absurd wisdom
What lies beyond understanding? Beyond certainty? Listen in to conversations between a.m. bhatt and colleagues, confidants, and important thinkers as they tackle questions both timely and timeless, and chat about maintaining your humanity in an ever-evolving world.
You can find a.m. on Instagram and Substack at @absurdwisdom. We are produced and distributed by DAE Presents, the production arm of DAE (@dae.community on Instagram and online at mydae.org).
absurd wisdom
Letting Go of 'That's How I Am', Minimal Ontological Consent, and Choosing People Who Help You Support That Positive Journey.
The script delves into a thought-provoking conversation about the complexity of identity, the intersectionality of people's experiences, and the impact of systemic issues on individuals. The dialogue highlights the need to acknowledge the sacrifices of others and the importance of recognizing service in our daily lives. Furthermore, it emphasizes the fluidity of identity and the potential for positive transformation and support.
You can find a.m. on Instagram and TikTok at @absurdwisdom. We are produced and distributed by DAE Presents, the production arm of DAE (@dae.community on Instagram and online at mydae.org).
The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent. While we make every effort to ensure that the information shared is accurate, we welcome any comments, suggestions, or correction of errors.
You can contact us at daepresents@mydae.org.
No, is to be within a specific discipline, a specific world, a specific reality to know is extremely useful for getting things done within that particular discipline or world or reality to be an effective doctor or a pastry chef or a financial analyst. There's much that is critical to know, but knowing by its nature is bounded by and in fact reinforcing of the reality within which it occurs. For 25 years, I've worked with executives in large organizations, grad students, tech entrepreneurs, religious leaders, and no doubt my toughest client, myself. I'm developing the capacity to explore what lies beyond knowing, beyond certainty at a practical level. This work is required for things like innovation, but more importantly, I found that this inquiry is critical for maintaining one's humanity. Oh, and if you're generous enough to be listening to these conversations, I respectfully submit that at any point, if you feel you understand what I'm saying, you're not listening deeply enough./Hey the voices in today's conversation are Kyley Komschlies, Sam Ascensio, and our producer as always is Scott Amore, all are colleagues of mine at DAE. Let's listen in. This used to be a big, well, it's still a big topic. This kind of notion of one of the conditions of leadership is letting go of any version of the phrase. That's how I am in service of the impossible future that you're kind of working on in your life. And it's this delicate thing. Like we are finally, thankfully at a point in the world where we're at least beginning. We're nowhere near, you know, done, but beginning to acknowledge, you know, the various ways of, of, you know, being, and then with that, the various conditions, like we actually acknowledge mental health conditions, like it's, you know, I'm not sure what we do. To support kids and adults in the workplace and you know, or at least you know what we do that's enough But at least we are starting to acknowledge right like the condition called anxiety. There's a condition, but then yeah, we would talk about it even if there's physical conditions, there's Psychological non clinical conditions, you know, like I am not a good public speaker like transactional things like that. I am introverted, I am shy, I am like all things that are true and have evidence to them and should be tended to and not pushed in a way that that creates breakage, right? And so the paradox, you know, one of the many paradoxes we've worked through over the two years or longer for, for, you know, flying engagements on breaking stuff. The paradox, one of the paradoxes we engage with is, you know, For that individual, for you, how do you navigate this sort of tending to my condition or all the various conditions that make me uniquely me, including positive, quote, unquote, positive conditions? I'm really smart. I'm really a good speaker, right? Like, how do you even extend beyond that? Right? How do you, how do you both tend to your conditions in a healthy and self empathetic way, self caring way while not being limited by that's how I am. So that's, that's the sort of tee up here. And I have a reason why it's sort of on my mind, but we can get to that later if it pops up. I don't know where to start
Kyley:with this, and it starts where my mind has been for the past little while. It's kind of an aversion, but it makes me think about this in some capacity where something I've been very aware of with people as they talk right now is how often they focus on the things that are in their way. From getting to a place and that I'm just hyper aware of that. And I hear some of this language coming into those. I am unorganized. I have too many things going on. I'm tired. I am I am all of that stuff. And part of me is wondering, like how specifically with like students and the people we work with is how do we acknowledge those things, but also be like, and cool. So what do you want to do with that? Because it can absolutely be in your way. Yep. And how much, how much attention do you want to give to it? How much attention do you want to give to living, living and doing the things that are, they're meaningful for you? Yeah. So I don't know what to do with it right now, but it's something I'm paying attention to. That's what we kind of converse
a.m.:through life. So out of the gamut, if you've got something you want to throw in, I'll defer to you since I already talked. Sure.
