Joy Without Permission; Finding Common Ground At Christmas

Every December, something in us softens. The traffic is still bad and the lines are still long, yet we wait with a little more patience and offer a little more grace. We wanted to understand that shift without scolding or sanctimony, so we sat down to unpack holiday joy from two very different angles: a progressive Christian’s lens on incarnation and an atheist’s take on seasonality, nostalgia, and community.

Our conversation starts with a sermon in progress and a question that keeps getting louder online: why do people try to police other people’s joy? We explore how connection, generosity, and hope can be real whether you name them in religious terms or not, and why attempts to gatekeep December often mask an inner dread that we ourselves are “doing it wrong.” Instead of fighting culture wars about red cups, greetings, or decor timelines, we reach for stoicism’s simple compass: focus on what you can control, notice your reactions, and choose the action that makes you more humane.

From there we dig into the psychology beneath holiday flashpoints. Anger at “Happy Holidays,” complaints about commercialization while shopping, or the urge to rant on cue often reveal grief for lost villages and childhood rituals. We don’t dismiss that grief; we honor it and harness it. Traditions—sacred liturgies, goofy movie marathons, familiar songs—are loops that steady us in a fragmented world. Keep the ones that make you kinder. Retire the ones that turn you into a hall monitor. If you’re a person of faith, consider how incarnation might name the same goodness you see when neighbors help neighbors. If you’re not, notice how winter gatherings and shared rites still draw out your best self.

By the end, we offer a practical map: drop the joy police badge, ask why a small thing triggers you, and answer with self-honesty. Change yourself first; your street may follow. If this conversation sparked something—curiosity, pushback, or relief—hit follow, share it with a friend who loves a good December debate, and leave a quick review so others can find the show.

©NoahHeldmanMusic

https://livingoncommonground.buzzsprout.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

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. Do you think if we met today, we would still be friends? I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 0:35

But we're friends now.

SPEAKER_05 0:38

A mom is known as a mom because they are living in a dog. Man, so well, 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.

Marker 4

SPEAKER_03 1:17

How you doing?

SPEAKER_02 1:18

I'm great. This is wonderful.

SPEAKER_03 1:22

Shut up. Yeah. The sound engineer, that would be me, uh, only had one of our mics hot. So anyway, here we go. So um I have been working on I'm trying to work ahead, just like we're trying to record uh several episodes ahead because of the holidays and everything's falling on Thursdays this year. Yeah. Um, but I'm gonna be leaving. So congratulations to everyone to get to listen to us. I know. We have made, we we're putting forth the effort that you can actually uh step away from whatever uh festivities you've been enjoying with your family, take a walk. And um, if it were me, I would grab a cigar, grab my uh earbuds and take a walk with Lucas and Jeff.

SPEAKER_02 2:10

I have a better suggestion. Okay. You ready for my better suggestion? Always. You get a Bluetooth speaker, and you turn, turn down the Christmas music.

SPEAKER_03 2:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:21

Uh, let the kids go play. Yep, and for the next hour, you uh request very sincerely and genuinely and earnestly, request that your entire family sit and listen to Jeff and Lucas.

SPEAKER_03 2:37

I think especially, can I just say, I think especially the Christmas one. Uh because I get to sit and it'd be like Because it's only the real You're on you're you're in the first minute and a half. So, no, because I think that uh it would be wonderful to sit quietly around your Christmas tree in the evening and ponder the thoughts and listen and listen. Gosh, you twist, you twist. No, and listen to the telling of the Christmas story. I like it. Yeah. So and then yeah, no, but on New Year's Day, you can go and you can do the same thing and then listen to us talk about the top ten trending things from 2025.

SPEAKER_02 3:16

This is great.

SPEAKER_03 3:18

Yeah. Because uh and and I have a feeling that's gonna we haven't recorded that one yet, but I have a feeling it's gonna be a really short episode because looking at the list, I only know about two of the ten.

SPEAKER_02 3:28

I think it's cool. And I think that um if we could find some sort of list of like the top ten trending things from like 1995 too, that would be cool to like juxtapose it. Yep. Um if we can.

SPEAKER_03 3:39

Challenge accepted.

SPEAKER_02 3:40

All right, yeah cool.

SPEAKER_03 3:42

Uh did you get the reference for that? Challenge accepted? No. Oh is that a thing? Oh, I met your mother.

SPEAKER_02 3:47

I mean, I never watched it. What? I've never seen well, that's not true. I you know what I've seen? I've seen the series finale.

SPEAKER_03 3:55

Really? Yeah, because the last season, what they did is the writers did us a favor. Uh-huh. The the last season was so bad we were glad it was over.

SPEAKER_02 4:04

Oh. Was it a different writing team or something?

