Before You Get A Face Tattoo

The world keeps daring us to pick a side, then punishes us for talking to anyone across the line. We push back with a simple question: what if the people we’re told to avoid are the ones who can actually hold us up? As a progressive Christian and a conservative atheist who somehow ended up close friends, we try to tell the truth about division without turning each other into a project or a stereotype. 

We start with a short reflection from the beach called “The Sand.” Up near the dunes, the sand is pale and beautiful, but it gives way under your feet. Down by the waterline, the sand is darker and firm, holding an imprint and making the long walk easier. That image opens a conversation about first impressions, the way we treat “bright” as good and “dark” as trouble, and how what looks like damage in a person’s life might actually be density, resilience, and hard-won trustworthiness. 

From there we get into the messy stuff: whether bias is taught or learned, why that distinction affects accountability, and how “victimhood” can become social armor that blocks growth. We also talk about how the internet turns humans into avatars and makes snap judgments feel righteous, while real, in-person friendship forces nuance back into the room. And yes, we go all the way down the rabbit hole on tattoos, including face tattoos, shifting stigma, and how class signals sneak into “common sense.” 

If you care about overcoming prejudice, navigating political polarization, and building friendships across differences without losing your backbone, hit play. Subscribe, share this with a friend who disagrees with you, and leave a review with one moment that challenged your first impression.

©NoahHeldmanMusic

https://livingoncommonground.buzzsprout.com

https://www.jeffreystreszoff.com/

jeffrey.streszoff@gmail.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_01 0:35

But we're friends.

SPEAKER_05 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.

SPEAKER_04 1:13

How you doing? I'm

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good. I'm a little

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uh um I'm a little chagrined.

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SPEAKER_04 1:18

I was listening to the last episode and I made that um that comment about um how I love smacking the papers down on

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the desk because it

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makes me feel like Rush Limbaugh. And then you can't hear it on there.

SPEAKER_03 1:28

So I'm because I I uh cleaned it up.

SPEAKER_04 1:31

Yeah, it was like the the microphone and everything was like so good. Or was that you? Yeah, I cleaned it up. Yeah, you did it so good that you can't hear the like the papers on there. So anyway, for anybody who listened to that, I was making a papers like sound on the I heard it. Um I know, but I saw it. It was funny. I was like, I love making the sound. Silence. It makes it sound like Rush Limbaugh. That's silence.

SPEAKER_03 1:55

Well, you know what? Um I think that's great, actually. I love making this sound, and then it's the sound of silence. Um okay. So, and by the way, I I heard from more than one person, which means two, that um that was our best episode ever. That that was our best episode? Yeah. And so if if uh if you're listening to this one and you're like, eh, go back and listen to the last one. Apparently it was good. All right. So, all right. Um a while back, been a long time now, it feels like, we started doing those um reflections from the beach that I uh had written on the Substack, and then I recorded myself reading them. Yeah. And uh do we want to I think today we're gonna we're gonna do another one? That was that was a question. Let's do it. Okay. All right. So this one um Well I'm gonna tell you what it's called, but I'm also gonna tell you right now it's called the Sand.

SPEAKER_02 2:56

Okay. The sand.