Scott:Yeah,
Sam:okay. I'll say like, definitely, I am definitely that person who, like in full disclosure, I have a myriad of, like, disorders and invisible disabilities that makes it very hard as an individual. Like, it's, it's very different when you have like a physical disability. It's like, You know, like, if genuinely physically walking upstairs is not something you can do because of that condition, that doesn't mean that, you know, like, you can't get to where you need to get. It just means you need accommodations to get there, you know, and it's, I'm not saying it's always easier, but sometimes it's, it's harder to kind of deny that case for people. Like, yeah. I mean, you can see me, like, to a degree. You know, there are some disabilities that are more invisible than others, but there are some where it's like, you're really gonna ask me to walk up the stairs right now, like, like, you can see what I'm going through in this moment. Like, I can get there at my own pace, but you need to, like, let me figure out that space. So it's really hard as, like, an individual just in generally navigating the world with an invisible disability because mine tends to be very psychological. So it's really frustrating for me because I tell people like, Hey, I see things in black and white. They're like, No, you don't. You just need to be more open. I'm like, No, I'm not like being like, you know, like, Oh, like cutesy. Like I genuinely have a disability that's on the brink of psychosis. That's as near to schizophrenia as possible that my reality is so distorted to the fact that I can only exist in black and or white. I would love to see the gray zone. I try to get there, but it's a concept that I meet for you, not because I understand it myself. So, something that, like, happens a lot is, this can be turned on to yourself or your loved ones and it can be very difficult to navigate just even the world in that kind of way. So, in living with oneself, and with specifically the kind that I have, which is is so frustrating because everyone's always like you have the worst one, you know, yours like kills like 70 percent of people before they're 20 and you like constantly hear this about yourself and what you have and it's like you spiral some days but what I've kind of learned in this process is like in living with oneself and like understanding those obstacles you have it's it's managing those expectations and like reflecting on oneself like it's a lot of work a lot of reflection but there's a lot of worth that comes with that like for me oftentimes it's like like i'm a person who's like living with this like it's traumatizing it's holding me back and like i'm going through a lot of dbt groups we were like no you're a person who has this Right, you live with it, but it doesn't control you. And that was something that I struggled with for a long time, and I'm still coping through, but understanding that, like, just because those things cause you to do those bad things or things that you don't enjoy, it doesn't mean that someone can't understand you, that you aren't worthy of accommodations or kindness or love or certain working things, and it doesn't mean it doesn't afford you wonderful, beautiful things like being charismatic or kind or caring or Deeply emotional about things because I can be black and white. I'm like a hundred percent in with you. There's no going back, you know, and that's a strength. And I think that's managing those two things is, is really difficult. And when we talk about like this idea of who I am, as opposed to like what I like, I have, that makes me who I am. Yeah.
a.m.:You're just, you're raising for me to say, maybe there's so much you're raising, but, but the part that I still have the most physical reaction to is sort of the, the brutality of, of, I know who you are. Right. Like that, that line of, you know, 70 percent of people that don't, I like, I don't even want to repeat the line, right? Like, that's like, like, to say that, to say, I know who you are, you're somebody who's going to die before they're 20. Like, what the f And it's not, it's, I, I don't know, I don't know the context, right? But those things are often done with zero malice. And sometimes they're even done out of like a concern. It's like, listen, you're, you're very shy. Are you sure you want to go into the debate club? Like, like it's out of a sense of like desire to protect, but it's like such a brutality.
Sam:Yeah. Most assuredly, like for me, a lot of people are like, Oh, you have this thing, you're abusive. Like a full disclosure. I have borderline personality disorder. It means I'm on the borderline of a psychosis, you know? And so it's really difficult. And so something you always hear is like, A lot of psychiatrists don't want to work with you. Oh, they're just really difficult. Oh, like, you never know what they're gonna do. They're unpredictable. And like, the worst thing for me is, like, as well as a queer person, going into the therapy practice and being like, yeah, I'm polyamorous. I have multiple partners. I'm like, are you sure that's not a symptom of your plurter line? You know, they all love like, you know, like chasing affections and I've been like, yeah, I'm in a three year committed relationship and a four year committed relationship with a lot of honest conversations. No, and that's not what I came here to talk about. Like, it's, it's deeply frustrating to have people constantly assume who you are because of these things. And then the conversation then becomes like, do you even disclose that, you know, like do you even talk to people about like those aspects? It's like, do you say, I just. Get a little emotional sometimes or do you say I have the thing that makes this difficult for me? Because that changes how people see you and support you, and it's deeply frustrating.
a.m.:So, that's one of the two reasons why this topic is on my mind, right? Like, it's We're just at the beginnings of the stage of acknowledging that people have, you know, these kind of really complex set of differences. But we still, like, one of the main things we're trying to do is we force people to disclose a diagnosis in order to give consent for them to Adapt. Yeah. The environment in a way, right? As opposed to this, just me. I don't need to give you any sort of categorization around why I need this, as long as it doesn't mess up what we're doing. You know, in the work context, as long it doesn't blow up your business, lungs doesn't. Right. I shouldn't have to give you any justification. This is just how I need to work. Yeah. Okay. And we're not there. Where do we do this? It's like, well, I, I have to give a diagnosis, you know? I say, oh, okay, well in that case let's do a, another form of brutality, you know?
Sam:It's, it's, it's deeply frustrating, especially for individuals who may not have access to healthcare, like, I've had jobs where it's like, Hey, this is the ass that I have, this is a genuine thing that happened to me. I was like, hey, listen, I have this thing, I get really emotional, I'm in a justice field, I'm going to get emotional, I'm going to take it personal. If I don't feel heard, if I'm expressing something to you and I don't feel heard, I know I'm not going to take it personal later, but right now, I'm going to take it real personal. Give me a minute to walk away and talk to a coworker, like, let off these feelings and then come to the reality of it. Because The thing with borderline is that black and white exist. I'm not gonna see the reality. You can tell me the sky is blue. To me right now, it's red and it looks red. It is red. It's just how it is. Give me like 10 minutes. I'll pass that, but I need that moment. The only thing I asked for was just a work buddy I could talk to. I was denied the accommodation because I didn't have. the medical reports that proved that I had this disorder and they actively told many of the co workers not to speak to me to the point that I was like unsure what was happening and my legality became really discerning. I was like, am I going to get fired? Like what's going on? And they're like, no, you're fine. I'm like, but everything around me is not making sense, which is making this diagnosis worse. And also you're not giving me my health care benefits so that I can get there. Also, you don't have an HR department. Also, you don't have somebody who's like supportive. Like I'm confused and it was like, no, everything's fine. It was the point that I had such a bad mental breakdown that I like just didn't show up to work. And they were like, oh, how dare you take off work without medical leave? And I was like, what? Like, I told you what happened! Like, this was going to ha I warned you of the impending issues, and they're like, Well, you need to show a specific history and have specific doctor's notes, and it's like, okay, like, But if I didn't disclose this to you, everything would have been fine? Like, what's the trade off here? There's no policies, there's no documents, like, I have to constantly read policies and this back and forth, like, brawl of, like, Am I me or am I this? Do I have to do this? How do I meet these standards so I can get what I need? Like it's never just like, hey, I need to leave in this moment. I just, I just need to step away. It's never just like, okay, cool, step away. And I'm cool. It's just, that rarely happens in spaces. And it's just, I just don't understand how people don't understand, like, You can make space for people to talk about themselves and disclose this, and that's great, but there are times where you don't need to, and you can just understand a person is a person, like beyond these identifiers.