SPEAKER_03 4:07

I think it was like, okay, we got to wrap this up.

SPEAKER_02 4:10

We went on a um trip to Hawaii with uh no, we were in Palm Springs, I think, with um with my brother-in-law and sister-in-law. They have like a timeshare thing. So um it's either in Hawaii or Palm Springs. So I think it was Palm Springs. It doesn't matter. The point is that um uh the ladies went and did something. Like we got to go do something, and then the ladies went and got went and did something, and so we all like um watched all the kids while the other two went and did something. So when they were off doing something, I don't know what they were doing, um and we were watching the kids, he was he was finishing How I Met Your Mother, Mother. How I Met Your Muta.

SPEAKER_03 4:49

Muta.

SPEAKER_02 4:50

And I had never seen it before. So I watched he watched the last two episodes of the entire series with me. So I've seen the last two episodes of the entire series, but I'd never seen any of the other I've seen clips and stuff, but yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:01

So that yeah, there were two shows. There there's been two shows that I've like I I watched religiously. Uh-huh. Because normally I just don't get into well, I mean, that's not true. Netflix has some that I stream or the left the leftovers leftovers. Is that what it was? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So like I watched that one. Sure. Um, you know, but I'm talking about like on back in the day with network television and all that.

SPEAKER_02 5:22

Um there were like appointment shows for you.

SPEAKER_03 5:24

Yeah. How I met your mother and the big bang theory.

SPEAKER_02 5:27

How I met your mother.

SPEAKER_03 5:28

Yep. And the big bang theory. Uh, but most shows never really did that for me. Okay. So, so working ahead. Um, I made a list this week of all the things that I needed to get done before I leave on Christmas Day. So we're leaving on Christmas Day. We're heading to New York to go see Denise's family. Nice. Uh and um, well, her sister's the only one that lives there anymore with her husband and and um our niece and nephew. This your brother-in-laws, she lives with us, right? And so um anyway, uh so I I've got to get things done at work through January 4th. Yeah. Right. Because I I get back on the second, and then I turn around and I have to be ready to deliver a sermon on the fourth. And so it's probably helpful if I had that done too. So, all that to say, I've been working on already the Christmas Eve service and the Christ the Christmas Eve sermon. And I wanted to run by uh run something by you because so we're we've been reading this book, and I read the book, and I read the chapter that I was supposed to be preaching from for the Christmas Eve, and uh, because we've been doing it all advent and I've kind of struggled with the sermons because I read them and I'm kind of like, I don't, I don't necessarily agree with the theology of the author, and I'm finding it, but I mean, I I enjoy I'm enjoying her take and I'm joining her book, and I'm enjoying the book. I'm not bashing the book, right?

SPEAKER_04 6:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:52

Um, but I read the one, it was supposed to be it's uh it was supposed to be a letter written by Jesus about Christmas.

SPEAKER_02 6:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 6:59

And I read it and I thought, um Yeah, because they're all letters from Yeah, it's called Seasons Greetings, and it's letters from people that are connected within the Chris the the Luke and Matthew Christmas.

SPEAKER_04 7:09

And it's made up. They're made up leather letters.

SPEAKER_03 7:12

I would call it, I would call it um mid-rash. It's it's cool. I like it. I liked it. I like it. Yeah, no, I um I don't I don't dislike the book, but but when I'm turning if I were just reading it, I think I would enjoy it. But having to then turn around and share it as a sermon, that became difficult for me.

SPEAKER_02 7:28

Yeah, because you got to figure out how I can say this in a way that feels like I am telling the truth as I understand it.

SPEAKER_03 7:34

Yes, yeah, yeah, yep. And so the Christmas Eve one was gonna be the letter from Jesus, and I read it and I was like, Ugh. That was that that was just I didn't like it. I didn't I did not like that chapter. Because you're not a fan of Jesus. I know that's yeah, there you go. And and we're glad you tuned in today. No, that's not true at all. I'm a big fan of uh what I have um been told about Jesus. So um anyway, but it just felt really, really uh shallow to me. Okay, sure. Okay. And so what I did is I I decided, well, what if Simeon wrote a letter?

SPEAKER_04 8:16

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 8:16

Because he's not in the book. You know who that is in the story? The old man who shows up at the temple the same day that they're gonna be snipping Jesus and says this is the Messiah?

SPEAKER_02 8:26

Is it that one?

SPEAKER_03 8:26

Yeah, he's like, I've uh uh you know, I was told that I would before I would die, I'd get to see God's now I can die. Now, yeah, right. Okay. So I took it, I went that way.