SPEAKER_03 3:02

Walk far enough from the water, and the sand changes under your feet. Not a different sand, the same sand, the same beach, the same ten thousand years of shell and stone and coral ground down by the same ocean. But up near the dunes, it is loose and pale, almost white in the afternoon light, and it gives way under your weight like something that cannot commit to holding you. It fills the space between your toes and spills over the edges of your feet, and when you lift your foot, there is a small collapse, a little avalanche, the sand already forgetting you were there. Come back down toward the water and it changes. The color deepens, tan than brown, then a dark gray brown at the water line that holds the impression of a boot heel like wet concrete. It is firm, it's cool, it pushes back. You can walk on it for a mile without sinking, without effort, without the burning work of the loose sand above. I walked both of them this morning, up and back, the way you do when you have time and nothing is asking for you. The pale, soft sand and the dark hard sand, same ocean, same beach. A child collecting shells moved between them without noticing, chasing whatever caught the light. Here's the thing about the pale sand. It looks clean, bright, dry, warm, inviting. The kind of sand you picture when someone says the word beach. Postcards are made of it. And here's the thing about the dark sand. It looks like something has happened to it, darker, heavier, marked by the waters coming and going. But the pale sand is soft because it's not been tested. The dark sand is firm because the water has moved through it, impacted it, revealed what it's actually made of. We have built whole systems for reading the world by its color. Bright means good, dark means trouble. Soft and warm and yielding means safe. Hard and cool and unyielding means difficult or dangerous or lesser. You learned this early, the way we all did, from the way certain things were described to you, the way certain people were pointed out and certain others quietly steered away from. The beach doesn't know any of that. You have done this with people, chosen the ones who looked clean and warm and easy, who gave way pleasantly under your weight, avoided the ones who seemed marked by something darker somehow, carrying the evidence of what had moved through them, and then discovered, sometimes slowly, sometimes all at once, that what you had read as damage was density, that what looked like hardship had simply been tested, that the ones who had been reached by the water were the ones who could hold your weight for a mile without sinking. It's all the same sand. It's all the same ocean. What changes is where you're standing in relation to the water and whether the water has reached you yet.

SPEAKER_02 6:08

Alright. What are your thoughts?

SPEAKER_03 6:12

What do you mean by that? What do I mean by that? You're supposed to come up with your own meaning. That's the way that's the way these reflections are written. And then I will tell you uh kind of what my thoughts were uh in writing it. Because the fact is, um, with all these reflections, I've began writing about what I observed. And then as I began writing, um I gave meaning to what I was observing. Does that make sense? Mm-hmm. All right.

SPEAKER_04 6:48

Yeah, you used it as a metaphor.

SPEAKER_03 6:50

Yeah. And but but at first I didn't like I didn't set out saying I want to talk about X and I'm gonna use the sand to talk about that. Does that make sense? Sure. I I made observations about the sand, and then that turned into thoughts about other things.

SPEAKER_04 7:08

Yeah. I thought when you said that um we learned this early, I thought you were gonna go into, you know, you learned this through your experience as an infant.

SPEAKER_02 7:22

Right?

SPEAKER_04 7:23

That you you you touched stone, it was cool and dense, and that's difficult or whatever. Um Were you trying to make this a race thing?

SPEAKER_02 7:37

No.

SPEAKER_03 7:38

Actually, race wasn't one of the things I was thinking of.

SPEAKER_04 7:41

I I wanted to clarify that because you say dark and light.

SPEAKER_03 7:45

Right. But in but in having gone back then and read it, when I read it aloud, yeah, I can hear it. Yeah. So I was just wanted to clarify what you No, that wasn't actually part of my thinking. Yeah. Um, but like I can tell, like I said, when when all of a sudden it you well, and I think it's true like anything. When you read it, but when you hear it, yeah, you can get different things. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_04 8:07

Yeah. It sounds to me like what you're talking about is um someone who seems dangerous, but actually they've just had a difficult time or something. Does that sound like Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:29

I feel like you're asking me if you're right. Uh-huh. And whatever you say is going to be correct. No. For you. Uh-uh. Yeah. There's a right way. So so okay. I did not painting is. Yeah, I know. I did not set out to write about race, but I could see where if someone in hearing it heard that, it would still be applicable, maybe because of their experiences. Right. So like a look. So like I could see where we're talking about a uh um a white person who uh not not uh maybe their parents never said, you know, used derogatory terms, never came out and overtly said things, but subtly turned children away from persons of color or things like that, right? And and if that's what someone gets out of what I wrote, that's that that's legitimate, right? To part of it. But I don't think it hits the heart of what I was trying to get at. What I was trying to get at, since you were going to be so elusive today, was um this idea that often there are uh people in our lives who we think are the dangerous ones. Um and if we take the time to get to know them, they actually can provide us with some of the most stability and safety in our lives. Okay. That's just that's just my thought.

SPEAKER_02 9:55

Can you give me an example? Can I give you an example? Um let's see.

