Living On Common Ground
Does it feel like every part of your life is divided? Every scenario? Every environment? Your church, your school, your work, your friends. Left, right. Conservative, liberal. Religious, secular. From parenting styles to school choice, denominational choice to governing preference, it seems you're always being asked to take a side.
This is a conversation between a progressive Christian and a conservative atheist who happen to be great friends. Welcome to Living on Common Ground.
Living On Common Ground
The Mirage of Finding Yourself in a Market-Driven World
"Finding yourself is a lie perpetrated by our consumerist culture." With this provocative statement, two friends – a progressive Christian and a conservative atheist – launch into a fascinating exploration of identity, authenticity, and the forces that shape our understanding of self.
The conversation challenges a concept many of us take for granted: that somewhere within us exists a "true self" waiting to be discovered. But what if this idea is merely a clever marketing strategy? The friends examine how advertising campaigns reduce us to avatars and sell us identities through products – from cars marketed not for their features but for the lifestyle they represent, to the cultural trope of abandoning responsibility to "follow your passion."
As they navigate their different perspectives, they question whether our ancestors even needed to "find themselves." In traditional communities, identity was intrinsically tied to one's role in the collective – no soul-searching required. Has our individualistic society created a vacuum that marketers eagerly fill with promises of self-fulfillment through consumption?
Drawing on Carl Jung's concept of individuation and Jordan Peterson's emphasis on responsibility as the source of meaning, they differentiate between authentic self-discovery and its commercialized counterfeit. True fulfillment, they suggest, might come not from hedonistic pleasure but from shouldering responsibility and finding purpose within community.
By the conversation's end, they reach surprising common ground: while there may be truth to the concept of an authentic self, our consumerist culture has hijacked this natural human journey. The most meaningful expression of identity might come not from what we consume but from what we contribute.
Tune in to this thought-provoking episode that will have you questioning the narratives about identity you've absorbed without realizing it. Share with friends who enjoy conversations that challenge conventional wisdom and explore the deeper currents shaping our culture and consciousness.
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Does it feel like every part of your life is divided, Every scenario, every environment, your church, your school, your work, your friends, left right, conservative, liberal, religious, secular? It seems you always have to take a side. This is a conversation between a progressive Christian and a conservative atheist who happen to be great friends. Welcome to Living on Common Ground.
Speaker 2:Do you think if we met today, we would still be friends?
Speaker 3:I don't know but we're friends now.
Speaker 4:A mob is no less a mob because they are with him, man. So what? We won a few games and y'all fools think that's something. Man, that ain't nothing, y'all. And you know what else? We ain't nothing either. Yeah, we came together in camp, cool. But then we're right back here and the world tells us that they don't want us to be together. We fall apart like we ain't a damn bit of nothing, man.
Speaker 5:How are you?
Speaker 3:I'm great, yeah, yeah, good, all right, what are we talking about?
Speaker 5:today. To jump into the topic that you raised in the possible I forget the name of the document we have working, it's possible areas of disagreement, something like that. Yeah, and you wrote. Can I quote you, Please do?
Speaker 3:Okay, anytime.
Speaker 5:Anytime, mm-hmm. Well, now I feel like I can quote you and I don't even have to worry about whether or not it's something you actually said. Fine with me, I'm just going to say do you remember the time Lucas said this? All right. So here's what you wrote Finding yourself is a lie perpetrated by our consumerist and then parenthetical, not capitalist, culture. Yep, all right. Consumerist and then parenthetical, not capitalist culture, yep, all right. So in most of these bullet, well, in several of the bullet points, I have a comment that I respond right, either agreement or like.
Speaker 5:I mean a couple times I'm like I totally agree, which probably disappointed you failure on my part, yeah but a couple times I have tell me more, and the reason I wrote tell me more is because I'm not even sure what to respond. Okay, okay, and so one of this particular statement of yours is one that I began with simply tell me more, all right, so tell me more. What do you mean? What are you saying? So tell me more. What do you mean? What are you saying? Are you saying that the whole concept of finding yourself is just a fallacy?
Speaker 3:Yes, we understand, as finding yourself is mostly when we interrogate it a marketing slogan.
Speaker 3:I think it has its and I'm sure somebody will show me why I'm absolutely wrong about this but I think it has its roots in a consumerist culture that needs to reduce individuals to different, particular identities, maybe, as we've called it before, into avatars, sure Um, and I think that there's, I think there's a lot to this that we could go down. There's the concept of a consistent soul, the idea that you are this thing okay and that you are x right and that you could, but that also there's this other part of you that I guess isn't really you but can observe the. You can determine whether you are being you, or you are being your parents, or you are being your friends, right, and that the so wait a second.
