If Humans Need Hardship To Grow What Should We Choose

We step into a topic that might irritate people if it’s handled carelessly, so we try to handle it with precision. We explore an idea drawn from historian Tom Holland’s work on Greek culture: even in societies that appear politically male-dominated, women often served as the recognized link between humans and the gods through temples, priestesses, and oracles. That opens a broader conversation about the divine feminine, early images of female divinity, and why pregnancy, labor, and birth can feel transcendent and meaning-laden in a way that modern life struggles to name. We also talk about patriarchal shifts in religious tradition, the temptation to control what we fear, and the trade-offs that come with “progress” when mystery gets carved off from everyday life. 

Then we bring it back to right now. If daily life in the United States rarely demands real hardship, why do we keep creating drama and conflict anyway? We offer one practical takeaway that keeps showing up in stoicism, modern psychology, and hard training: choose voluntary struggle. Running, hiking, service, discipline, any constructive challenge that quiets the noise and shapes who you become when nobody is watching. If you want more common ground and less manufactured outrage, start there. Subscribe, share the show with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find these conversations.

©NoahHeldmanMusic

https://livingoncommonground.buzzsprout.com

https://www.jeffreystreszoff.com/

jeffrey.streszoff@gmail.com

Transcript

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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_01 0:35

But we're friends.

SPEAKER_02 0:42

Man, so well, we want a few games. 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.

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SPEAKER_03 1:17

All right.

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SPEAKER_03 1:18

You doing alright? I'm recording, so you might want to get near the microphone. Whatever. Okay. Um

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SPEAKER_03 1:25

so

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SPEAKER_03 1:26

you're gonna educate me today about something.

SPEAKER_05 1:28

Oh, great. Cool. What am I educating you about?

SPEAKER_03 1:30

I don't know. I talked to you on Monday and you said that you wanted to do a little more research or you wanted to do something that you were gonna talk to me then about. You remember what it was?

SPEAKER_05 1:38

Yeah, I do, but I don't want to talk about that yet. Okay. Maybe I do. Kind of. I don't know. This is roughly I'm gonna piss a lot of people off. Why? Because I know our congregation that are gonna be really mad about this. Do you know our listeners? Yeah, and I think I think I'll piss a lot of people off. Okay. But it's okay. I don't mind that. I just wanna I wanna be I don't I don't want to do it haphazardly.

SPEAKER_03 2:01

If you're gonna you want to do it intentionally.

SPEAKER_05 2:03

Yeah, exactly. I want to be purposeful about it. Okay, so well the the topic was the topic title that I had written down was um something like and and I I brought the the paper and left it in the car, of course.

SPEAKER_03 2:19

I I can I I need to resubmit that reference that I gave you.

unknown 2:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:25

The one that you lied about. I didn't lie. I did give you straight fives, which that was the highest. I said you lied. No. I think very highly of you. You know this.

SPEAKER_05 2:34

Um so the topic title was Um Women Are the Conduit Men Must Create. Yeah. That was the title.

SPEAKER_03 2:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 2:45

So it was just so I've been thinking about this a lot for the last like five years or so. Okay, go ahead. No. I have a question right off the bat. Yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 2:55

Is this a phrase or is this something that you have come up with, or is it something that you were introduced to? No, no.

SPEAKER_05 3:04

The way that I wrote it out, that was just at me just thinking out loud.

SPEAKER_03 3:07

Yeah, no, and a lot of times the way you write things out is because you're trying to um stir stuff, something up.

SPEAKER_05 3:12

Yeah, this wasn't I'm not really trying to stir anything up, but I was just trying to like uh make it condensed into like a title, like a note so that I could remember what I what the idea was that I was talking about.

SPEAKER_03 3:23

All right. Sorry. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_05 3:26

Um, there's this this kind I really want to get this I really want to get it more precise before I really get into it. It really comes from a um from discussions that uh I've listened to Tom Holland have.

SPEAKER_03 3:47

Okay. The historian, not Spider-Man.

SPEAKER_05 3:51

That's right. I always feel it's necessary to make that distinction. It is necessary. And what's so nerdy is that he's the first one that comes to my mind when I hear the when I hear the uh Well now when you say it, he's the one that comes to mind when you say it.

SPEAKER_03 4:08

Yeah. But when everyone else in the world says it, I think of course it's gonna be Spider-Man.