SPEAKER_02 8:37

But anyway, I I was reflecting on all a long time, for a long time I had in my mind, because I I did all the um, you know, uh memorizing Bible verses and all the stories and you know and um so I I really felt like I knew all there's not really any stories you can talk about that I didn't know the cliff notes.

SPEAKER_04 8:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:57

For a long time, I thought that that guy's I had it in my head that that guy's name, that guy was Methuselah. Because old. Because oldest, right? And so in my mind I connected like the reason he was the oldest is because he had lived until he could see the Messiah. Anyway, that's interesting. When I was adult, I would reread it and I was like, oh wait, that's not the same guy at all.

SPEAKER_03 9:19

Anyway, go ahead. So so one of the things I do now is the first thing I the first thing I want to do is I want to ask a ton of questions when I'm reading. Because then that leads me to theological reflection on how would I answer those questions. Sure. Right. So what questions come up from reading? Yeah. So things like, um, why in the world would new parents of an eight-day-old baby allow a stranger to hold their baby? That was a like that was a question I had. And and like all these other questions. But but one of the things, and this actually came from reading the book, and there was something she said in her book that got me thinking. And uh, and so I want to read to you what I wrote, and then I want to get your impression and your thoughts on this. All right. Okay. So this is what I wrote, and it may or may not make it into my Christmas Eve sermon series because I I'm trying to not also, I don't want to be I I actually try not to be a jerk. And so sometimes I think, like, is am I what I say and kind of being a but? And do I need to say not that I don't believe in what I'm saying, but is there a better way to say it? Sure. Okay. Okay. So this is what I wrote.

SPEAKER_02 10:24

That's nice of you. Thank you. I should probably think about that every once in a while.

SPEAKER_03 10:27

So this is what I wrote. There's something special about Christmas, isn't there? And I know some people want to bemoan the commercialism, to complain about how it's become too secular, to get angry because they think people aren't joyful for the right reasons. But here's what I've noticed: joy spreads joy, regardless of what makes a person joyful initially. The lights, the music, the gatherings, the generosity. Even in the midst of shopping and parties and Christmas movies, there's an undeniable sense that something matters, that connection is possible, that hope isn't foolish. And some Christians get upset about this. They're angry that non-Christians are joyful at Christmas without it being about Jesus. They want to police other people's joy to determine whether it's legitimate based on its source. I find this anger ridiculous. Think about what we're doing when we get angry that someone else is joyful. We're essentially saying your joy doesn't count because you're not joyful for the right reasons. Your experience of connection and hope and generosity is invalid because you don't share my theology. That's not just ungenerous, it misses the entire point of what we're celebrating. Christmas holds real power, power to bless poor and rich alike, to heal the brokenhearted, to mend relationships, to change lives. And for some, that feels like magic. And I believe that's okay because what we're celebrating isn't confined to one religious tradition or dependent on correct theology. What we're celebrating is the incarnation, the truth that the organizing principle of reality, the logos, the energy that holds all things together became flesh. And that principle, that energy, that divine love is working everywhere, not just in people who use Christian language, not just in those who believe the right things about Jesus. Everywhere people make space for connection. Wherever generosity emerges, wherever hope rises despite circumstances, that's the Christ at work.

SPEAKER_04 12:19

So there you go.

SPEAKER_03 12:21

It I what I decided is it really bothers me that we get so upset because the like looking at it, it seems to me like it seems to me like there are some of us who get angry because people are experiencing joy for what we believe is the wrong reasons. And that like why would you want to steal someone else's joy like that? Especially if like I I just don't get it, right?

SPEAKER_04 12:55

Because there's some Denise and I were talking about this in the car yesterday.

SPEAKER_03 13:01

Okay, let me just talk about myself for a second. I don't like to go to the mall. Okay. I I just don't. I don't like I don't like crowds. Um, but for some reason, like this time of year, I have more patience. I can I can get in traffic and I just seem to be okay with it. Like I just sit back, I listen to either a podcast that I'm listening to lately, I've been listening to ours. And so uh I would recommend everybody do that and then share it with people that you care about. And then I um but I've also been I also, of course, like most people I know, listen listen to a lot of Christmas music at this time of year. And I just sit back and I just the traffic doesn't bother me. I get I get to the I get to the store. Like Saturday, we're planning on going to um the uh um what's it called? The galleria down in uh um Franklin. The really big anyway, I can't think of it.

SPEAKER_02 14:02

I don't know. I I'm not familiar with this area. There's there's a big gallery mall back where we're from, like in town. Yeah. And that's where everyone goes.

SPEAKER_03 14:10

It's and I know that things gonna happen. Actually, in Franklin, yeah. Okay. Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna have to park, like I I might, I might bring my Nalgin bottle for the hike over to the mall, right? Uh-huh. Um, but I'm okay with that.

SPEAKER_02 14:24

Put on your camel back.