Speaker 5:You said that that you that's observing is not the, that there's a you that's not the real you that's observing. Well, that has. I was going to say I would. I would say or I would think that that would be the real. You is the center.
Speaker 3:That's the fixed thing and the in scare quotes, you, that is trying to discover what the real you is, could get it wrong. You might be wrong, you might be living a lie. You, for instance, might be going to medical school because that's what your parents want you to do and so you believe that's what you're supposed to do. But that's not really you, what you are as a poet. I'm being obviously extremely dismissive right now, but I'm kind of doing it on purpose, right, because this is the world that I grew up in. Because this is the world that I grew up in and I don't mean my grandparents or my family, although they were, you know, this is, you know, a boy's world is small, right, the self that I observed being delivered to me through popular, all of the popular culture, that there was some true essence of me, that I could, that I again in scare quotes could get wrong. I might be wrong about that, and that I would know I was wrong because I wouldn't be truly, fill in the blank, happy, satisfied, content, fulfilled, fulfilled, mm-hmm. So my contention is a couple of things. That is a big statement that I made there. There's a few sections to it. Number one I don't know this concept. I don't understand anymore, this concept of the true self. Okay, there's one, number two I think that concept is most promulgated and supported by the consumerist aspect of our culture, which, again and Daryl Cooper's done a much better job than I of fleshing that out and how our consumerist culture creates avatars that we identify with, and that it's an ever exponentially increasing rate of new avatars for you to identify with, identify with, in fact, it would be perfect for you to identify with an avatar in the moment that you look at, for instance, a website to purchase something and then, as soon as you've purchased it, to immediately get rid of that identification and identify with something else that you could purchase, right to, to, to maintain that identity. So that's the second thing. The third thing is my contention because and the reason I threw this in there is because I I have plenty of friends who I could hear their voice immediately being like yeah, see, that's the problem with capitalism. We just need to get really see it's late stage capitalism, right, it would, it would.
Speaker 3:There there would be comments about how that's because we have this terrible, greedy economic system called capitalism. And my contention isn't it is no, that's not fundamental to capitalism. That is an offshoot of capitalism, sure. Sure that I would call consumerism. But my contention is that you could conceivably find that a similar, analogous culture that would drive this ever-increasing search for the you, in different economic systems as well, in different economic systems as well, that it's not simply the private ownership of property that causes this. It's a particular brand that we find ourselves in that, frankly, um caused you know some 19th century, late 19th century and then early 20th century thinkers to say things like this is what jingoism was, this is kind of behind the whole jingoism, where they would say look, a culture left too free to its own devices becomes decadent, decadent and it's just a whole, you know, population of of these, these individuals just seeking greater and greater fulfillment and pleasure and individualism, right, yeah, aldous huxley, um, but it's.
Speaker 3:It's exemplified in people like teddy roosevelt, who was kind of the. He was a poster child for jingoism, right, and for anybody who doesn't know what jingoism is, it's just a word that means, uh, it's like wartime adventurism, right, it's like, yeah, it's like wanting war, right, his whole rough riders.
Speaker 5:We need to have a thing so that I can make my name so I can make my name.
Speaker 3:Yes, that is. That is part of it, but also one of the philosophies underlying it was societies need war, and the reason that they said this is societies go through these cycles where they become decadent and corrupt, and you need war to burn away all of that and get the society focused on what matters. Turn away all of that and get the society focused on what matters family service to one another, community. This is their idea. I'm not that I don't go down that road. I would like to avoid war at all times, in all places. However, um, I do think that you know there's a lot of people that came at this concept from different angles and and had different solutions for it.
Speaker 5:So there's my long-winded answer to that's what I meant okay, so a couple things, um, one is is the is the issue with the idea of finding, or is it the is the issue with the idea of self?
Speaker 3:oh, I both both.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I have an issue with both okay, and that I think that's because I'm a child of the 90s, and being a child of the 90s meant who are you and how are you going to find that out? Unless you move to new york and cut your hair and join the um. You know the department in your college that your mom and dad, uh, don't want you to college, that your mom and dad don't want you to, and tell your mom and dad I'm not going to live under your you know tyrannical authority. You can't tell me who I am. I am a wonderful, beautiful singing flower and I was meant to write poetry. It's dripping.