SPEAKER_05 4:13

Yeah. Um Tom Holland talks about uh I heard him talking about um Greek culture, specifically like Athenian culture, but um, but it was it could be um uh uh expanded out to a lot of uh a lot of the Greek culture. Um and he talks about how from our perspective in you know 2026 or whatever, whenever it was he was talking about, it can it can be construed that it was like a very sexist misogynistic culture.

unknown 4:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 4:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 5:00

The idea being that like men were the ones who were in charge of government functions and military and you know that kind of thing. But what he points out is that um in that in that culture, women held the connection between humans and the gods. And you see this in a lot of the um the um like the priest class, the the temples, would be they they would be staffed for for lack of better term uh by women. You know, the the like the Temple of Apollo and these you know um when um uh oh I can't remember his name, the Spartan King who um dies with the Battle of uh the 300.

SPEAKER_03 6:01

Yep. Um Gerard Butler.

SPEAKER_05 6:05

Yep, Gerard Butler, thank you.

SPEAKER_03 6:06

Yep.

SPEAKER_05 6:08

Um when he uh when he wants to know whether or not they should go to war, what he what they should do, he consults, and I don't I don't think that that was that might have been Apollo, but I'm not sure if that was if that was Apollo. Um but it's it's Leonidas. Thank you, Leonidas. Um Leonidas, if you're Tom Holland. I can't even say it the way he says it. Yeah. He consults the he consults this temple. It's all it's it's all female priestesses.

SPEAKER_03 6:47

Yeah, all of the uh um oracles.

SPEAKER_04 6:53

They're always women.

SPEAKER_03 6:55

Oracles are always women. And except in Viking culture.

SPEAKER_05 7:00

And well, I'm just talking about Greek culture in particular, okay? Because clearly it's not the case in every culture. I'm not trying to make that case. Right. I'm not trying to make the case.

SPEAKER_03 7:10

And I could have just thrown out the exception like we like people do when you want to argue with something. You always have to find the out the outlier, and that becomes the norm.

SPEAKER_05 7:19

But I'm not, I'm, I'm really not trying to make the case that um this has been the case in every culture. Clearly, this is a cultural question. Okay. But I think that it it harkens. I've been thinking about this for the like I said, for the last like four or five years or whatever. And I think that it really harkens. I I want to get back to I want to see if there's some sort of kind of foundational human principle in this. And so I imagine a human who is I well, I imagine our common ancestor, actually, even uh with uh with the ape, right? One that would have something of a self-conscious consciousness. Okay, something of a self-awareness. But you'd have to imagine that the first self-awareness would be so well, it'd be like a it'd be like a human baby today, right? It's just I. That's it. Uh and it not even not like what you and I would think of when we think of I, because of course we have multiple layers of brain development now. As an adult, I have multiple layers of brain development. But if I just think of something that's purely instinctive, an organism that's purely instinctive, and then I just give, and I and then I just think of, okay, now there's a concept, there's something that's gone through its head of I am set am different from you. Right. And it's kind of that that universal experience in humans, um, which is I am different from mom.

SPEAKER_03 9:19

Right. Yeah. Uh let's see, Piaget talks about early childhood development. He talks about that moment when you begin to realize that you're separate from mom. Right.

SPEAKER_05 9:31

So and of course, that is not a moment that is set within a perspective. Like it's not you and I imagining a moment where we discover this. Because the the structure that it exists in, this thought, if you even want to call it a thought, this experience, the structure is still the structure of an instinctive animal that has no thought. Right? It's the only thing that exists. There's no other, this is a hand, this is a foot, I'm breathing air. There's nothing. It's just separate. It's almost like uh let there be light. Right? It's almost like nothing and then something. Okay. So you imagine, you imagine that I imagine an organism, our our ancestor, somewhere along the line. So it's like the first time that something understands being. Just yeah, just has self-awareness at all. Okay. So now, so just if you bear with me, you just accept that concept. Now imagine a whole lot. Not even understands awareness of being. Just there's an experience of being. Okay. In a way that I don't believe, and I know that I'll get some arguments about this, but I don't believe like dogs have. I don't believe I think it's possible like an elephant might have the very first. I mean, just really and they might not, I maybe I'm even overstating it there. Because I do think that um, well, I'm getting off track. I was gonna say, I do think that there are some animals. I think that animals can, it's possible if we could develop the technology to um measure this, that you can imagine some basic level emotions, what we experience as emotions, this physical thing that we then create a storyline around, that animals might experience that. Okay. I think that's possible. I don't think that they have a self-awareness, even that first level of it. Anyway if we if we accept that, because at some point we did, I mean, we have the self-awareness now. We at least have an experience of self-awareness, and then we have a whole bunch of layers now as humans, right? Okay, so if you imagine a species that just has that, okay, but they're still being born, eating, fighting, dying, all of that stuff now gets meaning, right? Now just imagine that all you have is just self-awareness and you know and and you can then you not know, you then observe as a species the fact that you Jeff never produce life. But these other ones, they produce life, they make another one. That would be literally like looking at that that being for for uh for the for the the organism that just has this self-aware, it would be like looking at where the gods must must exist. The gods must touch this world through somehow through the woman.

