Stair Pits

God Created Me to Mock People—Here's What I Learned

• Robert Thompson

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0:00 | 57:28

Is your tragic story actually a source of humor? Learn how to reframe personal struggles and find strength in unexpected places.

This conversation explores the concept of being created to mock people and why what others might call a tragic story can actually be a source of personal power. If you have ever felt misunderstood or labeled by your past, this perspective offers a fresh way to look at your own narrative without the weight of traditional labels.

We break down how shifting your personal perspective allows you to own your experiences rather than being defined by them. By analyzing the idea of mocking people, we find lessons on resilience and the importance of defining your own life story on your terms. You will see why finding humor in your own history can be a tool for growth and clarity.

Order Roberts book below! Learn more about his upbringing and how he turned it into something beneficial
https://www.unbreakableorigins.com/

0:00 Cold Open On Mockery And Meaning
4:23 Story Archetypes And Roles We Play
8:02 Naming The Theme Of Stair Pits
16:35 Tragedy Heroes And Cruel Honesty
22:10 Trading Judgment For Grace
30:13 Where Faith Starts And Grows
40:40 Service Gratitude And Small Wins
43:50 Blue Laws And The Fraying Social Fabric
56:30 Final Takeaways And The Book Plug

SPEAKER_00

I felt that God had created me just to mock people. And I'm really good at it.

SPEAKER_01

People can learn a lot of things from this tragic story about your life.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, see, it's funny because I don't see it as a tragedy at all. Helping somebody at the supermarket get something off the top shelf might be the best thing that you do that day. And if it is, then you lived a perfect life. A hint to all the wannabe messiahs out there. If you were the want-to-be messiah, if you were actually the messiah, we'd all know. Imagine, if you will, a time and a place where children were no longer the focus of a family, where your own pleasure dictated everything that you did and everything that you wanted. Welcome to the Stair Pit Zone.

SPEAKER_01

You could try to do this professionally today. Every intro is a little different. It's a lot different.

SPEAKER_00

Did you ever see, God, Sherry? I can't think of her last name now. But Sherry and her puppet um Lamb Child Chop, did you ever see this? I've not seen that, no. Okay. So I'm blanking on the woman's last name now, but her first name was whatever her name was. Yeah. But she had this little sock puppet that was called Lamb Chop. And she would like be over like this, and she and Lamb Chop would have little discussions, and they would say, like, How are you today, Lamb Chop?

unknown

I'm fine.

SPEAKER_00

I'm fine. Well, it's so good. It's so good to see you. And so she would kind of have these whole little like early children's, very low budget children's programs. Gotcha. So we could kind of do the whole thing of this now. Watch. Hi, welcome to another exciting episode of Stair Pits. I'm a sock puppet without a puppet. Or a sock. So it's kind of like nude puppet time. That'll that'll get a lot of people watching this. I'm pretty sure.

SPEAKER_01

I think the episode's over right there. One of the greatest things of all time. So nude puppet time.

SPEAKER_00

I'm going to go away now. There. All right. Nice. So welcome to the show. We had a great introduction on that.

SPEAKER_01

Um I think one time you do need to bring a sock puppet in here, or even just like a full hand puppet and just have a full podcast, just you two.

SPEAKER_00

I could no, I could do that on it. Easily. You could do it easily. Did you ever see the show Dynasty? No, I don't think so. Mallory, did you ever see Dynasty?

unknown

No.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, Dynasty was like an uh late 70s, early 80s kind of adult soap opera thing. And it starred Linda Evans. Okay, and Linda Evans was uh a rather shapely blonde woman who was previously on a show called The Big Valley. And uh she was in it, and Joan Collins was in it, was also an actress. And the two of them would get into like little arguments and fights, like Joan Collins, Dark Hair was kind of the evil woman, and you know, Linda Evans, the blonde woman, was kind of the good woman. Yeah. Linda Evans later in life subsidized Yanni's career. Yanni was like a new age musician. Okay. It's terrible. Anyway, but in it, what would happen is both of them um had ample cleavage, so they would always be wearing you know shirts that would allow their cleavage to be on display. And so I came up with my own version of um of being able to do the puppet version of any episode of Dynasty. So on this one, I'd be wearing like a dress shirt, and I'll do it this way so you can see it better. So on this shirt, I would open it so there'd be a natural V. And then this shirt would be the guy, and the whole thing was like, Hi, how are you?

unknown

Fine.

SPEAKER_00

I'm really glad to see you today. Fine. It's the entire episode of Dynasty. Sounds like a hell of a show. It's really spectacular. Yes. And then they, of course, they would get angry at each other. Then towards the end of the show, at one point, they got into a big fight about something. Yeah. The big thing was that Linda Evans and Joan Collins were fighting at the end of it. Nice. I only saw the commercials, but I knew enough of the commercials that I could kind of figure out. Way. Way to piece together. It's fantastic. You don't need to go much farther than that. That's actually an interesting thing, you know, to talk about. Um in a feeble attempt to try to talk about something interesting today. Yeah, just we could. By all means. Um so when you look at things um how many in any given story, like if you look at the fact that there might be maybe five or six major themes in terms of stories, right? Sorry about five or six major themes. And within those themes you maybe have four or five significant characters, right? So the question is how many um how many characters do you think you could play? You know, like in terms of archetypal character archetypical characters, how many do you think you could play?