Speaker 5:It's dripping with sarcasm. It was meant to write poetry. It's dripping. It's dripping with sarcasm.
Speaker 3:Yes, it is yeah, and disdain, yes, yes, but I'm not kidding. That is the plot of like. So many. Did you ever watch Wednesday? I haven't. No, I didn't see Wednesday when it became a phenomenon.
Speaker 5:Yeah, Well, and season two just came out. So, denise and I, actually just started last night watching season one and the whole thing is she doesn't want to be her mom.
Speaker 3:And I understand that, but my and, and it might be universal that a teenager needs to first say, uh, I'm not my parents. I do get that, Although again. I wonder if we accept that as a truism because we live in the particular culture we are in. And if we were in a culture that was where you could assume that your life, that your grandchildren as an 18-year-old, that your grandchildren's life would look fundamentally the same as your grandparents' life. If we would still have these assumptions, Maybe we would.
Speaker 5:Sure, well, okay. So here's the thing too, and I wrote this down as you were talking and I was really proud of the pun. Maybe it's not something that's a lie, perpetuated or perpetrated rather by our consumerist not capitalist culture, but maybe it's something that is being capitalized on in our consumerist culture.
Speaker 3:How so? Okay, so you mean it's a real thing, but then it's kind of being I'm saying it's a real thing.
Speaker 5:But what happens is we use it as because I think you said a marketing slogan, yeah, okay. So I think that what makes it an effective marketing slogan is that there's some truth in it, right? And so what I'm saying is there is some truth to the fact that we don't really know who we are, and it's because of all of these things around us, all of these different avatars Like you should be this, you should be that, you should be this, you should be that. And so what happens is we say, well, you can find your true self if you you know. And then we identify with the really cool looking guy sitting there smoking a cigar and drinking a bourbon or whatever, right. And so then for a while, I'll think to myself and maybe I'm in that stage right now where I'm that guy right, or Harrison Ford, but I drive a Jeep. Have you seen that commercial commercial? Oh, you're missing out on some great commercials. Lucas, you need to watch more television, yeah, so, yeah, there's this commercial where he's like but my last name's ford and he whispers that, but it's this whole lifestyle and it shows him. I did notice this too.
Speaker 5:Like car car. I think car um commercials are a great example of what you're talking about. But I'm saying, what they're doing is they're cashing in on the truth that there is such thing as self, and what they're doing is they're using that then in order to yes, we are capitalists, but more so we are consumerists. To this point, we are consumerists, there's no doubt about it. Consumerists, to this point right, we are consumerists, there's no doubt about it. But what we're doing in advertising and marketing is we're capitalizing on it. So again, the car commercial thing. When's the last time you saw a car commercial that actually told you about the car and not about how cool you would be or what? And so, if you are X, Y and Z, you're going to drive a Jeep, or you're going to drive a Saab, or you're going to drive a Mercedes cool, or somebody that we associate as being a cool actor, like um, um matthew mcconaughey right, he's got that really cool southern drawl and he's taught and like while he's driving his mercedes.
Speaker 5:and all we know is that, apparently, matthew mcconaughey is cool and he drives a mercedes, and so if you want to be cool like matthew mcconaughey, you'll drive a mercedes too. All right, it doesn't mean that there isn't a self, though. How would we know? Well, I'm glad you asked. So I did happen to look up Jungian uh, jungian uh, psychology, right, because when I, when I was reading that, I was like, all right, I need to, I need to freshen up on Carl Jung, because he's, in my mind, one of the preeminent um persons to deal with this idea of self, mm-hmm, right.
Speaker 5:So within that philosophical school, the idea of finding yourself, according to what I was able to find, refers to the process of individuation, which is the lifelong journey of integrating the conscious and unconscious aspects of the psyche to become a whole, authentic individual. And so what I'm saying is that the consumer side is only working on the conscious side, but there is this unconscious side that we need to spend a little time with. It involves confronting and understanding one's shadow. Remember the whole idea of shadow, self right Persona and other hidden aspects of the self, ultimately leading to greater self-awareness, personal fulfillment and a more meaningful life, which, again, we even disagree on whether or not life needs to have some sort of greater meaning. I think that we disagree on that.
Speaker 3:I don't remember anymore well, I don't disagree that there is a sense within, within humans, that there is some thing that we would call a self.