SPEAKER_03 13:35

Right? Which would explain, like, and I haven't done enough of it, I got a book sitting on my nightstand right now, but the divine feminine. Yes. The first images of God, of gods appear to the oldest, let me put the oldest images of gods are female.

SPEAKER_05 13:52

Yes, and they're not just female. I mean, they are pregnant, big, large-breasted, like pregnant pointing at their pregnant bellies, right? These these images. And of course.

SPEAKER_04 14:11

I was talking, I was talking to Krista um a couple weeks ago, something like that.

SPEAKER_05 14:17

And she was talking about um, you know, she deals with uh perinatal mental health. She deals with pregnancy a lot in a lot of different ways. And I don't remember exactly what the conversation was, but it had to do with pregnancy and labor and delivery, which I think is just one of the most unbelievable. Well, anyway, I I could talk about that for a long time, but the um the delivery of, especially the delivery of um our youngest Ellis.

SPEAKER_04 14:52

That one was just unreal.

SPEAKER_05 14:56

Um but we were talking about this for some for something, and and um she had said something about like, you know, it man, I wish I could remember exactly what she said. She was saying something about how it um oh, oh, that it's that it's like your old self dies, right? As a woman. Your old self self dies. And I just made the offhand comment. I said, well, I don't think you get to see God and still live. And I th and this is not a like an intellectual argument here.

SPEAKER_04 15:40

It's just a I metaphorically, if you want to call it metaphorically, that's fine.

SPEAKER_05 15:53

I think that for the most fundamental human, it would have just seemed obvious that the gods well, like I said, the gods touch our world through the female. And so in going back to what Tom Holland talked about, um, he talked about how it was true that the Greek culture um placed men at the in the deciding positions politically and socially and that kind of thing. But he says where we miss it is it is our society. Our society does not um, it does not value the connection to the gods and the and the weird, as he puts it, the weird, the mysterious. That's not a part of our world. It's just not. It's a separate thing that gets held kind of over here, and we can dabble in it if we want to, right? Our society is not built around that. Our society for the last 400 years has been a an experiment in how can we carve that off, right? And so to us, we go, well, the only thing that matters is running politics and and the social order and all of that, right? But the Greeks did not think that. Um and so I I I think so. My the the line that I wrote down, you know, women are the portal, men must create, is this kind of this idea. It's been said in lots of different ways. And I think that there's it's interesting to me. There's a um, I've heard it said that men make war because they can't create life. And I think that there's something to that underneath. And I think it has, it has another, it has there's there's more to it, obviously. It's just that's a just a stupid one-liner. But there's something to the idea that the part of our species that can't create life feels compelled to somehow make a mark or go cre go create, right? And of course, this is not saying that women don't create. That's not my point at all. Because they're original, they are the original creators. It's like this is the this is the this is kind of the analogy I think in my head. It's like uh Superman who Superman is is contained within Superman. Superman isn't Superman, and then what we really care about is that he's a really good reporter.

SPEAKER_04 18:59

But it's like his identity is the fact that he's a superhero, right?

SPEAKER_05 19:09

The the concept is like men have nothing within themselves to have as their identity that's that's meaningful. You gotta make it. And again, you know, I this is what I'm saying. Like, I know I'm gonna ruffle some feathers here. This is not some sort of like foundational truth. It's just uh an observation of how I think humans would have interpreted what they saw around them and what could produce life and what couldn't, and then and then how culture would have broken that off, you know, as it as it kind of developed down the years.

SPEAKER_04 19:50

So your thoughts.