SPEAKER_01

I'd say I could play two, maybe three. Okay, which I'm not I'm not super diverse. I mean, you know, I mean, I'll a black man can only fit into so many roles. Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Black men can't be heroes. What black men can't be heroes? Is that what you're saying? You know, in few and far between. This isn't like a white supremacy show. So you have to come up and this is your point.

SPEAKER_01

I play the role that I play well, though. I mean, you know, I play the role on this show.

SPEAKER_00

Right, yeah, no, right? Well, yeah, as black friend. And you do exactly really well.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you. Appreciate it. But no, you even got me to dress like you sometimes.

SPEAKER_00

Just goes to show. See?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Psychic brain power. No. But um, but no, but seriously, but you can play more than that, right? I mean, so like what roles do you think? Generally, what roles do you think you can play well?

SPEAKER_01

I mean, depending on what roles you're thinking about in your head, the the the four or five you mentioned, I mean, I think I can I play a good protagonist. I play a I play a great antagonist. Right. Um I can play the sidekick role very good as well. Um, and I think I make a pretty good bystander, just kind of the guy in the background, or even the middleman, where it's kind of like, you know, trying to be the mediator between the protagonist and antagonist, right? Um, so yeah, I I I think I can, you know, depending on the on the scene of the play, right, can kind of shift my mood to fit any of those. You know, it's kind of like what what what Bill said, okay? Our boy William Shakespeare, if you will. Okay. Um uh all the world is a stage, all the men and women are merely players. And depending on the time in our lives, we all play different roles until the curtain falls, okay?

SPEAKER_00

I think you kind of butchered the last half of that. Okay.

SPEAKER_01

But the people don't need to know that. Okay. The first part was an exact quote. Second part was my ad lib. Absolutely. Um, so yeah, I mean, but yeah, I I wouldn't view myself as someone who's like, yeah, I can play any role in which I'm given. I feel like I I can fit some roles well, others, you know, I'm I I wouldn't say I'm the most diverse actor in the room. Not like you, you've played many roles, okay? And and you, I feel like you play every single role that you that you are put in or give yourself very, very well, right? You you can fit into almost any any role in any group that you that you surround yourself with, which leads me to the question of well, backtracking a little, stair pits, okay? Buy the book. The book that you wrote.

SPEAKER_00

True. Okay. And that's every word in it. I didn't have any hope on any of those words. None of those words are leased, every one of them was bought.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, bought and paid for. Yeah. Um what would you say the theme if you had to pick one theme for your book, what would it be?

SPEAKER_00

I think that um that's a really good question. I think that the book is in many ways um atypical in that uh most books kind of have a you know, a beginning, a middle, and an end. And I think mine has um about maybe, you know, a hundred and thirty or a hundred and a hundred and fifty beginnings, middles, and ends on it, where it's a whole series of little vignettes. And because there's a whole bunch of little vignettes in it, the uh the whole thing has a a totally different feel in it, where there's parts where it's tragic, there's parts where it's heroic, it's parts where it's kind of shake your head weird, and it's parts where it's oh, that's kind of inspiring. So I think the difference on it is in most stories you or most books you look at it, there's kind of a single arc, and there might be, you know, dual arcs of dual development or something in it. But mine doesn't have that obvious consistent arc in it. There's a story of adaptation, and it's a story of uh uh discovery, but it's not an atypical point. Whereas there's not a um obvious way of looking at it. I mean, as you've read it, if you're gonna try to describe it to somebody, you might say it's interesting, you might say it's good, you might say it's funny or something like that. Um I know I've seen you, you know, say to people, if you just buy the damn book, I'll take your head out of the toilet, which is one of our most effective sales techniques. It has worked so far. Everybody that's had that happen to him has bought at least one copy. It's great. How many copies? No. Absolutely, yes. He doesn't even want them to live, he just gives us the money. It's great. Um, but anyway, so it solves a lot of problems. Yes.

SPEAKER_01

Um, but I I don't know if you were to try to describe it, how would you say it's you know, as I've had this conversation with multiple people who know you, right, and who've read the book. And because we we view it a little differently as someone who's just gonna pick it up off the shelf and buy it and read it, right? Um, you know, for me who knows you, I can it's it's overall a a you know sad story, right? It's a story about a child who is completely neglected by his parents, has to find his way in life at a very young age, which most people, most human beings, would view as hey, that's that's not a a a happy story, right? But you know, you can see your humor, you can see how you dial things up, you can see the different things that you add in this book, because I know you as someone who does not know you, I would describe it as a a tragedy that was learned, if that makes sense, right? Overall, the story is is gonna be viewed as a tragedy, right? If people can can can look, can read through the lines, you see the humor in there, right? If um people can see it, they can see that okay, overall it's a tragedy, but you learned a lot about life in a short amount of time and have been able to overcome since that point, right? So it's a tragedy, but also one that not only you learned from, but people who read this book can learn from it as well. We've we've talked about the concept of hey, you know, in life, you are not what happened to you. You are you get to decide what you become, right? You can have a really hard childhood and raise up and be the man that you are today, the very successful, very knowledgeable man that you are. You could have let your childhood affect you, but you didn't. And so people can learn a lot of things from this tragic story about your life.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, see, it's funny because I don't see it as a tragedy at all. Absolutely. Yeah. I would never even I mean, that would be the the last word I would ever use on it. And in fact, you know, and I would my brother would read part of it as I was reading it, and my biggest concern was that it didn't come across as a pity party.