Speaker 3:Um you know, I this is something that rollins, I feel like, was talking about which is this, this sense that there's, um, that there's something missing and that I'm searching for it? I don't, I don't disagree that there is, that. I think that you might be onto something in the idea that the search for your true self may not be a creation of a consumerist society. Maybe it's an appropriation of it, maybe the consumerist society appropriates that real sense, but I don't. I still reject the idea that that is some sort of. I think there's a concept that there is a concrete self, there is this thing that is me, and that, again, that I have to find that thing, and to me, that suggests that I could get it wrong. That I don't understand.
Speaker 3:I don't understand the idea that I could get it wrong, isn't it I that I'm doing it? Well, maybe it's not that you could, but I do understand this. I. I think that, um, I guess my, my idea is that this, whatever we call the self, is some sort of emergent property that comes out of the searching right, this, this process that Jung is talking about, of the integration of subconscious, unconscious and conscious, that that process itself is the self. I don't know I'm rambling a little bit at this point, but or is the process actually creating?
Speaker 5:is actually creating self, authentic self?
Speaker 3:yeah, I just again, there's this. I guess what I am um, the the real thing that I am very much pushing back on, is this concept. That again, I I mean I described it in in dripping sarcasm, but what I was doing was describing the show felicity, I mean, this is the concept of the 90s yeah that I remember, which is that you know I'm doing the responsible thing, and the ethic of the moral lesson right?
Speaker 3:There's a term for this and I can't remember. I wish I could because it would make me sound so much smarter. But the ethic of the lesson underneath the story is doing the responsible thing is not the right thing. Doing the thing that makes me doing something else usually artistic will make me feel better and I will somehow know at that point now I am me and that that is the right thing to do.
Speaker 3:Being a banker pretty boring and also nobody wants to be a banker. I'm probably sad. I probably eat TV dinners. Nobody wants to be a banker. Oh, I'm probably sad.
Speaker 5:I probably eat TV dinners and watch the home shopping network at home by myself. Patrick on SpongeBob.
Speaker 3:Right. Yeah. And I drink alone. Mm-hmm. And I started painting D&D figurines and I've discovered this is what I've always been meant to do.
Speaker 5:See, and I would think the person that's at home painting D&D figurines is probably oh, I'm sad, I have no friends, I drink by myself.
Speaker 3:To be fair, the reason I picked that just then is because I flipping love D&D and I love using figurines we have stuff at our house if you want it. Yeah, I'll take it. One of the aspects of moving that made me the saddest really was um that about two years before we moved, I had gotten invited to join a um a, d and D group of a bunch of dads well, dads and then there was, uh, two other guys who weren't dads, but they were adults, adult guys. Yeah.
Speaker 3:These are all adult men with jobs. Yeah. Who fill up their gas tank all the way. Yeah, and uh, wear cargo shorts. Okay, and one day a week we would get together and we would, uh, we would talk about our elf characters and I would use voices, we would. You know, those of us who felt comfortable using voices would use voices and it was the nerdiest thing ever, but we did it every week and seriously, there, it made me so sad to have to leave that.
Speaker 5:Um, anyway, that's just a comment on, I think, on community, you know, sure, because we built an actual community there so I'm still not convinced that, um, you haven't convinced me that finding yourself was a lie perpetrated, um, by our consumerist culture. I, I think I still think that is it the perpetrated part? I, I, I just think that, um, maybe it's the perpetrated part, I just think that maybe it's the perpetrated part. I think it's capitalized on by our consumerist culture, because I still do think that there is such thing as a true self. But I also think that, even in your example of what was the name of the show, again, felicity, think that even in, even in your example of what was the name of the show, again, felicity, felicity. Okay, even in that example, I think that's just. That is just another great example of capitalizing on it.
Speaker 5:Right, there is this true concept of fulfillment when you find, when you're able to self-actualize or find your true self. And and even that language, I think, has been so overplayed that it does cause eye-rolling to begin to happen and it sounds very sort of new agey or whatever, but I think that there's some truth to it and all that is is an example of how someone has cashed in on this and taken it to the ridiculous degree, because I do think that you can have actually completely become. You've found yourself as a banker. I think that there's a caricature. You've found yourself as a banker. I think that there's. I think there's a caricature that then gets um sort of played out, and that might be what I'm hearing you push against is actually the characterization of it and the commercialization of it, but not that that means it doesn't exist okay, so I'll be.
