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(Auto-generated)Welcome back, you gorgeous people who matter so very, very much.

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Right out of the gate, I want to give you the heads up.

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We're about to pick up some speed in this chapter, because pretty soon we're going

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to be ramming a huge concept.

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One that will always stay with you, because once you see it for what it is, you can't

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see it.

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But isn't that kind of the blessing and the curse of the unfiltered truth?

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Once it's on you, it is on you for life.

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And from that part of the book on, that's where the biggest mind-blowing moments happen.

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So for today, I'm going to talk about some of the ways that you can more easily foster

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that connection with your fellow human beings, to understand them better, to not be as angry

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with them, and I'm even going to give you another way to love them more easily.

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So buckle up and get ready, because the doozies, they're coming.

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Chapter 6 Not My Path

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As I mentioned before, human beings started as groups and tribes.

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Now when you're in a tribe, there's a lot less focus on getting for oneself, and a much

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greater focus on doing for the betterment of the tribe.

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Because before we even developed our languages, we knew two crucial things.

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That there was something bigger than ourselves that we owed a debt of gratitude to, and that

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life is always better with other people in it.

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That we need each other, and that what is best is to be together.

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And yes, you could go it alone, but it was a lonely, hard, and dangerous life.

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Together we were stronger, and real joy could be had.

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Alone, one may have some periods of contentment or appreciation of beauty, but happiness would

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be elusive.

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No one gets to happiness on their own, so what was one to do if they wanted more for

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themselves?

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Well, they could separate themselves from the rest of them, physically and emotionally.

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Because the less you care about others, the more easily you can take for yourself.

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But we didn't stay in tribes.

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We built villages, we spread out kingdoms, towns, and cities.

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We retained some of the tribal community mentality, but we no longer relied on our small community

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to support us.

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We no longer necessarily knew the person who slaughtered the animal that you had part of

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for dinner, or the person that fixed something in your home.

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Nowadays, a connection like that is much rarer.

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With so much of what you use being made in a different country, yes, we are now much

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freer than before to gain for self, but we no longer have that interpersonal protection

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of the tribe, either.

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The less tribal we became, the more fearful we became that there are people out there

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that embrace the mentality that they could get more for themselves by caring about others

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less.

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So we began putting locks on doors, not just latches to keep them closed against the wind.

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Bars on windows, alarm systems, wifi cameras, fences and gates to fences against those who

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would take without care for the owner.

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And we began to see the death of the neighbor.

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People do not commune the way that they once did with their neighborhoods.

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We have made ourselves much more efficient at being alone and depending only on a system

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and its relatively faceless interactions.

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And without our tribes, I fear that many more of us have had an easier time embracing getting

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more by caring less.

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Now I spoke before about the unpredictability of the cacophony.

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We fear that others will do that which we would not prefer and our trust in each other

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takes a nosedive.

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Well, this is problematic when we, the blind pilots, decide on a course that we would like

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our life to follow or as I call it, my own path.

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Our fear of the unknown regarding the unpredictability of others increases the more we focus on my

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own path.

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It pushes us to stay even tighter to our own path and to not take risks helping each other

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by making ourselves or our assets vulnerable.

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So yes, we make a choice, but today most of us don't even think of that as an active choice.

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A society has taught us that that's the norm for so long.

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It's not a choice.

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It's just what we do.

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And each time we listen to that, each time we decide against helping, we let go of more

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of our compassion.

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It's just what we do.

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We break a little more off each and every time we pass helping someone else or brush

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off dealing with someone we don't feel like dealing with or walk the other direction away

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from someone that's hurting.

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It breaks our compassion more and more as if gripping harder to my own path creates

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fissures and cracks in our connections to others.

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Not only are we not physically able to see the inexplicable connection that we share

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as human beings, but we also cannot see the damage that we are doing to those connections.

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And one of the side effects of damaging that connection is that it fuels blame.

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You see, for most of us, we carry around two different parameters when it comes to blame.

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One for ourselves and one for everyone else.

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With ourselves, yes, we take what occurred as a result of what we did into account, but

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we weigh heavily our intent when assigning blame to ourselves.

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I mean, we didn't mean for that to happen after all.

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It wasn't our intent for it to go down the way that it went down.

