When I met it myself I say sorry me it's episode 43
Hello and welcome back to the rena 100 show a show where I rena 100 talk about a theme
Every week that has been on my mind or hasn't maybe I just maybe I just came up with it
Who knows what I do? Do you do I we don't know?
But either way welcome back happier here, and if you've been liking what you've been hearing, please
Give it a like follow
reviews five stars on whatever podcast form you're listening to
That would be really great
for me
So thank you in advance
So down to business the theme this week is us versus them
very common thing occurring in human life feels very tribal to me
Sports I feel like all of group sports is founded on this
Instinct that human beings have to divide us into groups of us versus them
politics as well red versus blue
Toronto versus Montreal no one's gonna relate to that one New York versus Boston. That's how they do it
That's not how we do it. These are much more benign examples of something that I think comes from a very
violent
Instinct from back in our tribal days although obviously I'm no anthropologist
I've just watched it happen so much in my lifetime, and I've watched people
crave it in the face of ambiguity and
Why why haven't we moved past this oversimplification of groups of people?
Why can't we let a situation?
Be complicated and have gray area. Why can't we say?
has Donald Trump
Horribly said there are good guys on both sides
Why is it so much more complicated or sorry why is it so much more
easy
To just be like they're bad. We're good and
of story and
Instead of doing the hard thing which is being like
Hey
There are people on either side of this issue
that are trying to make it better and get together and
Maybe we should support that instead of fueling the fire of disagreement between these elements
I'm keeping this very vague because I
Have no appetite to get into political discourse in my life ever again
for precisely the reason that people tend to their emotions rule as much as they're speaking in intellectual terms
they're coming from an emotional place and
and it and it generally leads to more anger and more hate more violence and
Accomplishes exactly the opposite of what they want and I find that really ironic too that and I'm trying to remind myself right now in
the haze of everything that's going on on social media that
Deep down people are coming. I hope from a place of just trying to help and just trying to ease pain
and just wanting there to be less pain in the world and so
even if it's translating into a place of oversimplification or
rage
Which are both not helpful in my opinion
And some would say that rage is helpful and who am I to say who am I to disagree
Maybe it has been in the past
But to me, it's like if there's a conflict and you're adding rage
I don't see how that does anything other than expand the vibe of conflict generally
Which is the opposite of what we want if we want less people to get hurt, right? I don't know. I don't have any answers
I'm just talking like I do because
That's my podcast and I I'll cry if I want to alright
But I also noticed this in the face of COVID that people just craved someone to blame
When in reality or who knows the real reality
But the general accepted reality about COVID is that no one's to blame. It was just a fucking shitty thing that happened to all of us
And people wanted to blame. I mean racists wanted to blame
China and a lot of us wanted to blame Donald Trump
You know, but in the end it was a virus
Why am I bringing up Trump so much? I really don't like thinking about that guy. But anyway, he's just he is what he is, you know
He's bigly. Okay, I gotta stop
But
You know you want to blame why do we want to blame right away? Well because then
It makes us it assures us. I think it's a good thing
It makes us it it assures us I think it gives us a sense of reassurance that we are not responsible
That we are not the ones causing the pain as long as they
Are bad and we are good then we are not
responsible
for the pain
And it's misplaced guilt a lot of the time
When you know that these people halfway around the world have been suffering for a long time and you've done nothing
And suddenly there's a flare-up and for a week. It's very cool to post about it on social media
You need feel the need to post a lot about it because you need to rid yourself of that guilt that you have done
Nothing to help these people that you say you suddenly care so much about
Oh, yeah, I said getting angry isn't helpful and i've already feeling myself
Doing that but that's the easy thing getting angry is easy
Actually helping that's what's hard
Actually looking into the face of the abyss into all the gray elements that go into this into the fact that every single person
Is a different person from every other person and that they don't just amass
Easily into these groups of evil and good
And working with people who are doing the hard thing the people who have actually been
Hurt by this and are still trying to work with the other side to build a better future
Those are the people you need to support not the people who want to keep hurting each other. Okay
Ay, ay, ay, I gotta take my own advice about this
And yeah, and the people who are shouting the loudest on social media are the ones with the shortest term memory, aren't they?
Right, they're gonna forget about it next week. They're acting like this is their whole life their whole purpose
We saw this during blm
That that it's just that their whole
Life is about this right now and next week when will smith slaps somebody else. They're not going to give a shit anymore
Because suddenly it's not going to be the story, you know
I mean we saw this with ukraine too. Nobody's talking about it anymore
It's whatever the opposite is of fair weather friends when something goes wrong. They're there
But they're not really there. It's a social media thing
But so I guess it is fair weather friends. They're there when everybody's searching for it
You're there when when the algorithm is pointing towards it
And then suddenly when the algorithm takes its faceless robotic giant cyclops eye away from this issue
So shall you
And I just want I just want people to remember that people are people
That's the whole take take this is a whole
I heard one story on tiktok amid all the bloodshed
And all the pain that has gone on
Where there was one
Person who came into someone else's house and that woman thought her and her children were threatened
And she was scared and he said i'm not going to hurt you and she was immediately relieved
bananas on her counter.
And he asked her, can I have one of the bananas?
And she was like, sure.
Yeah, you can have one of the bananas.
And then that was it.
That was the whole confrontation between them.
And it's just everybody likes bananas.
I don't know.
I just want us to remember that we're all just people right now.
And that the psychopaths are not the majority.
And then there's another story which is deeply disturbing to me.
Well, not deeply, deeply disturbing.
I don't know.
Just the irony of this, that I saw a religious person
on a TikTok who was saying the first three quarters of his video
was so comforting.
He was like, we just need to pray.
Everybody just needs our prayers right now.
We've got to support each other.
We've got to bring the vibes.
And I was like, yes, yes.
And then he was like, and anyone that goes against God
is going to be swallowed by the earth.
And they'll get what's coming to them.
And I was like, what, bro?
You were so chill for so much of this video.
But then that's the yin and the yang.
It's like the whole side is white until that little dot of like,
what the fuck?
So I challenge everybody listening to just sit
in the shit of ambiguity.
Try for the sake of humanity.
If you really want to help, let it be complicated.
Let people be complicated.
And just try to support the vibe.
Try to support the bridge.
Try to support the coming together.
Try to support the people that are actually
affected that are doing the hard work of rapprochement.
Rapprochement.
And just be kind to yourself.
You're not responsible.
And you don't need to take a side to know that.
It's not your fault that all these crazy things are
happening.
All right.
Well, that felt good for me.
I hope it did for you.
Have a good week.
Ah can you hear it?