SPEAKER_03 14:26

Yeah, but I'm okay with it. Like, and we're gonna go to eat, we'll probably want to eat in the food court and we'll have to eat sanding, right? Sure. And I seem to be okay with that. Any other time of year, yeah, I'm like, I'm not going. But I'm not the only one that seems to have more patience, more uh, more willing, like sort of a little more generosity, yeah, right? Um a little more joy.

SPEAKER_04 14:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:49

And and I want to know, first of all, why Christians would want to steal that from people. And and second thing I want to know is how like what is it about this? And and if we could figure it out, how could we recreate it year round? Or would it then eventually would we just return to our default? Like is it is there is it what keeps it sort of that for us, is that it is a short period of time, we can sustain it for like a month. But any longer than that. Do you see what I'm saying? Does that any of that make sense? I have like I have a lot of thoughts. Okay, so good, because I've already talked for like 10 minutes. So you go. I know. Sorry. Constantly. I mean, we have to I think that we have to know our audience, and they do not tune in to hear me. That is that is a dumb thing to say.

SPEAKER_02 15:43

So go. That is a dumb thing to say. They all like hearing from you. You have an entire church that comes to uh to hear from you.

SPEAKER_03 15:50

That's I I appreciate you saying that, and that's very flattering. But I also know I know you don't want that to be true, but it is true. I don't think so. I think that people come because of the community that they're experiencing. All right, go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 16:05

Um Okay, so how do I want to start this? Um I really like the uh the description that you have of how you feel when you're in the during the Christmas season. I experienced that too. Um I don't think it could be sustained. I think um that this is something real my real my kind of conscious thought about this is that this is something very ancient, and it has to do with the seasonality of um life on a planet that's evolved in a um uh elliptical orbit that creates hot times and cold times because of its proximity to the sun. I think it really all goes back to that.

SPEAKER_03 16:58

Some and for some that are trying to translate that, what Lucas is describing is what we would call seasons.

SPEAKER_02 17:03

Yeah. Okay. It's seasons. And I think that all throughout human history that that we have archaeological record for, and and certainly that we have um written records for, this time period in the middle of winter um has somewhere around there has been a season of stopping, feasting, celebrating, um, you know, uh quiet, you know, that kind of thing. Um I think some of the reason that it feels like you can be more patient, and when I say you, I mean in the general sense, because I feel the same thing, yeah, is that we have a sense that our entire society has less expectation on us. We all have less expectation. It's similar to um if I lost my source of income tomorrow, that would be a that would be a disaster and a tragedy. If everyone in the society lost their their source of income tomorrow, yes, there would be a lot of chaos, but there'd be a sense in which there would be like a freedom in that. It's kind of okay because everyone has, and so we're now all on the same, it's the I think it's the reason we all enjoy the post-apocalyptic um uh story genre because it feels like a level of freedom. We're all dealing with it at the same time. All the expectations are dropped, kind of, right? Like if if there was some sort of um uh post-apoc, you know, apocalyptic thing that happened, well, I don't have to worry about my credit card bill. Yeah. So there's a there's an expect there's a there's a mundane kind of um responsibility thing that is gone. I have other responsibilities, but that's gone. Anyway, so I think that we have this kind of seasonality thing. Um, and then it has gotten and it's been codified in different ways in different societies um through the the religious traditions um and and I think that's great. I also think that um Christmas is you could call Christmas secular in our in Western society. At this point, Christmas is a secular um holiday.

SPEAKER_03 19:34

I I don't disagree.

SPEAKER_02 19:35

And that's okay. I think that's okay, and I don't actually think that it takes away from the religious aspect aspect of it. Also, I'm gonna defend the uh the you know kind of traditionalist um religious people. I don't actually think they're trying to steal the joy. This is what I think actually happens. If I'm gonna give them the benefit of the doubt, because I I totally understand what you're talking about. Yeah, there is

SPEAKER_03 20:00

Just real quick, I I I could easily be convinced that they're not intentionally doing that.

SPEAKER_02 20:05

Yeah, and that's uh that's kind of what I'm getting at. I I do think that they I I do think that people will do this. I think people do this in all sorts of um areas of their life. And I certainly see the uh the result of it if which is what you're which is what you're talking about. Um if you go online now, uh you'll see it all over the place. If and when I was growing up, you would hear it all the you know, the the Jesus is the reason for the season, that type of thing.

SPEAKER_03 20:32

But the Christ back in Christmas, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:34

That type of thing.

SPEAKER_03 20:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:35

Absolutely. I mean, my my grandmother would get really upset when people would write out Christmas as a as Xmas. Very, very upsetting to her.