SPEAKER_03 19:54

Um well, I mean, you haven't said anything that I would disagree with. I think that um I'm interested in processing uh again, not the outliers, but but if we consider that if if that's if that is, I think you said it's not necessarily for um okay, let's just say that's the first that is foundational, I think.

SPEAKER_04 20:19

A foundational understanding that begins.

SPEAKER_03 20:22

So then what is the reason that some cultures like um uh the the Jewish religion that begins, right? The cultists that begins, it's all male priests. So what's the is that is that because is there a threatening? Is there a um the I would be curious to kind of spend some time thinking about is it a pushback against? Is it is it a result of the creation, like the men create women, how did you say what was the original thing you wrote? Men? Women are the conduit. Uh-huh. Is it because the the real the realization comes that I can't do that thing? So I have to control that thing that does?

SPEAKER_05 21:11

It might I I wouldn't make any kind of I'm not um enough of a historian to make a definitive statement. What I do think, though, is that there's enough there there's a lot of evidence to suggest that um there's that that was distinctive. And when you're when you're pushing back against other Semitic tribes, making yourself distinctive is important, um, or would seem important. Uh also I I think of human culture as like kind of a um pinball machine. Uh things reacting off of reactions and then getting codified into. Into culture, sometimes really lining up with what was uh what came before it, and sometimes reacting against it, you know. Um, so I I I don't I I don't have any kind of um definitive answer for you.

SPEAKER_04 22:19

I mean, like I I've heard a lot of people talk about the um uh the Hebrew um uh patriarchal uh uh religious tradition and how it developed and how it um how it developed in the face of the uh some of the matriarchal um religious traditions.

SPEAKER_05 22:46

I don't know. Um and and also just I feel like I guess because you know, most of the people who are listening to this have only known me for a few years, I feel like I need to make caveats about the fact that I don't think any of this should be prescriptive. And I don't think that anything that I'm talking about right now um necessarily has to apply to any individual on an individual basis. Right. Individuals uh will run a big spectrum. But when taken in the aggregate, I think this is this is a uh an interesting way to um to observe uh and kind of explain trends, gender trends, right? And um and what how human history kind of developed. Um and again, I mean, I think that you know part of this is that you know, I said before, I don't really believe in progress. I just I think I believe in trade-offs. I think I think things change and you gain and you lose. Anytime you gain something, you're losing something. And I think um I'm interested in really considering things that are lost from having the the type of society that we have.

SPEAKER_04 24:16

And I think one of the things that is lost is this concept of um of the the kind of the the divine identity held within woman.

SPEAKER_03 24:38

So the book that is sitting on my nightstand right now, I just When God was a woman? It was uh um yeah, when God was a woman by Merlin Stone, written in 1978. I just pulled it up. So this is what this is what the book is about. It says, um, in the beginning, God was a woman. How did the shift from matriarchy to patriarchy come about? In fascinating detail, Merlin Stone tells us the story of the goddess who reigned supreme in the near and Middle East. Under her reign, societal roles differed markedly from those in patriarchal Judeo-Christian cultures. Women bought and sold property, traded in the marketplace, and inherited title and land from their mothers. Documenting the wholesale rewriting of myth and religious dogma, Merlin Stone describes an ancient conspiracy in which the goddess was reimagined as a wanton, depraved figure, a characterization confirmed and perpetuated by one of modern culture's best known legends, that of the fall of Adam and Eve. Insightful and thought-provoking, this is an essential reading for anyone interested in the origin of current gender roles and in rediscovering women's power.

SPEAKER_05 25:45

So Krista read that. I I've read excerpts of it.

SPEAKER_03 25:49

She's probably the one that recommended it to me.

SPEAKER_05 25:52

Yeah. It's good. It should be read. I'm always suspicious of any of anything that goes. Actually, we've discovered none of that was true, and this other thing is true that we always wanted to be true in the first place. Do you know what I mean? Uh something that wipes away. I think that that book is good and um and I think provides color, which I think very, very important. Um I'm suspicious of the idea. Uh suspicious is not the right word.

SPEAKER_04 26:25

I'm um uh I'm not convinced of a conspiracy. However, it's pretty clear that uh that there was evolution, if you want to put it that way, um, in the uh in the religious dogma.

