt or not, you know. Um, but ask yourself again, does it bother you to take a resource that could be used for something else? Right. And now we're taking it out of the realm of it's just you and and risking your own life if you get in in an accident. And we're looking at the ramifications of that, even if you don't get in an accident, just if a law enforcement officer sees you doing it, they're supposed to pull you over. And so now that resource that could be there looking for a drunk driver or or some other traffic violation, it's being used up. Right. So there are some instances here where um where I really, really, really encourage you to challenge yourself on and say, where do I stand on this? Uh, when it comes to honorable action, right? And sometimes the honorable action is stepping into um honoring other people's morals and ethics when that honoring doesn't have any moral implication to you, right? Another example um if you're eating a meal with vegan friends, an honorable action would to be to eat a vegan meal, right? It it doesn't call your morals into question to have one meal that is vegan, right? Well, if you if you opted to have a non-vegan meal with your vegan friends, now you're forcing them to be in an uncomfortable situation because their moral compass is against that. And so there are times when when our honorable actions can be dictated by others' moral compasses, and it's okay and it's appropriate provided that that action that we're taking is not in conflict with our moral compass, right? So, an example of the opposite. Let's say someone who comes from a culture that is in agreement, if you steal something, you lose your hand, right? And they're visiting you at your place, and one of the guests steals something, and you catch them stealing something, and the other guests that are visiting try to enforce their moral code on you and say, Hey, where we come from, this person needs to lose their hand for what they've done. So you must cut their hand off. Well, that's a situation where their moral compass is in conflict with yours, and so um it's not necessarily an honorable action to set your morals aside to accommodate theirs, right? So just giving that difference there that that it's okay to adopt someone else's moral compass in your actions, provided that those actions are not in conflict with your moral compass. I hope that makes enough sense. Um now just to throw a curveball out there and and really challenge you to to take a deep look at where your moral compass is informed and and where maybe maybe a deeper dive is is warranted on some of your um non-moral dilemmas or ethical stances on things. Um I just want to throw a couple examples out there. Some some research I did in preparation for this. Um going back to the traffic stuff, right? Which is generally viewed upon as, I mean, in in Western society here in the United States, most um most municipalities, uh maybe all of them, but I'm I'm sure most of them treat um traffic infractions. They don't they don't even call them crimes. They they call them uh civil um civil infractions, right? So it's enforceable by law, but they're downgrading it and they're not calling it a crime. Okay, so that's a lot of our moral compass is informed by that knowledge, right? So we know that you know we downplay it as a society, it's not really a crime, it's this other lesser thing, it's just a traffic infraction, it's no big deal, right? That's that's the the way we paint it and the way we live with it in in our society. Well, with that in mind, let's talk about speeding for a moment. Um, so or just traffic violations in general, right? Um I pulled up some some data here on the internet and and um one of these surveys, um let me see if I can do this came from Value Penguin on a Google search. There are approximately, according to this data, 32 million traffic stops per year in the United States, with a population last I checked, it was somewhere around 330 million. Um, that is roughly 10% of the population annually uh is pulled over for a traffic stop. So when you remove all of the underage citizens of the United States, right? Roughly twenty percent of the population is under the under driving age. So when you remove that twenty percent from these numbers, um suddenly you've got roughly one in every eight US citizens is stopped for traffic violation every year. You know, and if you're one of those people and you're habitually um being stopped for traffic violations, I challenge you to think about what those resources could be going to, right? If if police, if we all just obeyed the laws, the traffic laws that we agreed on, right? Then that's 32 million times a year that police don't have to pull people over because we're obeying the law, right? So I I just challenge you to see where you sit with that morally, like that how much resource that um that it requires of our society to deal with these infractions, these you know, let's call them ethical question marks, right? But I'm gonna go a little bit deeper with this. Um in the US in twenty twenty one, there were um eleven thousand five hundred and or eleven thousand and fifty-seven um fatal vehicle accidents that were attributed to speeding. Um and that resulted in twelve thousand three hundred and thirty deaths in twenty twenty one that were directly related to speeding, which we as a society laugh this off as this lesser thing than a crime. It's it's a civil infraction. Um, and we sit okay with it, you know. We're it's not a moral dilemma for us to commit this infraction. Um, but I I want to challenge you, you know, why is that not a moral dilemma for you? You know, and and think about all the things in life that are oh, what's the word I'm um trivial, you know, that that are have been trivial to you to this point, like eh, whatever. Um revisit some of