SPEAKER_03 20:44

Do you remember how like the Red Cup wars? Yeah, of course. Yeah, yes.

SPEAKER_02 20:48

There's the, yeah, yeah, yeah. All of that. Okay. I think what happens is, I think psychologically what happens is a person has an inner feeling of dread that they themselves, that I myself am not approaching something correctly, and then projects that outward as a as an admonition for the world, right? Um, that's what I think is the source of most of it. Obviously, it can go you know, um, sideways and whatever. But a couple, well, and also I don't think you need to give the admonition outward. I think you could just look inward.

unknown 21:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 21:30

Yeah. So a couple thoughts. One is uh, yeah, I I don't I would I would imagine that nobody is thinking to myself or thinking to themselves, I want to steal people's joy. Right. Um and so let's let's go with the um, but I do think that is the result is that what we're actually trying to do is steal people's joy. So you're doing it wrong. Wrong. Right. And I, okay, so go to the internal admonition thing you're talking about, right? And so again, one of these things that we do that I what I what I would like us to be able to just pause for a moment as humans every now and then and say, why am I doing this and what am I actually trying to do? Yeah. Right. Because then what happens is I don't like the feeling that I'm having right now, right? And and right now I actually I'm having wonderful feelings. So I'm just putting myself into the situation we're trying to describe. So I say, I begin to feel like I don't like this feeling. I don't like the the disequilibrium. I'm like maybe I'm not joyful for the right things, or and I may not be thinking it that way, but but there's something that I'm not liking. And so what we do, now again, I don't think we consciously do this, is I'm going to take this feeling and make you feel it so that I don't have to.

SPEAKER_02 22:50

Yeah. There's a very um uh a very common uh psychological term for that. And I'm probably it I don't I think that that is accurately described as projection. I think that's projection. Okay. Uh, where you I think you're projecting your own, your own feelings onto somebody else. Like you're saying, like I'm I'm not angry, why are you angry? kind of thing.

SPEAKER_03 23:16

Yeah, yeah. I get that.

SPEAKER_02 23:17

I'm I might be wrong about that too.

SPEAKER_03 23:19

Because I feel like I mean, I I see what you're saying, but it feels to me like uh it's a little more internal, even. Like I think I think we've taken, I mean, that is like I'm angry, why are you angry? Like we do that unconsciously too. But I feel like what we're describing right now is even like one step deeper. Um, because I don't think like I'm questioning my joy, so I'd rather you question your joy. Like I don't think it's like that, but I do think we're experiencing something internal.

SPEAKER_04 23:47

And um and then we're saying, I don't I don't want to experience this, so how do I get rid of it?

SPEAKER_03 23:57

And the way to get rid of it is to give it to you. Yeah, that might be. I don't know. That might be you know what it reminds me of, and I don't know why it popped into my head. Well, I maybe it does. So one of the issues that they were facing with the AIDS epidemic in Africa is that men had been convinced that they could get rid of AIDS by giving it to a woman. Interesting. Yeah. Um, and so it's almost like that. It's like I have this disease happening inside of me, and the way that I can get rid of it is by giving it to you. Um, and not consciously.

SPEAKER_02 24:29

Yeah. I mean, I think the the bottom line of what you're saying, I I think it's it's a good thing to um to it's it's like that that um Mel Robbins uh let them kind of thing. Yeah, right. If you if you have a feeling like, you know, Christmas is too commercialized, and who's gonna argue with that anyway? Well, and who cares though? But it but what I'm saying is like give the devil his due, right? Yeah. Is Christmas commercialized? Absolutely. Our entire society is built on commercialization.

SPEAKER_03 25:06

So how would it not become commercialized when we live in a capitalistic society where everything is based on uh consumption?

SPEAKER_02 25:13

So actually, okay, going back to something that um you've been working through this year with all of the um the uh the stoic um study that you've been doing. Oh, yeah. What a great opportunity then for myself living in a commercialized society and living through a commercialized holiday. This is my thank you for the opportunity for me to look to to be confronted with my own uh love it, you know, commercialization or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 25:44

Yeah, no, I think that's fantastic. Because, like, all right, this will be really uh interesting to me.

SPEAKER_02 25:50

Maybe instead of trying to, instead of trying to change the society, I could take it as an opportunity to change myself.

SPEAKER_03 25:56

The stoic, the stoic understanding of what can I control and what can I not control. Yeah I cannot, I cannot change at this point our society's uh approach celebr to celebrating Christmas.

SPEAKER_02 26:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:08

Right. But what I can do is reflect on my own um feelings about that, my own uh how how do I live, like you said, how do I live within this capitalistic society? Um how can I become a better person? But of what I can observe. What's paradoxical about this?