a.m.:Yeah, we're, we're many thousands of miles from, from, from, from that in organizations, right? It is, it is the ongoing and ever more acute failure. Of, of, you know, HR to actually do anything human right. It is this sort of absence of, of any understanding of what actual human interaction is like and kind of a default to policies, process, category, et cetera, but none of which you would do in your personal life. And, and yet somehow we blindly keep doing it in organization thinking. That's the way it should be. Related to that, the big thing that got me on this topic is there's a series of articles I've seen recently, and yeah, these things come in waves, and you know, Gen Z is bringing anxiety into the workplace. Look at a first batch of Gen Z showing up in corporate environments, and they're all anxious, and they, you know. And so, yeah, I've seen articles on different perspectives on this one sort of, in essence, complaining about, you know, how The generation is not able to deal with the pressures of like, it wasn't overtly saying that, but that was kind of the thesis and then the others being more, you know, it's a generation that has these sort of issues and the workplace doesn't know how to deal with it. And, you know, balance that and productivity and all that, the, like, I think this has always been the case or, you know, like, I, you know, I'm, I'm concerned with the industry, the era I got born into. So when I say always, you know, the industrial era, the, the kind of, you know, the 20th century, I think it's been the case, but it is so acute now, I think. Like everything you've said about, you know, self disclosing about your, your kind of conditions and yet you move forward because there's commitment there, right? I think one of the things that happens is these things become more, like, they're legitimate for me, right? Like, I have, you have to talk about, I have anxiety, I have, I've had lifelong depression, right? These things are real for me. And then if I find myself in a place where I'm not actually committed, where I'm kind of like, I guess I got to do this. Because of X, Y, and Z, then it becomes like a true reinforcer now of, well, but that's how I am, and so I can't, you know, and I think we have, again, I think it's been true for the last century, but I think rapidly accelerating last 20 years, we have created an environment of minimal ontological consent, like who people are expected to be. They have not consented to, and they're not up for it. I'm not saying that's the cause for, you know, the mental health issues. Like, I mean, there's a myriad complex, you know, from the processed foods we eat to the, you know, potential that we're going to blow up the planet before this generation has grandchildren. And like, it's all right. So it's not, you know, there's a whole host of issues. But I do think that that there are so few people who are living lives that they're actually committed to it, particularly in the workplace and education where we tend to focus on education in the workplace. And I think it just further exacerbates because if I'm not committed and I legitimately have. conditions. It just ups the ante on, well, that's how I am. I can't, I don't want to, etc. Don't make me.
Sam:You brought up such a good point. This is something I've been actually dealing with this week is like, I, one of the things for me is like managing my emotions, my reactions, and the intensity of those reactions is, is a complex dance for me. So sometimes when I feel frustrated about something, I'm not sure if I should be feeling that, or if my intensity of it is correct. And so this week I've been kind of trying to explore like, when I'm frustrated about things, is my intensity valid, or is that something that I've told that I'm not okay with? And something I've kind of come to understand is like, I have been told most of my life that like, anger, frustrations, expressing that it's bad, any intensity is bad, even if The whole world around you is validating that. It's still not okay. And I think that's something that's, it's deeply frustrating for me because there are just times where I'm like, I just don't like understand something. I don't get it. And I'm always told, just, just go with the flow. And I'm like, but I don't get it. I don't understand, or this is frustrating for me. I want clarity. And I think it's, it's definitely like. I don't think it's just that Gen Z's bringing anxiety into the world. I think it's more just, they're acknowledging that it's a part of, of it. Like, anxiety comes from like, wanting to meet your deadlines, or wanting to do work well, or caring about the thing deeply, or because something's taught you that it's scary, right? But if you can change how, you know, we interact with each other, we can change the meaning of those things, which I think really ties to like, term symbolic interactionism, which for anybody who's not heard of symbolic interactionism is basically the idea it's a sociological theory posited by George Herbert Mead. And it basically states that in symbolic interactionism, the meaning we make of things comes from the interactions we have with those things. So language, symbols, a day to day interactions, face to face interactions, like we create meaning and derive those meaning and change that meaning. through those daily lived interactions, and therefore those meanings are fluid. So anxiety could have been like, we keep that at home, but through the interactions that Gen Z's having like, on TikTok, in conversations, on one on one, in symbols, in language, and I understand it's like, no, this is a thing. That I have, I live with, and needs to be addressed in all spaces of my life. And now we're having to challenge this because we have two types of symbolic interaction, ones that come from generational ones that have different versions of how we see anxiety in this new generation, and it's coming into clashing ideologies, and now we're not sure what to do with it because one's becoming fluid and one's very rigid. And I think that's kind of what I'm, like, I'm kind of hearing and seeing from the situation. Interesting.
Kyley:Yeah, I think about myself. I found out as an adult that almost the entirety of my family has some form of depression. And we've never talked about it. Like, it was never a conversation. It wasn't even something you kept at home. It just wasn't something that existed. So, like, I, like, even contemplating, like, I'm happy and open and talking about it now, but, like, It wasn't even part of a thing. What, 15 years ago when I was in high school? 20 years ago when I was in high school? The conversation wasn't even real. I didn't talk about my friends. It wasn't even language in the world. Ditto. Yeah, same here.
a.m.:Life's hard. You get down sometimes. Sometimes you get really down. That's just what it is. Go for a walk. Have a drink. Whatever.