SPEAKER_04 10:04

I'm sure I could come up with a story in which that was the case. I also th I go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 10:14

Um someone who um maybe trying to not be specific, um who Come on, give us names. Okay, let's let's say that um there was someone who had been arrested for whatever, and um and and they, you know, they spent they spent their younger years being rebellious, maybe, oh, okay, uh now I do have somebody in mind, right? Okay, so they're um they're covered in tattoos, um you you like you know that they've been in fights, they've all these kind of things. Yet when you get to know them and you get to see their heart, you realize that they are they are the type of person that will be deeply devoted to you and that you can trust completely, even though if you looked at them, you might be afraid of them. And there are people in this world that we have been taught, and and it's and that that type of person is going to be different for you than it is for me, than it is for even my brother and I, right? That um, that we have been taught that this type of person is a type of person that needs to be avoided because they are dangerous to you. But if we can get beyond sort of that first reading of them, that we'll find that they're actually the ones that will stick with you through thick and thin. And then the ones that we feel are safe, we find out that at the first, the first moment of adversity, they're out. Can you think of friends like that? Like you thought this was a friend that seemed like a safe person, it seemed like the right person. Air quotes, that's just really good for a podcast. Sure. Right? Uh quote unquote, the right person. And then you get into something and their deuces I'm out. And the person who was supposed to be like the one to be afraid of, the one to be avoided, ends up your your strongest ally.

SPEAKER_04 12:30

Um I I can see that that is a possibility, yeah. And I can think I can think of um, I can give you very specifics if you want, but go ahead. No, no, I'm not trying to say that that can't happen.

SPEAKER_03 12:44

Mm-hmm. I was gonna use you as an example, but go ahead. Okay. That I was deuces. No, not at all. I was gonna Okay. Within the Christian community, most a lot, many Christians will tell you that um you should avoid persons who don't share your faith. Sure. Right? You've I mean, people will talk about, oh, don't be unequally yoked, right? And then I'll rip this little passage out of scripture from Paul and all that kind of stuff. It has been my experience, and I'm not trying to create a love fest here, all right, but that it has been my experience up to this point that you are probably one of my closest friends that I can completely trust. Okay. All right. And there are there are Christians, there are other pastors, when they find out that one of my closest friends is uh is a doesn't share my faith.

SPEAKER_01 13:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:41

Okay, they're like, that's fascinating. Yeah. It just blows them away. And to me, I'm like, well, I don't even understand why that would blow people away anymore. Does that help?

SPEAKER_01 13:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:57

I I I get I So in other words, you're a bad influence. I know, I know and I should avoid you like the plague. Dude, I am a bad influence.

SPEAKER_02 14:04

Um do you okay, so here's here's a question. Are you taking this as a as a principle, as a rule to follow?

SPEAKER_04 14:23

Like like if I find myself thinking this person is the dangerous one that I should stay away from, then I will try to get closer to them.

SPEAKER_03 14:36

No, I don't think that's I don't I'm not trying to say that either. Okay. What I am maybe it's a simple, maybe it's just a beautifully written it is well written. That sounded a little self-congratulatory, didn't it?

SPEAKER_04 14:49

A little. It was it is it is actually well written. You're you're a good writer.

SPEAKER_03 14:54

Oh, I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_04 14:55

Um I I'm serious about that.

SPEAKER_03 14:57

Yeah, if you saw sometimes it's like giving birth for me. Um I will sit and I'll like I'm it took me five hours to come up with and I had already written this chapter four. Average length of time, by the way, to give birth. I'm just kidding. Yeah, I'm just kidding. Well, and I don't mean to sort of down downplay giving birth because I could just hear people like, you don't even know. Anyway, that's pretty much the same thing. But it can take me writing a page-long essay and giving giving birth. Yeah, it's pretty much the same thing. That's not what I said at all. No, but what I am saying is that it's just a simple it's just a very flowery way of saying don't judge books by their cover. Yeah, yeah. I get it. Right. And um, and that it when you get to the heart of the matter, people are people. Some of us have just been through different things, and sometimes the things make us more trustworthy because we've we've carried that weight.

SPEAKER_04 15:57

Yes. Okay. So, okay. So here's this is this is why I keep hemming and hawing.

SPEAKER_03 16:03

Yeah, because it's your nature.

SPEAKER_04 16:05

Yeah, it is. Uh my instinct is to go the opposite first, and then I have to.