SPEAKER_01

And and I and I wouldn't say pity party. I would because this this is not written in a way where you complain, right? Where it's just, oh, woe is me. Look at look at how horrible my life was. Again, I think it just you telling the simple story itself by people who do not know you, just pick it up. It's gonna be like, wow, this was a freaking hard life that a young kid had to battle through, but look at all the things that he learned, look at all the things I'm able to learn from him. But I don't think it's written in a sense of, oh my gosh, like I, you know, my parents locked me in the basement and fed me scrapple and all those types of things. That's just the story.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, period. Well, they in all honesty, they did feed each other scrapple too. I mean it was embarrassing they get tweezers and would drop it in each other's mouth. It's really embarrassing. Jeez. No, they didn't, but they would all in the same plate, you know. But um yeah, that's how a lot we did a lot. Was spent a lot of time looking at birds to how it works. Yes. But um I guess when I kind of look at it, if you go back to let's say the eighteen fifties, okay. In today's dollars, what did someone in the eighteen fifties live on a year? I have no clue.

SPEAKER_02

About a dollar fifty. Wow. Okay. It's nothing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, so if you look at that well, for instance, it it kind of brings up a secondary point on it. Is it easier to eat or is it easier to starve? Yeah. Right. And yet when you were living on a buck fifty, we managed to do something where w we have like nine billion people on the planet now. Yeah. So if if you look at it from that regard, I would say that's much more dramatic than anything that anyone has done in this century. I don't care what it is, I'm sorry, you have resources here. I mean, there might be some places that are messed up enough, like you could say in North Korea, they don't really have much of a chance. But everybody, every place else, there's at least a chance. And back then it was, I think, a lot more miracle than it was anything else. And so I think when I look at those things, I look at those things as being like tragedies at that point. The things that people were so messed up at that point that they couldn't figure out how to do the basic elements of humanity. What you know, how how could you possibly deal with it? And you know, how God just didn't pull the plug on the experiment at that point. It's kind of beyond me. I mean, it's like, well, yeah, it's been fun, it's been real, but man, you know, this one did not work. That was just not working, you know.

SPEAKER_01

But I I would also view your story as a tragedy because of, you know, again, let me tie it into my learned background of of movies, okay? You know, I'm big time into the superhero movies, both Marvel and DC universe, not too picky. You really, you really are a model of diversity. Thank you. I appreciate it. And guess what? My favorite superhero movie isn't even Black Panther either, okay? Great Panther.

SPEAKER_00

So not even a Panther.

SPEAKER_01

You know, hey, you know, yeah, exactly. Um, but uh, you know, another quote, pretty sure this wasn't Shakespeare, but it says, Show me a hero and I will show you a tragedy. Right. Right? Pretty famous quote out there that a lot of people have heard. Okay. You look at every single superhero movie, every origin movie starts with tragedy, but they don't let it affect them, grow into a superhero. I don't know why you haven't built an iron suit yet. Okay, with you know, and tried to fly around the world and be a vigilante. So maybe, maybe, maybe you are. I don't know. Um, but that also wait, I have to go.

SPEAKER_00

Johnny has lost his $700. Yes, and mom isn't there to pick it up.

SPEAKER_01

Uh-huh. Little Susie's down the well for the 300th time, right? I've given up on her. Okay.

SPEAKER_00

I told her last listen, this is it, honey. You're just doing this for attention.

SPEAKER_01

Uh yeah, exactly. Yes. Um, and so so yeah, I I think it it could be viewed again, and in which is gonna be weird to say, in the best light of a tragedy, where you could you could of you could say, because he's been so successful, like this could also be viewed as a tragedy because it, you know, whether that is what led to his success, or whether he, in spite of that, became successful. Either way, he's walked the same road as a lot of our favorite superheroes, if you will.

SPEAKER_00

I was just thinking in the superhero thing. That thank you. I was just thinking the superhero mode. I think I would, if I was gonna be a superhero, I think I would go with um how stupid are you, man? And my entire thing would be when people would have problems, yeah. Let's say, like somebody got into a car wreck, I would just say, Yeah, well, you know, you should have put your phone down, and I just leave.

SPEAKER_01

Would you have any superpowers of any sort?