these things, you know, put your new eyes and and your new way of living um in into play and think about it. And for some contrast, um, you know, that's that's 33 people a day that die as a direct result of people speeding. That's six hundred and forty-five uh a year. Um that's no, I'm sorry. Sorry, the six forty-five. That's a different number that I'm about to share with you guys. Um 33 per people at a day die from speeding related traffic um accidents. Um, and we haven't even that that doesn't even take into account DUIs. Um, well, it takes into account DUIs if there was speeding involved, it takes into account texting or um talking on the phone while driving if speeding was involved. Um but those are just numbers where speeding was a contributing factor. Uh to put it into perspective, in the same year 2021, um the the US is like the world capital for mass shootings. Um and oh I d uh, you know, I want to I want to give you more numbers here, so I'm gonna pull this page up. This is um from CNN. Uh they did a report on mass shootings. And in 2021, there were 3,267 people shot in mass shootings. Um apologize. Um that was for a portion of 2021. So this is uh I believe this was an article written in November. I apologize. I apologize. I'm glad that I caught this, so yeah, it this was as of November 23rd in 22. Um so they were estimating um to that date in the year. So um through November of 2021, there were three thousand two hundred and sixty-seven people shot in mass shootings, and that resulted in six hundred and forty-five people dead. Um so in contrast, um, even just the victim pool, not not taking the the death toll, just the victim pool of mass shootings in in 2021 through November of 2021, which is this movement that many, many Americans are really, really heated about, right? We were really, really passionate about the the mass shooting violence in our country. And as contrast, the victim pool of that atrocity is a third of the deaths related to speeding and driving. So I'm I'm just giving you a little bit of context here in how our moral compasses can really be eskewed by external influence and societal norms and and whatnot. And you know, for me, this is something that you know I've got kids, and that that was a big part of me changing how I drove, right? Um, but it it really started informing me on where I sat morally, right? And that's a really good question to ask yourself if you have kids. Ask yourself, if it's not good enough for my kids, why is it good enough for me? Right? Or if I'm gonna hold a certain standard when my kids are around, why shouldn't I hold that standard when they're not? Um so I know as a parent that I became a much safer driver when my kids were in the car. And at some point I adopted that as a moral code. Like, you know, if I'm slowing down for their safety, why am I not slowing down for the safety of the stranger driving in front of me on the road? Or the the safety of Of some unknown person's children who's on the road, right? Why is that moral code only applicable when my children are in the car? And so that's the real challenge that I'm throwing out there right now is do you know, do you even know what your own moral compass is? Um and what it's informed by. And you know, if if you're pissed off about the 650 people or so that that were killed due to mass shooting violence, and you want to do something about it, and you're and you're up in arms about it, and you you're passionate, and you you donate money to the cause, or or you just talk about it and whatever. I don't care what side of the political spectrum you're on, if you're concerned, whatever your solution for that may be, right? And and and I'm I'm really opening up the realm of possibilities because I've heard a lot of solutions, and I'm not going to get into them right now, whatever political leaning you have or or ideology you might have when it comes to dealing with gun violence in the United States. Great. Take that, whatever that is, to protect your kids, right? That protect kids in school, protect innocent people, whatever those ideas are, um, because you're really fed up with this many people losing their life and being threatened in our society, then why in the hell aren't you so passionate about speeding and driving? Because it's affecting way, way, way more people than gun violence. And I'm not trying to downplay gun violence at all. It is a very, very prominent and important problem that we need to deal with in our society. But you know what? Question your moral compass. If you're pissed off about that and you're not pissed off about speeding, right? And and I'm I'm sorry to chuckle at that, but really, if you put it into perspective, speeding is a much bigger problem because we don't think it's a frickin' problem, right? It's a much bigger problem, it's affecting way more people because we don't think it's a problem, right? Because our moral compass is ill-informed, right? Do we care about the consequences of our actions? That's what this is about. Do we care about how do I care about how my behavior affects other people or can potentially affect other people? And that's the important thing when we're talking about actions and and honor and principles, right? We're not talking about actual effect, right? What we're talking about is potential effect, and that is what dictates our behaviors. It's not because 382 times in my life I told a white lie. And nothing happened. Right? It's because of that one time that you tell a white lie and it hurts someone, and it hurts them to the core, and they have a huge struggle trying to recover from that damage for many years in their life. That potentiality is what we use to inform our behaviors. It's the potential consequences of those actions. The potential consequences of those actions being observed. You