SPEAKER_03 16:10

Whatever I say. Yep. Or I'm guessing whatever anyone says, including that is true.

SPEAKER_04 16:16

That is true, and it is very annoying. Um, but my instinct is to go the opposite first and then have to be reminded to come back to what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_03 16:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 16:27

Which is I I think I think you should trust your instinct. So a couple things that I'm gonna quibble and then we'll then we'll come back together, okay? That's what we want to do. Okay, good. I would my contention would be we learn these things rather than we are taught these things. And what I mean by that is um I don't know that most of our perceptions of the world are really cognitively, deliberately taught. I think we learn them through an an enormous amount of um stimuli that comes in. Some of it might be explicitly stated by parents, but I think the vast majority of time, what happens is uh we have some sort of um instinct about the world, and then we backwards project that onto things that we remember our parents saying. And it might have been something that they said that directly caused this. Also, it they might have said the opposite, or they might have said X and we took J when it came through the filter of our experience or whatever, you know. Um and so I what I'm hearing when you when I hear you talk about this as an analogy, I'm hearing you say pit bulls are good dogs. They just have bad owners sometimes. Okay and and my reaction is absolutely they can be good dogs. And there's a reason they have the reputation. Sure. And and that's gonna sound like I am like I'm saying, like, well, somebody has tattoos and they've been in jail. You you should just write them off. And and I guess in a way, I kind of am starting from that position. I'm starting from the position of trust your instincts, don't override your instinct uh because you want to have an ideological position that this could be somebody that's not dangerous, even though they fit all of the real quick, like I gotta see, I gotta snap into the microphone because you're gonna clean up my snap.

SPEAKER_03 19:03

Probably not the probably not the snap directly into the microphone. I won't be able to get that out of there.

SPEAKER_04 19:08

Um now, I have I like I said, that's kind of like where I start. And of course, humans aren't pitbulls, humans aren't dogs, right? So the metaphor breaks down, and and there's there is a an ethical reason why in um why you wouldn't write off groups of people, for instance, the way you could write off pit bulls and just be and live a good life, and and there's no ethics to it at all, right? There's no ethics to saying I'm never going to own a pit bull. And I will say I could write off entire groups of people and still live a good life. But what I'm saying is I I recognize that I need to continue to be reminded of okay, get to get to know them, right? Um But yeah, that's uh so so that's that's like that's where my quibble is, is that I start from like nah, I mean if if a person is kind of showing you who they are, believe them, you know, that kind of thing, right? Um but I do know that and and and I recognize that someone could say, Lucas, you've you were in juvie. You were, you know, trashy growing up, uh, you are undisciplined, you are, you know, the you have all of the you have a bunch of stuff uh in the makeup of who you are and and what what um what built you. So I could write you off. And I would say, uh, yeah, you could. And I think that you'd you'd have some justification in that. I hope you wouldn't, but uh, I could I could see it. I I understand it. I do.

SPEAKER_02 21:09

Um I I think that it's good for me to be reminded to to well, I I'm repeating myself for the third time.

SPEAKER_04 21:22

Be reminded um to see people as individuals and not as the broad broad brush you know strokes that so I I wrote a couple notes while you were talking.

SPEAKER_03 21:35

Okay. That's what this scribbling is over here. So you you said um that you tend to believe that people are who they show you they are. Right? And I agree with that. Um however, you still have to let them show you who they are. That's true. Right? Um and so there's that. Um and so the other thing. Though is when you talked about people you you you you push back a little bit against taught and you think it's learned, right? Remember that? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I don't know. And I know that I wrote that things that we are taught from early on, right? And um, and I think that you could take the taught and the learned and flip and still like just pull it out and put in the learned, and the the the message is still the same. Sure. Okay. Because I think that what we're talking about here is the difference between passive and active language. Passive language turns allows me to say, I am a victim in all of this, and all of my prejudices and all my preconceived ideas about people are not my fault. It was forced on me. Right. And uh, and so maybe, maybe it is more accurate to say that um all of these things that were, that I experienced, and whether it was something that I heard um or whether it was something that I just observed or whatever the case may be, over time, these are the things that I learned through my experiences. That I I actually kind of like that because it does give uh a sense of ownership to my um my preconceived opinions about whatever it is I'm observing. Sure. Right. And so there is I think that I think it's important to take ownership, and especially in a world today where um too many of us um want to be the victim.