Kyley:But it wasn't like, I didn't even have that conversation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My, my parents, my mom is a, the continual positive, whatever language you want to, like, what's, she greets me on the phone, what's, what's good and exciting? Like, the conversation that was hard wasn't even part of my existence. And my dad's language was, What are we grinding on today? You know, like what, what are we accomplishing?
a.m.:Two very classic coping mechanisms.
Scott:Right. But I think it, that lends itself in my experience to people my age and older, my, my generation and older tend to look at millennials and Gen Z and say, Like, you know, the equivalent of like, get off my lawn. Like, what's your problem? You know, like what, get it together or something like that. And I think what's happening seems to me like it's a symptom because I feel like those generations are the first ones that aren't guaranteed a future that's better than the previous and our generations were on some level and there's an anxiety built into just living. That, you know, they don't see the, they don't see the pay at the end, especially if they see their elders with depression, kind of just, you know, going into old age and nursing homes and stuff and just kind of, you know, Just being for the rest of their life. They don't see that as a promising end to what they're trying to accomplish
a.m.:I think Scott I mean again these things we talk about globally like so I don't mean this in a blank way But I I think that might be true for some Millennials this kind of notion of you know My life is not going to be better than my parents and that was always the case I think younger Millennials and certainly Gen Z why whatever is next? I don't know the younger I I think it's actually deeper than that. It's not it's it. Oh The whole thing was bullshit, wasn't it? This whole kind of escalating do better, better, better. That whole thing was bullshit. You guys bought into it. I get it. We we're not, we're ready for something. Yeah. I I, I don't think it's even like, I think millennials were resentful, like, oh, boomers took everything and I can't Rick, but I think the younger ones are like, not even like, I'm not resentful. No. I want better. I want different, you know
Sam:That's so true.
Kyley:There's not even security and failure like like millennials have security like ah, it's gonna be bad because y'all mess it up I see not even security and internalize that.
a.m.:Yeah, I mean, listen, Gen X and early Millennials are going to continue to fuck things up, but I'd love to live long enough for these younger folks, assuming that they may, I mean, listen, we could have said the same thing in the sixties and said, Oh, my God, the hippies are going to solve everything. Because, you know, the visible part of, but in reality, that was like 8 percent of the population and that's, you know, Reagan, Reagan voters in the making. You made a lot of noise. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so I'm, I'm cautiously hopeful, but, but listen, you talk about, you know, the gen, like, I didn't realize generational depression, I wouldn't have if it weren't for my daughter. Yeah, like she raised like, you know, everybody in the family's got this pattern. I'm like, oh, you're right, you know, and she and she jokes. She's like, I'm doing therapy for 14 generations. I'm like, and I'm joining you in the effort. I think it's
Sam:God. That's the same thing that happened to me and my mom, whoever think that maybe you came from a serious war and maybe just affected the way you raise your kids. She's like, well, we never thought about this from like, I know.
Scott:You know, my family was always like, you know, they're older too. So they were from the depression era and the war era. And they were like, you know, if you made it just made it out alive of either of those time periods, you won.
a.m.:And this is, listen, this is, this is bouncy because I, I can say that not only generation, like for me as an immigrant, again, the stories kind of grew up without plumbing and seven people in 400 square feet, like, you know, like this place, basically seven of us were in like this room, a little bigger. And so, so this is like weird kind of balancing. Like I, I can find myself on both sides of it and I'm on the one side of like, Oh my God, this is so great. You guys are doing this. And the other side of it, do you fucking know what a luxury is? And you have time and space to. Do this instead of worrying about how you're going to keep, you know, the tank of water in the corner last for the next three days for the seven of us. Right. The get off my lawn sort of mindset. And like so much else, because we don't have these conversations publicly, because it is more just a stichotomous kind of, you know, get off my lawn or let's, let's. You know, I had one, it's a horrible way to put it, but it, you know, let's cancel all the older generation. Maybe that's how I want to say it for their lack of sensitivity. Yeah, yeah, right. It's like one or the other. It's just ongoing, you know, kind of dichotomous conversation that doesn't get at what's actually hopefully
Sam:happening. I'll definitely say like, I'm definitely one of those people just like, burn it all, burn it all. Like, I don't, I don't adhere to like a lot of these systems. That's very much like, if something's going on, it's like, you could do that. I'm not gonna waste my time doing that. Like, that's something you are about, not me. Like, my dad's very much like, oh, this is how we worked. I'm like, yeah, but was your thing not you worked hard so I could have a better life? That's great that you'd have to, but here's another problem. Why did the system even cause you to have to go through that in the first place? This is not on me to fix a generational issue that you went through because the system hurt you. We should be, like, addressing that system of inequality that's causing this to happen in the first place. You shouldn't have to, like, travel here and then, like, live in poverty and, like, feel unwelcomed and unwanted and then try to provide the best for your kids. You should already have the resources to do that. That's not fair to you, that's not fair to anybody, and no one should have to go through that. Like, no one should have to go through forced labor, no one should have child, like, labor, like, everyone should have healthcare, like, no one's illegal, like, you are who you are, we are, we're not getting rid of queer people, like, people of color matter, and they have real life experiences, and like, those experiences matter, and like, we cannot understand those experiences unless we make space for that, and I'm not gonna sit here and pretend like I know all those things, I don't, but I'm very much for a system where that starts to happen more often, and that's very much in dichotomy with a lot of people. It's like, oh, you have no idea what I've been through. Like, you know, you have no idea what it's like. I was like, you know what? You don't know what it's like to have like mental health issues and disabilities and talk about it and address it because now you have to do the trauma work that comes with decolonizing yourself. That's work, you know? And it's, it's a part of who we are as a generation, I think. Got my vote.
a.m.:It's it's particularly like the real sort of sort of underline for for me Sam is is is something that you know I've talked about this over as well But Bucky full of Buckminster Fuller named in the 60s and they feel so true in the 60s It is infinitely true now, you know, he said listen, we're done. We have enough Ability to feed house and close everyone that we should stop now chasing and figure out how to create a society Where people can self actualize and create and make art and be comfortable. That is so true right now We have the resources globally that everybody on the planet should be able to just live and pursue a thing that gives them fulfillment at small scale or large scale. We have the, there's no excuse for it. There's no reason why Mark needs that island in the Pacific and the, you know, like, it's just no reason for this. It's silly.