Speaker 3:I'll try to be vulnerable here. I think that, if I'm honest with myself, um, there is a and it would take probably a three hour biography of myself to lead up with the correct context to explain what I'm about to explain, but I'm just going to tell you instead. I think that I have this conceptualization that it's good or that it's fine. There's nothing wrong with just having a job, just having a job that supports your family and isn't your passion. You know it's it. It wasn't your dream, it's not what you love, but it's fine. You're not miserable. Everyone has aspects of their job that they don't like you know, but you just do it.
Speaker 3:I'm not talking about being miserable, but you know it's not. It wasn't your goal, it wasn't. Well, maybe it was your goal but it wasn't your passion. You know, and I do think, if I'm honest with myself, that probably there's an aspect of that, or probably the biggest aspect of the reason I have that conceptualization or that idea. My formative adolescent years were this contrast between the chaos of, you know, my mom's world and, well, my, my dad abandoning and the kind of what I considered at the time, I consider at the time, I consider at the time the square, stodgy, boring, you know, consistent world of my grandparents. My grandpa, you know, my grandpa has a. You could describe his job or his career as being cool. He was a chemist, rocket chemist for Aerojet right.
Speaker 3:I now would say he worked for a weapons manufacturer, but that's cool. I could say that's cool, but that was never his. It turned out he was just very, very good at math and he worked his way into there without a degree or whatever you know, but he was trying to make sure his family didn't starve, and my grandma too. She was head legal analyst for internal affairs for the Department of Justice in California. They called her the dragon lady because she was the one who decided who they brought action against inside the Department of Justice for California. That's a cool job.
Speaker 3:That was later in life. She just was trying to make sure her kids didn't starve, and that her grandkids had a roof. There's this scene from that 70s show that I love and Krista and I always talk about it, where Kitty and Red are the main parents there. And then there's the, there's the uh, the neighbors that they have, and the neighbor is bob, who the show is supposed to.
Speaker 3:He's like a business owner, he's wealthy and his wife is portrayed as like well, she's a stay-at-home mom, but she's portrayed as kind of being kind of ditzy also and but then she goes through kind of because it's that 70s show. She goes through kind of a because it's that 70s show. She goes through kind of this time period where she wants to have women's liberation, right. This is the idea, that's the plot device. So she's sitting with Kitty and they're talking and she says Kitty, how did you get red to let you go to work? Because Kitty works, how did you get red to let you go to work? And Kitty goes well, and that Kitty way is fantastic, she goes well. One day we were sitting at the kitchen table and we went we can't pay our mortgage and that was that's it. There's no ideology, it's just we're just trying to keep our kids alive, but okay, so that's a long-winded way of saying and if I'm being honest with myself, that's probably an identification that I'm having with my grandparents.
Speaker 3:You know, once I became kind of a young adult in the rejection or you know kind of picking one side.
Speaker 5:Okay, a couple notes. One is, I think, that what has been co-opted by the consumerist portion of our society is that finding yourself equals happiness.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 5:I think that's a misconception. Okay Right, because I think that if you look at what finding yourself means, it has more to do with personal fulfillment and having a meaningful life. That doesn't mean happy. All right.
Speaker 5:I think happiness is something that you can have within that, and I think that happiness is something that does come with self-awareness, finding yourself right. So, for example, let's just say that your ideology is that fulfilling and meaningful life is providing for the family. Then, all of a sudden, as you provide for family and you realize that that's meaningful and that's fulfilling, then all of a sudden you can actually find joy in that. Yeah, however you want to word, it is actually doing us a disfavor by taking this truth of being able to self-actualize, find self, and has commercialized it in such a way that now it means to be happy, right, and so I can run off and I can be artsy, fartsy, whatever. I want to be Right, and, and all anyone ever wants to be, is that Right, and I think that I think there, therein lies the problem. I can remember being told when I was younger and again you talk about the 70s show Um, I watched it, but I lived it.
Speaker 3:Right, right.
Speaker 5:My neighbor, her like what was? Uh, it was red and um, and what was her name?
Speaker 3:Kitty, kitty.
Speaker 5:Yeah, my neighbor, her, her name was Cookie. Right, I mean it's a seventies thing, right, yeah, yeah. And um and so, yeah, very much some of the moms stayed at home, most of the moms stayed at home and all that kind of stuff All right. But I can remember, like in the eighties, being told that if you can find something that you love, you'll never work a day in your life.