SPEAKER_04 23:43

Um it's never my fault. Well, you know Tom Holland's position on that. Spider-Man. I'm just kidding. The other one. Yeah. They talked to each other, by the way. Did they? They um because Tom Holland is in uh the Odyssey. Um and so every every history podcast did um some uh which is funny.

SPEAKER_03 24:04

Do they they do realize though that this isn't okay, go ahead. The Odyssey is not meant I in my opinion, the Odyssey is not a uh it was not written as a historical account of something.

SPEAKER_04 24:21

Oh, I find it to be exactly historically accurate all the way through. Yeah. No, I actually the the um uh the rest is history's treatment of it and the ancient's treatment of it, both of those I found really interesting. Aaron Powell Okay.

SPEAKER_03 24:35

Now I have to go back and listen to um Tom Holland and Mark uh shoot, what's his name? Dominic Sandbrook. Dominic and the and that podcast again. The rest is history. Yeah. I I I listened to that religiously.

SPEAKER_04 24:51

They're great. They did a really good one. Yeah, they did a really good one on the Odyssey, and then um because the again, because everyone did every history podcast had to do a podcast about the Odyssey. Um, and then uh Tom Holland interviewed Tom Holland. That was really fun. Anyway, okay. Tom Holland, the historian, his contention would be that our highest virtue in the West, um, well, what he would say is uh our highest position is victimhood because that's a Christian value, because we worship a victim. We worship a murdered slave. And so um uh that is one of the legacies that cultural Christianity, if you want to call it that, has um has given the West and the West has propagated that everywhere in different ways, and that um that is why we have this um victim olympics, if you want to call it that, right? That um that we I I like that image. Yeah. Anyway, it I I just think it's interesting. Uh, from a cultural standpoint, I don't know that we're gonna get away from it, but it is the highest ethic. It's the highest, the highest virtue. Well, it's a well, it's not exactly a virtue. What it is being an actual victim um is an armor against the slings and arrows uh intended to show your lack of virtue. You cannot be assailed as being the bad person of having less virtue if it can be established that you have uh high priest victim status. And so I think it it is a level of armor that you that you can have.

SPEAKER_03 26:55

It's a it's a nice little um escape hatch for accountability. So anyway, that that whole part of our conversation comes out of the idea of were you taught or did you learn? Yeah. All right. So the the overall premise of what I was thinking as I wrote it, um, how does that land with you?

SPEAKER_02 27:18

Did you already say it? I was busy taking notes.

SPEAKER_03 27:24

The overall premise, the idea that um it's it's very possible that the people who've been through the hardest have had the water run through them more may actually be the person that you need in the moment.

SPEAKER_04 27:38

I think that all of that is uh possible. Like that's that's how I would uh say that it it strikes me. It strikes me as I can see that as a possibility and I should re leave it open as a possibility. I I I think that sometimes, and I do think that this comes out of a life of comfort, I think that sometimes we see that uh as a principle.

SPEAKER_02 28:13

That's why I was asking, like, is this a principle that and maybe it's an exception.

SPEAKER_04 28:24

It could be an exception. It could well, okay, so the the way that it strikes me is it is a good reminder for someone like me as a maybe as an exception, although I don't exactly like the term exception for this because I think that um for myself that implies something that I can an exception is something I can disregard. Okay. And I don't want to disregard this. I want to hold it somehow in balance. Or no, because I don't think that's I don't know that that's possible. I want to be reminded of it. Sure. I want to be reminded like a check and balance type of thing. Every once in a while, I want to be reminded because I have a tendency to categorize and put on the shelf people. I do. I know that I do. Right. Um and mo and mostly, and I'll say this is probably because I'm a product of the 90s, it really has as far as I know, it has absolutely nothing to do with race. So I don't really do that. But if you say something that I know is a is a code word for uh, you know, uh I'm anti-Trump or I'm uh aggressive.

SPEAKER_03 29:51

And it can be little things like saying persons instead of people. That's exactly right. I have a tendency to get Which by the way, when I write persons, grammarly corrects it to people. So because it's not a freaking word. I'm just giving you a hard time.