Kyley:We spend enough money on defense. To do that. Yeah, yeah,
a.m.:yeah. It's, it's, it's easy to take a shot at Mark and let me wheel that one back. Yeah. It is more systemic than that. Yeah. It's not a handful of billionaires, although they're not helping. I guess I
Kyley:pointed that one in particular, like we spend enough money on war to make it where we don't need to war if we don't want to. Yeah. It's
Sam:so funny because Kay asked me this question all the time where it's like, what would you do if you got like a million dollars or for something like that? And I was like, oh, that's super easy. I would start a scholarship fund for individuals who might not have schooling. I would make sure that like, you know, people don't have to live like in like, like houselessness or I would create like programs or I would address actual systemic issues and programs that were going on. And he was like, you're the first one to like, say something like that. I was like, what do you mean? He's like, well, most people say that they would keep it or invest or do all these things. Like, yeah, I would invest, but give back to these like organizations or try to build something. But the problem that I have with that, and this is a question I haven't. Fighting with a lot of people lately and I mean by fighting is like internalized with myself and and like discussing with others It's like there's a lot of like social construct that's going on Like there are systematic issues at at play in a lot of ways and and some of those things deeply frustrate me And this is what I'm gonna bring up and I don't care how controversial it is is I do not think charity is a good thing I don't. Because, right, we are always hoping that someone volunteers their time, donates money, and that is going to be sustainable enough, or like, that enough grants are going to support non profits and things like that to just contribute and support communities in the ways that the government could fill, entirely fill, and not even fill themselves. They can support these organizations through funding. Entirely like making sure that their employees are paid and and health care and all these things There's enough money to do that But it's always on the goodwill of other people trying to support a goodwill effort And therefore this reinforces these systematic issues that we're not actually addressing. It's like oh look we're helping homelessness We have a whole like a homeless shelter. It's like yeah That's great, but what are you doing to fund that beyond just making a place? That's not helpful. It's a systematic issue
a.m.:As the person who's got to keep Finding money for the stem place. I am very much behind that policy platform
Sam:So what I'm saying is like you shouldn't have to like meet these metrics to say like oh We care about students who are doing enough to support these students. It's like If you truly believe in what we're doing, right, give us the tools to be successful, rather than us constantly have to prove to you that we are, because if your whole idea is like, everyone should have an education, then give us the tools to provide everyone an education, and give us the training to do that, you know, give us the space to have that, and that's the problem is like, oh, well, you know, D. A. E.'s covering these students and supporting these students and teaching them and making them future educators, like, you know, you're getting credits. Why are you mad? You know, you're just, if you get more credit, you get more money. Like it's not viable. That doesn't address the systematic issue. There's no support for these students to get these skills.
a.m.:So I'm working on the first of these video essays. I'm planning on starting to release like every quarter. And the very first one is something I said in the first podcast, which is, you know, for, for all of our time on the planet, we were born into a culture. And the culture had a story, and the culture had a cuisine, and it had gods, and it had, you know. And if you were born in the last century, particularly in the West, but now, if you're born anywhere on the planet, you're not born into a culture, you're born into an economy. And so, to me, like, the, you know, the bottom line, fundamental challenge around all of this stuff and all the other stuff we've talked about is that we fundamentally need a new story about what it is to be human. Or, more accurately, we need to go back to the old story of what it was to be human. Because in the last couple of hundred years, the story of being human is, we are an economic animal. Not that we've never had an economic life, we've always had an economic life. But that wasn't the center of what it meant to be human. Our culture, our people, our, our cuisine, our, you know, now that was tribal or, or, you know, kind of, kind of parochial and local, right? And so now it's a more heterogeneous version of our people, right? Our community or whatever that is, but, but a culture, right? To be of a culture versus to be of an economy because in an economy, these things keep, this is the sort of thing that keeps coming up. We can't get to where you're pointing to because we have to keep transacting. We have to keep making better, more. Culture understands. Don't plant more crops there, but an economy doesn't. The economy says, plant more crops there, figure out what we have to do to get that done, forget about 10 years from now. But the culture says, no, 10 years from now and 100 years from now, our great grandchildren will be great. And so, don't, don't plant any more crops there. And then now take that out and stretch it across everything. Like, that's the core problem.