SPEAKER_00

No, just of like keen and cruel observation. Gotcha. You know, like somebody would like mothers would say, Tie your shoes or super critical man will come and fall and he'll mock you for like putting a hole in your shirt or something like that, you know. So that would that would be my entire entire thing. Like when a glass fell, it would be well, you know, you should have put it where you're gonna sweep your arm, it wasn't gonna hit it. That's why the glasses go forward of the plate. Yes.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. So so it wouldn't even be for big things. You would just be just showing, like I said, a glass falls in the kitchen, you know, a little kid burns his hand on the stove. Don't touch.

SPEAKER_00

You know, your mother said that. She just wasn't saying that.

SPEAKER_01

You know, I mean, we we did talk about little kids and and and and light sockets last week. So, you know, yeah, you're just mocking a three-year-old who just you know stuck a fork in a light socket.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, try it again, sparky. You know. Yeah, I'd be really good at it. You know, just be the whole answer would be just reinforcing what it could be. Yes.

SPEAKER_01

I'd be good at that. Oh, and I think maybe it would just it would heighten the intelligence of the human race simply out of fear that if they did something stupid, you would show up and let them know. And just let them know how stupid they were.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, no, that's it. It's it is an interesting concept, although it does go back, you know, to the idea that um, and it's conf it was confusing to me for a great number of my ye of my life, great number of years of my life, was I felt that God had created me just to mock people. That, you know, he had given me this incredible capacity to look at people and see how stupid they were, and then to judge them and ridicule them. Okay. And I felt that that's what I was put on the earth to do. And I'm really good at it. But then apparently, that's not why I was put on the earth. I mean, apparently that's actually wrong. And it took me a long time to uh try to see what was my the prayer that I try to work with every day is to use my skills, gifts, and talents to live in grace and harmony with others, to love and forgive more, to judge less, to see God and others, and to act as such. And that if you look at everything as a miracle, if you look at everyone as a miracle, if you look at all of us as something that God designed, then which kind of goes to the book theory. God, we're talking more about the book than we usually do. We've got to talk about something else in a couple of minutes.

SPEAKER_01

I was gonna say, this guy's gonna try and steer at somebody. He's like, Man, we're focusing too much on why we're actually here.

SPEAKER_00

So there's actually a book under my book. There is. We can talk about that one. Pages next. Yeah. Yep. Just to see if there's something else in there. Sure. Um, but the I think it comes down to what can you do? What can you actually what can you act? How can if I look at something, if I look at a situation, can I see the beauty in it? Am I oriented towards seeing the beauty, towards seeing the efficiency, towards seeing the magnificence of form following function? Can I be amazed by the creativity of how something came about? And it's that's a way of living. That's a good way of living. You know, wandering around and telling people that they were stupid is a fun way of living, but it doesn't necessarily accomplish anything because I think most people kind of know that it was there. You know, I mean, their dog just got run over by a car. Well, you should have trained Sparky to come when he was called. Yeah. You know, as they're crying, I don't know if they want to hear that. Maybe they do.

SPEAKER_01

You know, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And maybe in the comments section, if your dog was just run over by a car, on a scale of like, well, let's say one to zero. I think we have to go ten. I don't think we're gonna get anybody in the middle on this. Right. But on a scale of one to zero, how helpful do you think it would be to have a well-meaning and possibly sardonic stranger come up to you and say you should have trained your dog better?

SPEAKER_01

I wanted to see if some people would have been like, you know what, that would actually help me.

SPEAKER_00

Don't allow those people near scissors. That's kind of what I'm just saying. There are certain people that just shouldn't have things. Yes. You know, I mean, that's kind of that's kind of the way that I look at it. So they just they really shouldn't have things. 100%. Those are people that it's like it's an interesting con like, you know, if you look at this as an interesting concept on it. With nine billion people on the planet, look at the possibility of the gene pool. Okay, if we were ever gonna come up with mutants, now is the time. Yes. Because we have enough stuff, right? Or another way of looking at it is so are you um are you familiar with like the Pareto distra Pareto distribution pattern? I don't think I am. Okay. Are you familiar with the seven-layer burrito? Yes, I am. It's nothing like that. Okay, I was like, Is that the same damn thing? No, no, it has nothing to do with it. I'm just just trying to just trying to set you the net for one, you know. I thought I'd just try to throw something simple out there. 100%. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So you're and of course, you know I'm familiar with the seven-layer burrito. Yeah. I mean, as someone who who who loves to eat and loves to eat sometimes shit food. Yeah. Taco Bell is is is a go-to situation for me.

SPEAKER_00

Now in Michigan, that there could be an outbait of some parasite from the list at Taco Bell.

SPEAKER_01

And I haven't stepped foot in Taco Bell since I saw that.