SPEAKER_04 30:03

Just give me a hard time. Um, but I want to acknowledge the personhood of everyone. That's fine. Acknowledge the personhood, a word, of the people, a word. I'm just I'm just getting words are just mouth sounds. Anyway, I'm just giving you a hard time. They carry meaning. They do. But if I hear a word like that, if I hear a phrase, I have a tendency to very quickly write someone off and and just kind of.

SPEAKER_03 30:30

I'd be fortunate then, because I have a feeling I may say some of the phrases.

SPEAKER_04 30:33

You say a lot of them. Do you know why I don't? Why? Because you and I are friends. You're we're friends. Yeah. So then that's not the that so that that cuts underneath. And so what I'm saying is, and there and there's there are many people I will say in this church who are my friends, and so I don't write them off.

SPEAKER_02 31:01

Right.

SPEAKER_04 31:06

But had you not known us early on before we became friends, mentally, yeah, I probably wrote them off a little bit. I'm I'm using lots of words to uh to try to soften this. Yeah, I do just mentally. I don't really have to think about what they have to say.

SPEAKER_02 31:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:26

But then I become friends and now, ah crap, a minute. Yeah. A minute. Yeah. And I think that comes from sharing life. And do you know what I mean? Yeah, no, I I hear you.

SPEAKER_03 31:37

Yeah, because uh well, I'm not gonna share that story. It's not worth sharing.

SPEAKER_04 31:41

It's and it happens, I mean, it's not just I I used um, you know, the the example of like hearing a progressive phrase. It's not just that. I mean, I'll hear another phrase that like I'll hear somebody repeat something that like a conservative politician has said, but they're repeating it in kind of a way that I'm like, oh, you're just okay.

SPEAKER_03 32:04

So and the same thing happens for me. Like, like a progressive person will say something, and I'll be like, you obviously like you're just repeating something. I know.

SPEAKER_02 32:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:15

And then I will kind of write them off in my mind. Like uh, it's easy for me to disregard.

SPEAKER_03 32:20

There are there are particular um celebrities that I don't like, I just whatever.

SPEAKER_04 32:28

Yes, but this is my point. Well, I don't care about the celebrities though, because they're yeah, they're not a great life.

SPEAKER_03 32:33

And the and the whole thing about the the reflection is it brings it, it it brings it down to local.

SPEAKER_04 32:38

Yeah, yeah. The person. And so what I'm saying is I think it's a good reminder.

SPEAKER_02 32:43

I want to be reminded um regularly to stop that and and try to connect with the person in person.

SPEAKER_04 32:59

And I think it has to be in person. I know this is so at this point, this is so cliche, but Krista and I were just talking about it last night. I mean I mean it's it it's almost too cliche to even say, but online personalities ruin this. And then I get and then I get in person with someone and talk to them and and uh we're kind of we're friends. We're friends. But you take that same person and we're quote unquote talking online. I mean they're just an avatar.

SPEAKER_03 33:41

I I can think of it. I can think of a guest that we had that I observed that.

SPEAKER_02 33:50

So now I'm trying to think of.

SPEAKER_03 33:53

I'll I'll I'll talk about it when we're done recording. All right. So I think one last thought about this, right? Because this is something that I've talked about in sermons and and in our small group discussions and things like that.

SPEAKER_04 34:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:06

I think this is part of it too. This this uh helps maybe understand a little bit. Um I'm a firm believer that hurt people hurt people. Sure. Right? But I also think that healed people heal people. Okay. And sometimes you can't tell the difference until you get to know them. Because hurt people and healed people can look the same because they may be carrying the same scars. Mm-hmm. Sure. And so you have to know, right? Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I can see that. Yeah, because if I've been healed, if I've experienced it and I've been he and I'm healed from it, then as you go through it, I'm I'm there to walk with you through it. But if I've if I'm still hurting from it, then, or I may turn around and hurt you with the exact same thing.

SPEAKER_04 34:52

Yeah. I think this is all good. I um I still think it's legitimate to uh to not give a job to somebody who's got a face tattoo. Just kinda. All right.