Sam:Yeah, I feel like it's hard to build an identity in a system that doesn't want you to have one. And it's like It's kind of like, you know, you start to identify yourself by these things that produce capital. And like kind of what you're saying is you become a creature of an economy. You know, you become a person and it's like, Oh, I am shy. I am not a leader. Therefore I do not have worth because unless I can find a way to give those things where to an employer in the future on my resume, why does it matter? And it's like,
a.m.:so, so, so this, this gets at the punchline I wanted to get to, right. Which is the way you're saying the sin. And so what happens is these conditions in this, in this society become. The two things decide knows how to do one is the additional sort of attributes to your spec sheet. Like this part in the machine has these, you know, seven flaws to it. So when you're putting it into it's, you know, a place in, in the machine, understand don't, right. The second thing it does is the other thing that the system and this mindset and the story know how to do is to understand how to market to you better. Cool. Here are the more niche things we can sell you. Oh, you have anxiety. Cool. These are the more niche things we can tell you. Do you have you heard about the calm app? Have you heard about right? And so that's what these categories conditions do is they they they push away from where you're pointing to and i'm certainly an advocate Of right. It's like i'm unique phenomena on the planet But i'm no more important than any other unique phenomena that's happened But I am in fact a unique phenomena and no category captures me, right? And it pushes us towards here are your categories and now here's the way you can and cannot be useful Productivity standpoint and hear the more niche ways that we can sell you shit amplified by a
Scott:need for people to curate their public appearance through social media and stuff. So it's, you know, look at me. I'm great. And, you know, I'm guilty of it too. Like, you know, try to set out a certain. Way that you look to the public and stuff, but you know, sometimes you need to calm out to be able to maintain it. I like,
Sam:I do it too, and I genuinely hate it with a passion, and I think I was, I was talking to Kyley about this the other day, where I was like, I'm trying to go for a doctorate, several, several issues with this. One, the doctorate I know doesn't exist, like, there's no like, LGBT doctorate that doesn't exist, right? Second problem is, it's money. Third problem is with my disability. It's hard to navigate school a specific way. So when you apply to school, they're like, yeah we're, you know, this department that cares about DEI right? And it's like, cool. How many people from like lower economic standards that aren't like this peak high do you take in? Most of the time it's none and I was telling Kyley it's like, it's so great how I'm a person who's done a lot of research. I have a lot of lived experiences and a lot of my praxis is built on understanding what I've done in school through the privilege of being able to have higher education and recognizing that but also the lived experience of Like I have been houseless. I have been attacked. I have experienced really scary trans issues like personally And i'm constantly reading about it and i'm never really seeing myself in this which is why I want to pursue this kind of Like scholarship and yet Every pathway is a blocker. Every pathway, unless I am this perfection, is a blocker, and I am never heard. It's never like, oh, yeah, you're really like, you have a lot to say about these issues. Unless I can prove it with like a billion citations, I'm never correct. I was once challenged on the definition of abolitionism in a lecture that I was doing by a graduate student who was also trans and queer and a person of color. And they said that I was not using abolitionism correctly, to which my mentors, God bless they had my back, were like, You're not coming after our child who worked so hard on this for months. Absolutely not. I had an entire apology from the program from how disrespectful that was. And it, I come to find out that me and this person had similar literature. They're a master's student. I'm not. I was an undergrad. It was a challenge to them that they didn't appreciate. And that's, this is the thing where it's like you have to constantly market yourself to even just be of value in this economical system. But if I lived in a, like a culture, they would be like, wow, you have a lot to offer as like an individual, as a person who can mentor, as a person who can grow, like, let us support you as a community, like, where I come from in El Salvador, if someone falls, you. Get up together. Your family comes with you, even if they don't get it, even if they're confusing, if they're angry at you, you get up together. When someone cries, you all cry. And coming and changing in this American culture has been so hard for us. It's, it's, it's a lot, you know, and it's like, it's not a culture anymore. It's an economy.
a.m.:I think that scales down to the individual, you know, I mean, it's a harsh way to put it, and I don't mean it literally, but I find most folks aren't leading lives. They're engaged in productivity.
Sam:I think that the point is just like you're beyond those things like your worth is your worth like you have value meaning Like I think I've already said this but like Perfect is literally means whole You were born whole you were born perfect. There is nothing more you can add to yourself There's nothing more you can and create and give to yourself to be perfect You were already born that way and you will stay that way till the day you decide to return to the earth There is there's no part of yourself. That isn't enough There's no part of you that isn't perfect because that part of you makes you whole. Those parts of you are individually beautiful and they make you whole.
a.m.:Are you by chance familiar with the play Hedwig and the Angry Inch? No. My favorite Broadway play of all time. It was off Broadway. Never made it to Broadway, and then Neil Patrick Harris and, and the producers finally got it on Broadway like 15, 20 years after it is actually a thing in, in, in, in the West Village. I saw it seven times during its run. They had like four days, Neil Patrick Harris, and then Michael Hall, Darren Criss, and then, and then the original Hedwig John Cameron Mitchell, but the Ostensibly the story is, I'll send you the the soundtrack. It's, it's, it's one scene, the whole thing takes place and it's like a rock and roll musical. Hedwig is, so the surface story is Hedwig is a trans woman who has been through this like really just, you know, set of traumas, but has this like dark humorous, you know, but underneath it with the, what I've always loved about that play is I think it's speaking to beyond. And just, you know, denying parts of yourself from a gender or sexuality standpoint, just all the, the, the things we do to deny aspects of ourselves and the culmination of that show at the end, the song and the lyrics, if you're kind of reading them, it's like, holy shit. It's about kind of integrating everything. And, and letting go of all the categories, and it's just, it's so ahead of its time, it's in the 90s but anyways, you're speaking to, I, I, I listen to that album actually pretty, pretty regularly, it's a, it's a great soundtrack.
Scott:Fun fact,
a.m.:it was written here, right?
Scott:Music was written in a garage in Wooster Square.
a.m.:Yeah, Stephen Trask wrote the music, and then he and John Cameron Mitchell, I think, collaborated on the, on the lyrics. It started as just a drag show, or drag bar band, where they just did some songs without the idea of a musical, and then this, this kind of persona came together, and they wrote, you know, It's spectacular. It's absolutely spectacular. Anyway, I mean, I think this is a journey of life and it's, it was even when we had cultures, it was a journey of life is to kind of, you know, simultaneously individuate yourself and find your place in the kind of the whole scheme of things, the continuum of time, the continuum, that's what ancestors are about. That's what descendants were about. That's what the connection to land is about. That's what the mythologies were about, right? It was all this kind of process of individuating, but also then finding yourself. Yeah. as part of the whole thing. And, and now it's not about individuating, it's about differentiating. It's about what boxes are you in, and then what shelf do you belong on, and how much can you get sold for? And that's kind of life.