SPEAKER_02 26:24

But you have to do it in such a way that you don't judge. Sure. Well, that's the thing. If you're turning it inward, that is, but see, here's what's paradoxical about this is that the very fact that you can't change society and never can, and nobody has ever been able to do that. I'm trying. Okay, the very fact that you can't do that makes it a windmill that you can tilt at, uh-huh, which you immediately can get a cathartic feeling from and have a feeling of success, even though you're not succeeding, you can get the feeling of success. And the very fact because you've done something, right? You've spoken out against X. Therefore, you've done a thing, you can get the feeling in internally. Whereas you actually have the power, I actually have the power to change myself, which makes it much more difficult to turn toward that, right? Psychologically, it makes it much more difficult because that's a thing that I could actually succeed at, which means that I could have real failure at it if I don't succeed. Because the changing of society has no actual practical way to succeed at, you can constantly tilt at it, tilt at that windmill, and then and net and um have and just have the the feeling itself is the level of success. Right. And so it's like a paradoxical thing. And so you you end up uh going toward that, I feel like, um more than the thing that you could actually change, which is you know, your stoic internal.

SPEAKER_03 28:04

I like the idea that it allows me to have that feeling without facing uh the the chance of real failure.

SPEAKER_02 28:13

Yeah. Yeah. It's like um it's like the the husband who tells his wife that he's gonna clean out the garage. He's gonna he's gonna clean out the garage this weekend, and his wife goes, Oh, great, I've been wanting you to do that. He got his reward right then. That's his reward. He got the payoff right then. And then if he doesn't do it, it's okay psychologically because he got his reward when she gave him that.

SPEAKER_03 28:39

It's so funny. So yesterday I I actually confessed something like that to Denise. Right. So um we I mean, I I should be writing down, I have some other thoughts too. Um, but uh she called me in the middle of the day and she smelled um burning. They were uh she was doing some laundry, and all of a sudden the dryer started smelling like it was burning. They quick turned it off. They called me. And so I packed up my stuff and I went home. And uh, my initial thought was, well, call the repair man. What am I gonna be able to do? So I went home and uh I pulled up YouTube videos and I decided I could probably figure this out myself. And so I started taking the the dryer apart and I found actually the burn. I found it. Okay. And then I was like, I think I can fix this. Like it wasn't what I thought it was initially. Because like I ran it and I read the error in my because it's one of those, you know, I mean, it's like got all the bells and whistles that shows you. Star Trek washing machines and everything. Yeah, it was like H E error, you know, and I was like, oh, what does that mean? And I looked at it, oh, it's heating element. That makes sense. Okay, so I was like, I just gotta get to the heating element. And then, but as I started taking it apart, all of a sudden I found char marks on the on the um control board. Okay. And I was like, oh, it's there. And I was like, I just gotta, I just have to pull out the control board, I'll replace the control board 150 bucks instead of a thousand dollars for a dryer, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so um, then I tried to unhook the wiring harness, and the wiring harness was messed up. Anyway, long story short, I wasn't able to fix it because by the time I would have bought all the parts, I would have spent probably close to$500. And at that point, and I'm not even sure I would have fixed it yet. Right. Right.

SPEAKER_02 30:20

So that's how they get you.

SPEAKER_03 30:21

Right. So we're driving over to Lowe's, and Denise tells me um how she's like, I can't, you know, I just can't believe that you can actually because I'm always impressed by how you okay. And I told her, I said, the reason I do the things is because I like to impress you.

SPEAKER_04 30:36

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 30:36

I like I like that feeling. Even if so anyway, I'm not doing it because I want to fix a dryer. I'm doing it because I want the affirmation from my wife that I tried to fix the dryer. Yes. And I think that goes with what we're talking about. It does.

SPEAKER_02 30:50

Yes. At least in my mind, if you actually fix it. Oh, then that's fantastic. Yes. But what I'm saying is, yeah, I'm speaking to myself. Yes. The husband who will who will say, I'm gonna do X. Then there's no reason to actually and then she gives me the affirmation, I've already got my reward. I got my cookie.

SPEAKER_03 31:11

I don't need to clean the garage anymore.

SPEAKER_02 31:12

That's right. I don't have she gave me, she gave me the reward before I did the chore.

SPEAKER_03 31:17

Yeah. Well, and I guess what I was saying is that I felt rewarded even though I failed in fixing the dryer.

SPEAKER_02 31:25

So Okay. I can see the I can I can see the um I still felt successful parallel there.

SPEAKER_03 31:32

I still felt successful, even though I never fixed the dryer.

SPEAKER_02 31:34

Yeah, that's interesting because that yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:37

Yeah, I can see that. I can see that. You can't do it. And then we go and we drop$800.

SPEAKER_02 31:41

You gotta pay off.