SPEAKER_05 26:50

Um, but I just think that it's it's really interesting. And again, I mean you know, I've been thinking about some uh this relates to other things too, um where you know, uh I don't want to live completely just in my kind of intellectual life. Um where I I think about the aspects of of humanity that I that I have probably a lot more of it than I realize, that are that early human that barely had any self-awareness. You know, and I think uh and and I I want to experience that. Like I think about that when it comes to when I'm what I'm beating around the bush here on is um I think about that when it comes to um like worship. Like I can't, I don't have any intellectual belief in these theological statements, but the but the experience of being in the same room and worshiping something and losing kind of your like going into like a almost a trance-like state, I think there's something very human about that. And I I like it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:20

I don't know if I've man, the the worship that the the experience that you're describing is not something that I've experienced very often. Um yeah, because like as you talk about these things, I do wonder like my my question is first of all, I would say that if that's a thing that you want to be able to experience or explore, some of the things I don't think you ever will get to, right? Like, like just think about how hard it was to describe what it must have been like to have that experience, that first moment of otherness. I I don't think there's any way for even us to be able to diminish ourselves, and I don't mean that in a derogatory way, but diminish ourselves enough, our c or cognition enough to be able to even understand what that experience would have been like. Um I do though, as I think about the how things have changed over time, I'm not I'm not a conspiracy theorist either, but I do think that there are natural pushbacks against certain things, especially if they if especially if we begin to feel impotent. Right. So if if a if a if a male begins to feel impotent as compared to his female counterpart, then he he's going to do things to try to regain control. Um I don't know if that I don't know if that's necessarily true for everyone. I don't know. Um I did find this other book that I think is really interesting too, but it's really long. I know that sounds horrible, but it's over 600 pages. To me that's too long.

SPEAKER_05 29:52

That's a three-part book. That's too long. Um but it's called 100 pages. That's that's the that's the correct thing.

SPEAKER_03 29:58

Is that why you've never read anything that I've written? That's not true. I have. I'm just kidding.

SPEAKER_05 30:01

Because they are they're much closer to 100 pages. That's the correct length.

SPEAKER_03 30:05

I use I use uh 1.2 um space and 12-point fonts. So anyway, um, so that way they're a little longer. That's like uh that's like college essay rules. There you go. Uh it's called Eve by Kat Bohannan. Have you ever heard of this book? No. How the female body drove 200 million years of human evolution. And I just I just think that's an interesting. I think this whole conversation is interesting when it when we talk about men and women, because it it things that we could we can start making a list of things I don't understand. Um but with all of that conversation, like I put in we don't even think in terms anymore with um gender as as like um having just the binary. I mean, now you have non-binary, you have like all of these things, and and how does that fit in? Or is that even possible to fit into this type of conversation? Um there's so many different categories.

SPEAKER_05 31:14

I've already made too many people mad, Jeff. I'm gonna step out from that one.

SPEAKER_03 31:18

Okay. I just there's a lot that I can't get my mind around, I think is is what I'm trying to say. Um and anything, but I do think this is an interesting topic. Like I would love to hear, I would love to hear a rabbi talk about the Genesis story, Adam and Eve, and what their take is on it. Um with in this framework, right? Because I like I've got a book called Um, what's it called? The Beast Crouching at the Door or something like that. Um, and it's a fabulous book, but it doesn't deal with like the gender the gender issue, um, male, female, gender, and and the relationship that they have together. Um obviously, I would like to hear. I would love to be able to talk to um, I don't even know if she's still alive, the Merlin that wrote that book. Um, but somebody who's done some research on it.

unknown 32:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:14

From my perspective.

SPEAKER_05 32:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:17

I yeah. What are the implications for us today? Is what I want to know. I mean, I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 32:22

That's you know, that's not my uh that's your bag.

SPEAKER_03 32:25

I know, but I I don't I haven't thought about it as well as you have. Um, you know, I mean, I've been thinking about it now for about 30 minutes. I just but I do wonder like what would if I could begin to wrap my mind around okay, I haven't think I have thought before about the original images being feminine, divine images being feminine, and the shift in that. I'm still not sure. I think that maybe within the church, within religious institutions, if we're willing to at least explore this concept, it should open us up to um for those that for those for those traditions that seem to be clinging to a patriarchal system, it at least would be a good conversation to open up some possibilities for um other than men.

SPEAKER_05 33:14

I mean, maybe I I guess I don't know. I mean, the the Christian tradition comes out of the Jewish tradition, which was patriarchal. And so I, you know, I I don't know if it has any place in it myself, but I'm not that's not my bag. You know what I mean? Like that's not my responsibility. That's kind of yours.