SPEAKER_03 35:10

You know what's so interesting about face tattoos, actually? I don't think anyone I you may have a like okay. I have I have tattoos. Yeah, I know. The other day I I I was do I was participating. I want to get this will come back. Yeah. I was participating in a uh district meeting. Yeah. And I had on a long sleeve white shirt.

SPEAKER_04 35:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:28

And I went to the restroom and I was washing my hands, and I looked up in the mirror, and I realized that you could see all of my tattoos through the white shirt. And to everyone's credit, in that meeting, no one commented on what they could see underneath my shirt. Yeah. So um, yeah, because like n just like maybe a third of my back is covered, you know, and all that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_04 35:54

I've never seen I've only seen like a couple of them. Yeah. Yeah, like on your arms or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 35:59

Well, you I don't think you've ever seen me with my shirt off.

SPEAKER_04 36:01

Yeah, I think that's what it is.

SPEAKER_03 36:02

Yeah. So anyway, but I do so I I I like tattoos. Yeah. Um, and uh, but I do think, just to be honest, if someone applied for a job here at the church and I was part of the interview team, yeah. They had a face tattoo, I that I'm less likely to hire.

SPEAKER_04 36:20

That's why I said face tattoo, because a face tattoo that's what I'm saying. Bold to say you're making a very big statement.

SPEAKER_03 36:27

Yeah. I mean, like we have cousins, Denise and I, that have tattoos on their heads, but if they grow their hair out, you don't see it. Sure. But a face tattoo, that's yeah. I mean, you gotta be Mike Tyson. I I would suggest if you're thinking about getting a so okay, here's the word of advice. If you take nothing else away from today's podcast, if you're thinking about getting a face tattoo, make sure that you are already independently wealthy.

unknown 36:53

Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_03 36:54

All right. No, for real. No, I think what's our takeaway?

SPEAKER_04 36:57

I don't have um, I want to talk about this now. The face tattoo? The tattoo thing. I've I've got to write the summary of this. I don't know. That's your job. It's not my responsibility. I I grew up um, I have no tattoos currently. That's not a flex. It's just is. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 37:13

I felt I feel the judgment coming across the table. Oh, you should. Yeah. Um and this warm wave of condescension.

SPEAKER_04 37:21

But I grew up with it like as a um, it was one of those things that kind of what you're talking about in um like what you're taught and what you learn and whatever, it became, I realized it became an assumption of my life that there was some sort of moral attached to it, some sort of better and worse kind of thing, right? Um and so I just had that as like an assumption. Um and then but I've never really but if you asked me, I didn't have any problem with someone having tattoos.

SPEAKER_03 38:05

I just thought like, you know, I wouldn't ever maybe maybe they're a little less loose, maybe they're a little more loose with their morals.

SPEAKER_04 38:15

Yeah, like well, yeah, like certain types of people get tattoos, and then the normal people don't. That was kind of like I wouldn't have ever said that out loud, like I said.

SPEAKER_03 38:28

And we've talked about your background in church with your grandparents. My grandparents. I think that's a common thing for a person who would have that kind of background.

SPEAKER_04 38:38

And they were, you know, like we said before, uh we weren't Baptist, but Church of God Anderson was when they grew up in it, was very, I mean, there was teetotaler, you don't dance, you don't go to movie theaters, you don't, you know what I mean? Like very puritanical, right? And so by the time I came around to the you know, a ton of that had loosened up, but still, that's the the legacy of it. That was kind of like the, you know, the normal people do they, you know, you you your milk toast, you eat oatmeal, you go to work. That's it. No flavoring. Anyway, my point just being, I realized like 10 years ago or so, and I was thinking about this, and I was thinking about, oh, I do have these assumptions. I kind of like discovered. We all do. Yeah, I kind of discovered it. But I it was when I realized like um I was studying like vite um, well, uh Nordic, like Northmen kind of culture, and realizing that all of these cult there, that there are whole populations for hundreds and thousands of years where tattoos are like that's important. The normal people have tattoos. It would be very extreme to not to not have a tattoo that you would be making a statement. You'd have to make a statement to not have a tattoo, right? Um and I was and you know, that did make a difference, that made an impact on me where it's like, okay, I have this kind of assumption thing. And then um Reed really, really wants a tattoo, and we've kind of said, like, maybe we'll get our first tattoos with him, even though he is not about that at all.