SPEAKER_00

So well, I mean, you know, it's um it's one of those things. I was precautionary on that. For sure. Yeah. But so without the possibility of driving going down the Taco Bell, you know, confusion that's there. There is a great bit that um Adam Carolla did one time about Elaine Garcia, was um the uh executive chef at Taco Bell. So the the idea that like Taco Bell had an executive chef, but so like she's at a party, right? So, and you know, so what do you do? Does she say I'm an if you say I'm an executive chef, oh, where's your restaurant? Oh, it burned down. You know, um, you know, it's like, but you don't say that. You say, like, you know, I'm an assistant dog catcher, or I, you know, I'm a janitor, you know, just you you never bring the idea up. You know, it's like if it comes out, oh, I can cook, oh, really? Well, do you have a restaurant? Well, yeah, oh, where? And you know, you kind of look at the idea like yeah, in talk, like Taco Bell used to be owned by Pepsi, okay, back in the day. And then they spun it off as its own company called um Yum, Yum Brands is what it is. Tricon Global or Yum Brands is what they are. The ticker symbol is Yum, Y-U-M. For those of you that want to invest in it, don't. Okay. So um, but the when Pepsi spun off their restaurants, they also got Fritole, the chip division. Okay, so if you look at it, the Taco Bell Universe, if you want to talk about a tragedy, okay, you have tortilla, you have uh hard shells, you have beef, you have a particularly evil sauce, you have cheese, okay. Yeah, and heat, and occasionally potato chips or things that come out of a Dorito bag. For sure. Okay, so and beans. I guess they also have beans. They don't have rice, but they have beans, right? So you have beans. So you look at that, you have let's say eight objects, right? Eight things, and whereas there's eight notes in music, and you can make amazing songs and wonderful, you know, melodies and things, there's eight ingredients, Taco Bell. It's not like it's ever been good. You know, so yeah. If I take a burrito, okay, that is a soft tortilla, unheated, bean, beef, a little bit of sauce, cheese, okay, and let's say a couple of Fritos. Great. Now I'm going to deep fry it. Yeah. Okay. We're gonna call it the El Cruncherito. Oh. Okay. So the El Cruncherito, is it better or worse than how it was before it was deep fried?

SPEAKER_01

I think we need to give it a try. I think we need to give it a try. Your heart may stop after, but could it be worth it? Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Well, here's another this is another fun game. Yeah. How far can you put your hand down your throat? Okay, now you might be able to get it down there, but there's a point when it does get down there, that it's just gonna get stuck and you're gonna asphyxiate. Yeah. Okay. The the El Cruncherito. Same thing. Same thing. Just we don't need to go there. Just because we can envision it doesn't mean we have to do it.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. You know what I you know what I love, Robert, is that you know. Right before you went on that soliloquy about uh Taco Bell Country. You made a comment that, hey, I don't want to get off into the Taco Bell tangent.

SPEAKER_00

But I had to. And there it didn't. I love it. I love it. It has the gravity in it, and it just it pulls me into it.

SPEAKER_01

And you know what, you know what's the crazier part is as you were talking, I had three branch off questions that I wanted to throw your way about Taco Bell and the fast food industry. But hey, I had another question before the Taco Bell stuff. Maybe we'll get back to that.

SPEAKER_00

Well, no, we can we can go on because I just was put in, I just think that it's it's there. I mean, if we're into the swamp, I mean it's just it's crazy.

SPEAKER_01

But let me pivot back to something that you brought up a little earlier, okay? On this podcast in general, you've you have put an emphasis on God, your belief in God and in a higher power, how that's positively affected your life, things like that, which I think is fantastic. The fact that that that you know, and that's a focus in my life. I know that's a focus in yours as well. Um, and and just trying to find God's purpose for you and fulfill that on a daily basis. Okay. My biggest question for you was where did you find not even a belief in in religion, but in God in a higher power? Um, was that taught in your home? Was that was that was there examples of that again in stair pits in your young life? Was there examples of people who who brought religion and God to you? Did you have to find that on your own? Did you discover that in your older years? Where did you grasp the concept of, okay, there's a higher power out there? It's God. I'm learning that He has a purpose for me. I need to find that and just exercising that every single day. Where did that start? Was that in your younger years, or more as you developed into a man?

SPEAKER_00

I was uh walking down the street, and this guy from an alleyway comes up to me and says, Would you like to read a couple of pages out of Genesis? No, it didn't. It was um that that was a different story. Totally wrong. Um no. And it happened on Wall Street in New York City. Okay. No, it's uh there is a much better joke about that. That was an old Lenny Bruce joke, who was the guy that had the great line about the difference, the similarity between football players and prostitutes. Tune into a previous episode, and you can it's a great joke. Absolutely. Anyway, but he talked about how um there was uh an enraged uh preacher, and he was um totally out of control, and he was throwing brand new Bibles at people, and they were, you know, hitting them and knocking him out, and he was killing him. And this one guy was able to go towards the preacher, and as he threw a Bible at him, it hit a bullet that he happened to have in his pocket and deflected, and he was able to go and tackle the priest and stop him. But it was because back in the day there was all these stories about a guy who would do something and somebody would shoot him and it would hit his Bible and stop the bullet. So his was just the other version of it. Yes, which I thought was extremely funny. That's all bad. So he told the joke much better than I did. Um he also had an equally tasteless joke about uh a car dealership that this guy, like, you know, doing car dealership ads. Yeah. You've seen like used car ads, right? Yes. The guy was just saying, Well, we got this great uh come on down here. We got some great cars, they're just wonderful. We're giving them away. You know, we'll offer financing to anybody that the law lies. We got ourselves one of them Volkswagens here. Great looking car. Interior isn't as perfect as it could be, used as a double suicide, got a little bit of lipstick on the tailpipe and the inside's. Well, the guy shouldn't have used a big shotgun of that caliber, but anyway, we'll just give it to you today.