SPEAKER_03 33:30

So my responsibility.

SPEAKER_05 33:32

That's right. But but I don't um I uh I just think I just think it's fascinating. I think that um that um you know, I I do think there are some implications. I do think there are some implications, but I think that I would make people very, very mad if I started talking about those implications.

SPEAKER_04 33:55

I think that there's um I first of all, well no, how do I want to say this?

SPEAKER_05 34:05

I think that I think that our the way that our society is crafted now has an enormous number of benefits for both genders, men and women, male and female. And one of those is an acceptance of individual autonomy do whatever you want with your life, really, do whatever you want with your life, and I and I I wouldn't ever want to challenge that at all, like really at all.

SPEAKER_04 34:46

Um and and um also I think that I have been personally um really impacted in very positive ways by um female leaders.

SPEAKER_05 35:10

Okay, coaches. There's there's one that I can think of right now I can think of several actually in my life.

SPEAKER_04 35:21

Okay, that's great. I think also what has come with that is a trade-off of a complete rejection as important the identity of life bringer, literal life bringer that a woman has.

SPEAKER_05 35:45

And I think that there's something that's possible that's been lost there, where the highest possible value, and I know this has been said a billion times, the highest possible value is having a really good job for everyone, men and women. And I think we've lost. I think that there's something lost there, and I wouldn't want I I don't want I'm not advocating for some sort of like social program to to force genders into particular roles at all. I don't want I I mean I'm a libertarian. I don't want anybody telling me what to do. I just think that it's worth exploring this this aspect of humanity on an individual level, um that seems so ancient that it I mean it goes back obviously far beyond writing, but maybe it goes back beyond our species. Maybe you know um and uh you know, like I said, I'll just never I will never get over the birth of Ellis. And when Reed was born, it was I was it was a really important time also, very important. The labor part, I guess it's not the birth. It's not the birth. I shouldn't say the birth, because the birth of both of my kids were was extremely impactful. It's the labor part for Ellis. And that's because for a number of different reasons, it was faster, unmedicated, um uh and the experience of it for me was like I was in war with like she, like she was in, like she was in a battle. But in the type of way, and of course, I mean, you know, roll your eyes. I'm not saying you're rolling, but like, you know, somebody wants to roll their eyes at this, especially any woman who has given birth, she wants to roll her eyes at this. I was not giving birth, obviously. I felt that that was the when I came away from that, that was like, oh, that's their war. That's their war. Where everything sh like click like it clicks into like a focus kind of like a it uh it's it it felt transcendent.

SPEAKER_03 38:28

So that's interesting. That was their so two things have popped into my head. Yeah. One is uh, you know, Madison's in Costa Rica right now with uh a group of students. And um apparently I didn't know this about Costa Rica because I don't pay attention to Costa Rican politics. But their You don't know, but their leader is a woman.

SPEAKER_05 38:50

Uh yeah, I think I heard that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:52

And um and it's one of the most peaceful, safe countries that you can travel to. And in the little videos that they're been that they've been making, um, I shouldn't call them little videos. That sounds like I'm being dismissive, in the reels that they're creating. Um, what I meant was short. They uh there was an off-handed comment by one of her friends who just said they were commenting they were at the president, they were like at the government building, and they were talking about the a female president, and she said kind of as they were walking off, it's the reason it's so safe. Yeah, I I mean I I quibble. But anyway. Okay, that's not that's not what I'm getting at. Yeah. But that was something that came into my mind. Yeah. The other thing, too, was you talked about this idea that men like create war. But then you also that then that was her. And then so if that is your war, then you don't need to go create one, which made me think about this something that we've talked about. I don't think we've ever talked about it. Well, we had a microphone in our face, maybe, but I don't know. Um this idea that we currently live in a society where day to day we don't really have um conflict, like real conflict. Oh, yeah, sure. Right. So we create it. And a lot of what we do is create hardships for ourselves. Does that connect to what you've been talking about? Yes, actually.

SPEAKER_05 40:22

That is so I think what happens is we we don't we don't have any reason to struggle in our society. But God, we make it. But but good thing. That's good, in my opinion. Yeah. That's the ideal. That's what you don't want to go to, you don't want a society that is You don't want an Aldous Huxley on the yeah. Uh-huh. Well, what I'm saying is I I don't want to live in a society that is under a lot of strain and struggle. Right? We have this idea in our head. I was just thinking about this today. There's this um But Brave New World would be just as bad as you're saying.