SPEAKER_03 40:18

Yeah, it's not interesting. Madison got her first tattoo um at 21 years old. Uh-huh. And Robbie, of course, is 18 and he keeps talking about it. But Robbie it also takes it very seriously, and he's not just gonna run out and get something. Uh-huh. Like he wants to make sure that it's something he's okay with. Uh and here's the thing, too. Like, I think this is interesting. So, like growing up, I had very much the same um, it was sort of, I was taught, I learned whatever, the same thing, the same opinions about tattoos that you were just describing, right? Now tattoos are very mainstream, right? Like it's like almost, it's almost like you're either old or you're like different. Yeah, you're making a statement if you don't. But the interesting thing is there's a pushback coming against tattoos again. Yeah. But it's no longer wrapped up in morality. It now has to do with your financial um standing. Sure. And what I've seen recently is like only people who are under a certain level of income or have exceeded that income to like like athletes and things like that. Only only poor people get tattoos. So now it becomes has to do with your class thing. Yep. And so I thought that was very I thought that was an interesting maneu whoever whatever group made that maneuver, it was very interesting.

SPEAKER_04 41:44

Nobody could have made that maneuver. That's the type of thing you can't, I think you can't do. That's the kind of thing that groups. That's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_03 41:52

Some kind of something happened somewhere that just began to shift like that. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And then you saw that. And then you saw people like um, what's his name? Pete uh Davidson. Yeah. Who like went through? You got a bunch of them taken out. I I was I already spent like 200 grand to have them taken off.

SPEAKER_04 42:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:09

So looking at his tattoos, I I would have paid 200 grand to get those off because they're pretty trashy.

SPEAKER_04 42:16

Yeah. I mean, well, that's I mean, my grandma never said it's bad. What she would say is, you gotta really think about do you want that 20 years from now? Right. You know, when you're and she would say, when you're sagging.

SPEAKER_03 42:32

That's what's that was the same argument I have been had thrown in my face from my parents' generation and my family. They're like, Are you gonna really want that when you're in the nursing home? And then we kept getting this, we kept getting this. And one of our cousins, who is covered from head to toe, yeah, he looked at this person that kept saying that to us and said, Let me ask you, how old are you? I'm 80. Okay. Do you care what people think about you? And she's like, Nope. And he goes, Why do you think I will?

SPEAKER_04 43:05

Right.

SPEAKER_03 43:06

Yeah. And that that ended that entire argument. That argument never has come up again.

SPEAKER_04 43:10

Yeah. Well, and I just think that it's interesting that, you know, when people are saying when my grandma is saying that as a 50-year-old, you know, she's in her 80s now, but she's saying it as a 50-year-old. Yeah, she's imagining older people at that time. And she's imagining me as an older person at that time. And that's what how it struck me of like, oh no, this is just cultural. Um, because when everyone in the nursing home has tattoos, it will it will be people who are then 30 and 40 years old, they will think of old people as having tattoos. Now that might discourage them to get tattoos, perhaps.

SPEAKER_03 43:57

It's very possible.

SPEAKER_04 43:59

But the class thing I think is interesting. Um, that I think if I was gonna say, Lucas, why have you not ever gotten a tattoo? What's the number one reason? Because I don't think I ever decided to not get a tattoo. I just was like, it never came up. And I think it was so I'm not gonna spend money on that. It's not cheap. Because I got puck, I got my eyebrow pierced in in college and um I wore earrings.

SPEAKER_03 44:23

Yeah, the things that are not as expensive. It wasn't expensive. Yeah, tattoos are expensive. You mentioned earrings. Last thing, because it I think it illustrates the idea of immediately like seeing things and immediately judging and forming opinions about it. When I was in college, I got my ears pierced. Yeah. And my um my grandfather saw me.

SPEAKER_02 44:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:42

And he was like, Oh, are you a pirate now? Uh-huh. That's great. Did you have a dangly earring? I had loops. That's pretty good.

SPEAKER_02 44:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:52

All right. I don't think we accomplished a darn thing, but good. That's okay. All right. Talk to you next couple weeks. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 45:01

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