SPEAKER_01

But it was I recognize you're already in your retired life and you have been for a while because of how successful you were working in your career. Have you ever thought about pivoting and being a used car salesman? Because that was a pretty good bit right now. That was pretty good. Hey, we talked about playing different roles.

SPEAKER_00

No, I could do it. I learned from uh we'll get back to the how you find God thing, but this is it's we just in case I'm just trying to milk this thing out in case I didn't find it the right way. Gotcha. And I'm shot by lightning the whole show ends here. But um there was uh an old TV show called Green Acres, and Pat Butman was the guy that uh played Mr. Haney, was his particular was the guy who'd sell everything to him. And Mr. Douglas was a uh he was a lawyer who wanted to become a farmer, so he moves to this place and he's totally ripped off. The people just don't get him. And but the guy who would always try to sell him things was Mr. Haney. And Mr. Haney would come up to him and like his line would be, Well, Max, you don't have a 24, 37 hey bailer. Let's see. Oh, I've got one here on the truck. And the next thing, you know, he would just sell Mr. Douglas the most ridiculous things that he always seen, whatever Mr. Douglas needed. It would be, you don't have would be his official line. So I listened to Mr. Haney do it enough times that I learned how to sell from Mr. Haney. Wow. It all turns into the you don't have. And then but going back into the kind of the discovering of God thing, I had an aunt that was a nun, but I didn't spend enough time with her. Uh my grandparents that I spent a little bit of time with always prayed. But, you know, when you're a kid with no real formal religious training, you know, what you think is there's God, Jesus, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the tooth fairy. And somehow they control the world. And I wasn't too sure about how. Yeah. But they were there. And then you maybe learn a little bit about Moses on the back side, and you're not real sure if he's like one of the five, or if he's just, you know, the guy that was doing their gig. And so I think then when I met the clients who moved in across the street from us, they were Jewish, and I learned a lot from I learned Old Testament things from them. And it wasn't until I was reading something else, like maybe when I was maybe 15, it occurred to me that the story, the way that I originally thought about the story, had nothing to do with the way that I interpreted the story like seven years later. It was I couldn't believe that it was the same thing. It was the same words, but it meant so much. It meant something so different. It was ridiculous. And um it was yeah, it was just kind of bizarre, it really was. And what what I had thought about on it was that initially I thought, and both are true, but the thought of looking at like Adam and Eve, in that it's a story of creation, right? Then the secondary interpretation that I got from it was that God was showing us what the stupidest excuse in the world is, and he has it right off the bat so that people don't use it anymore. Right. And the excuse being it's not me, it's the other guy's fault. You know, Adam blames Eve, Eve blames the snake, the snake isn't there. Right, and it didn't work. Yeah. Okay, and that whole idea of just blaming somebody else, it doesn't work. So it's a story about creation, it's also a story about not blaming people, just taking some sense of responsibility. And I couldn't believe that this short little story had so many meanings in it. And I thought, well, maybe there's something to it. And then the more that I would try to look at it, it turned into a situation where you you read the stories and it brings about so many different ideas that can come out of it and different perspectives. And as you as you grow older, you look at them and there's more depth upon more depth upon more depth upon more depth, and they're very, very, very simple stories. And so the how do you how do you interpret that? You know, what what is that? I mean, we were talking about it the other day that Iron Man One is basically Cain and Abel. Has better special effects, but it's the same story. Yeah. And so how many times you know, how many times do you have to relive the same thing? And that's I think where it came into it. And then I think it took me a long time to get to the point where I put what I wanted as a secondary, it was very hard for me to move from what I wanted to what could I do. And then to go from what can I do to how can I serve others was another huge step. But once you get into how can you serve others, your life it becomes significantly easier. But trying to get to the point that my you know, getting my orientation from ego as being number one into a sense of service where there is no ego is a very it's a very difficult thing to do. I mean, the idea that you have to crucify that much of your ego, and you can't kill it. I mean, you have to kill it in a brutal way, is it's very, very difficult. But once you do that, you can then reprioritize the things in your life and come up with an orientation that actually allows you to be successful and to be successful by any number of metrics. And I think that that idea that helping somebody at the supermarket get something off the top shelf might be the best thing that you do that day. Yeah. And if it is, then you lived a perfect life. Right? If you take somebody in a shop, you know, has left their shopping cart out in the middle of the parking lot, and you go and get it and bring it back and put it in so it doesn't hit somebody else's car, that might be a very important thing to do. To smile at somebody, to tell somebody that they did a good job. There's a million little things that you can do that can elevate other things. And when you see the relatively low-cost, high yield return on that, then all of a sudden everything in your life is wonderful. And then you look at everything that happens as nothing more than an opportunity to reflect God's love. And then you can generally feel pretty good about yourself, and then you recognize at the same time that you really didn't do anything. I mean, you did the absolute minimal, and it had a huge bump.