SPEAKER_03 41:06

What well I used to put words in your mouth. How's that?

SPEAKER_05 41:10

That's okay. There there's this concept of um, it's been said in a ton of different ways, but this concept of um wooden shoes walking up the stairs and silk slippers walking down. And it's I think maybe Herodotus is the first one that came up with this concept, but it's this idea that as a society is growing, it's hardy, it's Spartan, it's you know, it, it, it really knows what's important and it's and it struggles, right? And we respect that, right? Even that that what I just said, wooden shoes going up the stairs, silk slippers. Nobody respects the silk slippers. They're decadent. They're in the old days we would have said orientalist, right?

SPEAKER_04 41:56

It's like we you don't you don't respect it.

SPEAKER_05 42:03

But you really shouldn't hope for the wooden shoes. If this is true, which a lot of historians, they really quibble with that concept of a society anyway, that any society has ever really gone through those stages. But if it were true, you don't want to live in the, I mean, you wouldn't pick to live in the the the time period where it was going up, right? When everything was a struggle. You want the society, as far as I'm concerned, I want the society to be the silk slippers coming down. I'm gonna live in a very small section of that time period, right? I think that's what we experience. Okay. We experience no outside strain really at all. Okay, so then what I think happens is exactly what you're talking about. I don't think we consciously create struggle. We have to have struggle. We have like this drive for struggle, but we don't consciously create it. And so then we have misery because we bring on unconsciously, we bring on struggle. We bring on conflict with our peers, we bring on financial um strain because we insert ourselves into conflict where we don't need to be. We do that. Absolutely. So the antidote to that, I'm convinced at this point in my life.

SPEAKER_03 43:23

Oh, if you know the antidote, I would love to hear it.

SPEAKER_05 43:25

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 43:26

How about at a societal level?

SPEAKER_05 43:28

No, absolutely not. There's no antidote on the societal level. You should know me better than that.

SPEAKER_03 43:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 43:33

There is never an antidote on the society level because you can't make decisions for anybody else, but you can for your individual self-in like a good stoic. Okay. You take on voluntary struggle, real struggle. And what happens inevitably when you do that is it makes the unconscious misery that comes from the misery that comes from the unconscious. Struggle, quiet down.

SPEAKER_03 44:01

So that would explain why when I do a long backpacking trip, I come back a lot more peaceful.

SPEAKER_05 44:10

So I'll give you an example. And uh I mean I could I could send you the real, but I listen, I I I love David Goggins. Um think whatever you want about him. Some people like him, some people don't. It's fine. For anybody who doesn't know, he like he's like he's a he's a very extreme person. Um and one of the things he does is he does these like super long ultra marathons, 300-mile marathons and whatever, you know. Um and there's this, there's this interview he's talking about where he's talking about why he runs. And he says, I run because it's the thing I hate the most. I hate it the most, and I try to do it like I love it. And he says, I'll uh I train for these for these races, and then I come up to and I I'm driving up to the race in there, and I'm like, I'm so mad. I'm like swearing at my at my wife, like, why the F am I here? What am I doing this for? I hate this, and why am I, you know? And he goes 70 miles in, all those questions are being answered. All the questions are answered, everything's quiet. I don't have any questions at that point. And I really think there's been experiences in my life um playing football that was like this. Um I I really think going through I got a glimpse of it in the labor that Krista did that she performed. Um and then it's the reason I run, you know. Um it's the reason I run, it's the reason I do ice baths. Not all the time. I haven't done it in quite a while, but when I do it, that's the reason. It quiets the uh you pick up the voluntary struggle. Those are just physical ones, by the way, but there's other voluntary struggle you can pick up. It's the Jordan Peterson thing, and it quiets down the misery.

SPEAKER_03 46:19

So try this song. Yeah. All right. So going back to the original conversation, yeah. For the feminine, the war produces um it produces life. It produ I mean, it's it's the essential building block. It produces, it produces something uh a genuine beauty, right? Um and so we live in now in a war, and so it leads to like what you talked about, the so then the the man tries to figure out how what it can create, right? The male tries to figure out what it can create, and often it ends up creating war. It creates struggle. Woman is already experiencing struggle, the war, and as the result of it is beauty, it's productive. Man tries to do the same thing, but often it comes out as destructive. It can. Right? Okay. But it you're not setting out to do something destructive, because even when you especially early on, when you're trying to do war, you you know, we look at war now and we're like, oh, it's horrible. But you know, you're you're still trying to do right? Okay, you know what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_05 47:28

I totally with you.