Speaker 5:That's right, right, yep and um, and. But this is what my experience has been is that if you take a hobby and you and you decide that you're going to try to monetize it and live off of it, it becomes work, and the moment it becomes work, it becomes drudgery and it's no longer fun. The actual joy comes from the fact that I don't depend on it for my living, and so, in order for me then to be able to self-actualize myself, I had to realize, maybe, that not everything is run off to new york city or la or wherever, and and then become this thing. But it's that. Part of it is that there are going to be hobbies that I'm going to have a lot of joy in, but my but part of life is being able to fill a role for the people that I love and that I'm connected to, and so maybe part of it is I'm going to be a financial advisor for people, and then on the weekends or some nights during the week, I'm going to paint D&D figures, and that's going to be something that really brings me joy, and when I realized that I that those are the things that make me happy, uh and, and it's not that I enjoy, um, you know, getting up and going to an office every day, but I enjoy knowing that my kids are going to have something to eat. I find that fulfilling that my, my, my, uh, my family is going to have a roof over their head. That's that's important to me, that that's actually the process of cutting through the, the garbage and the connecting of the two right.
Speaker 5:So back to young, this idea of this process of the conscious and the unconscious. So maybe what it is is actually cutting through what the consumerist society tells us. It means to self-actualize and being able to. You have to connect both and say that's actually not it at all. Both and say that's actually not it at all. But I can still. I can find fulfillment in meaning I can know who I am. I just have to actually be able to shut that other stuff out. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3:So it reminds me. I like that a lot. It reminds me of a clip that I saved peterson that, where he talks about this, um kind of thing. He talks about this all the time, actually in different ways, but I've got the clip I tell young men it's like find something difficult to do.
Speaker 2:You need that. You're not built for comfort or pleasure, like if that comes along good, if you have a day where you're comfortable and there's some things around you that give pleasure, have some sense and enjoy it. But don't be thinking that's what your life is aimed at. That's contemptible. Everyone knows that. And if they orient themselves in that hedonistic direction, there's nothing in it but shame. No one is proud of themselves for using pornography. They might screech and bitch about their rights to do it. I can live whatever lifestyle I want. It's like well, first of all, no, you can't. That doesn't work. It won't work for you because you can't sell yourself out, and it won't work for other people.
Speaker 2:When I tell people this, the audiences always go dead silent. It's like the adventure in your life will be found in responsibility. No one ever hears that. We haven't told young people that for like 60 years you pick up the cross and shoulder it uphill, because that's where all the meaning in your life will be derived from. It's in the difficulty, it's in the responsibility. It's not in the hedonistic self-gratification. People just get what they want all the time, immediately. It's not like that ennobles their character, like obviously not your character is made noble by sacrifice, by the delay of having happiness.
Speaker 3:That there's nothing wrong with happiness. That if you get happiness, you find yourself happy. Margaritas on the beach enjoy that? Yeah, like don't there's. You should. You should have enough sense, as he says. Have enough sense to enjoy that for all it's worth. Yeah, but that that is a um. It's not meaningless, it is an infinitesimally small fraction of your life, and that the way to find meaning in your life is to pick up responsibility, and that that is going to be an endless well of meaning for you. That that is, and he talks about this sometimes. I don't think in this clip he doesn't talk about it, but he talks about how you know. Talk about it, but he talks about how you know how you greet your spouse when you come in the door every day.
Speaker 3:That's like you know. You add up those moments of just greeting your spouse every time you see your spouse. That's a huge percentage of your life, you know. Sharing a meal with your family, that's a huge percentage of your life. You know the time that you spend, you know sharing a meal with your family, that's a huge percentage of your life. You know the, the time that you spend. You know what pick your thing, the time that you spend in your church, that's a huge percentage of your life.
Speaker 3:You know, again, compared to margaritas on the beach, metaphorically, and that those are the things that seem mundane, but that's really where the you know the meaning can come from your life. So I mean, I think he's probably saying a similar thing that what you're saying, which is there, is this, there is something real to the you, but maybe the thing that the consumerist culture has done is hijacked that sense. And then, um, given you, uh, a told you that that the end of the rainbow is going to be a hedonistic kind of pleasure center and that it can provide it. If you would just identify with this, you know what kind of car? Well, that's the. That's the. That is one of the fundamental um uh um messages of the movie fight club. Right I.