SPEAKER_01

Yes.

SPEAKER_00

And I think that allows you to see a different way of living, and it leads to a sense of perpetual gratitude. And I think that's a hard thing for people to look at because people want things and then they don't get them. And then, as opposed to having gratitude, they're angry or they're pissed off, or whatever it is, that they're somehow, you know, the craziness of you go like in today's world, you go into a museum or something like that, and you look at some beautiful painting that's out there that's absolutely gorgeous, that some you know, Dutch master made from hundreds of years ago. And on the little plaque next to it, it says, you know, so-and-so painted this, and he lived at this time, and his family had seven slaves. Well, okay, so the person that wrote that, some historian that wrote that, is somehow morally superior to a guy that painted a great work of art. Yes. Okay, yeah, you know, it's like, okay, so he had slaves. You know who everybody has had up until about 1800s. You know what everybody had? Slaves. Yes. Okay, get over it. Yep. It's not like it's there. Everybody's everybody has dealt with it. 100%. So kind of get over it. I'm sorry, it just doesn't mean anything. And part of that is the idea of humanity overcame it. It took a while. Yes. But the thing is, free labor was free labor. That's kind of the way it worked. Yeah. But I I think that I think that this is what happened, is a greater sense of it. And I think it's maybe a story of stair pits in its own way. That when I was growing up, the so Social fabric was already frayed. So do you know what blue laws were? No. So um they had green and they had yellow laws, and then no. That wasn't about primary colors? Yeah, it was something else. Never mind. No, they um so blue laws were on Sunday, businesses couldn't be open on Sunday. That pharmacies and other selected businesses might only be open for four hours. But the idea was that it was the extension of when Christianity came about and the idea that the Sabbath became Sunday versus Saturday, that you wouldn't have businesses open at that point, so people wouldn't be distracted away from worshiping or being in communion with God. Okay. And then as those laws went away, but when I was younger on Sunday, nothing was open. You could go for a brief period of time, you could go to a drugstore and maybe a supermarket, but it was maybe open four or five hours, but very minimal. Restaurants weren't open. I mean, it was the the whole town legitimately closed down on Sunday. And that was because everybody went to church. There was such a huge amount of people going to church that that was the right thing to do, or being with their family. And when those laws began to go away and everything started being open on Sunday, um, that's when you begin to see this kind of move away from church, or church wasn't as important. And at that same point, since that part of social contagion wasn't there, or you would have families that were divorced and or single mothers, and that all of a sudden people weren't talking to each other. You know, like I could see my mothers in a couple of different ways. When my mother was divorced, she was not particularly well liked by the other married women that lived in the neighborhood. And then she eventually made friends with a couple of them, and then a couple of other, you know, women that were divorced and remarried, and they became their own little clique off to the side. But a divorced, remarried woman was not something at one point that was particularly well loved or respected. And then when my mother divorced again, she had a bunch of friends who were divorced, and they were all together, and they had nothing to do with married people, but they had their own little side click. And so if you look at that, the family is beginning to kind of bump aside, and church is bumped aside, and even neighborhoods have now been bumped aside. So all of these things that had some form of social fabric are frayed and are just going away. And I it's kind of embarrassing, but like in my neighborhood, I know the people that live on the left side of me, the people that are on the right side of me rented. I don't know who they are. I don't know the people across the street. I don't I know on my street, I might know three people. Okay, of the three people that I know on my street, I've only had one of them to in our house for a meal. Yeah. And we've been to their house for once. Yeah. And in an odd way, that's almost too much for me. Really? This would never occur to me to do it. But but when you look at that sense of how all of those things that would be defined as society were pretty much new. What all of a sudden happened was everybody was left to create their own threads of society. You know, so as a result, what is moral is now not universal. Moral is now what I personally believe. And what I personally believe has nothing to do with a well integrated philosophy or code of conduct. What I believe is phrase for what I want. Yes. And as a result, what I want is X. And if I don't get X, then I'm entitled to act out, to scream, to yell, to going back to the theory in like a museum. It's okay for me to throw soup at some great painting because it represents a society that doesn't give me what I want. Yeah. Okay. The other phrase for people that throw soup at paintings is what? Moron. Two-year-olds. Oh. Because that's what two-year-olds do. If you give a two-year-old something that they don't want, they throw it without regard to whatever they happen to be throwing it at. You know. So as a result, these people that are going out there and are just, you know, they're protesting X, so they're going to shut down a freeway.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, well, your morality is so ingrained that one particular aspect of injustice that you see, you think is so unique and so special and so out there that you and you alone, as the self-appointed messiah, can, you know, impact thousands of people's lives based upon your desire to do X. And, you know, a hint to all the want to be Messiahs out there. If you were the want-to-be messiah, if you were actually the Messiah, we'd all know. It'd be much more obvious. Okay? As a hint, you're not. Pretty sure it's me, but I'm I'm way too old. I should have been crucified by this point. So it's not me, and it's clearly not you. Okay? Message to all you kids out there. Just not you. Get over it.