SPEAKER_03 47:29

Yeah, like like uh Egypt didn't attack or um uh Babylon didn't uh the Babylonians didn't attack Judea because they wanted to hurt Judea. They it that it was productive for Babylon.

SPEAKER_01 47:42

Always some sort of reason.

SPEAKER_03 47:44

There's an altruistic understanding of why we have we have to do this, but you're creating a conflict. Today we live in a world, in the United States anyway, where uh that's not naturally built into our everyday experiences. So we, to your to your comment earlier, do it subconsciously. We create drama for ourselves. We'll do this. Uh don't ever, by the way, uh point out to someone that they like drama because I did that and um the person never spoke to me again. Uh, because I just said, let's try not to create drama where there isn't any. And they yelled at me. Uh, because I think, but I think that I bring that spirit because it points to the truth that you're saying of when I said that to that person, my guess is when they told me they hate drama, they're like, I you I hate drama. Why would I create it? I think they actually believed what they said, even though from outside I could see they're inserting themselves and they're creating this drama that doesn't need to be created. Right. All right. So we do this. So here's the thing become aware that we do it. I think I think this is I think this is a good takeaway. If we can become aware of our need for conflict, for hardship, let's not even call it conflict. Our need for hardship, it's the that is the thing that transforms us. It is the thing that helps us grow. It is, it's built right into our DNA. Um if we become aware of it, then what we can do is channel it into a constructive, productive conflict of running, of hiking, of maybe, maybe taking on something that is going to be difficult. Yeah. Like this, uh, I don't know where you put it, but the the thing that you just applied for. Um contributing back in a way that, man, oh, I could, I could just lay on my couch tonight and watch whatever, but I volunteered to go do this and now I got to go do that. It's a it's a little one, but it's a hardship. And so maybe it maybe this whole thing, at least a takeaway for this whole conversation, is this become aware of the fact that that is within you and it's just built within your DNA. Become aware of it. Look for the ways that you do it that's could that's destructive and rechannel it into something that's constructive. How's that?

SPEAKER_05 50:02

Yeah. Yeah. Voluntarily take on the struggle.

SPEAKER_03 50:07

Something that you don't want to do necessarily.

SPEAKER_05 50:10

Yes. Something you don't want to do. Right.

SPEAKER_03 50:13

But I but I would add that's constructive. Yeah. Well, but even like the running, I think it doesn't that doesn't contribute to society, but it makes you a better person.

unknown 50:22

No.

SPEAKER_05 50:22

And the person and that, okay. So uh there's a guy named Jim Rohn, who's like he's an old school motivational speaker. Um, but he has this uh this line that I love, which is you can have more than you've got because you can become more than you are. He also I heard him this one quote where he said, um, well, maybe I won't say that one because that'll get us off track. But anyway, the that is the what you just said, that's the whole point. I want to be someone who runs. Now, at this point, I run because I do like it and you know, and and all of that. But when I take on a voluntary struggle, it's because I want to be someone. I want to be inside the place where nobody gets to see the most true part of me. The most true part of me has to be the one that nobody sees. And I want that one, I want that part of me to be the type of person who's reliable, the type of person who my kids can count on, the type of person that my wife can count on, type of person that my pastor can count on, that my friends can count on, right, can really count on. And I know inside, in that deepest part, that I can't, there's an inverse relationship in my, in my mind between how much someone can see it, me doing something, and how much it matters. I think the more it's invisible to everyone else except for me, the more it matters. Um and so I completely agree with you. That's the point. The point is it changes who I am. I get to know that I am a different type of person.

SPEAKER_03 52:15

Awesome. Anyway, I think we did it. I think we took the concept that you were talking about. Took me a while to catch on. But I think that we actually came away with something that we can come away with.

SPEAKER_05 52:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 52:29

And helpful with people in our community too. Absolutely. That's helpful. Still I'm interested in hearing more from people that are experts in that, though. So if you're listening and you're an expert in the uh divine feminine, let me know because I want to know. Thanks. See ya.

SPEAKER_00 52:48

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