SPEAKER_03 31:42

Yeah, and I still but I felt good. It's like, yeah, hey.

SPEAKER_02 31:45

Anyway, um That's so interesting because I feel exactly the opposite. It is a confirmation of my impotence as a man. That's so funny. As an adult, yeah, as a human. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:59

So here's the things that I find interesting, and I don't understand why we get mad at them about the holidays. All right. All right. Uh we're and then and then you're gonna respond to this, and then we're gonna wrap this one up. Cool. All right. So I don't understand why people get mad when people decorate before Thanksgiving. Okay. People get it, people get upset about that, right? I don't understand why people get mad if you're listening to Christmas music and it's not between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Uh-huh. I don't understand that. Um, I don't understand why people get mad if you don't say Merry Christmas, but you say happy holidays. I don't I don't understand. Let's see, what else don't I understand? Those are the big ones. Uh I don't understand the anger at businesses for uh making it not just about Christmas, but about all of the holidays. Um I don't understand the um anger, and this one seems very hypocritical to me. The anger of the commercialism while we're at the mall shopping for presents for our families. I just don't understand it. So those are just a couple of the ones that pop right into my head. I'm sure if I sat down with a piece of paper and gave myself 30 minutes, I could come up with a really good list. Thoughts. Any thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_02 33:18

Okay. Uh in reverse order, uh we already we already addressed the first the um the commercialism thing while you're shopping. Okay. I think that's a uh uh methinks thou dost protest too much type situation.

SPEAKER_03 33:32

Say that one more time.

SPEAKER_02 33:33

I think that's just somebody telling on themselves. It's how they feel and they're projecting it. That's what I think most of the time. Okay. The one about the businesses I think is really interesting. Because I think what it actually does is reflect a sense that I've lost my co um cohesive community. And by extension, I've I I've experienced the thing that everyone experiences, which is I've lost my childhood. I think that's where it stems from. The anger at at or the the frustration at um businesses that that um want to acknowledge, you know, different cultures, holidays, and that kind of thing. Um I think it really stems from a sense that people have, whether it's true or not, I don't know that it matters because it's their experience, which is I used to have this village, and we all knew the rules of the village, and we all knew the catechisms, and we all knew the the the heresies and the sacred things and the and the rituals, and we all had these things that were unspoken. And now I go into a business and I have when I have a feeling like I'm eight years old, and then they say happy holidays, because they won't say Merry Christmas or whatever. That's how I'm feeling like they like they're doing it, right? And sometimes, so I think there's a lot of different things there. So so just to wrap up that thought, I think there's like kind of a feeling of dread that I've lost something. And I think that there's legitimately you probably lost something. Some of it might be a loss because society has changed. Some of it is just universal loss. It's what we all experience because all of us lose as we grow old. It's inevitable. You either die or you lose. That's what life is, right? Um, I mean, that's a big I mean that is that's the beginning part of life. There's other, there's, you know, whatever. But um and so I I I can kind of sympathize with that. I I'm with you, I mean, I will just say like cards on the table. I don't have any problem with saying happy holidays. I like acknowledging the holidays. And also, I kind of grew up saying happy holidays or hearing happy holidays because in my mind, it was Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's. In my mind, happy holidays meant that. Now, I will say that there is a, there are from time to time um attempts to say to um specifically not say Merry Christmas in a in like say a corporate store or something like that, where that has been a directive laid down to the employees, and you can kind of sense it from the employees. I'm doing this because I've been told to, kind of thing. And I can understand a feeling of like, well, why were you told to? You know, like that. Um again, I I don't have any problem with it, but um, but I can kind of I I try to put myself in in someone's shoes why they would why they would bristle at it, and I can I can kind of understand it. The um the Christmas music and the decorations thing to me is is one issue. I've never met anybody who gets mad at it. I do I have met people who are like annoyed or like, what are you doing, kind of thing. And um uh I don't know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:03

I guess maybe I just know people that are more angry than you do.

SPEAKER_02 37:07

I probably suck up all the anger.

SPEAKER_03 37:10

So I there's there is one thing. I like to give people a hard time about it. I think that I think that um so listening to to to what you had to say. Um and then I started thinking about Christmas movies. I think nostalgia plays a big part in it. Right. Um whether it it like even even the feelings that we have and and um and the the reason that we're more kind is we're we're hearkening back to a time where it feels more peaceful in our in our minds, whether it was or not, right? Um and uh so like I think about some of my favorite movies, and some of them are old, right? So like White Christmas, I love White Christmas, um but some of them just remind me of when I was a child, right? So like uh Christmas story um with Peter Billingsley that came out when I was, you know, in let's see, it was 80. I still lived in I still lived in Ohio when that one came out and it was filmed in Cleveland. Yeah. There's there's this nostalgia for me, right? Yeah. Um and then one of my favorites right now, we just watched it last night, is 8 Bit Christmas. I don't know this one. Oh my gosh, you don't? Do you have HBO? Yeah. Okay. You're a child of the 80s. Yeah. Nintendo? You Yeah, yeah. Okay. Oh yeah. You need to watch it. I didn't know about that. I'm gonna watch it today. It is about this, it's about uh this this dog, this, this uh this guy played by um I can't think of his name. He was Doogie Hauser.