know, because it really doesn't matter. And this podcast really isn't for the hermit living remotely, that's never ever going to interact with other human beings. That's not what this podcast is for. It's not who it's designed for. This is this podcast is for people who are a part of a society who long for community, who long for healing, and long for for having supported, loving, empathetic, compassionate relationships with the people around them. That's who this podcast is for. And if you're one of those people, um, then I I think it's really important to challenge ourselves to really, really dig deep and say, what do I stand for? What do I believe in? What's important in the world and why? And really ask yourself on the little this topic today. It it's it's not about the big things, okay? I'm not talking about homicide. I'm not talking about grand larceny, I'm not talking about, you know, all of these, you know, pick a huge crime. I'm not talking about that. What I'm talking about today, when when I'm talking about honorable action and and and being that principled person, I'm talking about the little things. I'm talking about the infractions. I'm talking about the little white lies. I'm talking about the the the tiny little nobody's gonna notice it things that we do in our daily life that are in conflict with our moral compass. And and more importantly, I'm talking about getting in touch with our personal moral compass and challenging it, challenging it to its core on these little issues. Have a conversation with yourself about speeding. You know, what what are the potential consequences of speeding? And am I okay with that? Have a conversation with yourself about drinking and then then apply that to different situations and scenarios and figure out where for you it's okay and where it isn't okay. Um because I think I think drinking is it's not for me, it's not something that I choose to do today, but I think it's perfectly acceptable in some situations, and it's perfectly unacceptable in other situations. That's my moral compass, right? And I'm not telling you what moral compass to have, I'm just challenging you to take a deep dive and figure that out for yourself. Um, you know, one of the things I don't agree with, I was invited to a uh a one-year-old's first birthday party, and you know, what an exciting thing to show up for. It's uh like a rite of passage and this wonderful thing, and you're celebrating the life of this little toddler. And I showed up and there's a keg of beer, you know, and everybody's just you know, my moral compass says, get the hell out of there. This is not okay. You know, yours may say something different, but challenge that, question it, figure out what it means to you, um, and and where you stand on these issues. And you know, this was probably a little bit heavy today, and and you probably didn't expect it to go where it went. And that was kind of the point, you know. I'm I want to start having some of these uneasy conversations because becoming a better person isn't easy. And if if all we talk about is easy stuff and fluffy foo-foo, you know, spiritual stuff, um, and and I listen to this other podcast called Spiritual Shit, and I I really recommend it. It's a it's a great podcast. Um and you know, a lot of times they're talking about this, you know, really cool, fluffy stuff, and that's great, that's wonderful. Um, but that's that's not what this podcast is about. This podcast is about healing and it's about building community, and we can't do that if we're not talking about the tough stuff, if we're not talking about the hard things, and and challenging, you know, I have to challenge myself regularly to become a better person. And you know, I've I've made some great strives, you guys. I mean, I'm I'm not at all um that person that came out of my parents' house, right? Um you know, there was this facade, this shell on top of the the real me that I was trying to be, and I'm not that anymore. I've peeled that away, and there's more to peel. There's still some junk that has been adopted through through years of of just repetition and you know society shoving it down my throat. And but I'm working on it, and that's the point, man. That's that's really the point, is that we work on this stuff. We we dive into the really difficult stuff, we challenge ourselves, we we get real, we get honest, and we ask the tough questions, and and we find the answers, you know, and as long as you're doing that, then you're gonna you're gonna experience change. And and my experience has been that that's that's change for the better, you know. So anyways, sorry, not sorry, got a little deep today. That's okay. Um, if it's a little too much for you, um I invite you to hit the unfollow button and uh highly recommend you find another source to um to lift you up and and to carry along and give you some words of inspiration. Um if you were uncomfortable with this topic today, but you sat through it and you listened to it, I want to give you a big, big round of applause. You did it. Um, and this is this is what makes us better. This is what makes us overcome everything that has been burdening us throughout life. And isn't that the point? Isn't it the point to just just become these these better, more evolved, more free, more loving, more compassionate human beings? And and if we can all do that together, then next thing you know, we've got this wonderfully healed, loving, compassionate community of people that are lifting each other up and challenging each other and and helping each other out. And oh boy, won't that be the day? Anyways, if you want to reach out to me, you can do so. Uh please do follow me here. Um you can email me directly at Tiberius Ryu at gmail.com, or you can find me on TikTok under the handle the shamanic truid. And until next time, be well.