Sam:Are you familiar with the term intersectionality? I am, yeah. Yeah, like that's, that's kind of like what's coming to mind for me. Like, for those of you who don't know what intersectionality is, it's a term coined by Kimberly Crimshaw, and they were kind of like using this in like a law perspective, but also from a really feminist perspective. They were a Black woman of color, and she used intersectionality to kind of describe the ways that a person's overlapping identities can both exist in a position of privilege and oppression, and how when we're addressing things with people, it's important that we understand like A person is intersectional, they can both exist in a point of being privileged, but being oppressed. And so when we address real issues with these people who are intersectional, it's important that we understand that, like, these problems are not. a singular access problem. They're intersectional.
a.m.:Some of the most economically oppressed human spirits I've ever met, like, you know, the nature of my work was, you know, it's been a third to a half of my time doing pro bono, but my core work was like senior executives, big companies, global, et cetera, you know. And so by their nature, folks who are some of the most economically damaged, suppressed, wounded human spirits I've met were really wealthy. Right. And so really privileged, like really privileged financially, like living lives, multiple houses, all this. And yet what that system did to them in terms of their relation, and they're not even aware of it. A lot of them, right? They just kind of walk around with this, you know, but what it did to their disconnection to the part to their actual humanity, the things they actually cared about the thing they actually, and they're just playing a role. They're just playing a role that is, you know, shiny and, and, and in a big house and whatever, but there's still, there's still a product in a box on a shelf. And unclear what the disconnection is because everything's great. Look at this house. Look at this other house. Look at this third house. Look at the car. The kids are great. They're all in great colleges, you know, and yet. Yeah, man, you're just as disconnected from your humanity is the person trying to figure out how to pay the light bill.
Scott:So, in those experiences, did you ever get a glimpse at, like, what the seeds of this, like, not enough feeling drives a lot of folks, especially. Once you made it still have this like still need to grow still need to have more and more and more
a.m.:listen It's really simple man. If you just put a little bit of salt into the water supply. Everyone's always thirsty You know, I mean you just all you need to do is put like this sounds dumb All you do is put grades into kindergarten and by the time they're in fourth grade That motherfucker is thirsty all the time and then you just swap out the tokens You know, I, I mean, again, I'm oversimplifying and yet that's the territory. It's the design of the system, the design of the system from the go from preschool is what is it you produce that you will get paid for, whether the payment is praise acknowledgement. A cookie sits still in the corner and you'll have a cookie is a seed for being a part of this economy. We did not do that as humans for the vast majority of my time on the planet. It was, you can't sit still, great, go run in the field with a water buffalo. And so literally at, at, at, you know, nine months old, sit in the corner. Quietly, and you'll get a cookie is the salt in the water that will make that human perpetually thirsty. And then you just design the whole system around that. And the better we can get it back to categories, the better we can get it targeting the thing you're most thirsty for and then slip bits of salt into that. You know, the more reliable you're going to be in the machine,
Scott:what is it about this kind of, you know, going back to Obama's speech, like, you know, you didn't build that, like, you know, you built your, your multi billion dollar company unicorn, but, you know, he was pointing out that he used the roads, you use the telecommunications infrastructure, you used, you know, all these different things to be able to accomplish what you did, but. So, you The self made millionaire or billionaire is kind of like the, you know, the hero of the story, at least in the American economy through the decades.
a.m.:One of the things that the cultures understand, you know, traditional cultures understand, that we lost, that is like dark and heavy in this society but it's a practice for me is I am like, we're sitting here in this room, this room is built on blood and bones, not human. Sure. Yes, absolutely. There were indigenous, you know people say that. Yeah, absolutely. There are people who built this, who, whose lives weren't tended to it, et cetera, but I mean, man, just like the, the living things that were displaced permanently, yeah. So that we can have this room now. I don't think we should tear down all the buildings and, you know, just kind of sit in the corner as it were and not disrupt. Right. But I think there is a in a culture. There's an understanding that we are part of a cycle of a thing. That the ancestors died for us, that this water buffalo, this bison, this whatever died for us, and we understand the sacredness of that, and we understand that, and then we will feed something, right? There is that, so it's not a don't, you know, have things, don't eat, it's not that, but it's an understanding that it's This, this relationship for us, we bury all that. And so I think a practice is to understand that everything I'm, I'm, like every step I'm taking, everything I'm consuming, is built on Something's sacrifice and someone's sacrifice. And so, therefore, now, how does that navigate what I choose to consume, do, etc.? I can't take a step without it coming with the price of somebody's sacrifice. Joyous sacrifice or unwilling sacrifice, right? But that's somebody's sacrifice. Now can I stay awake to that without like just becoming oh my god. Oh my god. I'm a horrible person It's not right. Can I balance those two things? I think is one for me personally is one of the things I found that is like how I'd navigate
Sam:I think like it's like for me the reason to be like the Star of those things is I'm always relating concepts. I'm very much like a web concept person, but like is this idea of slow violence or slow violence is a slow and visible thing that we don't see. So, like, great example, right? Environment, right? It's, it's slowly dying over time. And The people who are oppressed, we don't necessarily see it being oppressed or hurt or abused in this process, but over time, you start to see it happening more and more and more, it becomes, it becomes so systematic, so large, you can no longer ignore it, right? Like, slow violence was just like, was kind of started in the idea of like, the environment, right? Like, we're killing the planet. Like, there's no one abuser, there's no one person who did it, and there's not necessarily one group of people who were the, you know, the hurt, the abuse, the person receiving the harm, until there was like wildfires, and then we're like, oh, these are the people getting hurt because of this specific thing, and I think that's, that's another issue, is kind of like, we're never really identifying how Our identities and ourselves as people exist in these systems where we are being hurt slowly, quietly, invisibly, right? By not by any one particular person, but by a system built by people. And we're never really identifying ourselves in that space and how we can, like, move away from that and build towards better places and build towards better systems that don't hurt people slowly over time and then start this generational cycle of hurting people over and over and over again. We just don't see ourselves in that space. I don't see myself as a person who's hurting others, invisibly and not aware of it. My actions all have meaning to someone. They are symbolically interacting with someone, they are creating meaning for someone, good or bad. But unless I'm making space for someone to come up to me and say, Hey, you hurt me and really sitting with that and really addressing that, it's not changing anytime soon.