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Whereas blame that's assigned to others is typically based almost unilaterally around

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what occurred as a result of the choice that they made.

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And that's largely because we can't know each other's intentions.

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We do not have the viewpoint and walking a mile in someone else's shoes won't cut it

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because they are far more than a mere mile, as are you.

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Their life consists of millions of interactions, experiences, decisions, outcomes, and observations

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that make up why they think as they think and why they believe as they believe.

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Not a one of us stands a chance at replicating their thinking process.

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But what you can do is start with you.

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I can say that most everything I've ever decided to do or to not do, I've had a

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pretty good reason that made sense to me to do what I did at the time.

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And my exact reasoning for why I believed it to be a good idea is not something that

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I could ever offer to someone else.

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I simply don't have the time to explain every single reason behind the way that I think

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or the decisions that I make.

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I usually try to make good decisions.

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I trust that I usually try to make good decisions.

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And I'd imagine that's a trust that you could extend to yourself as well, correct?

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Good.

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Because that's the first step.

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It's the second step that's a bit more of a doozy.

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Now once you realize that about yourself though, the second step does become doable.

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Try trusting that the rest of them are the same as you and I in that respect.

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Not everyone that cuts you off on the highway is just some idiot driver or doing it on purpose

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to aggravate you.

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Not everyone that argues with you is an idiot or just wrong.

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If they are passionate about their cause, you can trust that they've got damn good

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reasons for believing as they do.

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So yeah, that's all well and good, but how does that help you?

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Outside of being more tolerant and less angry and having a more functional relationship

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with your fellow man, of course.

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Well, to comment on that, I should very much like to bring up a book that changed my life

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and kickstarted all that is being taught within the pages of the book that you're being read

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right now.

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Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land is a rather unique book as he crafted a story

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that allowed the author to offer his unique perspective on human behaviors.

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The story centers around a child that's born on Mars, most commonly called Mike amongst

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those that know him and the man Martian to those that don't.

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This happens during the first man trip to Mars.

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When the astronauts arrive, they discover that a Martian race already inhabits the planet.

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During the astronauts' visit, the baby is born and one terrible thing happens to the

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crew that was not the Martians doing.

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That baby spends 20 years being raised by the red planet's inhabitants.

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Finally, Earth, who hasn't heard from the astronauts in 20 years, arrives on a rescue

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mission.

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Now, I bring this book up to discuss a very interesting part of Mike's upbringing that

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they discover.

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Something very interesting about Mike's foster parent species is that they know that there's

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an afterlife.

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When the physical shell of one of their own expires, they shed it but remain among their

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people.

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They can still interact with the physical world and speak plainly with those who have

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not yet quote unquote died.

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But that's not the best part.

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They can continue their life's work from beyond the grave.

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So many of them will spend their whole lives perfecting the first few measures of a song

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that they're writing because they know that they have an eternity to finish it and to

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write however many songs they wish with the same level of attentiveness.

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Time is not an issue to them, and this unique part of their existence lends to a beautiful

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aspect in their culture.

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Grocking.

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You see, the Martians understood what I just wrote about prior, that every human being

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has their own unique perspective that's a culmination of everything they've experienced.

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Each person is therefore afforded a view of the world and its many truths that no one

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else in the history of man will ever be able to view.

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Imagine a large complex object in the center of a large crystal, a crystal that has been

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cut so that it has thousands and thousands of facets or flat surfaces.

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Each person has their own facet that they can view things through, but they only get

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one angle of a small part of the whole picture.

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And they can't move over and view someone else's facet for reasons you already know,

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but they can ask them about theirs.

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The more one learns about other people's facets, the better one's understanding of

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the actual true nature of that which is being observed.

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Once one has amassed enough knowledge of these facets, enough that they understand the truth

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of the observed subject, then they grok the subject.

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I've become a big fan of grokking.

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It allows me to put new spins on old ideas.

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You know, you don't really learn how stagnant your own thinking has become until you start

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incorporating grokking.

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Now, when someone doesn't agree with my view on something, do you know what I do?

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I start asking them questions.

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Not trying to trap them into realizing they're wrong, but just trying to find out what it

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is that they're seeing from their facet, and what parts of it they're most passionate

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about.