Speaker 3:I sat there looking at the great movie at the catalog and wondering, uh, what coffee table defines me as an individual? You know I'm sure I'm saying the wrong. Maybe said refrigerator, whatever, but that's what you know. He's talking about our consumerist culture giving us our identity through the things that it can sell us. And again I just want to say, again I will defend to my last breath that that is not inherent. To don't think that consumerism itself is only negative. I think that our consumerist culture provides an enormous amount of benefit as well, but it also comes. I think everything is trade-offs.
Speaker 5:Sure.
Speaker 3:It comes with some pretty significant negatives.
Speaker 5:I want to take this one step further. Yeah, the role that and I think that I'm actually going to come back around to where you are, just maybe from a different perspective on it. I think that the consumerist society has made it necessary to have conversations about being able to find yourself.
Speaker 5:Oh, how, so Okay about being able to find yourself. Oh how? So okay, because, um, you mentioned how it's. Uh, it only seems. It seems that, like some other cultures or maybe I, maybe I misunderstood you but like, um, if I let's say, uh, you go, you can go back to Hunter Gatherer or something like that, they don't take the time to find themselves.
Speaker 3:Right, because they know who they are.
Speaker 5:Yes, because no one else was telling them that actually this is who you are Right, that actually this is who you are right, and so what happens is, by taking this truth, I even have okay the air quotes right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5:That there is a self, but we have now made it more about having fun, being happy, finding fulfillment through stuff, instead of in providing and contributing to the tribe. Whatever the case may be that now there's an actual process that some people have to go through in order to be like well, who am I, what am I? And it's not. I think that the real process then becomes in being able to step away and think critically about the consumerist society that we live in, where it wasn't necessary before because I knew very well who I was. My role in this community, in this tribe, is this, and that is very fulfilling for me, because I'd have no other noise telling me no, it's actually going to happen if you buy this Jeep. No, it's actually going to happen if you move to New York City and you, um, well, I was just going about to describe, um, bob Dylan's life, right or like. Well, I was just about to describe Bob Dylan's life right or like, and.
Speaker 5:Bob Dylan's life as we understand, that was the ultimate finding yourself right. Well, and.
Speaker 3:I don't know Bob Dylan.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 3:He's not my friend Right. He's not my brother Sure, he's not my son Sure, which means that when I Lucas Lucas says Bob Dylan's life, I am talking about a marketing campaign. That's what I'm talking about, absolutely. So his life really is just another aspect of this.
Speaker 5:Yeah, because then what happens is, if I want to so, then I think, well, what'll happen is, in order to find myself, I need to model my life after this advertising campaign, right, and so what I'm saying is that I wouldn't. I wouldn't perpetrated. How about? Finding yourself is a lie, it's perpetrated. Finding yourself is a lie. It's perpetrated. It's definitely cashed in on by our consumerist culture. How are you using perpetrated? Because I'm trying to see if I agree with you, even though I came at it from a completely different perspective.
Speaker 5:I mean, I did start off with the idea that, because you said that you had a problem both with finding yourself and are finding and yourself.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I say on on a philosophical level. The idea of a, of a self that's fixed, that that you could get wrong, seems counterintuitive to me. That doesn't make any sense to me. How could like? How could that be? I am what I am, right. Myself is the conglomeration of all of my activities and thoughts and feelings and everything. Right. That seems like what it is and so I did start. I mean, I meant it as finding yourself is a lie.
Speaker 5:That's a lie that's what I read it as yeah and that's how I meant it.
Speaker 3:Um, and there's still some part of me that feels like that is that I don't want to walk away from that completely, although I am softening a little bit. I think that when I was younger, my late 20s and through my 30s, I would have talked about individualism as being the highest ideal, right, right. Big fan of ayn rand. I'm still a big fan of ayn rand, um, and so this idea that that I am who I am separate from the group right.
Speaker 3:The group does not have authority over me. I reject that right again. If I'm being honest, that probably comes from some conglomeration of childhood experiences and leading me up to that point I'm thinking you had mentioned one time before that your fifth generation californian.
Speaker 5:I would say that's probably built into your dna at this point because knowing the people that settled california. It makes sense to me that that would be something that is just inherently who you are.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I grew up with grandparents my grandfather that raised me, he was the first one, you know. His dad was an immigrant from the Azores. So, even though it's not like I was from an immigrant, immigrant family, that's not what I'm trying to say but I grew up with kind of the lore of being produced from immigrant family, from an immigrant family like the people who were like we will leave, we will go find the place that we need to be in for the sake of our family and what you know, whatever. So, yeah, there's probably some of that built in. There's also, um, you know, uh, a a bristling at authority, you know, um, so there's a lot of things that probably is baked into that. But, um, but I had this like real. That's the highest ideal, you know. But I can't deny when I would read about people who joined communist movements throughout the 20th century and what their life was like and I'm talking about communist movements in countries where it meant something not being a communist in the United States, where you could get blacklisted.