Scott:That concept really resonated with me when I went to Cuba last year and you sort of see The long term effects of economic policy and absentia, you know, people are making decisions that have never really been on the ground there and I went part of a cultural exchange group. So we went in folks houses, artists and musicians and, you know, family restaurants and that kind of stuff. And you really see it as this kind of, like, slow, like, economic genocide by basically making people not have access to, you know, they have access to just enough, and sometimes a little less than that. The thing that really struck me, though, was that the culture that they had that rose out of that adversity, Was just transmuting all that negativity into this like joyous music and art and, you know, there's heavy subjects The music was based on you know decades before this economic kind of adversity came to them So they just kind of amplified that joy that they had in the early years. That was generational But, you know, there's, you know, there's enough bread for a week, but that's your monthly allotment, that kind of stuff. So you see them sort of, it's, you know, it kind of reminded me of like punk rock kids that I knew that were squatting and, you know, finding equipment to start a band and that kind of stuff. It kind of had that.
a.m.:Get a job, you bum.
Scott:Exactly. Yeah. And, and the thing is like the, yeah, I expected them to be very. Mean to Americans because how would I expect otherwise like, you know, I'm the oppressor, you know, I'm the representative They were open, you know broke bread Shared stories introduced us to families. Let's go to an old folks home. And I'm just the old folks home They still believe in the revolution because they were there when it happened, but they were you know, do you want to dance? You know, do you want to do you want to go out on the porch and dance with us? It's that kind of stuff. So they were very very much Open hearted Because the economy was secondary. It was a culture.
a.m.:Yeah. On the, on the kind of suffering thing, and, and, sorry about Cuba, but yes, and folks who don't hang with this conversation. Right. When that's the entry point, it's like you need to acknowledge the suffering that your life causes. It becomes like, you know, for obvious reasons, right? And so what I found a more productive entry point that then readies them for The sort of acknowledgement of the inherent suffering caused by, you know, how they live is just acknowledgement of service, like, just that we can't sit in this room absent. The cleaning people, none of whose names we know, being in here cleaning the thing. The electrical company and the people who work on the light grid, making sure that there's power going to that thing, right? So none of that is suffering per se, but it is all service. Like every moment is informed by service. And that conversation, people who are not, Sort of in this conversation. Can you have to get behind? Oh, interesting. It's like a cool take that on as a practice. Just pay attention. Everything you're doing all the myriad like try to see how many steps you can follow down the path to see all the different types of service that are involved and you're being able to see if you already eat this donut, right? And that people can get comfortable taking on and then they do that for, you know, a month or 6 months or whatever, you know, for their development is then at a certain point becomes okay. Now, let's look at the other part of this, which is who has suffered. And who continues to suffer for you to have this and there's a little bit more of a, of a, I don't know, receptivity at that point to, to that consideration. Did you, did you want to add something? It looks like you're sitting with something. I'm sitting with so many things that I don't know
Kyley:where it fits into this conversation. Y'all were, y'all were, seemed to be going down paths and I was dancing outside of that, so. Yeah. My question that kept running through my mind is, is how much is that question of how I be framed by what you bump into? And how does that shape some of that? Because I don't, like, a lot of how I be was determined in really tough experiences. And seeing what actually, when I'm I'm up against a wall, what comes out, and if my life doesn't have that, I don't know how I actually even define that in some capacity. And I haven't actually found In my time, conversations with anyone who is clear on who they are that hasn't experienced something that was deeply difficult.
Sam:Yep. Exact same thing I've been doing this whole week, because of my therapy, because I have been asked the same question. And something that was imparted to me was, when you recognize the things that you enjoy, when you recognize the things that you do often, like, feel where it is in your body. Feel where you are in that moment. Feel the intensity. Feel, like, who you're with. And if that resonates with you, Right? Those are the things that give yourself meaning beyond just those experiences that have shaped that. It's also this moment that shapes that as well. Like, who you are are keys to open doors to cultural experiences and to creating a new sense of self. You are a person who is always going to be fluid. Your identity is always going to be fluid. And I think just understanding that, you know, who you are, everything you are, is this beautiful thing that you can transmute and change into beautiful things and you can take these things that are privileged, you can take these things that hurt, you can take these things that are confusing, you can rip off that invisible knapsack, put it on the table, go through it, rummage around, pull all the things you like, and really sit there and go like, Well, where's this coming from? Who gave me this? How did this get in my bag? And then put it back on and travel on a new journey. You can use what you have as a positive pathway to success. All of the things you have are keys to create positive pathways to success. You may not be an anxious person, right? You may just be a person who was raised hypervigilant and now you are very aware, but you care deeply. You may not be a person who is depressed. You may be a person who understands what it's like to hurt very deeply and understands when another person goes through that. You now have the strength to help that person through that. These are things that you have that both hurt and help, but how you choose and the people you choose to help you support that positive journey matters. And that is a culture.
a.m.:Thank you for listening to Absurd Wisdom. This is A. M. Bott, and you know, conversation, real human conversation never actually ends, but episodes of podcasts need to. So we're going to end here. You can connect with me on Instagram and TikTok at, at Absurd Wisdom. You can find DAE on Instagram at dae community or online at mydae. org. Absurd Wisdom is produced and distributed by DAE Presents, the production arm of DAE, and we'll be back with more Conversation Beyond Understanding next Thursday.