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Because I don't know about you, but hearing the truth, it resonates when I hear it.

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And I trust that they have their reasons that make sense to them for them to believe as

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they do.

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Not everyone will describe their facet to you, sometimes because they haven't looked

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very carefully at it.

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Sometimes for fear of finding out it isn't showing what they believed it was showing.

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And sometimes they're staring at it and convinced they know what it shows.

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It's bristles on a large paintbrush.

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It's so obvious.

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But if enough people tell you about what their facets show, you can piece together that it's

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actually an elephant, with bristly hair at the end of its tail.

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There are several parts in Stranger in a Strange Land that I found to be clever observations

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about human behavior that the author made through Mike.

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The character gave the author a unique platform.

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Here's a person raised in a culture of civility and a focus on grokking and learning and understanding

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all that they encounter.

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The character is meeting humanity for the first time with a fully formed adult mind

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at the wheel.

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Mike spends a large portion of the book offering an outsider's perspective on several behavioral

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mannerisms of people.

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And the motivation for him to do this is strong.

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He's also a human being that doesn't know why his people do the things that they do.

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Eventually, he does feel like he has humanity pegged, but still doesn't, quote, feel like

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people, due to one simple fact.

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He does not understand why something is funny, and he's never laughed, ever.

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His conundrum plagues him throughout the story, keeping him from finally feeling human.

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And after several years have passed, I assume, Heinlein never really specifies, Mike and

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his companion Jill are out together at a zoo, where they happen upon a monkey house, and

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during an ugly incident between three monkeys, utters his first real laugh.

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In fact, he absolutely shrieks, hacks, and wheezes his way through a large swath of the

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laughter spectrum.

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He laughs for so hard and for so long that Jill has to take him home.

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Finally, he stops and he explains to her that he gets it, and he finally feels human.

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When pressed, he tells her it's because he's, quote, found out why people laugh.

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They laugh because it hurts so much, because it's the only thing that'll make it stop

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hurting.

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The statement perplexed me greatly.

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Something inside of myself recognized the truth within it, but also that it was part

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of another truth.

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It said heavily in my mind, and was the subject of several meditations.

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It stayed with me like a small sliver of glass in my mind.

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That statement, and is next.

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You see, Mike goes on to explain that every gut-bustingly funny joke, gag, prank, etc.

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has at least one victim.

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There's always someone taking the hit that has the worst luck in a situation, that gets

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hurt or embarrassed or made to be a fool, that things go ironically or poetically wrong

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for.

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Think of all the story jokes that you know and see if this fits for yourself.

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Sometimes, even the listener is the victim.

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For example, why did the chicken cross the road?

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To get to the idiot's house, knock knock.

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Who's there?

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The chicken.

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That's it from me today.

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Thanks for coming to the reading.

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You can check out the YouTube channel at youtube.com slash could help.

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You can contact the podcast at willhelpmail at gmail.com.

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We've got the website coming to laughingmatters.com.

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Right now it just links to the podcast.

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Come talk about this stuff, ask questions, or hear what others think at r slash the laughingmatters

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on reddit.

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And you can stay up to date with the show's Facebook page at facebook.com slash I could

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help.

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And a quick word for you guys.

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I'm putting this out there where I can and trying to make it as available as I can.

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The writing of this book was not about turning a profit.

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It's about contributing these findings and these concepts to the great wealth that is

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the stores of human understanding.

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And I need your help to make it spread.

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I cannot do this alone.

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Now I'm taking the book to publish, going to do whatever I can to promote it, but that

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will never carry the same impact as you telling someone you know that they should check out

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what this guy is saying.

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Please talk to other people about these concepts.

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Give them the understanding and give them a chance to also get out of it what you are

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getting out of it.

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You and I can help them.

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We actually have something that can help them.

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And that's just what I've read to you so far.

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Some seriously huge perspective widening truths are coming and at very least, you're going

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to want someone to talk about it with.

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So until the next episode, take a look at a few of the jokes that you've loved over

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the years and see if Mike wasn't right about that.

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And while you're at it, trust that they have their own reasons.

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Give them a chance to explain their views.

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Be good for them and be good to them.

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And you're going to be great.

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Be sweet.

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Bye everybody.

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We're

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῕