Speaker 3:Yes, bad things happen, sure but, by and large, you're not going to get jailed and also you're not going to get executed for being a communist. I'm talking about people who someone finds out you're a communist and you will be tortured and executed, right. And these people, when they would join these movements, from the moment they woke up to when they laid their head back down, they knew exactly what they were doing and what their purpose was. They had committed themselves to this grander thing. You know they had committed themselves to this grander thing. You know um and it and it gave them a sense of it's, it's almost joy to, and and they're living in squalor, going, working in wherever it is, you know, doing, doing whatever it is that they had that they got assigned to do. You know, you find this in um, in partisan groups that are um, that are working behind the lines during wartime. Um, when they've committed themselves to the cause, um.
Speaker 3:You know this idea, this, this sense that I've given myself wholly to this movement or this group, to this movement or this group, I've divested myself of my individualism completely. It brings with it a certain level of kind of euphoria that I think has to be, probably because there's some part of us that wants to, like you were talking about in the hunter-gatherer society wants to know, like I don't even have to talk about it, I am this, I am this part of my community. My identity comes from the place that I am in in my community, but we don't. There's no need for that in our society. There is no need to be a part of any community in our society in order to continue living right, and so then you can have this hyper individuality individuality.
Speaker 5:And that's getting worse.
Speaker 3:Which to your point, then the advertising campaigns can come in and give you your identity, because your identity is not inherent right. It's not inherent that I am. What's my identity? Well, I am the son of my father and I am the husband of my wife and I am the father of my, you know what I mean. Like I have my place and that's it. I don't even know what the conversation is.
Speaker 5:You know and I find joy when we get together and we have our meals and I find joy when we have provided you know, we put meat on the table, and I find joy in seeing that my children are taken care of and yeah, right, right, and there's no sense, or at least there would be a lot less sense.
Speaker 3:I think, in a situation like that, that there's something missing, that there's a part of me that's deep inside of my psyche that is missing something. You know that really, I am the type of person that would rather deal with brown rocks instead of gray rocks when we're doing, when you know, when we're you know, whatever.
Speaker 3:Like there's no. All of those choices I think come from. All those choices are able to be presented and taken seriously when you pull the individual out of their context. You know, I think maybe. So I guess I'm just less individualistic now, even though I still I'm not going to let go of it. It's still part of my personality, yeah, but.
Speaker 5:I, I'm a. I'm a uh, what would be the opposite of a? Uh, I'm a tribalist. I am a community oriented person. Um, I find I find my fulfillment and meaning in the community and in creating community. So anyway, um, did we find any common ground here?
Speaker 3:I think we're a lot closer, that, um, that I think there's probably something to. I definitely think that there, um, there is something to the process of inner searching, you know, uh, of self. And I certainly agree with you that our consumerist society, I think, I think maybe I'll soften and I don't think that that the whole finding yourself thing was perpetrated by our consumerist society, I think I, I think I'm a little bit more on your side that it, that it's hijacked or appropriated or whatever word you want to use for that it's, it's using that, that kind of sense and drive I, I, I would agree.
Speaker 5:So here's what I would say. I think the finding portion of it is, um, the result of the, uh, our, within our culture, cause I would be interested in knowing too, like is that? Is it uniquely Western, um culture that has this finding yourself thing? And so I would say that that our, as individualism has expanded, the idea of finding has become a thing, and then I think that consumerism is cashing in on it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it would be an interesting exploration to look at, I would say, in particular, roman society, because I think that Roman society has a lot of analogies to our current society.
Speaker 3:I know I'm not unique in saying that, but I think that that is interesting. However, I wonder if it does have something to do with our kind of unique blend of being enlightenment plus industrialized, you know, and the opportunities for consumerism from there. I don't know, because there was a lot of industrial production during most of the Roman Empire. Stuff that surprised me when I found out about it, like mines and again things that seemed kind of Henry Ford production line type production of like pottery and stuff, you know.
Speaker 3:But anyway, yeah, that would be interesting Good topic Yep.
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