SPEAKER_02 38:45

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Neil Patrick Harris.

SPEAKER_03 38:47

Yeah. He he uh Met Shimuta. Yes, yeah, nice. I love the way he did the circle there. Um, but he he takes his daughter and they go back to his childhood home for Christmas. And uh and she's really mad because she wants a cell phone. And he's like, No, you're not getting a cell phone for Christmas, you're 11 years old. Yeah. And uh, and they're supposed to be meeting uh his wife and their son, and they're gonna have Christmas with the family. The family. Yeah. Yeah. At his childhood home. And so anyway, I don't want to tell you too much because I I want you to enjoy it. Yeah. But the premise is he tells her the story about the Christmas that he wanted a Nintendo.

SPEAKER_02 39:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:29

And it's it is fabulous because it's one of those deals where there's nostalgia for it.

SPEAKER_02 39:34

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:34

Right. Because like I'm watching and I just laugh. I laughed like my whole way through the movie, even though I've watched it like four times now, even though it just came out like in 22.

SPEAKER_02 39:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:44

Um, so anyway.

SPEAKER_02 39:47

So there's a there's an episode, this makes me think about this, and then we can uh we can wrap it up. I know we keep saying that, but uh there's an episode of New Girl. Um where I've never seen. Um yeah, Chris Chris, it's our it's our every night. Um show for the last like 10 years. So I've I've watched every episode maybe 20 times.

SPEAKER_03 40:05

That's like us in Big Bang Theory. If there's nothing else on, we put it on. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:08

Exactly. So there's an episode where Jess and Nick are dating, and she really wants uh Nick's friend, Coach, to like her, to be friends with her. And um uh Nick and Coach are uh fans of uh two different um uh basketball teams. And so Jess doesn't care about sports at all. She decides in order to make friends with Coach, she is going to become a fan of the team that um coach likes. Okay. So then she's gonna wear the jersey and she's you know, whatever. And Nick obviously is like, no, you can't, I can't I can't have this. You can't wear that, you know, and like so you know, hilarity and sees. But at one point, um, he goes, he says, like, that's my team. And he, the line is something like, that's my team. It's half my relationship with my father, R.I.P. By the way, right? And then he moves, and then it's and then he goes on, because they would do this where they'd like throw in little like meaningful lines with the comedy, you know? And um, that's what I think is happening, all of this. I think that it's without unconsciously, it's your relationship with your dad. It's your relationship with your grandma, it's your it's your cousins, it's where you felt safe, or it's where you felt maybe not safe necessarily, but you felt like you felt loved and you felt, you know, for lack of a better term, whatever, you know. But it's a good term. But yeah, I mean, like, you know, we don't we don't put out our uh our decorations until the day after Thanksgiving. We start Christmas music the day after Thanksgiving. Um on Thanksgiving, we watch home for the holidays. We've talked about that before here. Uh on Christmas Eve, Krista and I watch White Christmas while we're finishing wrapping presents. We have um Black Russians and watch White White Christmas. That's our but like, you know, because these are the things that create loops that make us feel like we're, you know, living as humans.

SPEAKER_03 42:13

So the trick then is to figure out how do we help people connect to the nostalgia, to connecting to feeling like they are loved and grounded and uh safe. Mm-hmm. Year round.

SPEAKER_04 42:27

Yeah. Uh well, sure, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. If you can. Right.

SPEAKER_02 42:33

Focus on yourself. Common ground? That's not no. No, I mean, I don't know, that's not what I mean. I know what I mean. I know what you mean. Turn inward stoic.

SPEAKER_03 42:41

Once I said no, then I rem remembered what you were talking about. Okay. All right. Common ground, focus on yourself.

SPEAKER_02 42:47

Is that I think so. You know, like like um uh try to try to recognize within yourself the thing.

SPEAKER_03 42:53

Could be it. Yeah, why okay, uh take the moment. Why is this making me angry me? And then look inward. Yep. Perfect. All right, excellent. Thanks. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 43:06

Thank you for listening to Living on Common Ground. Please follow wherever you listen to your podcasts and share it with your friends. You can also find a link to our social in the description. The more people we have living on common ground, the better the world will be.