SPEAKER_01

I think that's the title of this podcast.

SPEAKER_00

Well, it could be just not you. It's just you, yeah, it's just not you. Get over it. Look at that. And yeah, but I think that there's but there's a lot of truth in that. You know, and it's I don't I think that you the value of religion, the Bible, the value of the, you know, of the Torah and of the New Testament as foundational pieces, give you enough understanding of how to do things, of how to treat other people, and whether or not you want to deal with the elements of the Bible that are beyond our understanding of science. Okay. If those if you're going to say Mary's can you know, virgin conception is somehow beyond meaning, and so as a result, it's stupid, so I don't believe in it. Okay. Well, and you're going to use all that to just, you know, to just destroy everything else is in there. So what you're saying is, you know, Jonah and the whale, Mary's birth, Jesus' resurrection from the dead, that those three things are enough for you to basically make up your own morality, your own rules, and uh it's an excuse to basically, you know, put turds in the punch bowl. I mean, that's basically what you're doing, right? I mean, you get a chance to do whatever you want. I mean, there's a bathroom over there. I just died.

SPEAKER_01

That's one of your better analogies, sir. I mean, I that's what I have never heard before, and also did not know that was the direction that was headed.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, no.

SPEAKER_01

Birds in the punch bowl.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I bought that at Smith's the other day. It was on sale. Okay, yes. $3.95, I thought it would be. Gotcha. Love it. Didn't know where I'd use it, but today here.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. That was bought and paid for. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Guy that guy that wrote that, he never thought it'd be used. It's probably fired. It just doesn't work. Uh-huh. Yes. It's about as good as it's gonna get. It's stupid. Get out of here. Uh-huh. Go work a taco bell. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. But no, but I guess that maybe that's the answer is this. We could just talk about other stuff. But in the theory of um maybe actually having a podcast that might have some meaning.

SPEAKER_01

I thought that had a lot. I mean, that was a that was a lot of meaning right there where you said, you know, just about yeah, humanity, God, and kind of our different, you know, how we splice it in so many different ways and how we view it in so many different ways, from being a, you know, wholeheartedly true believer on this spectrum to not believing anything at all on this spectrum, and and how that kind of guides our lives. And it's it's interesting how we can impact so many people in a positive and or negative way, depending less on what we believe, but how we choose to act on that belief, right? Which kind of what you were saying when it came to blocking the freeways or I'm you know, you know, throwing Bibles at people, right? I mean, both two sides of the spectrum, right, right? Both think they're doing what is right and what is just, right, and what God wants them to do, right?

SPEAKER_00

Or well, in some cases, what God wants them to do, in other cases what they just want to do because they're so desperate for attention or a chance to demonstrate their morality. 100%. You know, and that's even for the people who believe in God. Yeah, but but yeah, but both, but I'd say both have tendencies to be overly, you know, uh the simple answer is this that there's if you focus on beauty and as a subset of beauty, let's call it elegance, you know, that if you're only focused on trying to achieve beauty and work in an elegant way, you will find that there is a path that leads to that. And it's incredibly simple.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

It's just do you have the discipline or do you have the true morality or do you have the true care of other humans that happen to be on this planet to actually do it? And it's like I was teasing um a friend of ours the other day that when he was leaving Starbucks, he actually turned around and said goodbye to all the people. And like, you know, as you know, I always do that whenever I go on there. And I shook, you know, Joe's hand afterwards and I said, I want you to know it's only taking you 12 years to learn how to do that. And I was getting ready to give up on you. Yeah. But you did it. And props to you for hanging in there that long. Takes a lot of time. Yes. But it's but and then Joe just goes, Well, you're right, you do do that all the time. And I go, Yeah, I do. And he goes, and I really don't. And I go, Yeah, you don't. Yes. And but but the reality is he did it, and now he does it all the time. Yeah. But that idea of just thanking the people again, you know, goes a long way towards having some recognition that their work actually had meaning. It actually did something to elevate somebody else. Yes. We'll call this the encore. Look at that. Pardon? I said, look at that. That's it. Yeah. Yes. We could also do free bird. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. If I leave here tomorrow, will you still remember me? Okay, there. That's it. Okay. So before we have to do that, Max is probably going to say buy the book, of course. That's the idea.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that's the whole reason we're here.

SPEAKER_00

We could be it. Well, I actually thought we were here to actually reflect God's love, but you know, but other than that, you know, we're here to buy to try to get you to buy the book, no matter how bad it hurts. I mean, poor Mallory could actually be doing something today, but she's behind the board because Caleb's off doing something else. So three people gave up part of their day today to try to elevate you, and you do nothing. Nothing. Are you ashamed? You should be. There.

SPEAKER_01

Hey, there you go. Get after him. Reflect God's love and buy stair pits. That's right. By R.A. Thompson.

SPEAKER_00

People in shame. Yes. No.

SPEAKER_01

You can reflect God's love by buying stair pits. Right. At UnbreakableOrigins.com. Out now. R.A. Thompson, the author sitting here with me. It's a hell of a read.